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| The world's average Joe |
Now that the
holidays are in the not so distant future and Congress has presented us with a
week of dismal stupidity, I'm reminded of Scrooge and the unfurling of the two
child/orphans of man "ignorance" and "want". Dickens was allegorical enough to realize
that these two offspring come in many forms...from poor illiterates to mindless
greed types. Want takes many forms from
hunger to Madoff greed. Ignorance is
even more desperate.
So what of
this picture? If I were on the
Enterprise and Captain Kirk took a look down at his earth and was asked to pick
the "average Joe" from the population...someone who stood right on
the mid-line of the bell curve...what or who would he find?
Statistically
it would be a rural Chinese making about $3000 a year and there are more than a
few million of them. It would not be an
American or a European nor someone from a lost tribe in the Philippines.
Statistically we are in Western China somewhere and this is the guy. He isn't ignorant. Perhaps just not
educated. He isn't poor by his
contemporary standards and perhaps he doesn't "want" in the
conventional sense except in times of poor harvest. So what's the point?
We have
policy makers making huge decisions that affect the very fabric of society -
economics and values. They make them on
a basis that is so far removed from the "average Joe" just trying to
get by. We argue about the trade
imbalance between China and the US and the Rinimbi v. the Dollar. We debate long and hard about reducing food
stamp allotments from $5.12 a day to $4.80…Ho Hum..Except to the mother trying
to feed her kids on something other than mac and cheese. Our average Chinese Joe's
life isn't much effected by the debt "crisis" (opposed to the
US's Joe who is creamed by it).
The point is
that the debates swirl at a level that is light years from the persons directly
affected by the outcome. The gap or disconnect is huge. All the average Joe knows is that his life is
the same as it was years or decades back yet it is somehow harder and he is
less and less connected to those making decisions - the decision makers are,
unfortunately just another set of ignorance and want.