patrick.net

JH,

essentially all Wall street jobs, M&A, IPO, trading, hedge funds, pushing USD around so to speak. The more USD they push around, the more USD they make and the more USD they get to push around.

15 years ago, people in the same position made far less. A director or managing director at a major IB made *only* 300-800K. Nowadays, they are making record salary plus bonus, in the neighborhood of close to 2M.

Wall Street has been around for a long time, no sign of rebellion in the masses.

JH,

I'm not a financial accountant, but have studied quite a bit of it in order to understand GAAP statements. My wife was a financial accountant for many years.

Financial accounting is a means by which everyone is supposed to be using the same measure. Apples to apples. Cost accounting is economic in nature. Financial accounting is comparative in nature. Cost accounting depends upon the intent of the organization using it. Some operations are best accounted with cost allocation, some with activity-based-costing, some with other types of methods. None of those methods can be compared to one another. If you tell me your department is adding positive contribution using one method, and another dept. says the same using another, yet the company is losing money because of improper allocation of fixed costs, for example, then how do we resolve this?

We force everyone to use the same cost accounting method, of course, as dictated by corporate finance, to make it all apples-to-apples. But that's all cost-accounting.

Now try to compare companies, in different industries of different sizes to one another. How do I know if a mining operation is being managed any better than a software company? They will necessarily cost-account in wildly different ways.

The normalization of all that into a universal scoreboard is Financial Accounting.

It is necessarily complicated, and there are raging theoretical debates about its form and direction. The IASB (mainly Europe) argues "market value" means one thing while the FASB argues it means something else. If they can't agree then investors cannot be expected to make rational investment decisions even assuming they get all their accounting perfect.

You mentioned revenue accounting indirectly earlier. This area alone has spawned enormous amounts of evolution in accounting due to the rapidly changing meaning of a "customer", "sale" and "payment". When is a sale a sale? When you get the money? What if their is a contractual promise to the customer for future performance which could cause a related charge-back? What portion is revenue when? Unless someone puts forth a set of uniform rules and requires that everyone reconcile to them, the very word revenue is meaningless.

This stuff is extremely complicated, and without it there would be no basis for any type of financial equity markets at all.

Financial accounting dates to 1494, predating cost-accounting by many centuries. Cost accounting is a modern invention of economic optimization, dating back to the early 20th century and the need to manage efficiently manage large, complex industrial operations.

JH,

Revenue accounting is incredibly complicated. Your one logical rule you produced from the chargeback scenario is but one of thousands upon thousands of issues that occur in the real world. And that's just revenue. What about depreciation, or investments, or expenses. How about when these should all be timed? You can't just let everyone do it on a cash-basis, or they'll just delay collections or accelerate expenses whenever they want to change a number.

Start making rules for all of those and you have the FAS.

I get demoralized when my mechanic starts spewing thisandthat about my car engine which I don't understand at all due to its insane complexity. That doesn't make his efforts unworthy of my respect, even if some mechanics use this to lie to people like me and steal our money.

John,

C'mon. You're tilting at windmills. Financial accountants caused the IPO to tank? LOL. I have to hear that one. You do know the difference between financial accountants and investment bankers I hope.

EBITDA means nothing without financial accounting. How do you think E D and A are determined?

Listen, I'm not going to try to explain why a cash-accounting system is prone to rampant fraud and gaming. Go take a class if you really want to know. I'm also not going to waste anymore time patiently explaining to someone who isn't interested in listening. I just find it more than a bit offensive that you are so willing to broadly indict a whole group of people whom you freely admit you don't understand what they do or why they do it. Go back to 1493 if you don't like financial accounting.

John Haverty and Jon,

I was gone for most of the evening so missed most of your “spirited” exchange (in the previous thread), which I deleted beyond the point where the debate degenerated into childish name-calling.

Please refrain from engaging in personal attacks and/or responding to personal attacks from others. Violating this rule in the future may lead to having your posts quarantined in moderation or banned altogether. Consider yourselves warned.

If you both wish to continue your flame war, please consider a more appropriate venue for this sort of thing, such as Craigslist.

And now back to our regularly scheduled programming…

Do not be depressed. Studies like this have been underestimating the future since before any of us were born. 30 years ago they told us there would be no more oil by now, that starvation and disease would cause a world crisis by now, that our economy would crash long ago.

However, technology leads to greater productivity and we create more food and other goods with less efort, enabling greater wealth.

What this study also fails to adequately include is the effect of the boomers on the labor markets during their working life. So many workers depress wages... for everyone. As the boomers retire a labor shortage will develop and real wages will climb faster than before.

Typically a retiring person accumulates the vast majority of their retirement wealth in the last 10 years before retirement. Typically a family spends like crazy in their 40s and early 50s (bigger house, college and other offspring expenses), often ending that period with less wealth than at the beginning of the period. The boomers have been in this phase and the first of them are five years into the last working decade. Unfortunately they (as a group) are not accumulating wealth for retirement. However, I expect that the generations that follow will perform better during those age years due to the reduced labor market competition.

Foreign competition will continue to be an issue. However, it should be remembered that this global competition is not new. It has been evolving in notable way for the US for many decades. Of course, it has actually been evolving since the beginning of all international trade.

Zephyr,

Am I a glutton for punishment or what! In spite of George's warning, uh I went ahead and read it anyway. Your absolutely right. We've all seen the charts and graphs but the actual real life application is quite different. Consumption peaks (if Harry Dent is to be believed) in the late 40's. I'm now 47 and have cut consumption to near ZERO! Much of this is not by choice. After your Dr. prescribes your "new diet" the shopping cart is almost as empty when you leave the grocery store as when you came in! Most things are paid down (if not off) and other than helping with college and a wedding or two it is time to "ramp up" your retirement accounts. To my way of thinking it's more about curtailing consumption than "ramping up". True, we're in our peak earning years but that would also tend to imply that we've "peaked" income wise! I certainly don't consider myself a boomer and have never lived or thought like one so it's easy for me to criticize but if those in their last half decade in the work force don't get a handle on their consumption habits they're going to have issues.

Do we really need a 2nd/vacation home?

Will we live without a state of the art motorhome?

Are expensive vacations a must?

Is XM/Sirius Radio really necessary?

Guess what?
back over 6 months ago, I made a "housing bubble podcast" and put it up on Itunes. I totally forgot about it because nobody listened to it. Anyhow, just this week alone, I've gotten over 50 emails from people asking when I'm going to make more of them. The fact that there is so much recent intrest in a housing bubble podcast must be telling of the changing sentiments.

JH,

Ahem, I hardly consider myself an authority when it comes to accounting (regardless of discipline) but what I've learned over the years is that it's not so much the bean counting itself but the "relationship" that matters. Unlike Euro firms where I believe there is a rotational requirement, no schmoozy good old boys here. Firms toe the line b/c they know that next year they may be assigned a different firm. By the time Enron had collapsed Arthur Anderson had plush full time offices located right in Enron's corporate headquarters. Yes, complete with ex-stripper "receptionist"! It's really no different then when a meat packing plant (that had been on strike for a really really long time) has cushy offices for "their" USDA inspector. Once they are "owned" it becomes a matter of "how do WE spin this". One stock analyst described himself in an "inter-office" memo as "Your loyal _ _ _ _ employee"! It's the "relationship" that goes bad.

Zephyr,

Well said. I tend to be long-term very optimistic about the US economy and strategic position. It's odd that my position is regarded as an unlikely, risky attitude given the weight of history. If someone wishes to play the odds then their money would be on the US and its workers for many generations to come. Perhaps some are just getting impatient waiting for the world to end.

Sure there are real problems. They are nasty problems which will be hard to fix. But, we've had even worse problems before, faced certain doom before, yet somehow transformed, restructured and reemerged even stronger. Maybe this time is different. Someday, it will be. And someday, the world will end too. But odds are that you're wrong at guessing when, and odds are I'm right at taking the other side of that bet.

One interesting study that the FT covered and I saw referenced in other biz press too was relating to the coming Generational Talent Shortage. In short, it goes like this:

- Boomers are retiring. In fact, they are retiring earlier than the previous 2 generations.

- This is leaving a hole (as Zephyr describes). Specifically, this is causing a growing "Management Crisis".

- There is a perception (somewhat founded, somewhat unfounded) that Gen X is largely a lost-generation of management. Few GenX went through the traditional "management path" during their career's window of opportunity.

- GenX suffered a perfect storm that caused them to largely miss out on management indoctrination opportunities: The 90s boom made it more profitable to eschew corporate management programs for riskier opportunities to strike it rich. The 90s boom caused large corps to suspend their management programs in an attempt to try to adapt to the "new economy".

- From the early 90s through the mid 00's companies aggressively outsourced, downsized and offshored often displacing those GenXers who did follow the traditional management path at just the time when they should have begun rising from middle to upper management.

- Now Boomers perceive GenX is too old to properly indoctrinate/train/educate, etc.

- Many companies are implementing incentive to retain Boomers post retirement as consultants to plug management gaps.

- Many companies are implementing plans to accelerate the advancement of "Millenial Gen" managers (usually called Gen Y by the authors; meaning the gen after X).

The conclusions were that this all bodes very well for younger workers today. They will have the most opportunities to rise in their careers as they in both perceived and actual high demand. It bodes ill for Xers who aren't those lucky ones who managed to navigate through the past 15 years into upper management. For those lucky Xers in upper management today, they probably have the most upside yet to come as they will be a unique (or at least percieved as such) resource, highly coveted by their companies and competed for by other companies.

newsfreak,

That is a tough one. Previously I have mentioned HSA's (Health Savings Accounts) and it has gone over "like a turd in a punchbowl". After several down dressings a round of brow beatings and one sound thrashing I'll refrain from being a mindless spokesman for a corrupt administration! However; I (like yourself) am concerned for my children. This program has been described as "welfare for the rich" and to a degree that is true. If we can incentivize wealthier older Americans to opt for this program fewer will be reliant on "Medi-whatever"*

The "work to death/Walmart greeter" crowd is not a myth. They do exist. And I blame their children.

newsfreak,

Yeah, my brother worked in construction much of his life and all of that without any meaningful benefits of any kind. He's now in his mid-40's and has little in retirement savings and no health benefits. "Employers" like contractors know full well that this is a dead end and all the while have this "income bubble" surrounding them! Meaning they are used to a certain lifestyle and if cutting your benefits or YOU loose, well then that's what they're a gonna do. It's just one of those situations where everyone in the equation is "disposable". The vendors, suppliers, partners, employees and certainly the future FB's. It's all a momentum play and those guys strictly live for the day.

Newsfreak,
In my opinion, skilled trade is just like corporate work: Some kinds of work pays more than others. I'm a graphic designer, and since there is still a glut of them from the dot-com, the wages are just OK. Not great, and definantly not in line with costs of living here in CA.
On the other hand, when I was a tool salesman, I knew a lot of guys who worked as skilled wood carpenters making things like front gates for wealthy people's homes, and charged a minumum of 100k per gate. I also knew housepainters that did really well. ( again painting the homes of the wealthy).
Mechanics do pretty well too. I've thought about getting my ASE certification because you START at 60-65k as a mechanic at a dealership and upwards to 100k. Even my tiny little lawn mower repair business pays decently for what little I do of it. Change the oil and sharpen the blade for $40. That takes me 20 minutes.
I'd say that right now, carpentry for people that work under a large company is probably the worst place to be. You're right: day workers from Mexico will work all day long for $10 a hour. They used to stand outside our store and wait around for contractors to pick them up. What's more is that a lot of these guys are good. They're used to building houses with hand saws, hammers, and chisels. Not power tools.
I think skilled mabor will make a comeback: everyone told their kids to go to college. Now there's hardly anyone left who can repair or make anything. This weekend I had to go all the way out to El cerrito to get parts for a lawn mower because the shop near my houe closed. NOBODY sells engine parts anymore. This guy had people waiting out the door. So the opportunity is out there. You just have to study the market like any other.

Newsfreak,
When I was in college, I was the repairman at a small hardware store. I learned how to glaze windows, screen screen doors and storm windows, sharpen knives, cut blinds, repair lamps, vaccum cleaners, toasters, and other small appliances. We charged something like $15-20 a screen, $50 a window, $45 a lawn mower, and $3 per knife. Little easy jobs that raked in BIG bucks. The boss was a cheap bastard and paid me $9 an hour while he owned a block of brownstones in Boston, a ski house up north, and sent his kids to private school. I always figured that someday, if things ever got super-bad, I could fall back on some of these skills. The only problem is that you only see this kind of service in very affluent places. Middle class people will not pay $30 for a screen. I don't blame them. But someone that makes the big bucks doesn't think twice. So in reality, I'd still be in the upside down cost of living equation if I did this.

There's this old hardware store down the street from us. It has absolutly everything you could possibly imagine. After working in hardware store for 7 years, I know what to look for. They have things like Mogle bases, loose panes of glass, oven wire, oven gaskets, socket adaptors, class A, B, and E screws and bolts, stainless hardware, and on and on. We live within 2 blocks of the place. There has been many times when I'm repairing a client's mower and I had to fabricate a piece for it, and this hardware store saves me every time. I've thought that maybe someday I might open my own hardware store complete with a wood floor, potbelly stove, cracker barrel with a checkerboard with rocking chairs, and of course- endless rows of loose nuts, bolts, light bulbs,and paintbrushes. People like old places. A old-fashioned hardware store tha also gave people a place to talk to each other would be a hit, especially since the Home Depots offer none of that. again.. I think this would only work in a wealthy area, but perhaos it would be sucessful enough to hold it's own merit. and pay me enough to stay.

newsfreak,

It's been my experience that most contractors live off of borrowed money. They are part of the crowd I call "sophisticated debtors". They know how to work the system. They're not so much experts at construction as they are experts at borrowing. Fret not. Builders in our area are already paying 8% and giving up HALF of the profits to their lenders. First the motor home goes then the place at the lake. These guys live large but just before the last "up scale" home goes up they are broke! And they all go broke eventually. Many know it's all contrived and don't care. Many times you'll see luxury homes half built and wonder why doesn't the builder finish it so he can get paid? Ahem, he already did.

Dinor,
On my way to work every day, I pass by brand new Ford dually truck after another: $47,000 trucks that suck down $150 a week in gas. Some contractors definantly live large in more ways than one.

WW2,

We have them in droves up here in Oregon. I don't mind really. It's when these guys that haven't worn a nail apron in years (can no longer negotiate beer gut) and "need" a 1 Ton Dualie to "check" the job site! They're a dime a dozen and not one orange apron wearing bot at Home Depot wasn't a "successful contractor" at one time. My father did remodeling for the well to do in Chicago for years from his station wagon. Straight Six, three on the tree. I guess he had the good sense to have the supplier deliver to the job site.

SFWoman Says:

I don’t see anything wrong with working when you are older. You get to see people, interact with others, get out of the house.

The problem is when you are FORCED to work b/c of economic circumstances, not b/c you WANT to work to keep active, interact, etc.

George,

Because FL seems to be the epicenter for the correction your degree of comfort has got to be higher. Here on the west coast we are just now thinking this is another garden variety hangover and are fumbling for some aspirin. (We haven't looked out in the driveway yet so we're not aware of the car's condition!) That realization may not come until after that "booze snooze" on the couch. While you are already confronting "the uglies" we are apparently of the impression that just a little more sleep will set everything right. Except in Sacramento.

*Having long since grown up Mr. DinOR does not advocate drinking and driving!

skibum,

Welcome back! Much for you to get caught up on! Sentiment has taken a turn for the worse in your absence. MSM now churns out daily articles on the HB and it seems that stories about FB's sell enough papers to offset realtors "price reduced" listings. PIMCO's Exec. VP is now a renter. (But they're so damn bearish anyway).

I don't feel sorry for people who "have" to work when they are elderly. A lot of them don't really "have" to work.

My in-laws are both in their 80's, and they survive exclusively on Social Security. And they hardly collect any benefits, because my father-in-law retired at 62 and my mother-in-law only gets like $250 per month since she only worked in the US for about a year back in the 60's.

We help them out, paying all of their property taxes, phone bill, utilities, DirectTV, etc., and take care of all home and car repairs. I may buy the FIL a new car if the old '88 Taurus finally give up the ghost. But if they had to go it alone, they could handle these expenses too.

Their lives are not at all miserable. They go to church every day, have a social life, and basically enjoy relaxing in their old age.

You don't need a lot of money to enjoy retirement. I know that if my house was paid for, I could survive on the maximum benefit of @$1900/month without any difficulty. And married couples get even more.

You don't need an RV or an expensive golf club membership to enjoy retirement. Heck, by the time you are in your late 80's and 90's its often hard just to get into and out of the car, the last thing you want to do is fly somewhere.

There is no reason why someone cannot have an okay retirement on Social Security. Sure, retirement would be nicer if you could buy a Cadillac every couple of years and eat at fancy restaurants every week, but it is hardly necessary.

DinOR Says:

Welcome back! Much for you to get caught up on! Sentiment has taken a turn for the worse in your absence. MSM now churns out daily articles on the HB and it seems that stories about FB’s sell enough papers to offset realtors “price reduced” listings. PIMCO’s Exec. VP is now a renter. (But they’re so damn bearish anyway).

Thanks. I think what you really mean is sentiment has turned (slightly) more realistic. The BB speech and market response were fun to watch, too (especially if you're not underdiversified). It is interesting to me that with all these overt signs that the correction is starting to accelerate some of the faithful here are doubting whether or not a correction is indeed coming. It's just a matter of time...

RE: working into retirement, there's an annoying sense of entitlement from many retirees or soon-to-be retirees. Social Security, pension plans, our health care insurance system and the like were designed for a population that doesn't live much past 70 years old. Hence, retiring in your 60's led to no more than 10 years of retirement. Nowadays, with life expectency pushing or beyond 80 years, that's at least double the retirement time. Add to that the baby boomer demographics and the lack of retirement planning, and it's going to get ugly.

Zephyr Said:

Do not be depressed. Studies like this have been underestimating the future since before any of us were born. 30 years ago they told us there would be no more oil by now, that starvation and disease would cause a world crisis by now, that our economy would crash long ago.

What this study also fails to adequately include is the effect of the boomers on the labor markets during their working life. So many workers depress wages… for everyone. As the boomers retire a labor shortage will develop and real wages will climb faster than before.

I wouldn't be too sure about this, given the "perfect storm" preventing most Gen-Xers from moving into management (see Randy H's execellent 7:14am post) and the likely reality that many Boomers --especially late Boomers-- are going to have to work well into their golden years (see Newsfreak's 7:06 am post), thus tying up many of those plum openings that would otherwise go to Gen-X or Gen-Y workers.

I recall reading an article in Time (or Newsweek?) just as I was graduating from college 15 years ago that said my generation was going to have it better than any that came before it --including the Boomers. The author was convinced of this, because of this so-called future "labor shortage" caused by there being so few in my generation to take the place of retiring Boomers. We were all supposed to be fabulously wealthy and sought after by the time we reached 30.

Guess that prediction didn't turn out so well, did it? Nor do I expect Zephyr's re-hashed version of it to turn out to be broadly true, either --excepting a few Google-aire type lottery winners, of course.

Yes, better technology lead to greater productivity, and we have long been shifting from a mainly producer/industrial economy to service economy for some time now. However, I don't quite buy the line that all or most of those productivity gains are due to better technology. A lot of the productivity gains over the past 30 years have been due to working-class people simply working HARDER and LONGER for less pay). I also don't buy that a lot of these productivity gains actually get returned to workers in the form of pay and benefits. As Randy H already pointed out, the top 10-15% are getting fabulously wealthy, while the bottom 85% are treading water or losing ground.

tannenbaum Says:

Perhaps, but after spending your entire adult working life paying into these systems - SS and Medicare - one would at least logically hope to see something from it. If I’m not going to receive any of these benefits in 30 years then I shouldn’t have to pay into them now!!

Well, wouldn't that be great, if we could elect not to contribute to SS or FICA and pocket the $$ instead? For anyone later than the Boomer generation, that would be advantageous, since we're not likely to see any return from that "investment," given a bankrupt system.

Another problem with the "retiring Boomers = labor shortage & windfall for Gen-X/Y" theory is the workers : retirees ratio. Right now it's something like 3 workers : 1 retiree (mostly WWII & Silent gen). In 20 years it'll be 1.5 : 1.

Think your payroll taxes & FICA (S.S. & Medicare) are high now? Just wait til 2026.

Do not be depressed. Studies like this have been underestimating the future since before any of us were born. 30 years ago they told us there would be no more oil by now, that starvation and disease would cause a world crisis by now, that our economy would crash long ago.

There soon won't be any more oil....So they were off a few years!

Sounds like 5 years ago:

bubblehead >
The bubble is going to break in about a year and all property prices will crash.

housing bull >
Nonsense, it is different this time. Real estate will just keep going up, not because the fundamentals are there, but because I say so!

2 years later:

housing bull >
What bubble? There's no bubble! Look at the fool who said that real estate was going to crash last year and it appreciated another 60% instead.

bubblehead >
No one can predict the exact date that the bubble will crash. My prediction of a housing crash will happen, possibly next year.

2 years later:
housing bull >
Look I gave you another 2 years. Real estate only goes up.

bubblehead >
I'm not making anymore predictions, but I'm sticking to my guns that RE is going to crash!

It is now june of 2006:
Housing bull is in denial thinking that somehow the real estate market will get going again, but it's never going to happen. Housing bull has nothing to say....
Bubblehead's prediction is off by several years but it did happen. The bubble has popped and the crash is under way.

"Go back to 1493 if you don’t like financial accounting."

Randy H -- Actually, I enjoyed reading your Accounting 101 posts today. Glad you took the time. You did a good job. But as for 1493 -- just one question -- if I go back to that, does that mean I get to see you in a chastity belt with one of those cool metal pee tubes installed in the front? Those are cool!

I recall reading an article in Time (or Newsweek?) just as I was graduating from college 15 years ago that said my generation was going to have it better than any that came before it –including the Boomers. The author was convinced of this, because of this so-called future “labor shortage” caused by there being so few in my generation to take the place of retiring Boomers. We were all supposed to be fabulously wealthy and sought after by the time we reached 30.

HARM,

I recall when I was in grade school, companies were outsourcing manufacturing jobs and my teacher was explaining this to us all. My teacher explained to us that we must learn specialized trades when we grow up because manufacturing jobs would be either outsourced or taken over by robots. The teacher asked us all what we were going to do..... I said I was going to build the robots, I figured that would be a safe career. I have become an Engineer, a specialized trade and even these kinds of trades are being outsourced. I would never be comforted by one article by one author.

allah,

I must have been one of your less discussed "prototype models".

I suppose much of the reason I still don't identify with the boomer crowd is b/c when I came off active duty military in 1989 the stock market had just crashed and employers were taking some pretty austere measures. Boomers were feeling pretty good about themselves so they were generous with "quota" hiring. PC became all the rage. Many of the guys in my "reserve" unit got decent gov. jobs they'd had since they returned from the Viet Nam era. Their attitude was (as always) I got mine, go get yours. B/c there were so few mfr. jobs and fierce competition for technical jobs many of us wound up in sales. For me it worked out. But think about it. When I came to retail brokerage, their were no existing clients for you to manage. There were NO benefits. Basically it was, there's your desk, here's a phonebook and a roll of quarters so get callin'! No real training to speak of, just a "boot strap" effort and a lot of OT. So what did my "employer" really give me? Well, we had to pay for our leads, rent our desk and cover our phone bills. So........ basically nothing. That's why me likey boomers!

HARM,

My point is when you're "taking deep pork" in the job market it's often difficult until YEARS later. Most of the logic I was fed went along these lines. "Hey kid, my first job wasn't my dream job either!" "None of us start at the top!" So you tell yourself that you're just a whiner and need to "suck it up" and you'll get your chance! Well, two years of night classes later. Then three years goes by and you finally have to simply reject all of the bad dope you've been fed, fall back and regroup! There's a lot of career guidance "malpractice" going on out there.

@DinOR,

I think many fiscally conservative, working-class late Boomers such as yourself have a perspective much closer to Gen-X than to the generally spoiled uber-PC early Boomers. For that matter, there are some extremely obnoxious Gen-X/Y snotty spoiled-rich brat types (Paris Hilton) with whom I cannot identify at all.

Fuck the elite, ruling greed class of all ages and colors. Long live the Proletariat! :-)

I think many fiscally conservative, working-class late Boomers such as yourself have a perspective much closer to Gen-X than to the generally spoiled uber-PC early Boomers.

Late boomers have Pluto in Virgo, real boomers have Pluto in Leo. They are very different indeed.

BTW, I am quite spoiled, especially when it comes to food.

We should not hate boomers. They are simply who they are.

Pluto in Virgo

What does that mean?

http://www.astrologyweekly.com/learn-astrology/pluto-in-virgo.php

Fuck the elite, ruling greed class of all ages and colors. Long live the Proletariat!

We jest, but anyone with a long view of history knows that Revolution is a risk when the ruling class takes an excessive share of society's fruits. Unfortunately, the middle class (which I assume is the majority on this board) rarely sees their fortunes improved with the revolution.

Also, with new wiretapping rules, it should be a lot easier to stifle dissent and claim counter-terrorism when you go Brazil on the radicals who are dissatisfied.

Hold on, we have an unusual visitor coming over to my cube. BRB...

Fuck the elite, ruling greed class of all ages and colors. Long live the Proletariat!

Are you now or have you ever been a communist?

HARM,

Thanks! The weird part is that true died in the wool boomers can smell a guy like me coming a mile away. I figured out early on that I would never be a part of their club. Typically they'll warn their friends in advance. The minute they find or figure out you're from a lower middle class neighborhood (and judging from your age) they know there are others infinitely more worthy of their considerable generousity.

Well, gee thanks for the heads up "Chad" I kinda fucking figured that out for myself.