3 ms·

Your parents are lucky: Apparently they have been able to continue for decades in salaried jobs. Here is a bold, blunt fact of life for salaried jobs in the U

Your parents are lucky: Apparently they have been able to continue for decades in salaried jobs. Here is a bold, blunt fact of life for salaried jobs in the US economy: Only a small fraction of such jobs can last for the 45 or so years of a working career. Then, here's another problem: A marriage with a working wife is not a very stable situation: Apparently about 1/3rd of marriages end in divorce. So, with the 2/3rds, the situation is already bad. But there is more that is worse: It is politically incorrect to note that a large fraction of women really are house mice and find anything in work outside a home surrounded with a white picket fence too stressful. So, they need to be in a one income marriage (maybe do some volunteer work to save the world, whales, poor people in Africa, or some such), not a two income marriage. Next, for a large fraction of women successful in the world of work, they conclude that they no longer need a man to take care of them and leave. That your parents have two incomes and stayed married is also unusual. Then there is another fact: Quite broadly in the US economy, and nearly without exception for technical positions, the subordinate needs to be younger than the supervisor. So, by age 45 or so, a large fraction of people have to be CEO or be unemployable. So, net, for a stable career, need to be a CEO. Exceptions? Sure, MD, LLB, tenure in academics, and a few more. DDS? Typically they do own their own business. MD? Commonly they own their own business or are a partner in a partnership that owns a clinic. Academic tenure? They don't have to have their salary keep up with inflation. Put more simply, the main path to financial security in the US economy is for someone to own their own business. Mostly those are Main Street businesses; these businesses typically have a great advantage, a geographical barrier to entry which means if do well against competition in a radius of 100 miles then can do quite well. Commonly another advantage is not just a few, niche customers but many customers drawn from quite broadly in the community so that, in economic ups and downs, if the community is not devastated, then the business still can continue. In bad times, sure, roughly, first-cut, get less revenue but also pay less for supplies including labor and need less money for yourself. Also, with many customers, usually one unhappy customer does not seriously hurt the business. For owning your own business, technology might help; still, it is next to crucial to OWN your own business. If get started owning your own business early in life, then that's an advantage. If then can also use technology to become independently wealthy, even better. Whatever, it's from important up to essential to own your own business. Is this situation new? Actually, yes: Big businesses mostly don't have good geographical barriers to entry and, thus, in the US, growing over the past 40 years or so, have faced devastating competition from globalization. So, maybe someone had a good career with GE before GE discovered that competitive products from Japan were selling in US retail for less than the cost of production at GE. Similarly for autos, steel, really most of old manufacturing, and more. So, due to such global competition, we get some curious situations: A Ph.D. in electronic engineering is essentially for a career with global competition while a licensed electrician in Poughkeepsie has no such competition. So, a Ph.D. in electronic engineering can wish they could swap their Ph.D. for an electrician's license.

nostrademons 16y ago
"It is politically incorrect to note that a large fraction of women really are house mice and find anything in work outside a home surrounded with a white picket fence too stressful." Well, it's certainly politically incorrect to note that, but is it true? [citation needed]. It's been very much contrary to my observations. "Quite broadly in the US economy, and nearly without exception for technical positions, the subordinate needs to be younger than the supervisor." I know literally dozens of exceptions. Hell, Larry and Sergey are only in their late 30s, quite a few people who work for them are older than that.
- HilbertSpace 16y ago
  On your first question, you have some examples, and I have some examples, and some rock solid data and even science would be great, but I have none to give you. For your first question, I have some horrendous examples, head splitting, back breaking, life threatening, totally overwhelming and convincing. As I was growing up, next door neighbor: Get married, have one child, gain 100 pounds, and watch TV for the rest of her life, only a house mouse. Wife of a friend of a business associate of mine: Man had a good business as a designer of process plants and traveled a lot. His wife fell in love with Jack Daniels, and whenever he got home she was passed out on the floor surrounded by empties, only a house mouse. Mother of cousin of a girlfriend of mine: Get married, have one child and retire to her bedroom with several large dogs, only a house mouse. Mother of another girlfriend of mine: Have one more child, an accident, retire to a back room with beer and cigarettes for the rest of her life, only a house mouse. Mother of a girlfriend of my brother: Have one child and spend rest of her life working in her garden and getting a suntan, happy only as a house mouse. Pure form and worst example, mother and three daughters I knew: Hate men, marriage, motherhood, and money, be fantastic actresses and manipulators, be from excellent up to world-class brilliant at academics, get married, have minimum number of babies husband would tolerate, be just terrified to the point of clinical depression and worse from stress of social phobia in any job that paid above minimum wage, be desperate to devote life to saving the world but never do much in this direction, feel stronger from having affairs, compete with husband and try to win by sabotaging his efforts, and dump husband at first financial opportunity, for each of the four of them, only a house mouse. One women in the neighborhood: Hated everything, husband, children, home, work, car, waistline, etc. except efforts at social climbing, only a house mouse. Hollywood gets it and commonly portrays women as so emotionally wacko that they are from helpless down to self-destructive at anything but being a house mouse. E.g., recently on TCM, the 1953 movie Mogambo showed at least one of the two main women characters (I didn't watch the whole thing) helpless and even destructive outside of a house. For advising young men, I wouldn't tell them that all women can be just house mice or that the average woman mostly wanted to be just a house mouse. I would say that among women there is shockingly large range on several important criteria for a happy, productive life, and that a shockingly large fraction of women are happy only as house mice. Also I can say that there is a significant pattern of young women looking really stable and capable from 16-20 but going to helpless mice starting at about 22. In particular, Nervous Nellie is nearly a redundancy. For the single most important cause of that range I would repeat some words from an expert on women, "Of COURSE women are MUCH more emotional than men. That is the cause of all the problems [between men and women].". I would advise young men looking for a wife: Under no circumstances take what a young women says at face value: She is likely a magnificent actress and manipulator and may be lying or may actually not know in any serious sense what she wants, may aspire not to be a house mouse but not be able to do anything else, or may too soon change so that she is only a house mouse. I would also warn young men: Eventually you may conclude that Mother Nature and Darwin were there long before you were and that, net, what counts with them is a woman's position on the tree and for that what counts is her success having babies as a house mouse and that all other women are likely weak, sick, or dead limbs on the tree. Yes, in K-12 and college, commonly in everything except technical subjects, the girls easily knock the socks off the boys and, thus, show high ability: Still don't be fooled because Mother Nature has a trump card up her sleeve -- emotions which starting at about 16 and rising to overwhelming intensity block all ability except at being a house mouse. Some women are still able to apply their abilities; many are not, and for that Mother Nature and Darwin just smile but their husbands, unless moderately wealthy, will not. There is some old wisdom on these points, and women themselves have changed not at all since then: One of the points was, "A woman's place is in the home.". Another was, "Idle hands do devil's work." which warns men to keep their wives BUSY. A traditional marriage vow was that she would "obey": So, men, considering what you know about you and her, map out, in your own mind, what you want her to do by the week, quarter, year, and the rest of her life, break the work down into small steps, suggest such steps at appropriate times, have the steps keep her BUSY, and shower her with praise and approval (emotional security) when she does well. For a more modern view, there is the remark by Dr. Carol Nadelson (yes, likely NOT a house mouse) that "Traditional marriage is about off-spring, security, and caretaking" from the preface of: Maggie Scarf, Intimate Partners: Patterns in Love and Marriage, Random House, New York, ISBN 0-394-5585-X, 1987. Next, there was a reason I Love Lucy was so funny, around the world: Lucy is too much like too many women. Curiously, there is support in the chick flicks in the series Legally Blond: So, in the first movie, she got a new boyfriend and promptly got him fired from a promising position in a high end Boston law firm. In the second movie, he had started his own law firm in Boston, and she went all a-flutter at her job, quit, went to DC to save the world, and dragged him down there and stopped his career a second time. The woman outside a house was a one-person, walking financial disaster area. She wasn't a mouse but she was safe from her own nonsense only in a house. From the same actress, in Sweet Home Alabama, she wrecks her marriage to actually quite a good guy, runs off to NY and is financially successful only in a way that can work in a chick flick fantasy, gets a limp wristed boyfriend, goes back to Alabama for a day or so, wrecks everything, with her husband, her family, her friends, and also her planned marriage with her NY boyfriend, and finally decides to return to her husband as a house mouse. My core advice to young men: Mother Nature and Darwin want her to be a MOMMY. Being a MOMMY plus anything else is at best as good as being a MOMMY (Mother Nature and Darwin have not yet caught on that if she will have even a $20 an hour job for a few years that will help buy a house and help her be a mommy). For being a MOMMY, Mother Nature and Darwin have some chemicals, STRONG chemicals: Some of the chemicals apply to make her a mommy if she is not; e.g., she will create disasters to create dependency to lead to pregnancy and/or get terribly unhappy and have romantic dreams, as in the Kindle ads, of a man having her "fly away" with him. Or she will be like the woman in Titanic, whose big problem was really just silly and an excuse, be so eager to get pregnant she would hook up with a third class passenger and ditch her marriage to a wealthy guy. And there are chemicals to keep her happy in a house if she is a mommy (with children under 4). Don't try to compete with those chemicals. Instead, get her pregnant and keep her that way until she has about eight of her own children and, finally, has her whole life totally devoted to just her children and her home. If you can't afford that yet, then wait, be successful in business, and try again. Under no circumstances expect anything stable, effective, or predictable with a wife not solidly on the mommy track, "It's not nice to try to fool Mother Nature.". There are some traditional, partial exceptions: Basically, have her right there beside her husband 24 x 7, say, as a farm housewife, customer service leader in a family business, office manager for a dentist, etc. For your second question, and your exception of Page and Brin, a founder, on the Board, with a LOT of stock is easily able to be an exception: Due to their position of power, they can without threat or concern hire nearly anyone. But I would expect that in the middle and lower ranks of Google, my rule still applies or mostly so. At at least one major technology company, the personnel policy is up into management or out by age 35; a side effect is essentially just the rule I gave. In the officer corps of the US military, the rule is keep getting promoted or leave, and this rule makes my rule hold. For a young person considering their career, they better just accept my rule as a rock solid fact and not look for or count on exceptions.

nostrademons 16y ago

"It is politically incorrect to note that a large fraction of women really are house mice and find anything in work outside a home surrounded with a white picket fence too stressful." Well, it's certainly politically incorrect to note that, but is it true? [citation needed]. It's been very much contrary to my observations. "Quite broadly in the US economy, and nearly without exception for technical positions, the subordinate needs to be younger than the supervisor." I know literally dozens of exceptions. Hell, Larry and Sergey are only in their late 30s, quite a few people who work for them are older than that.

HilbertSpace 16y ago
On your first question, you have some examples, and I have some examples, and some rock solid data and even science would be great, but I have none to give you. For your first question, I have some horrendous examples, head splitting, back breaking, life threatening, totally overwhelming and convincing. As I was growing up, next door neighbor: Get married, have one child, gain 100 pounds, and watch TV for the rest of her life, only a house mouse. Wife of a friend of a business associate of mine: Man had a good business as a designer of process plants and traveled a lot. His wife fell in love with Jack Daniels, and whenever he got home she was passed out on the floor surrounded by empties, only a house mouse. Mother of cousin of a girlfriend of mine: Get married, have one child and retire to her bedroom with several large dogs, only a house mouse. Mother of another girlfriend of mine: Have one more child, an accident, retire to a back room with beer and cigarettes for the rest of her life, only a house mouse. Mother of a girlfriend of my brother: Have one child and spend rest of her life working in her garden and getting a suntan, happy only as a house mouse. Pure form and worst example, mother and three daughters I knew: Hate men, marriage, motherhood, and money, be fantastic actresses and manipulators, be from excellent up to world-class brilliant at academics, get married, have minimum number of babies husband would tolerate, be just terrified to the point of clinical depression and worse from stress of social phobia in any job that paid above minimum wage, be desperate to devote life to saving the world but never do much in this direction, feel stronger from having affairs, compete with husband and try to win by sabotaging his efforts, and dump husband at first financial opportunity, for each of the four of them, only a house mouse. One women in the neighborhood: Hated everything, husband, children, home, work, car, waistline, etc. except efforts at social climbing, only a house mouse. Hollywood gets it and commonly portrays women as so emotionally wacko that they are from helpless down to self-destructive at anything but being a house mouse. E.g., recently on TCM, the 1953 movie Mogambo showed at least one of the two main women characters (I didn't watch the whole thing) helpless and even destructive outside of a house. For advising young men, I wouldn't tell them that all women can be just house mice or that the average woman mostly wanted to be just a house mouse. I would say that among women there is shockingly large range on several important criteria for a happy, productive life, and that a shockingly large fraction of women are happy only as house mice. Also I can say that there is a significant pattern of young women looking really stable and capable from 16-20 but going to helpless mice starting at about 22. In particular, Nervous Nellie is nearly a redundancy. For the single most important cause of that range I would repeat some words from an expert on women, "Of COURSE women are MUCH more emotional than men. That is the cause of all the problems [between men and women].". I would advise young men looking for a wife: Under no circumstances take what a young women says at face value: She is likely a magnificent actress and manipulator and may be lying or may actually not know in any serious sense what she wants, may aspire not to be a house mouse but not be able to do anything else, or may too soon change so that she is only a house mouse. I would also warn young men: Eventually you may conclude that Mother Nature and Darwin were there long before you were and that, net, what counts with them is a woman's position on the tree and for that what counts is her success having babies as a house mouse and that all other women are likely weak, sick, or dead limbs on the tree. Yes, in K-12 and college, commonly in everything except technical subjects, the girls easily knock the socks off the boys and, thus, show high ability: Still don't be fooled because Mother Nature has a trump card up her sleeve -- emotions which starting at about 16 and rising to overwhelming intensity block all ability except at being a house mouse. Some women are still able to apply their abilities; many are not, and for that Mother Nature and Darwin just smile but their husbands, unless moderately wealthy, will not. There is some old wisdom on these points, and women themselves have changed not at all since then: One of the points was, "A woman's place is in the home.". Another was, "Idle hands do devil's work." which warns men to keep their wives BUSY. A traditional marriage vow was that she would "obey": So, men, considering what you know about you and her, map out, in your own mind, what you want her to do by the week, quarter, year, and the rest of her life, break the work down into small steps, suggest such steps at appropriate times, have the steps keep her BUSY, and shower her with praise and approval (emotional security) when she does well. For a more modern view, there is the remark by Dr. Carol Nadelson (yes, likely NOT a house mouse) that "Traditional marriage is about off-spring, security, and caretaking" from the preface of: Maggie Scarf, Intimate Partners: Patterns in Love and Marriage, Random House, New York, ISBN 0-394-5585-X, 1987. Next, there was a reason I Love Lucy was so funny, around the world: Lucy is too much like too many women. Curiously, there is support in the chick flicks in the series Legally Blond: So, in the first movie, she got a new boyfriend and promptly got him fired from a promising position in a high end Boston law firm. In the second movie, he had started his own law firm in Boston, and she went all a-flutter at her job, quit, went to DC to save the world, and dragged him down there and stopped his career a second time. The woman outside a house was a one-person, walking financial disaster area. She wasn't a mouse but she was safe from her own nonsense only in a house. From the same actress, in Sweet Home Alabama, she wrecks her marriage to actually quite a good guy, runs off to NY and is financially successful only in a way that can work in a chick flick fantasy, gets a limp wristed boyfriend, goes back to Alabama for a day or so, wrecks everything, with her husband, her family, her friends, and also her planned marriage with her NY boyfriend, and finally decides to return to her husband as a house mouse. My core advice to young men: Mother Nature and Darwin want her to be a MOMMY. Being a MOMMY plus anything else is at best as good as being a MOMMY (Mother Nature and Darwin have not yet caught on that if she will have even a $20 an hour job for a few years that will help buy a house and help her be a mommy). For being a MOMMY, Mother Nature and Darwin have some chemicals, STRONG chemicals: Some of the chemicals apply to make her a mommy if she is not; e.g., she will create disasters to create dependency to lead to pregnancy and/or get terribly unhappy and have romantic dreams, as in the Kindle ads, of a man having her "fly away" with him. Or she will be like the woman in Titanic, whose big problem was really just silly and an excuse, be so eager to get pregnant she would hook up with a third class passenger and ditch her marriage to a wealthy guy. And there are chemicals to keep her happy in a house if she is a mommy (with children under 4). Don't try to compete with those chemicals. Instead, get her pregnant and keep her that way until she has about eight of her own children and, finally, has her whole life totally devoted to just her children and her home. If you can't afford that yet, then wait, be successful in business, and try again. Under no circumstances expect anything stable, effective, or predictable with a wife not solidly on the mommy track, "It's not nice to try to fool Mother Nature.". There are some traditional, partial exceptions: Basically, have her right there beside her husband 24 x 7, say, as a farm housewife, customer service leader in a family business, office manager for a dentist, etc. For your second question, and your exception of Page and Brin, a founder, on the Board, with a LOT of stock is easily able to be an exception: Due to their position of power, they can without threat or concern hire nearly anyone. But I would expect that in the middle and lower ranks of Google, my rule still applies or mostly so. At at least one major technology company, the personnel policy is up into management or out by age 35; a side effect is essentially just the rule I gave. In the officer corps of the US military, the rule is keep getting promoted or leave, and this rule makes my rule hold. For a young person considering their career, they better just accept my rule as a rock solid fact and not look for or count on exceptions.