The Ricochet Friday Essay Assignment
Peter Robinson ·
August 31, 2012 at 11:28pm
David Brooks in today's New York Times:
I see what the G.O.P. is offering the engineering major from Purdue or the business major from Arizona State. The party is offering skilled people the freedom to run their race. I don’t see what the party is offering the waitress with two kids, or the warehouse worker whose wages have stagnated for a decade, or the factory worker whose skills are now obsolete.
Discuss.
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Comments:
Sep '10
Re: The Ricochet Friday Essay Assignment
A tax cut. Even Bobos in Paradise recognize an increase in take home pay is the same thing as a wage increase. Math is hard.
Mar '11
Re: The Ricochet Friday Essay Assignment
Must they receive different offerings?
Re: The Ricochet Friday Essay Assignment
Well, I see Brooks' point, a bit. The truth is, for non-skilled or non-knowledge workers, the future is going to be really challenging, no matter who is president. A lot of American manufacturing jobs aren't coming back, and tax cuts and a pro-business climate aren't going to change that.
What a free-market pro-growth president can do, though, is encourage rapid economic growth, which creates a tight labor market like we had a decade ago, which causes all wages -- including unskilled wages -- to rise. (The In-n-Out burger near my house, for instance, was offering $10+ an hour before 2008. About 1.5x the federal minimum wage.)
We're still going to have people caught on the downside of a changing world, but you pass any law you like, create any program you want, and you still won't be able to repeal the future. The best bet for everyone, no matter who they are or what degree they have, is a growing economy that rewards and encourages risk capitalism.
That said, Brooks isn't wrong to bring this up. We on the right don't make the case often enough.
Edited on August 31, 2012 at 11:41pmApr '11
Re: The Ricochet Friday Essay Assignment
Surely helping the restaurant owner/ businessman and tightening the labor markets is helpful to the waitress? I thought that Mitt was clear about that, but it may be that Brooks is right and the argument is too subtle.
Jan '11
Re: The Ricochet Friday Essay Assignment
What is being offered is an expanded economy which should lead to a shortage of even non-skilled labor which leads to wage increases. But that's not the real problem for the unskilled. It's that they are unskilled, and it seems, unintersted in becoming skilled, until the wolf's at the door.
Re: The Ricochet Friday Essay Assignment
Jun '11
Re: The Ricochet Friday Essay Assignment
Brooks ignores the whole "job training/education" pitch Romney throws out there AND ignores the logic of "more new biz" = "more hires."
Sep '10
Re: The Ricochet Friday Essay Assignment
Double Your Salary in the Middle of Nowhere
Jul '12
Re: The Ricochet Friday Essay Assignment
The guy is just out of ideas. Hyperindividualism? What the heck is that. The RNC convention's themes just aren't post modern enough for Brooks. Honestly, if it wasn't for the NY Times, he'd be blogging from his basement.
Oct '10
Re: The Ricochet Friday Essay Assignment
All are being offered the same thing. The chance to do whatever they would like to do and either succeed or fail on their own terms. The government will employ it's efforts in providing the security and legal framework that assures that their efforts will be respected and unimpeded. And if they fail miserably, their fellow Americans will do what we have done for those who fail. We will give them another chance to succeed, and not kick them while they are down.
Dec '10
Re: The Ricochet Friday Essay Assignment
Brooks inadvertently, but precisely, identifies the most cringe-worthy line of Mitt Romney's acceptance speech: "we're going to help you and your family."
Ack! How did that get in there?! If the race can only be won by political patronage, the republic is lost. Stop with the "offerings" already! Just leave us alone! Secure our (natural) rights, and get out of the way! Rick Perry's "I'll make the government as inconsequential in your lives as possible" was the best possible articulation of the conservative position.
I was without easy access to electronic communication for the first two days of the convention, so, bearing that in mind, my only complaint about the presentation is that a clear choice between the parties was muddied by sentiments like, "we're going to help you and your family."
Aug '11
Re: The Ricochet Friday Essay Assignment
What, pray tell, are the Democrats offering? Stagnation? More government entitlements? Only in an Obama's vision of America are people stuck. Obama's America, his dream fulfilled, is a bleak place with no mobility, no ambition, people toiling without dreams.
The Republicans are offering a different vision, but it comes at a cost. If you want to better yourself, you don't wait for the government to tell you what to do, what queue to stand in, what form to fill out. You must WORK to pursue those dreams. The waitress could pursue basic business and culinary arts with hopes of some day opening her own restaurant. The warehouse worker could pursue a business degree, advance at his employer, or better yet, pursue his own venture. The factory worker could pursue a favorite trade skill, or a business degree and a management career. No one is stuck. No one has to accept a factory worker, waitress or warehouse job. But people have to want more and be willing to sacrifice and work to make a better place for themselves and their families. People must pursue their own happiness. Government can neither provide nor guarantee it,
Aug '11
Re: The Ricochet Friday Essay Assignment
David Brooks still sees the government as the solution to every problem. Remind me again why he's considered a conservative?
Edited on August 31, 2012 at 11:52pmNov '10
Re: The Ricochet Friday Essay Assignment
Let me tell David Brooks a story the owner of my company told me. She told me about the time someone decided the company should go union. They invited the union in to talk to everyone. She was very frustrated because she was told that she could say nothing to anyone about it. She couldn't discourage union membership in anyway. One day an employee had a pro-union button on, someone she knew well. She touched the button and said "What's this?" The next day she was being told she was abusing employees and threatening them about the union vote. She was even brought up on chargers over the affair. In the end, the employees voted down the union, much to her satisfaction. But she felt that the attitude of many of employees was ungrateful for the hard work she'd put in to build the company. She told me "That is why most of our manufacturing is done in China now, it's not worth it to employ Americans, as much as we'd like to." The GOP offers those workers a world free of the job-killing unions.
Aug '10
Re: The Ricochet Friday Essay Assignment
David Brooks not understanding the 101-level fundamentals of conservative principles? Now I've heard everything...
But I am again moved by the steely realism of Mr. Long:
That is to say perhaps the point Mr. Brooks was making (and I haven't read the whole piece) is that the failure is one of Republicans' communicating that the derivative benefits of our policies help each income bracket.
Fortunately, addressing that is Frank Luntz's job. I'll content myself to poke at the left's beloved little Republican minstrel. To wit: Mr. Brooks, if you don't see how conveying to low-income voters that a growing economy and more jobs will help them, may I suggest falling back on your stand-up career?
Edited on September 1, 2012 at 5:20amMay '11
Re: The Ricochet Friday Essay Assignment
Under Obama-Brooks Maoism, the Purdue engineer and ASU business major are now waiting tables. The former waitress is out of work.
Under free market capitalism, the engineer and businessman are well-tipping customers of such waitress.
Oct '10
Re: The Ricochet Friday Essay Assignment
Within the context of the convention that line amplifies what went before. The Mitt biographies and the example of Rubio and others about the significance of family and individual effort being the vehicle for the American dream was expanded on as the foundation of who we are. Mitt is saying that he will see to it that that truth remains at the fore. What will he do for me and my family? For four days that is what we heard about.
What went before those lines were: "Obama promised to stop the seas rising......... and to heal the planet......" For Obama and the Dems what followed was a trite expression. For Romney it is the promise that he will pursue with us.
Jul '11
Re: The Ricochet Friday Essay Assignment
Romney offers them life liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Obama offers them serfdom. David Brooks serves too many masters and one of them is regrettably not common sense.
May '10
Re: The Ricochet Friday Essay Assignment
Oh, barf.
May '10
Re: The Ricochet Friday Essay Assignment
Had Brooks instead said a bartender and a Kmart shelf-stocker he might have realized how false and patronizing his distinction. The best and easiest answer to our problems is growth. But Rob is right, in a capitalist system, more skills are always going to better compensated than fewer skills and there is only so much pandering you can do around that point. The President's answer is to redistribute wealth, which doesn't do much to aid the waitress at the end of the day, but it certainly narrows the gap between her and the ASU business grad.