We’re Living Through the Greatest Transfer of Wealth From the Middle Class to the Elites in History.

When historians look back on the decisions made beginning in March 2020 and still going strong, this period will be remembered as the “Great Consolidation”—the acceleration of a historic wealth transfer and power concentration out of the hands of the middle class and into those with political power and connections.

No doubt the Covid wealth extraction plan has gone, well - according to plan!

That said, the extraction has been going on for a long time, with no abatement. I think history is likely to record ‘this period’ as a blip on the steady extraction that has been occurring for decades!

My thanks to @manton for resetting my blog that I had broken. I mean really broken.

How - because I was trying to be clever with the footer - and I clearly was not!

Now back up with the Tufte Theme - courtesy of @pimoore running as it should - and the footer kind of organised as I wanted.

Next step - now I understand the very clever nuances that Pete has included in the theme - is to reintroduce some of the emphasis I want.

I am slightly hesitant to rely to much on some of the shortcodes he has added (yet) since those short codes (I presume) will only work on this template?

More diving needed.

john.philpin.com

Maps that Show the Historical Roots of Current US Political Faultlines.

Interesting piece even of itself. But even more so if you read it and draw parallels with other parts of the world.

My interpretation is that the boundaries on this map are ‘cultural boundaries’, reflecting what people feel and how they relate to each other in the U.S.A.
    Now imagine if instead of mapping the U.S.A., you mapped The Middle East.
and Rather than using state lines, you used the borders of countries.

In all honesty, I have seen maps like this in the past. Things like how the Kurdish culture spreads across at least 4 contiguous countries.

One difference between the States and the Middle East is that moving between states in the U.S.A. is a whole lot simpler than between countries in the Middle East.

I think this starts to expose the Middle East ‘fault lines’ in a very clear and explainable way. That is the historical imposition of political boundaries over people might make short-term sense and ‘bring order to the world’ - in the long term, it is ‘cultural power’ that drives the different regions of the world - and will be the final driver/decider.

This ‘culture trumps politics’ model is something that Venkatesh Rao touches on in this article from 2011. It is a long but fascinating read.

We’re Living Through the Greatest Transfer of Wealth From the Middle Class to the Elites in History

I really do hate that ‘elites’ word … they aren’t … they just happen to be a large group of people with lots of money and people in (or want to be in) power who want access to that wealth.

That said - a recurring observation.

The “connected” form a powerful bloc comprised of big government, big business and big special interests. And though their monikers label them “big,” they are comprised of relatively small elites. And they are seeking to use their power to benefit themselves at your expense.

“Today we’re excited to roll out the latest feature on Unsplash… you can now see your image download history making it super easy to re-visit and re-download any image.”

… wrote Unsplash.

Annoying that my download history only goes back 2 days.

that said,

MASSIVE KUDOS that my download history only goes back 2 days.

On the face of it they don’t seem to have been storing that information without telling me.

• Writing? Not so difficult. Writing well? OK, more difficult.

• Convincing friends to give what you’ve written a free tryout on their Kindle? Not easy as you’d think.

• Finding absolute strangers who like to read books like yours and then convincing them to buy Book One in an unknown series?

• Now that’s the tricky part.

Source : Dan Conover

They are singularly the most inhuman invention you might imagine. But they aren’t half as bad as humans.

I went through a process about three months ago. You have resumes and cover letters stored on your hard drive. You even have a linkedIN profile that contains a wealth of information. But none of that is good enough. No. You need to fill in the forms that you are presented with and then add pdfs of the docs to the application.

You just know that the form filling is the filter mechanism that the ATS will use to decide how it is all prioritised. I got it all in within the time specified and then connected with the current incumbent AND the hiring manager (knowing them both) to let them know my hat was in the ring. A little later - the application deadline was extended. No reason provided - but I was told - even though my application was in.

I could only think of two reasons.

1] There weren’t enough candidates - it’s a pretty niche role.
2] The candidate they wanted hadn’t applied - so they told him to - extended the deadline and waited.

Other than that single communication …

Nothing … nothing … nothing … except alerts from the ATS saying that I won’t hear more from it - since the application was ‘now in the hands of the recruiting organisation’.

Nothing … nothing … nothing … and then

**In their occasional newsletter I read that the position has been filled … by someone I also happen to know. Good chap actually. **

Still heard nothing from the ‘recruiting organisation’. At minimum I might expect a pro forma - ‘thanks for applying’ at the start - and then a ‘sorry you didn’t get it’ pro forma at the end.

At best,I look to how I used to operate.

• I would meet everyone on candidate short lists.
• I would insist that my recruiting managers connect with every candidate personally - not the HR wonk - the line manager.

Maybe I am odd. I am certainly an exception, because this story is not new. It happens every single day to people all over the planet.

When you read how tech has lost its humanity - people blame the machines.

I don’t. I blame the people.

The good news - if this is how they operate - glad I am not part of it.

Much as when a clear and obvious lie is stated - it doesn’t give you confidence that the rest is going to be any different. I refer you to ’45’ over the past 4 years.

I have not seen ‘the’ recent Oprah interview. Life is too short.

But when I hear someone claim that they “didn’t really have any idea what the royal family was, didn’t Google or do any research.” … my antennas will go up. My antennas went up!

So no … sorry. If that wasn’t a lie then stupidity is the only possibility.

This from Peggy Noonan summarises it nicely.

”Public life has gotten extremely, unrelentingly performative. Have you noticed you keep hearing that word? It means everyone is always performing—the politician, the news anchor, the angry activist. This gives natural actors an edge, and leaves those who aren’t by nature actors at a disadvantage. Meghan was a professional actress.”

Read the whole thing - save me writing it again - and it is better written than I would manage!