What intelligence research tells about social problems

I’ve been reading about intelligence, education and social behavior and some interesting things have been proven.  You probably suspected a lot of this.  All these stats are for white people only, no racial component.

Remember those plots that show if you have only a high school education you’ll likely make $30,000 a year, but if you have a bachelor’s you’ll make $50K and advanced degrees = $90K?  It turns out, while this is true, the distribution for each education level is extremely broad. There are Phds on welfare. There are CEOs who have 8^th grade ed.   The correlation between education level and earnings is about .3 (1.0 or 100% correlation is perfect; zero is none whatsoever)  IQ correlates at about .6 so it is a better predictor of earnings. 

The people who study intelligence were highly persecuted in the 60s and 70s for their proofs that intelligence gives a lot of advantage and it is somewhat inherited.  That was the era when people believed that environment caused everything.  (Well, why try to breed smart sheepdogs? You could just make any old mutt a shepherd.) So the researchers went underground by the way they stopped talking about test scores and began talking about standard deviations away from the curve peaks.  Apparently it worked.  Media and many others couldn’t understand what they were talking about.  Then came the 90s demand for education accountability and testing.  Once again, intelligence measures became important.  A guy with 80 IQ doesn’t make a very good elementary particle physicist. 

The popular concept is that college education skyrocketed after WW II.  No, it actually began growing rapidly about 1920. 1920—2% of population had a bachelors; 1940—8%; 1960—16%;2016—35%.  That reflects the fact that in 1950 the traditional 55% of top quartile of SAT scorers went to college but by 1965 it was 80%.  And it was since about 1960 that the prestigious colleges began to compete for the top HS grads.  Why?  College costs quadrupled from 1950 to 1960, and a lot of middle class families could no longer afford it unless they had a smart kid who could get scholarships.

The result is that people of a certain intelligence and education often only associate with others of similar status, especially in urban areas where many technical people are employed.  The tech revolution has insulated many of the best and brightest from the rest of the people.  This explains why so many of our best politicians come, not from mega-metros but cities of 400,000 or smaller where everyone rubs elbows.  The tech skills are accountants, architects, engineers, professsors, dentists and physicians, mathematicians and scientists and the like.  These 8 jobs suck up 25% of the top 10% in IQ. And as the federal regulations have grown by a factor of six in the last 20 years, it takes a smart guy to start a successful business. Average Joe finds it hard.  Thus in 2014 for the first time in 400 years, America’s number of newly closed businesses exceeded the number of start-ups for the first time. 5-year running average) And interestingly the Supreme Court has forbidden employers from giving intelligence tests, yet these correlate better with successful job performance than anything else—reference checks, interviews, education, or age.  As kids are strongly encouraged to follow education as far as they can make it go, education is now strongly tied to intelligence.  The upper technical fields have seen a real salary increase of about 60% since 1963 while others are up only about 10% in constant dollars.  Hence the new success of Trump’s appeal to lower middle class.   And the nerds mate together just as they live close, thereby producing smart kids.  But it’s a loose correlation.  Ben Carson’s mom will surely object.

Let’s talk social difficulties.  Less intelligent women have most of the out-of-wedlock babies.  But of course there’s debate.  Some would say parent’s socioeconomic status (SES) is the cause.  It turns out that intelligence is more fundamental but SES plays a role too.  A graph of Americans below the poverty line is stunning.  Poverty decreased in a straight line from 1940 when 50% were “poor” to 1969 when the curve flat-lined in the 12-15% range it has had ever since.  The Great Society was supposed to reduce this!  Instead it halted the decline of poverty.  When a group goes from 50% to 15%, who is left behind?  Those who lack thrift, energy, determination and brains, it is likely. 

The statistics about unwed mothers are staggering.  Married women of lowest 2% of IQ are 18% likely to live in poverty.  Those in upper 2% are 1% likely.  But single moms of the lowest 2% IQ are 70% likely to live in poverty.  Upper 2% are still 15% likely. It is as if marriage makes you rich.   And the numbers cut across all reasons for single motherhood—widowed, divorced, and never-married.  This almost says, “If you want kids and means, get married and stay married.” Why are women so adversely affected?  I think it is because men are hard-pressed and measured by career while women who have children will often compromise a job if it adversely affects the children. Equal pay for equal work is the Law.

A HS education has become the norm. The dropout rate doesn’t correlate very well with SES but does correlate strongly with IQ.  It figures.  If you struggle with classes, you are more likely to drop out. The number of disabled and collecting Social Security has increased 50% during the Obama presidency, causing Bill O’Reilly to exclaim, “Has America gotten more hazardous?  That can’t be!”  No, but here’s what the stats tell us.  Low intelligence workers opportunistically claim far more disability.  There is a slightly better safety behavior among the intelligent workers, but the real story is that discouraged workers, finding it harder to keep and find a job, find it more socially acceptable to claim disability and get a sympathetic doc to approve it. And they won’t go crazy watching daytime TV and living leisurely.  Employment of teens who aren’t in school has gone from 85% in 1954 to 63% in 2009 to 51% today.  And when you study the SES of these workers, it suddenly gets interesting.  Unemployed teens drop in unemployment rate as they go to higher IQ.  But it’s the other way around for SES.  The ones who have wealthy parents are more long-term unemployed.  Living in the proverbial basement, I guess.    

The War on the Young

So Disney has now added security personel and dogs.  Rightfully so, I would say.  But don’t mess with Minnie Mouse, she’s packin’.  And you see that Goofy character?  It’s really a bloodhound inside who can sniff a bomb 5 miles away. 

No really, how long are you young people going to keep voting Democrat?  If ever there was a war on young people, it is that party.  Sure, they promise to legalize marijuana—the better to make you a dependent pothead.  But consider how liberal policies really destroy the lives of people just getting started. 

Minimum wage.  Oh, it sounds good to propose $15 an hour.  If implemented, it would help the old union guys press for increases to stay ahead.  It would help the few people at the bottom who can keep their jobs, but it kills the entry job market.  So there you are filling out that form to apply for the job of your dreams and it says, “previous employment?”  What if you have next to nothing?  Sorry, you won’t get the dream job.  Or suppose your parents are not wealthy and you have to work for part of your means to get an education.  Sorry, few jobs available in the service industry.  They’ve all gone robotic and interactive.  Minimum wage absolutely kills young people’s chances for jobs. 

Obamacare.  Great, so you can stay on your parents health care up to 26.  Then what?  You have to buy insurance which is far more expensive for young people than their natural risk would dictate.  That’s because Obamacare demands the young pay more to subsidize the old guys. What if you don’t need insurance? You pay an ever-increasing penalty.  Like one person said, “I paid and I still don’t have any insurance.”  More than that, Obamacare puts a per-worker burden of $5000-$13,000 on employers in 2017.  Guess how many will opt to pay the $2000 penalty for not having health insurance and turn workers loose onto the exchange with the website from hell.  Or employers will opt for more automation.  (You don’t have to pay health care for a customer interface or a robotic cargo loader.) Oh, did I mention that Obamacare’s rules have made employers cut everybody’s part-time hours down to under 30?

Entitlements.  Social Security is about at the point where it brings in less money in payroll deduction than it pays out.  Medicare is also about to go negative this way.  By 2029—13 years from now—the number of retirees will double.  By that time, SS and MC, interest on the national debt, and other mandatory expenditures will be 71% of the budget and by 2050, 91%.  That crowds out discretionary spending on nice things like military protection and national parks.   The Dems have resisted and scuttled every fix of SS and MC spending for the past 20 years.  When you get to retirement age there won’t be much for you either.  Too bad because this could be fixed by increasing the retirement age or cutting benefits to the wealthy—most Republican plans.  The Dems insist on raising taxes and cutting benefits, a poison pill, knowing that the public won’t allow either one.  So the system is going broke, and the young people are still going to have to pay for it.

Economy.  If you load businesses down with regulation, the economy doesn’t grow.  Since 2009, the number of federal regulation pages has increased by as much as were created in all former history of our country. (thanks, Barack, for your executive orders) For the second time in the history of 37 recessions/recoveries in USA, our economy grows at less than 2% and jobs are scarce.  At the same time, people getting out of college have record debt. Student loans, that in their parent’s day were a $15 a month payment, have turned into a house-payment sized burden and it causes young people to spend a decade getting started.

The list could go on.  Education reform is anathema to Dems, but vitally needed by young families for school choice. Abortion has killed 60 million potential humans who would be working today to keep SS solvent. Dems have also created national debt that will someday come home to roost as either crushing inflation and interest rates or an endless stagnant economy.  And Dems are laying off people in the military, killing budding careers. With all this, why would any young person keep voting Dem?  Is the marijuana going to some people’s heads?   

The Rich

Elizabeth Warren said something last night at the Democrat Convention which reminded me why I’m a conservative and a Republican.  She noted that she was a member of the Methodist church and her favorite passage was “If you have done it for the least of these My brothers, you have done it unto Me.” from Matthew 25.  I love that passage too.  It motivates my Christian faith. But I have a different take on it than some Christian Democrats.  The context of Matthew 25 is the great judgment in heaven by the Son of Man, Jesus.  And when he tells the crowd this passage, it is in the context of judging, “ I knew you.” “I never knew you.” This says that the cutting edge indicator of salvation is the personal relationship we have with our Lord.  So when Jesus says our charity aimed at others is really Him disguised in their place, He is saying that we have to do it personally and in a relationship with Him.  Woe to the guy who tries to tell God on judgment day that he is justified by pulling a voting lever for the government to run a program with other people’s money. No skin in the game!

 

I also love Luke 10, the story of the Good Samaritan.  He risks his own life, he has compassion, he reaches out to another who is different, and he spends his own time and money.  The two guys who pass by on the other side were the first century equivalent of a politician (priests were leaders in society) and a government social worker (Levites handled the funds for the poor and destitute).  Now there’s an observation! The government does aid-to-the-needy worse than any bloke who simply lends a hand.  What’s more, personal charity is truly “giving”  The gift comes without strings attached and the giver has no control over what the recipient does with it.  Like God gives to us.  Not so with government.  They don’t give gifts.  You are entitled.  You deserve what you get. Hence there is no grace (undeserved kindness as God gives). And for the guy who gets something there is no forgiveness for having a messed-up life.  Just a government hand-out.   And if government wants to attach an obligation, it can.  That is what the Romans called Liberitus—a gift with a string attached—as compared with Charitus which is a loving gift given freely.  Christian giving, done under a relationship of God who gives us what we don’t deserve, is charity, not entitlement.

 

I used to mentor system kids.  They get to know you and start looking to you for advice.  “You want to learn how to be rich?” I would tease.  “I can teach you how to get rich.  But first you have to be someone special.  Then, with your future secure, you can learn from everything and have the time of your life learning.” Rich people become something.  Donald Trump becomes ‘the Donald’, hence he can go broke and then make it all back because failure doesn’t change the ‘what he is’.  In the eyes of God you are already someone special.  Then you can take a risk and learn from it.  I see all sorts of people who never risk much.  They are locked into a job because of fear of losing the income and the security.  That’s like a Democrat.  Security concerns just kill their initiative.  But God doesn’t want us marching into heaven after a life of ease.  He wants us sliding in, bruised and shaken but trusting in Him for all we are worth, a grin on our face from the adventure. 

 

OPM, Other People’s Money, can either be opium, a drug or just a means.  I hear a lot of people, even Christian advisors, saying you should have no debt, but most rich people Use Debt Wisely.  When you have an enterprise that needs funds, you need to take on debt, but it has to be a proposition that pays off.  You also need to take care of yourself.  If you don’t, you will never be in position to help others.  So the capitalist motive of self-help isn’t so far from the scriptural admonition to give.  A lot of Democrats hate capitalism and the Christians among them make a big deal of money being the root of all evil.  Just this week, the Convention floor was filled with folks saying that corporations should be stripped of profit.  But without profits, there would be no taxes and ultimately no jobs that would pay money.  Having money doesn’t make you happy, just a tool, but it empowers you to do whatever your Lord shows you to do in that all-important relationship.

 

The Dems have such a lottery mentality.  They think profits/success come from luck or larceny.  Few wealthy folks I know are cheats.  Cheat in business means you won’t have many customers tomorrow.  A few seem to hit it lucky at first opportunity, but then, having not learned the lessons of life the hard way, don’t continue to reap wealth or grow haughty.  But the most haughty folks seem to come from the ranks of the credentialized and educated.  There’s another blunder of the Democrats.  They think that without education, there is no opportunity.  Been there, done that, I have a fine education.  Rich people you meet are often humorously lacking in education.  They just studied an aspect of business and worked like the dickens and made it grow.  Where in school do you learn to be Warren Buffet or Bill Gates or JC Penney?  I notice the Democrats passionately hate corporations.  To hate the boss means you don’t like your job.  Because getting along with your boss is a big part of the work.  My advice to the kids was to figure out how to make money from doing what you truly love.  Yeah, there’s dirty work to be done.  But if you love the rest of what you do, the dirty work gets to be routine. 

 

And I think to be rich you are always looking to the future and what possibilities lie there.  If you crab about how your kids won’t have it as well as you did, if you glorify the past as the glory days, then your best days are behind you.  Self-made people I’ve known always seem to be relishing the future challenge. 

 

So if you add it up, and if I’m somewhat correct about what makes people rich, I see why Democrats hate the rich.  None of their life traits fit with being rich.  They are just jealous.  But if you have a unique relationship with the Almighty, why be jealous of what someone else has?  You’re special as special gets. You are rich no matter how much money you have.

Paint your wagon

Steve and I finished working on his 16 ft. flatbed trailer, making it into a campaign wagon.  It looks like the Sooner Schooner but says “Steve  Vaughan State House” on the canopy.  Tag put some retainer pipes on the sides. We used plumbing pipe and then altered and re-altered our design.  In the end, we decided that there was a better way to have done it, but it turned out quite cool the way we did it.  Then we were off to the Pawhuska Independence Day parade and Lake Ponca fireworks slicing watermelons for giveaway. 

Our Christmas Market Oklahoma is moving along quite swell.  We now have over 15 people working on the event, have scheduled the city mobile stage for the music, have arranged with an electrician to put in temporary power, mapped the event, and every group is doing their thing from decorations to food to marketing to vendors.  And again, we have made a lot of wrong turns and would do it better next time, but the thing will surely come off as a great new festival for our town (I hope.  But hope is not a strategy.). 

Someone calculated that the Apostle Paul walked over 28,000 miles in his 4 known missionary journeys.  So that is about 5 miles a day of walking for 20 years.  The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.  If Paul had not been a determined walker, he would have gotten nowhere. 

What I see when I work with folks is utterly too much analyzing and communication.  I go to the lumberyard and employees are talking, talking, talking on these darned walkie talkie things and never load your lumber.  So I wrote the company’s CEO and told him I was a small business guy and noticed this behavior. Take away their stupid phones! His company seems to have learned because they no longer do that.  Go to a committee meeting at church and people sit around philosophizing continually about church life.  We need to do those meetings without chairs.  Like the lumberyard walkie talkies, we are using a chair crutch as an excuse for little activity.  I once talked to a bishop who told me he had 59 churches in his area and 20 were without pastors.  “Every church I talk to,” he said, “wants an entrepreneurial pastor.  Trouble is, only 3% of pastors are entrepreneurial.” You know how to tell if a guy is entrepreneurial?  See if he hates meetings.  See if he humbly admits he has spun his wheels on projects a lot. See if he tirelessly works on a mission from all angles.

The conventional wisdom is that an entrepreneur thinks his product through, assembles his staff and under wonderful directions, gets a stunningly splendid product into the market.  Pah! He gets off his kiester and tries something.  If it works part way, he makes adjustments, adjustments, adjustments. It’s chaotic at times.  He manages to avoid bankruptcy several times.  Or he doesn’t and comes back to try again.  Others look at him and say, “the poor devil just doesn’t know when he is beat!” 

And so it was that Paul was run out of synagogues repeatedly but kept walking.  Vaughan just keeps going to events and shaking hands.  “Kissing babies” he laughs.  But through that tireless listening, he understands his folks, gains their trust, gets their good ideas for legislation, and gets supporters to walk beside him.

An entrepreneur likes to have a partner who spurs him when things get discouraging or does what his talent lacks.  And you can learn to be this kind of person, the way a farm kid gets lectured about “when you see work to be done, get started without being asked.”

Gotta go.  Got things to do.