The $15 Minimum Wage – Money From Heaven

Do you favor a $15 minimum wage? Nobody asks where the money comes from. Heaven, I guess.

We’re told that if you give low wage workers more cash they’ll spend it, great for the economy. As though it’s free money.

 

Or else the money is imagined to come out of business profits. When pigs fly. It will actually come from higher prices. And since low wage industries (like fast food) often serve poorer people, the extra money earned by low wage workers will ultimately come from . . . low wage workers.

Economics 101 says that when prices rise, demand falls. Raise the price of low skilled labor, and businesses will buy less of it. They’ll seek ways to automate instead (more self-service checkout machines if cashiers become too expensive, for example), which is already happening. Higher minimum wages can only accelerate that – bad news for low skilled workers – who, once unemployed, often stay unemployed.

People imagine businesses can just pay more because they have profits to spare. In reality, profit margins tend to be pretty thin – like around 3% of sales for supermarkets. There’s no room for fat because in a globalized economy every business competes with every other. McDonald’s doesn’t compete just against Burger King and Wendy’s, but every other food option including home cooking – and indeed against every other conceivable product people could decide to buy in lieu of big macs. So prices must be kept as low as possible. Force prices up, due to higher minimum wages, and a business may become non-competitive. Bye bye jobs.

Yet defying this economic logic, advocates of higher minimum wages claim studies show they don’t actually kill jobs. Maybe so – in the short term at least – and if the rise is small, staying under 50% of median wages. But $15 would double the minimum wage, to 77% of the median. The long term impact on low-skill jobs is frightening.

We’re also told government is in effect subsidizing businesses like McDonald’s, that don’t pay a living wage, with food stamps and so forth filling the gap. That’s twisted logic. After all, plenty of people who get food stamps earn nothing. So you could equally say McDonald’s payrolls actually reduce what government must provide. Anyway, we give food stamps, and other welfare, because we as a society deem it the right thing to do. We shouldn’t expect (or force) private companies to do that for us.

In fact, higher minimum wages are an ineffective way to combat poverty. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that only 20% of the income benefits would go to those below the poverty line. (Most minimum wage workers are not primary family breadwinners.) So programs like food stamps, and the Earned Income Tax Credit, are much better targeted for helping the poor – without pricing low skill workers out of the market.

But New York State is currently in a paroxysm of political pandering on this issue. Governor Cuomo set up a board to assess fast food minimum wages. Legions of workers duly came and testified that $15 would be peachy. The outcome was pre-ordained. Our local Times-Union has denounced it – because the $15 wage will be phased in, not immediate!

Never mind the absurdity of singling out one category of jobs (and, unfairly, only in chain restaurants). Or how “fast food” can actually be defined. Or that New York, due to high taxes, already high unionized wage costs and other costs of all kinds, and the most burdensome bureaucratic regulation, is just about the least economically competitive state in the union, making large swathes of upstate into job deserts.

Politicians in this free-money fantasyland will never have to answer for the economic consequences. Voters won’t connect the $15 minimum wage with unemployment higher than it would otherwise have been. Just as public officials don’t answer for all the other ways they’ve run the state’s economy into a ditch. Indeed, the resulting tough economic conditions just encourage more populist politics, preening “compassion” and doubling down with yet more of the economic follies that got us here.*

I too have compassion for fast food workers, and wish they could earn more. It’s a hard life, and I’m lucky to be spared it. (Though I did work one very crummy job in my teens.) But the answer is not to wave a magic wand and expect Heaven to cough up the cash. Instead it’s to stop making it harder and costlier for businesses to operate. And to make sure more people get the education they need for decent jobs – at least finish high school (too many don’t). A key reason fast food jobs pay so little is because there’s a vast oversupply of poorly educated people to fill them.

* Like rent control — more effective than bombing for destroying affordable housing.

Trumped

You expect some pithy comments on Trump statements. I won’t so dignify them.

That a billionaire TV personality with hair issues would get a lot of attention as a “presidential candidate” (in quotes because his chances are zero) is not in itself remarkable. And his statements are not due to stupidity. Too many people call others they disagree with “stupid” (like George W. Bush). Nobody gets high office or great wealth being stupid.

So, why does Trump behave as he does? He must calculate that, on some level, it works for him. That’s what’s disturbing.

Polls showing Trump with 24% atop a very divided Republican field are meaningless; most respondents at this stage are just shooting in the dark. But still. That many would name Trump bespeaks a lack of civic seriousness. Trump’s campaign is just one big middle finger, attracting middle finger type people.

The media bears some responsibility for debasing a presidential election. But one can hardly blame them; the public loves a freak show. Jon Stewart is certainly having a ball. Yet what a shame that it detracts attention from worthy candidates like John Kasich who have important things to say. America faces big issues and shouldn’t waste time with Trump talk.

Kasich won’t likely even get into the TV debates, which will be limited to ten top-polling candidates – a meaningless criterion when most are in single digits. Trump, though, will make the cut, to ensure a circus atmosphere. But in any case a so-called “debate” with ten contestants will be a poor vehicle for informing the public.

It probably won’t ultimately matter. With most other candidates knocking themselves out to out-extreme each other, Jeb Bush will be the nominee.

Maybe I just need to lighten up and stop being a grumpy old man.

America’s Streets Are Not Paved With Gold

This poem came to me during July 4 fireworks surrounded by thousands of fellow citizens of every hue and stripe gathered in joyful celebration of America – right after I heard a radio program about the long desperate struggle of a Somali refugee in Kenya to get a U.S. visa.*

 

 

They said America’s streets are paved with gold.
It wasn’t true; it was a lie.
And even if they had been paved with gold,
What good would that do anyone?
Walking on golden streets
Won’t make you rich.
It won’t rub off on you.
You couldn’t pick it up and spend it.
Couldn’t eat it.

 

Yet still they come,
Knowing that America’s streets
Are paved instead with good will;
Are paved with live and let live;
With energy, imagination, grit, and spunk.

 

America’s streets are paved
With positive attitudes;
By people who say
The difficult we do at once;
The impossible takes a little longer.

 

America’s streets are paved
By people who work at paving them
To make their own lives better
Through making life better
For other people,
Giving others roads to travel.

 

America’s streets are paved with mistakes
That we strive always to make right;
Streets where we take one step back,
And then go two steps forward.

 

America’s streets are paved
With Truth, Reason, Freedom, and Justice;
Streets that are full of potholes,
In this imperfect world
Of imperfect souls.
Yet these paths will take us far,
Paving the way for all the world,
Paving our way to the stars.

* His name is Abdi Iftin, and if you’d like to contribute toward his college education, here is a Paypal link.
And here’s a picture he sent me, of him in Maine:

 

 

Iran: The Deal

Better had we never negotiated. This deal makes Iran a more empowered adversary than a nuclear-armed Iran would have been. How nukes could have actually strengthened Iran is far from clear, since using them would be suicidal. So Iran traded something it doesn’t need for something it does: sanctions relief and unfreezing $100+ billion of assets. That makes Iran a more dangerous enemy.

But, if we had to have a deal, this one isn’t too bad; not the cave-in that might have been expected from President Obama’s desperation to avoid the unpalatable no-deal scenario – definitive failure, and having his military bluff called. And bluff it always was: no president (least of all this one) would incur the immense costs (not just in money) and risks of an attack likely to prove futile.

The Iranians knew this, yet we did have them by the balls on sanctions; and the five other negotiating powers were not constrained by Obama’s above-described calculus. So Iran, finally, did what it must to end sanctions, and the deal will pretty much, probably, put a 10-15 year hold on nuclear weapons development.

I will not use the cliché “the devil’s in the details.” My instinct is to call the deal’s inspection regime bullshit due to a cumbersome process before inspectors can go in; and likewise for the supposed “snap-back” of sanctions in case of a violation, which would seem problematical in an always messy world. However, the committee deciding these things will have a Western majority; and while snap-back would ultimately be a UN Security Council matter, Russia cannot veto it; instead, America could veto stopping the snap-back.

(The Economist has supplied a fairly lucid explication of the deal: click here.)

Again, I think we’d have been better off never negotiating. But that’s not the world that exists; and in the world that now does, Obama is right that we have little choice but to accept the deal. Opponents really offer no alternative; certainly not military (get real). Having gone through what we went through to get where we are, we can’t just blow it all up now by scuppering the deal. That’s not how grown-up nations behave.

Moreover, I’m an optimist and believer in progress. The world can change. In fact, it always does. And this deal may possibly be a catalyst for positive change. Iran today is a bad actor, but many countries have gone from bad to good. Lord Palmerston said nations don’t have permanent allies or foes – only permanent interests. Why Iran should be our enemy is not, from Iran’s perspective, necessarily obvious (ancient history does not control us). To me it seems obvious instead that behaving differently, and cooperating with America, would be very much in Iran’s true best interests.

What a drama the world presents. I wish I could see the denouement.

What Is a Business For? Is Profit a Dirty Word?

At a recent social event, most guests sanctimoniously agreed it was somehow disgusting that anyone should make a profit providing health care. One woman said she had no problem with a store profiting from selling sweaters; but no one should profit from people’s hardship or suffering. I frankly thought that bizarre. Isn’t the relief of suffering a greater boon, more worthy of compensation, and incentivizing, than merely supplying sweaters? I sure as heck didn’t begrudge the profit of the dentist who cured my tooth ache; that’s what motivates people to go to dental school, invest in offices and equipment, hire staff, etc., to provide such service. Nor do I resent the profits of the pharmaceutical company producing the medicine that makes my wife’s life livable.

Calvin Coolidge said, “The business of America is business.” But what is a business for? There are two schools of thought. One says a business’s only purpose is to make money for shareholders (the owners) and anything detracting from that is indeed a dereliction of its primary duty. The other side says a business should serve the interests of all “stakeholders” affected by its doings – including employees, customers, and the broader public. They note that in olden times a business seeking a corporate charter from the state (allowing limited liability for shareholders) was required in exchange to have a public benefit purpose. But that model was dropped in the 19^th century in Britain and America, allowing corporations to be chartered just to do business.

Thus critics of capitalism talk as though the first side won the argument and businesses do exist solely for profit – in disregard of any other consideration – and hence are ipso facto a menace. For example, Naomi Klein, whose recent book I reviewed, seemingly thinks profit is the sole reason energy companies extract fossil fuels – the fact that society uses, needs, fossil fuels doesn’t enter into it. As if, remove the profits, and no extraction would occur.

This tells us there’s something incomplete in the view of businesses as solely profit maximizing creatures. It leaves out the way they do that – by supplying something beneficial to customers*, creating value greater than what is paid (of course some predatory businesses do the opposite, but that’s cheating). The point is epitomized by Steve Jobs. He made tons of money, but that wasn’t his ultimate objective – rather, the profits were what enabled him to perfect products useful to purchasers. That was his true motivation.

People who bought his products valued them more than the money spent. That difference, or surplus value, created by Jobs, increased societal wealth. Had he never existed, all those people would have been worse off. His wealth would not have been somehow distributed among them; it would never have existed either. This is what the 99%-vs.-1% mentality misses.

Today it’s more true than ever that business is really all about customer value, with the internet leveling the competitive playing field, giving consumers far more choices and access to information. A business whose products aren’t great, that doesn’t satisfy customers, will not survive.

Anyhow, it’s too simplistic to say (legitimate) businesses are only concerned with profit. The real world isn’t like that. It’s certainly untrue to say they care only about shareholder returns. Shareholder ownership is merely notional; in reality a corporation owns itself, buying shares merely entitles one to certain rights, while management isn’t meaningfully beholden or accountable to shareholders, instead running the company for its own purposes. And while a firm’s profitability does benefit managers, mainly they care about profits because profits advance their other agendas (a la Steve Jobs).

Also, speaking of the real world, corporate denizens are human beings, and while money is surely a big motivator, nobody is exclusively mercenary. Another big motivator is how one appears to other people – and in the mirror. Most of us want to be seen as doing good, and even to actually do it. Back in the ‘70s I was a regulatory lawyer battling Con Edison over its rates. The company was in financial trouble; and I actually felt management was betraying shareholder interests to bend over backward for consumers.

Corporate greed? It’s not so simple.

At the end of the day, the most successful and profitable businesses are those that are best at creating customer value – which of course means societal value. Adam Smith wrote of the market’s “invisible hand” thusly benefiting society. I heard a radio commentator say Smith might have been right in his simpler time (1700s) but not in today’s world rife with inequality. Really? In Smith’s day, the great mass of humanity everywhere lived in squalid poverty – whereas in the last century, worldwide average real dollar incomes quintupled. That colossal fact is not negated by the inequality of the few with great wealth. They haven’t stopped billions of people from seeing a quantum leap in living standards in modern times. And that vast enrichment is nothing other than the cumulation of customer value created by businesses seeking to profit thereby – i.e., free market capitalism. A stunning vindication of Adam Smith and his invisible hand.

* To quote management guru Peter Drucker, “There is only one valid definition of a business purpose: to create a customer.”

Pope Francis: Is Consumerism Bad?

Pope Francis has denounced consumerism as a “poison” that threatens true happiness, and is an assault upon the poor. What does he say does bring true happiness? Faith in a nonexistent deity. The bit about the poor is equally fallacious.

I’m going to repeat here what turned out to be one of my most-visited blog posts ever, from December 2008, titled “Is Consumerism Bad?” —

Ellen Goodman, in her 12/15 column, is one of those rejoicing that materialist consumerism, at which they’ve always sneered, is falling victim to the recession, as people cut back spending. They applaud this as a simply wonderful retrenchment, a return to sanity and virtue.

But why are we in a recession? Because people are cutting back spending. None of the other factors would actually cause a recession if they weren’t causing spending cutbacks. When people buy less, businesses need to produce less, so they need fewer employees. So people lose their jobs; then they too will spend less; so then even more people lose their jobs. And Ellen Goodman thinks this is a good thing?

“Materialist consumerism” is people buying stuff that other people think they shouldn’t. But a free society has to mean people pursuing happiness by doing things–like spending their own money as they choose–that others disapprove. Some social critics just hate this. They’d prefer it if right-thinking moralists like them got to tell everyone else how to live.

Such people, like Goodman, do believe that an economy based on consumerism is somehow an offense against virtue. But what else, actually, could any economy be based on? The “economy” means you produce goods and services that I buy, and I produce stuff that you buy; which makes us both better off. That production of things people want is the source of all wealth and income, our entire standard of living. It doesn’t come from heaven, or “society,” or government. You may sneer at consumerism, but you don’t want consumers to stop buying what you yourself are employed to produce; you’d be out of a job. And if all consumerism stopped, we’d all be out of jobs.

Greece At The Rubicon

When the Euro was set up, they knew it was a fraught proposition, binding themselves to each other financially. The Germans in particular, fearful about giving up the strong Deutschemark, insisted on strict penalties for any country whose deficit breached 3% of GDP. Of course it was Germany itself, and France, that soon violated this, but the matter was fudged. Not a good precedent.

Meantime, there were also stringent fiscal criteria for admission to the Euro. So how did Greece get in? It cooked its books, and lied.

Greece’s economy has long been weighed down by clientelistic politics producing an over-bloated state sector, with lots of well-paid unneeded government jobs, fat pensions and benefits, while tax avoidance became endemic, and red tape (giving all those government workers something to do) strangled business. Thus Greece could not pay its bills, borrowing heavily to close the gap. This is what was covered up. But about five years ago the retsina hit the fan when the hole became too deep, requiring a bail-out.

Reasonably enough, the Europeans (mainly Germany) insisted that Greece clean up its act as a condition for the bail-out – the “austerity” we hear so much about. In hindsight, they may have overdone it. You’d want to wean the country away from profligacy, but not crush its economy, because economic growth is the only hope for ever paying Greece’s debts. Greece did accept some reforms, but did suffer a pretty severe economic contraction, with 25% unemployment, which didn’t help matters.

Part of the problem is that lefty Greeks just don’t get it that, to support the lavish government salaries and other spending, you need an economy that actually produces something that earns money. Of course, that’s dirty capitalism. Feh. So Greece’s reforms did little to improve economic productiveness.

And the reforms in question, the so-called “austerity,” merely moved Greece from extreme profligacy to moderate profligacy. This shows just how deep the hole is, and suggests the Europeans probably also erred in failing to bite the bullet of just writing off a major part of Greece’s debt.

Through all this, Greeks have cast the Germans as villains, seeing no reason why they shouldn’t go back to the old ways of living high on the hog on borrowed money they can’t pay back. The Germans see no reason why, having themselves undergone, a decade ago, the same sort of painful reforms now asked of the Greeks, they should have to work to age 65 and pay taxes so the Greeks can retire at 57 with fat pensions and avoid taxes. A classic grasshopper-and-ant story.

Then in January the Greeks elected the Syriza party, a bunch of irresponsible leftists with a platform of rejecting “austerity” and restoring the days of wine and roses. They danced in the streets exulting in this triumph of wishful thinking. The new government, led by Alexis Tspiras, proceeded to make a hash of further bail-out negotiations and to shred any vestige of trust by Europeans. And then, just as it seemed possible that a deal might nevertheless be struck, Tsipras kicked over the table by calling a snap referendum on whether to accept the bail-out terms.

He urged Greeks to vote No, saying they could have their cake and eat it too – twice over – that they could reject Europe’s terms yet stay in the Euro – and, indeed, could reject the deal and see off austerity, returning to their old cushy clientelistic habits. With what money? Who knows.

This insane fantasy Tsipras cast as a matter of national pride – standing up against European (mainly German) blackmail!

Two things happened in the week before the vote. First, Greece defaulted on a scheduled debt payment; a first for a “developed” country. And Greece’s banks all but closed (for lack of money), allowing only small ATM withdrawals, throwing much of the economy and many people’s lives for a loop.

You might think this foretaste of what could lay in store would give the Greeks pause in the referendum vote. You’d be wrong. This vote was a matter of pride, remember. The Greeks are a proud people – proud enough to borrow billions and tell the lenders “Fuck You.” And so they did – a resounding 61% voted No. And again the grasshoppers danced in the streets to celebrate their courage.

What happens now? Tsipras justified the referendum “No” as strengthening his hand to get a better deal from the ants who, of course, lacking backbones, might just cave. But the Europeans had said they’d construe a “No” as a vote to exit the Euro. Greeks have indeed made a courageous bet, and if it comes wrong, those who thought “austerity” was rough ain’t seen nothin’ yet.

It’s not really clear how a country can be kicked out of the Euro. But perhaps it would be as simple as the European Central Bank supplying no fresh Euros; after a time Greece would effectively be forced into a different currency.

The Economist believes Europe should think twice before such a drastic step into uncharted territory. It could pull a thread that unravels the whole fabric. And you wouldn’t want a failed state in the continent, with all the potential tsuris that could entail. Furthermore, Greece could be thrown into the arms of Putin, with whom Tsipras has been playing footsie. But The Economist also thinks that if Greece stays in the Euro, the kinds of crises we’ve seen will keep repeating basically forever.

My view, FWIW, is that Europe should cut off this gangrenous limb once and for all. A Greece-free Euro zone should ultimately be stronger and more stable. And there’s the issue of moral hazard; Greekish behavior should be seen to have consequences, lest others (like Spain) be tempted to follow it.

But Europe should also ready humanitarian aid packages for Greece. We’ll see if the Greeks spit in their faces then.

Christians, Gays, and Sin

Even before the Supreme Court’s gay marriage ruling, I wrote that gays (and the left in general), having basically won this fight, should ease up and be magnanimous, allowing their beaten foes some space for living their beliefs – just as, for years, gays begged for that themselves. The principles of tolerance and pluralism run both ways. But many on the left act as though only their freedoms matter.

On the other hand, some anti-gay and Christian advocates seem to have become unhinged. Listening to them you’d think anti-gayness is the very heart of their religion. As if the Bible’s main message is gay-bashing.

More generally, the Christian side in the “culture wars” of recent decades seems to exhibit an obsession with sex (as David Brooks discusses in an excellent recent column). These folks do a great disservice to their faith. No wonder younger people, with more relaxed attitudes, are abandoning traditional religion in droves.

It doesn’t have to be this way. I’m no fan of religion, but surely it has a better story to tell that is getting lost in all the noise about gay sex. This meshugass makes religion even more absurd than it was already.

The Obergefell gay marriage decision is not going to become another divisive Roe v. Wade. It wasn’t surprising that Roe provoked a huge backlash, since that ruling was legally, culturally, and morally weak. Legally, because its dicey “privacy” theory was not in the Constitution; culturally because the country wasn’t ready for it; and morally there were reasonable, deeply felt arguments against it.

In contrast, there are no good moral arguments against gay marriage. Just because the Bible says something is wrong doesn’t make it so. Christians choose to ignore many of the Bible’s outlandish, atavistic pronouncements (like gathering sticks on the Sabbath also being a sin punishable by death). The true moral criterion (rationally speaking) is whether anyone is harmed, and gay sex and marriage harm no one.

I do not dismiss the dissenters’ contention that this should have been decided by democratic processes, not judicial fiat; I so argued myself, a few years ago. However, I have come around to the Court majority’s view that “equal protection of the laws” properly applies here. Thus Obergefell has much stronger legal legitimacy than Roe did. As for democracy, it seems more like the court was bending to popular opinion than defying it. The nation was ready for this.

The argument that it opens the door to polygamy and so forth is ridiculous. There are sound social policy reasons to ban polygamy (we wouldn’t want Donald Trump hogging all the women – though perhaps any who would join his harem are best left out of the marriage pool anyway). Gay marriage, in contrast, is a positive societal good, with no downsides. More child-friendly two-parent families will help counter the decline of traditional marriage and the resulting social dysfunction.

All this suggests that Christian resistance is not only a lost cause* but a very bad one. Surely religious believers can find better things to talk about than what married people do in bed. Aren’t there worse sins in the world to get upset about than (a small minority of) people loving the “wrong” partners?

I’ve never understood anyway why Christians get so manic about other people’s sins. If they truly are sinful, they’ll simply go to Hell, no? Why isn’t that the end of the story?

Worry about your own sins.

* Who are they kidding, talking of a constitutional amendment? Hello, it would need ratification by 38 states – whereas nationwide public opinion goes the other way.

Introverts versus Extroverts – A Personal Take

Are you an introvert or extrovert? I sure know which I am. (Why do you think I’m sitting here by myself writing a blog?)

One of my book groups has read Susan Cain’s Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking. The basic theme is that introverts aren’t defective, just different, indeed in some ways superior, and the world can benefit from that. There are more introverts than you think; many hide it.

I believe we read books like this to better understand people, but especially to find ourselves in their pages, and ponder the comparisons and contrasts with others. Certainly true for me. I had many flashes of recognition reading Cain’s book.

A repeated motif is how introverted children and youths suffer, trying to fit in. This I did not experience at all. Why? I think I was such an extreme introvert, so socially isolated, that other kids, and their attitude toward me, just didn’t matter to me; hardly even registered with me. Maybe that was good because I grew up uninjured. Albeit socially clueless.

One take-away from the book is that it’s complicated. There are so many convoluted and seemingly contradictory points about intro/extroversion that one’s head spins. It’s no clear-cut, either/or thing. It’s a spectrum, and moreover, what Cain calls intro- and extroversion each entails such a host of disparate characteristics that any given person can mix-and-match.

Surely true of me, despite my childhood. I’m not a down-the-line introvert (or libertarian or conservative). But I do tick a lot of the boxes. One in the book that really rang my bell: “I often prefer to express myself in writing.” Bingo! E.g., this blog again. But it also brought to mind how often in my romantic history I’d felt compelled to take pen to paper, composing some immensely long screed trying to set things right with a woman. (It never worked, except for the last time.)

One introvert profiled in the book, who experienced childhood agony, but wound up successful and happy, says he frequently imagines going back to tell his nine-year-old self how well it will all turn out. Another flash of recognition for me: I do this too. But for my self in my twenties. If I didn’t suffer as a kid, I did then – over women. So I like to go back and tell that earlier self about the fantastic wife he’ll wind up with. I even show him a photo. (But, unlike the guy in the book, I don’t think the message actually got through.)

Another profile, of an introvert-and-extrovert married couple, also gave me an aha! moment, and fresh insight concerning my relationship with Pam, who lived with me unhappily and finally left after twelve years. She was initially attracted to me because I did something much out of character (as a “bad boy;” I’ve written about this), but I didn’t live up to the promise of that episode, and she came to peg me, understandably, at the wrong end of the cold/hot spectrum. Interestingly, that needle moved in my favor (temporarily) when, toward the end, I again did something uncharacteristically hot blooded – a play for another woman. But meantime, our frequent quarrels much resembled those of the couple in the book. Pam was a volatile let-loose type, whereas I, always futilely seeking to dampen conflict, would try to be as restrained as possible in responding. This actually drove her nuts – just like the husband in the book.

So – how did the ultra-introvert child become a seemingly more or less almost normal adult? The book talks a lot about the coping strategies of introverts for achieving their goals, mostly faking extroversion at times. But in my own case, my saving grace was ultra-rationalism. Whereas the book portrays introverts as often struggling with fears, phobias, and anxieties, I never did. A salient example is the extremely common fear of appearing in public. I’ve done it fairly often; I know I’m okay at it; so I’ve never had any stage fright. I think I’m really good at sizing up risks rationally and seeing them in proper perspective.

(Not that I claim perfect, consistent rationality. E.g., with Pam; and (see below) my career choice.)

The book makes a strong case for free will – emotions may be hard to control, but we can and do control our behavior. Introverts especially, tending to be sensitive and reflective. When I finally got out of school (and, importantly, my parents’ home), like many introverts I changed my behavior to get what I wanted. It wasn’t a social life, exactly; what I wanted was girls. So I started doing social things, to meet them (this was pre-Tinder); and brazenly asking out any girl on any pretext. If she laughed in my face (it happened), would it be The End Of The World? That was again my ultra-rationalism at work, figuring the potential gains outweighed the costs. (Though it did take persistence, it paid off in the end, with a jackpot.)

Career is a particular problem for introverts, in a world where “hail fellow well met” is the ideal and flash often trumps substance. While one can, again, fake it, up to a point, the book emphasizes that there are actually a lot of ways for introverts to succeed. It profiles one classic introvert who became a super salesman – basically by perfecting the art of listening to customers. The thing is to seek a career path that actually fits one’s personality type. I became a lawyer – a big mistake of my clueless youth – yet luckily stumbled into a job where most of my work was solitary. (No law firm would hire me; I must have been abysmal in interviews.) Later I stumbled into a different remunerative career (coin dealer) where I rarely even have to encounter other humans in the flesh. Perfect!