Ayn Rand Ayn Rand Ayn Rand who is not required college reading. Whose father lost his pharmacy to the Reds in St. Petersburg. How do I know this? I read her biography. How do I know about Ayn Rand? A small bookstore owner recommended reading her. Is that a surprise? Hardly. Is today any different than 100 years ago? No except for the mass media that has its sheep.
2112. "with acknowledgement to the genius of Ayn Rand."
Without 2112, there is no Rush, the greatest band ever. They are the Ann Coulter of music; the best at what they do while still being accessible to average people who can appreciate genius (and chops like crazy). Go Geddy!!!!
Agree with Michael. Rand's theme in Atlas Shrugged is "the mind on strike"--like potential doctors deciding to do something else if their talents aren't wanted or rewarded. Rand even predicted the "woke" corporations and billionaires of today back in the late '50s. Every time there's another train derailment, I think "Atlas Shrugged."
Eddie Willers isn't a hero in Atlas Shrugged, but he is portrayed heroically because he has an admiration for merit and ability even though he knows he is just an ordinary guy surrounded by extraordinary characters.
Howard Roark lived in all sorts of accommodations even when he had enough money to afford better. A lesson in thrift.
Eddie Willers isn't a hero in Atlas Shrugged, but he is portrayed heroically because he has an admiration for merit and ability even though he knows he is just an ordinary guy surrounded by extraordinary characters.
Howard Roark lived in all sorts of accommodations even when he had enough money to afford better. A lesson in thrift.
Every pedagogic and educational reform for the last 40 years, except for emphasizing STEM, has had one objective -- closing the gap between black and white scores.
Not between white and Asian scores. And not to raise black scores.
Simply to close that black- white gap, by any means necessary, to use an old civil rights battle cry.
That was an intermediate step, Brother Thorn, but when that didn’t work black school principals and superintendents turned to cheating to equalize the scores.
I’m sure you remember the school district officials convicted of “fixing” scores around the country under “No Child Left Behind,” and its mandatory testing regimen.
Finally, however, they and their allies have hit upon a foolproof method -- No Testing And No Scores At All.
Why can’t we do away with scores in NBA basketball? I always wanted to be a superstar center.
She’s a courageous lady; but just as during her interview with Ann, she keeps making the same mistake.
At the video’s halfway mark, in order to immunize herself from the charge that really RACISM! is hiding behind her meritocratic case, Ms Mac Donald makes an impassioned indictment of America’s racial “sins.”
She calls our racial history “appalling,” “sickening,” says we were a “white supremacist country,” an “apartheid country” and that our parents acted with “gratuitous nastiness” toward blacks.
Having admitted all that, having surrendered the moral argument and told blacks America owes them, Ms Mac Donald the meritocrat then expects people to NOT help the poor descendants of such abuse with compensatory extras — and expects blacks to not demand them.
Why do meritocrats have to indulge in gratuitous moral masochism? They’re going to call you a racist anyway, Heather.
Think about it: once Ms Mac Donald puts on the sackcloth and ashes, is there any way that she could say “No” to REPARATIONS for blacks? Of course not. All she can do is try to negotiate a settlement.
Leaders like her are not what we need to push back against the group most responsible for dragging America down, through their own efforts and through their manipulation by our alienated and second-rate elites.
The Democrats have become a racist hate group that stokes race hatred and discourages achievement in the name of political power. They are the party of censorship, sexualization and mutilation of children, and the advocates of criminality, violence and tyranny. They are even degrading language in the name of their perverse ideology to limit freedom of thought and expression. It is worse than an Orwellian dystopia because the Democrats have mixed race hatred and internet indoctrination into Big Brother's toxic totalitarian ideology. I don't know if Republicans or anybody else can stop this march toward Armageddon but (as a former Democrat) I am certain the Democrats will only make things worse as long as they hold any political power. Perhaps the Supreme Court can start to fix the problem this summer by overturning its prior affirmative action cases, and undoing Chevron deference to the corrupt government agencies that are spreading the totalitarian toxin through the nation.
"...but (as a former Democrat) I am certain the Democrats will only make things worse..."
If a Dem like yourself can see the Light and transform into someone better, it should give everyone hope...you in particular.
I've known many full-throated, unreconstructed Communists who went to their graves being just as stupid as they were when they were 17 year old Coffeeshop Marxists. You are living proof that it doesn't have to be that way, and it's someone like you who can truly change hearts and minds...I hope you will.
I too am a former Democrat (age 67, voted Democrat all my life until the summer of 2022, am still registered as a Democrat), red-pilled by the transgenderists mutilating and sterilizing children and obliterating women's rights to single-sex spaces. The conquest of merit-based decisions by racialism is now equally appalling to me. I am now doing everything I can to fight back.
It took generations to bring us here and it will take generations to correct this madness...and that will only begin after people develop an interest in fighting back, which I don't see happening on a large scale anytime soon. The new doctors coming on board have spent their academic lives in Wokist indoctrination camps, formerly known as 'public schools,' and view all of this in a positive light...in fact, they view it as being long overdue. When they get older and actually need competent medical care themselves their ideology will trump any remnant of a logical mind that once might have been possible for them, and they'll say "oh well, that's just the way it is" when they're dying at an early age of an undiagnosed and easily-corrected ailment.
For so many years Canadians and others have been escaping their medical system and have been coming to the USA for care, but soon the wealthy of all nations will see the results of ideologically-driven medicine in the form of their children needlessly dying on American operating tables and will begin to favor Austria, Hungary, Poland, Estonia and other countries that have rejected the 'Wokism Over Merit' academic model. Celebrities and fashionistas will gush over the superb care they received in Switzerland, and out of their bovine mouths will come the usual string of idiot questions like "why can't we do this in America?" with their blank gaze showing a genuine, breathtaking obtuseness.
This is part of the glorious secret of how America becomes a third-world country.
My wife just retired after 44 years as a director of a local hospital here in Indianapolis. We had our share of Canadians visiting over the years, and we are by no means close to the northern border. I'm sure Canadian doctors are competent, but if you can't wait 5 months for a brain scan (socialized medicine is nothing if not rationed) then you have to vote with your feet.
At Georgetown Law School you can get a 72 on your final exam... and it is curved to an A-. Not making this up; it just happened. Frankly, I wish I was making it up.
she has some pretty surprising academic "accomplishments" all through her schooling.
of course, if you're aware of her AT ALL, you know there's NO WAY she earned those awards. they were obviously just gifted to her. or maybe they had somebody else doing the work in her name. that was another thought I had.
I think the Democrat choose very young people that can be molded into an image, and also to serve. those kids are guided through school and life, and carefully influenced. then the Party shoves them into office and they become useful tools.
I am reasonably confident that the Bar Association "race norms" the Bar Exam. I'm not oblivious to the fact that there are competent Black lawyers and what I say should not be taken as a blanket condemnation of them. The point is that I have dealt with a number of Black lawyers in the course of my law practice who could not possibly have passed the Bar Exam. I've had cases with several of them who had no clue as to the difference between the common law and equity. They had never heard of the concept that rescission of a contract is an equitable remedy and as such has special conditions precedent that must be done before filing a suit. For a law school graduate not to know about the 2 systems of law and equity is the equivalent of a medical student not knowing that the heart is the organ that pumps blood through the body. These lawyers had to have been given preferential treatment in scoring their exams.
Allow me to add my anecdotal and totally unsubstantiated 2 cents, from an impeccable source, one of my former bosses, Bill. I worked for Bill when he was a lobbyist at the state level for finance & education. I was there for 3 years before I discovered Bill got his PhD from Harvard under Galbraith, a professor he was at loggerheads with the entire time (another story).
Bill had extensive contacts within the US military and related this story to me: while Clinton was waging war in Serbia, a certain Lt. Col. was told he had to attend mandatory sensitivity training, a 2 day course that would take him away from his duties, which were arranging daily targeting for the Air Force. No problem, his replacement was a minority female, who promptly targeted the Chinese embassy in Belgrade. Whoops.
Yes, it's not indicative of all female minorities, but considering it could have triggered a war, I thought it was worth noting. Hopefully your plane is piloted by someone who registered at least a C in flight school.
The commercial airlines are hiring based on 'diversity' now, with merit a distant factor.
In the 1980's Seattle's Mayor demanded that a Chinese woman be recruited to the police force to address the apparently horrific plague of whiteness on the force. The after much searching, the recruit they found didn't quite make it to five feet in height and her waist was so small that she couldn't get all of her gear onto her duty belt...there wasn't enough room.
The stories are endless, and all of them true. You literally don't have to make up any of this madness.
Your column "No Biggie, Just the End of Civilization" is excellent, well written, and most of all truthful. I did not renew my subscription to "Scientific American" after I discovered that White scientists, like, myself, who believe in real science, excellence and hard work, are all White supremacists & racists. I've given up reading pseudoscientific medical journals as well. Since we may well be approaching the "End", I'm reading the Bible about the Apocalypse, the second coming of Christ and the end of the age which is definitely more enlightening and informative!
I'm old enough to remember when Scientific American was a respectable scientific journal that was about...science. We are truly in a Dark Age now, where our greatest cultural institutions are collapsing. Children of today will not be able to grow up and thrive in a world of wonder and hope...only one of politically-mandated hate.
I haven't lost hope, though. I'll always believe in America.
Ann Coulter and Heather McDonald are two great conservative ladies that have been writing effective books and commentary for years. This new book by Heather McDonald is devastating in what it reveals. What scares me is that a mass psychosis like this could sweep through every institution in our society. I would not have believed it possible, but this is exactly what has happened.
I wonder when investment banks will throw meritocracy out the window and adopt the same pass/fail hiring standards to all of their new positions in the Trading Room...what the hell, an MBA from a 35th percentile GMAT background could only lose a few $Billion before the morning coffee break...which Wall Street biggie will step up and be the Big League version of SVB in the name of equity???
Oh for sure it has happened in many areas of the industry but I want to see some DEI hiring on the trading floor as in bond trading and derivatives...the real quant heavy areas were an idiot can destroy the institution’s entire quarterly earnings in a matter of minutes...especially if the oversight people (as in risk management) are too cowardly to reign in the doofus.
Look what the risk management people at SVB were doing...DEI games while ignoring portfolio durations...I question if they even knew the basics of risk management (i.e. their jobs)...they and their management were guilty of gross negligence and in spite of govt bailouts I am shocked that there have not been investor lawsuits...and SVB is a relative pimple transacting child’s play relative to a real Walk Street shop.
In fact, a great investment might be a head-hunting shop that specializes in finding and placing skilled doctors who are graduates of Chinese and Indian medical schools where the competition is ruthless.
This just might be the future of competent meritocracy in US healthcare while the little woke ones from the Ivy schools are still looking for a safe space to make pee-pee.
Excellent points, as usual. It's already commonplace for hospitals to send X-ray imagery to India for a Radiologist consult, but the problem is not just the medical schools...the entire hospital management is generally knee-deep in Wokeness and quite often see no problem with substandard hires as long as they meet the diversity and ideological criteria. A non-woke but excellent sturgeon from a sane, non-woke country will have a VERY rough time in the USA due to the insane politics here. All of the woke staff would conspire against the non-woke sturgeon and make his/her life a living hell.
This madness starts with the political and woke indoctrination of children at very young ages here in the USA, and that's where, I believe, the battles are most important. The entire system is corrupt, and the only way to fix it will be to protect children from this cancer. They will then grow up and bring sanity back to the world.
Between multiple generations of welfare dependency now spreading into the youth of what was once called the middle class and multiple generations of students brainwashed with mindless babble, meritocracy is fighting an almost unwinnable battle for survival.
No work ethic; no critical thinking abilities; the government pushing drugs from almost the moment of birth and total, yet totally undeserved, entitlement does not paint a pretty picture for the future of this republic.
Even Ann's latest article had me laughing as I cried...anybody who knows the definitions of "meritocracy" and "standard deviations" already knows we are screwed.
That seems to be true. I've been through several 'financial advisors' at my investment firm and they've all be awful. All they want me to do is SELL! because that's how they make their commissions. I have no faith in them at all and I'm doing it all myself now.
Excellent article Ann! The only hope at this juncture is the upcoming Artificial Intelligence that will replace politically correct "doctors" in surgery, research and diagnostics.
All true, and the only thing that will stop it will be a corporate culture that defines an ideological agenda when hiring or demands woke programming parameters.
Changing the corporate culture at Google and other tech giants would be the first step, and sadly I don't see this happening anytime soon.
But by all means if there were to be a lavishly funded conservative, or at least non-Leftist tech startup with the brain power and the truckloads of cash required to develop a unique and non-woke AI system it would absolutely be possible and it would probably be welcomed by the vast majority of consumers.
I get the impression that even many Dems are weary of having wokism shoved down their throats.
Third world immigration into this country is the root of all our problems. Crazy, democrats and their crazy, ideas wouldn't be competitive without it. They're changing the electorate in this country. No third world immigration? Conservatives would be in control. The United States would be a clean, rich, safe, constitutional republic. We need to start a movement to stop this ongoing invasion across our southern border. We need to educate our uneducated electorate before it's too late.
Ayn Rand Ayn Rand Ayn Rand who is not required college reading. Whose father lost his pharmacy to the Reds in St. Petersburg. How do I know this? I read her biography. How do I know about Ayn Rand? A small bookstore owner recommended reading her. Is that a surprise? Hardly. Is today any different than 100 years ago? No except for the mass media that has its sheep.
"We the Living" was her first novel, based on her experiences in St. Petersburg in the 1920s, when the regime was tightening its noose.
I'm an outlier. I'm not a "Randian." It's my favorite of her novels.
I read The Passion of Ayn Rand by Barbara Branden, The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged.
Correction Barbra Brandon. Oh yes she still touches nerves in people.
The biography “Ayn Rand and the World She Made” by Anne Heller is very good. I recommend it.
"How do I know about Ayn Rand?"
2112. "with acknowledgement to the genius of Ayn Rand."
Without 2112, there is no Rush, the greatest band ever. They are the Ann Coulter of music; the best at what they do while still being accessible to average people who can appreciate genius (and chops like crazy). Go Geddy!!!!
https://youtu.be/yjGFmyVi_pM?t=439
Really, Curtis? Appeal to Ayn Rand in this discussion? Ya, more materialism and atheism ought to fix this stuff.
Agree with Michael. Rand's theme in Atlas Shrugged is "the mind on strike"--like potential doctors deciding to do something else if their talents aren't wanted or rewarded. Rand even predicted the "woke" corporations and billionaires of today back in the late '50s. Every time there's another train derailment, I think "Atlas Shrugged."
if you think Rand is about materialism, you're fucked in the head.
After reading your reply, I am rethinking it.
Eddie Willers isn't a hero in Atlas Shrugged, but he is portrayed heroically because he has an admiration for merit and ability even though he knows he is just an ordinary guy surrounded by extraordinary characters.
Howard Roark lived in all sorts of accommodations even when he had enough money to afford better. A lesson in thrift.
Eddie Willers isn't a hero in Atlas Shrugged, but he is portrayed heroically because he has an admiration for merit and ability even though he knows he is just an ordinary guy surrounded by extraordinary characters.
Howard Roark lived in all sorts of accommodations even when he had enough money to afford better. A lesson in thrift.
Just her father made me bring her up. Nothing has changed. Human nature with jealousy and envy being a part of the collective mindset.
Every pedagogic and educational reform for the last 40 years, except for emphasizing STEM, has had one objective -- closing the gap between black and white scores.
Not between white and Asian scores. And not to raise black scores.
Simply to close that black- white gap, by any means necessary, to use an old civil rights battle cry.
The Final Solution? Eliminate testing.
Voila! The gap is closed.
Once it was realized that they can't bring up Black students to the level of whites, they decided to bring down white students to the level of Blacks.
That was an intermediate step, Brother Thorn, but when that didn’t work black school principals and superintendents turned to cheating to equalize the scores.
I’m sure you remember the school district officials convicted of “fixing” scores around the country under “No Child Left Behind,” and its mandatory testing regimen.
Finally, however, they and their allies have hit upon a foolproof method -- No Testing And No Scores At All.
Why can’t we do away with scores in NBA basketball? I always wanted to be a superstar center.
Heather Mac Donald makes an excellent case for meritocracy in this video, done at the Manhattan Institute to help promote her new book.
https://youtu.be/rA4uB34ynTU
She’s a courageous lady; but just as during her interview with Ann, she keeps making the same mistake.
At the video’s halfway mark, in order to immunize herself from the charge that really RACISM! is hiding behind her meritocratic case, Ms Mac Donald makes an impassioned indictment of America’s racial “sins.”
She calls our racial history “appalling,” “sickening,” says we were a “white supremacist country,” an “apartheid country” and that our parents acted with “gratuitous nastiness” toward blacks.
Having admitted all that, having surrendered the moral argument and told blacks America owes them, Ms Mac Donald the meritocrat then expects people to NOT help the poor descendants of such abuse with compensatory extras — and expects blacks to not demand them.
Why do meritocrats have to indulge in gratuitous moral masochism? They’re going to call you a racist anyway, Heather.
Think about it: once Ms Mac Donald puts on the sackcloth and ashes, is there any way that she could say “No” to REPARATIONS for blacks? Of course not. All she can do is try to negotiate a settlement.
Leaders like her are not what we need to push back against the group most responsible for dragging America down, through their own efforts and through their manipulation by our alienated and second-rate elites.
The Democrats have become a racist hate group that stokes race hatred and discourages achievement in the name of political power. They are the party of censorship, sexualization and mutilation of children, and the advocates of criminality, violence and tyranny. They are even degrading language in the name of their perverse ideology to limit freedom of thought and expression. It is worse than an Orwellian dystopia because the Democrats have mixed race hatred and internet indoctrination into Big Brother's toxic totalitarian ideology. I don't know if Republicans or anybody else can stop this march toward Armageddon but (as a former Democrat) I am certain the Democrats will only make things worse as long as they hold any political power. Perhaps the Supreme Court can start to fix the problem this summer by overturning its prior affirmative action cases, and undoing Chevron deference to the corrupt government agencies that are spreading the totalitarian toxin through the nation.
"...but (as a former Democrat) I am certain the Democrats will only make things worse..."
If a Dem like yourself can see the Light and transform into someone better, it should give everyone hope...you in particular.
I've known many full-throated, unreconstructed Communists who went to their graves being just as stupid as they were when they were 17 year old Coffeeshop Marxists. You are living proof that it doesn't have to be that way, and it's someone like you who can truly change hearts and minds...I hope you will.
I too am a former Democrat (age 67, voted Democrat all my life until the summer of 2022, am still registered as a Democrat), red-pilled by the transgenderists mutilating and sterilizing children and obliterating women's rights to single-sex spaces. The conquest of merit-based decisions by racialism is now equally appalling to me. I am now doing everything I can to fight back.
Even for Ann, this is pretty courageous.
Ann needs her own TV show. Now more than ever.
It took generations to bring us here and it will take generations to correct this madness...and that will only begin after people develop an interest in fighting back, which I don't see happening on a large scale anytime soon. The new doctors coming on board have spent their academic lives in Wokist indoctrination camps, formerly known as 'public schools,' and view all of this in a positive light...in fact, they view it as being long overdue. When they get older and actually need competent medical care themselves their ideology will trump any remnant of a logical mind that once might have been possible for them, and they'll say "oh well, that's just the way it is" when they're dying at an early age of an undiagnosed and easily-corrected ailment.
For so many years Canadians and others have been escaping their medical system and have been coming to the USA for care, but soon the wealthy of all nations will see the results of ideologically-driven medicine in the form of their children needlessly dying on American operating tables and will begin to favor Austria, Hungary, Poland, Estonia and other countries that have rejected the 'Wokism Over Merit' academic model. Celebrities and fashionistas will gush over the superb care they received in Switzerland, and out of their bovine mouths will come the usual string of idiot questions like "why can't we do this in America?" with their blank gaze showing a genuine, breathtaking obtuseness.
This is part of the glorious secret of how America becomes a third-world country.
My wife just retired after 44 years as a director of a local hospital here in Indianapolis. We had our share of Canadians visiting over the years, and we are by no means close to the northern border. I'm sure Canadian doctors are competent, but if you can't wait 5 months for a brain scan (socialized medicine is nothing if not rationed) then you have to vote with your feet.
Coming soon to a country near you!
Sadly true. And Leftists continue to use the same destructive policies again and again thinking that they will be successful when THEY do it.
They're like The Borg in Star Trek but without the intelligence or the beautiful women.
LOL!
At Georgetown Law School you can get a 72 on your final exam... and it is curved to an A-. Not making this up; it just happened. Frankly, I wish I was making it up.
AOC graduated 4th in her class at Boston University.
look AOC up on Wikipedia...
she has some pretty surprising academic "accomplishments" all through her schooling.
of course, if you're aware of her AT ALL, you know there's NO WAY she earned those awards. they were obviously just gifted to her. or maybe they had somebody else doing the work in her name. that was another thought I had.
I think the Democrat choose very young people that can be molded into an image, and also to serve. those kids are guided through school and life, and carefully influenced. then the Party shoves them into office and they become useful tools.
Obama and AOC are just two examples.
Didn't AOC respond to a casting call for an actor to play the role of congressperson?
What about Bar Exam? You still have to pass it in order to be employed as a lawyer.
At this point the bar exam pass rates are falling because unqualified applicants are being admitted to law school and allowed to stay. https://www.reuters.com/legal/legalindustry/californias-bar-pass-rate-sinks-following-national-trend-2023-05-08/ For now they have blamed it on Covid, but it is only a matter of months before "racism" is identified as the true cause and bar exam standards will have to fall.
I am reasonably confident that the Bar Association "race norms" the Bar Exam. I'm not oblivious to the fact that there are competent Black lawyers and what I say should not be taken as a blanket condemnation of them. The point is that I have dealt with a number of Black lawyers in the course of my law practice who could not possibly have passed the Bar Exam. I've had cases with several of them who had no clue as to the difference between the common law and equity. They had never heard of the concept that rescission of a contract is an equitable remedy and as such has special conditions precedent that must be done before filing a suit. For a law school graduate not to know about the 2 systems of law and equity is the equivalent of a medical student not knowing that the heart is the organ that pumps blood through the body. These lawyers had to have been given preferential treatment in scoring their exams.
Allow me to add my anecdotal and totally unsubstantiated 2 cents, from an impeccable source, one of my former bosses, Bill. I worked for Bill when he was a lobbyist at the state level for finance & education. I was there for 3 years before I discovered Bill got his PhD from Harvard under Galbraith, a professor he was at loggerheads with the entire time (another story).
Bill had extensive contacts within the US military and related this story to me: while Clinton was waging war in Serbia, a certain Lt. Col. was told he had to attend mandatory sensitivity training, a 2 day course that would take him away from his duties, which were arranging daily targeting for the Air Force. No problem, his replacement was a minority female, who promptly targeted the Chinese embassy in Belgrade. Whoops.
Yes, it's not indicative of all female minorities, but considering it could have triggered a war, I thought it was worth noting. Hopefully your plane is piloted by someone who registered at least a C in flight school.
Have a wonderful day.
The commercial airlines are hiring based on 'diversity' now, with merit a distant factor.
In the 1980's Seattle's Mayor demanded that a Chinese woman be recruited to the police force to address the apparently horrific plague of whiteness on the force. The after much searching, the recruit they found didn't quite make it to five feet in height and her waist was so small that she couldn't get all of her gear onto her duty belt...there wasn't enough room.
The stories are endless, and all of them true. You literally don't have to make up any of this madness.
Thanks for sharing. These anecdotes need to be retold.
Wow, that strike on the Chinese Embassy was a big deal at the time: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_bombing_of_the_Chinese_embassy_in_Belgrade
No mention of your friend's version, which I am very much inclined to believe.
Turning bombing duties over to a minority woman who subsequently bombs the Chinese embassy is probably not the story the MSM wants public.
Or the military.
Your column "No Biggie, Just the End of Civilization" is excellent, well written, and most of all truthful. I did not renew my subscription to "Scientific American" after I discovered that White scientists, like, myself, who believe in real science, excellence and hard work, are all White supremacists & racists. I've given up reading pseudoscientific medical journals as well. Since we may well be approaching the "End", I'm reading the Bible about the Apocalypse, the second coming of Christ and the end of the age which is definitely more enlightening and informative!
Ann, Keep up the good work! God Bless!
I'm old enough to remember when Scientific American was a respectable scientific journal that was about...science. We are truly in a Dark Age now, where our greatest cultural institutions are collapsing. Children of today will not be able to grow up and thrive in a world of wonder and hope...only one of politically-mandated hate.
I haven't lost hope, though. I'll always believe in America.
Ann Coulter and Heather McDonald are two great conservative ladies that have been writing effective books and commentary for years. This new book by Heather McDonald is devastating in what it reveals. What scares me is that a mass psychosis like this could sweep through every institution in our society. I would not have believed it possible, but this is exactly what has happened.
As long as there are people who recognize what is happening and are willing to push back, there is still a sliver of hope.
I quit internal Medicine in 2010 at age 68 .People ask me at church if I missed being a doctor and after my first cruise I never looked back!
I am not far behind you. I am a 63 year old nephrologist.
I wonder when investment banks will throw meritocracy out the window and adopt the same pass/fail hiring standards to all of their new positions in the Trading Room...what the hell, an MBA from a 35th percentile GMAT background could only lose a few $Billion before the morning coffee break...which Wall Street biggie will step up and be the Big League version of SVB in the name of equity???
I think that may already be happening. I'm finding I can do better on my own in some critical areas than with the advice of my 'financial advisor'.
Oh for sure it has happened in many areas of the industry but I want to see some DEI hiring on the trading floor as in bond trading and derivatives...the real quant heavy areas were an idiot can destroy the institution’s entire quarterly earnings in a matter of minutes...especially if the oversight people (as in risk management) are too cowardly to reign in the doofus.
Look what the risk management people at SVB were doing...DEI games while ignoring portfolio durations...I question if they even knew the basics of risk management (i.e. their jobs)...they and their management were guilty of gross negligence and in spite of govt bailouts I am shocked that there have not been investor lawsuits...and SVB is a relative pimple transacting child’s play relative to a real Walk Street shop.
In fact, a great investment might be a head-hunting shop that specializes in finding and placing skilled doctors who are graduates of Chinese and Indian medical schools where the competition is ruthless.
This just might be the future of competent meritocracy in US healthcare while the little woke ones from the Ivy schools are still looking for a safe space to make pee-pee.
Excellent points, as usual. It's already commonplace for hospitals to send X-ray imagery to India for a Radiologist consult, but the problem is not just the medical schools...the entire hospital management is generally knee-deep in Wokeness and quite often see no problem with substandard hires as long as they meet the diversity and ideological criteria. A non-woke but excellent sturgeon from a sane, non-woke country will have a VERY rough time in the USA due to the insane politics here. All of the woke staff would conspire against the non-woke sturgeon and make his/her life a living hell.
This madness starts with the political and woke indoctrination of children at very young ages here in the USA, and that's where, I believe, the battles are most important. The entire system is corrupt, and the only way to fix it will be to protect children from this cancer. They will then grow up and bring sanity back to the world.
You are dead-nuts on target.
Between multiple generations of welfare dependency now spreading into the youth of what was once called the middle class and multiple generations of students brainwashed with mindless babble, meritocracy is fighting an almost unwinnable battle for survival.
No work ethic; no critical thinking abilities; the government pushing drugs from almost the moment of birth and total, yet totally undeserved, entitlement does not paint a pretty picture for the future of this republic.
Even Ann's latest article had me laughing as I cried...anybody who knows the definitions of "meritocracy" and "standard deviations" already knows we are screwed.
Sadly true. Thank you for your thoughtful replies.
If you have a regular retail financial advisor, it is quite likely that you are better off on your own.
That seems to be true. I've been through several 'financial advisors' at my investment firm and they've all be awful. All they want me to do is SELL! because that's how they make their commissions. I have no faith in them at all and I'm doing it all myself now.
Excellent article Ann! The only hope at this juncture is the upcoming Artificial Intelligence that will replace politically correct "doctors" in surgery, research and diagnostics.
Sadly, the AI results I've been seeing lately suggest that they are being programmed to be just as woke as the most obtuse humans. GIGO as they say.
Granted, AI is only as good as people who program it, so what precludes conservative entrepreneurs to start one and make it objective?
All true, and the only thing that will stop it will be a corporate culture that defines an ideological agenda when hiring or demands woke programming parameters.
Changing the corporate culture at Google and other tech giants would be the first step, and sadly I don't see this happening anytime soon.
But by all means if there were to be a lavishly funded conservative, or at least non-Leftist tech startup with the brain power and the truckloads of cash required to develop a unique and non-woke AI system it would absolutely be possible and it would probably be welcomed by the vast majority of consumers.
I get the impression that even many Dems are weary of having wokism shoved down their throats.
Third world immigration into this country is the root of all our problems. Crazy, democrats and their crazy, ideas wouldn't be competitive without it. They're changing the electorate in this country. No third world immigration? Conservatives would be in control. The United States would be a clean, rich, safe, constitutional republic. We need to start a movement to stop this ongoing invasion across our southern border. We need to educate our uneducated electorate before it's too late.
this is an awesome column.
I just went and ordered the book...
Hahahahahaha. I just love that conclusion. Just appeal to reason, data, and human dignity! Fixed.