What would Thomas Friedman think of Mustachianism?

Toward the end of October, Mr. Money Mustache (MMM) wrote an article called "Obamacare: Friend of the Entrepreneur and Early Retiree." In it, he argues that the ACA has the potential to allow everyone in the US to get affordable health insurance without needing an employer. If so, this could provide a degree of freedom for people looking to start their own business, take a job without benefits, or retire early from mandatory work. As MMM writes:

"With this new law, you can now drop the decades-old tradition of great fear and dependence on your employer for health coverage. You can quit your job, switch to another one, or create your own, with no more worry about who will cover you, because cost is affordable and minimal at lower incomes."

As MMM points out, given that early retirees don't have an outside employer and that their income is often derived from passively-earning assets, it's likely that a large portion of them would qualify for federal subsidies. Though one can argue the rights and wrongs of offering relatively wealthy people subsidized health insurance, the ACA does seem to have the potential to move us away from employer-centered insurance.

Perhaps as interesting, however, is the argument that the changing world of employment almost requires we move away from employer-based insurance. This is the argument made by Thomas Friedman in his column from Sunday, entitled "Why I (Still) Support Obamacare."As we've discussed in previous posts (see here and here), Friedman suggests that the recent merger of Globalization and the IT-Revolution has removed many of the walls, ceilings, and floors on--and within which--much of our middle-class prosperity has heretofore rested. In particular, he points to the elimination of many "high-wage or decent-wage, medium-skilled jobs," characterized as one in which: 

"... many people could lead a middle-class lifestyle — with less education and more security — because they didn’t have to compete so directly with either a computer or a machine that could do their jobs faster and better (by far the biggest source of job churn) or against an Indian or Chinese who would do their jobs cheaper."

Increasingly, it appears such lifestyles will require more skills in demanded fields, such as technology, finance, or services, and a deep commitment to continuing education and constant adaptation. Citing Jame Manyika, a "lead research[er] on economic and technology trends at the McKinsey Global Institute," Friedman suggests that:

"...how we think about 'employment' to sustain a middle-class lifestyle may need to expand 'to include a broader set of possibilities for generating income' compared with the traditional job, with benefits and a well-grooved career path."

For Friedman, this "broader set of possibilities for generating income" could include "...leveraging your skills through Task Rabbit, or your car through Uber, or your spare bedroom through AirBnB to add up to a middle-class income." 

At the heart of this argument is the assumption that increasingly, as traditional avenues of employment disappear, large numbers of people will need to take up some form of entrepreneurship. This will not be easy for everyone, and so Friedman believes, "Having a national health care safety net under the vast majority of Americans — to ease and enable people to make this transition — is both morally right and in the interest of everyone who wants a stable society."

From both perspectives--Mr. Friedman's and MMM's--decoupling health insurance from employers is useful; that whether by temperament or of necessity entrepreneurship seems likely to grow, and ensuring such folks can acquire affordable health insurance is one way of broadly supporting them.

Yet I think the picture Mr. Friedman and Mr. Money Mustache paint here is indicative of larger issues than health insurance, or the new healthcare law. Friedman argues that employment is changing, while MMM argues that people could really benefit by making their own jobs. The former views the decoupling of heath insurance from employment as necessary for future stability, while the latter sees it as an incentive to become financially independent and do work one enjoys. 

Reading Friedman's column on Sunday, I wondered what he would think of Mustachianism, the basic approach to life espoused by Mr. Money Mustache, that eschews convenience and encompasses frugality, positive thinking, and an interest in developing our many sources of strength. My personal view is that in a world without ceilings, walls, or floors--the world Friedman sees developing before our eyes--Mustachianism by all its names (think Stoicism, Self-Help, etc.) could help many to thrive in an environment in which the sky is the limit, but traditional paths to success have mostly disappeared.

When I read about Mustachians, I'm struck by their willingness to question conventional ideas while embracing ancient principles like hard work, honesty, and a well-kept mind. Happiness from their perspective is a nurtured condition, tended with close relationships, optimism, a lifestyle full of life-affirming challenges and interesting work (and of course, less stuff).  It's as though they build a modern life using old-fashioned principles, with a wholesome blend of old and new.

I suspect such a blend will come in handy down the road, particularly if Friedman's predictions about the future of work come to pass. And while I can't say what Mr. Friedman would think of Mustachianism, I suspect it represents a useful approach for succeeding in a world short of secure employment, and long on opportunity. We shall see.

In Pursuit of a Dream: Introducing "Glacier Runner"

It's awesome to hear about people pursuing their dreams, and today I have the pleasure of introducing you to one of them.

A few years ago, my friend Dan dropped off the face of the planet for a few months, only to turn up out west climbing mountains, fighting bears (more like running from them--he is a runner after all, though "Running-from-Bears Runner" is a mouthful of a blog title), and being generally badass.

Glacier Runner is the perspective of a smart young man looking to see how fast he can run a marathon, and how many people he can help reach their own running and fitness goals as a coach.

I hope you will all join with me in welcoming our friend Dan to the blogosphere, and wish him luck in the upcoming Boston marathon.

Good luck, sir!

*Edit: Dan decided he liked WordPress better than Blogger, so note the change in links.

A Remembrance of Robert J. Kiefer (1954-2013), or as I knew him, "Mr. Kiefer"

I was surprised and saddened to learn of the death of my long-time neighbor, Mr. Kiefer, this past Thursday. A constant feature of the neighborhood all through my youth and young adulthood, his absence has proven readily apparent, and even now I cannot believe he is gone. He was 59.

Strange to think that as a youngster, I found Mr. Kiefer rather frightening. Perhaps it was his great size or his powerful voice, but whenever I used to head over to play with my friends Mark, Brett, Wade, and Jason, I tended to avoid their dad if I could.

Such avoidance seems silly now, as many of my memories include him doting on Ashes, the family cat, or putting out peanuts for the squirrels (who no doubt liked them, given the incredible number of shells I've found in the garden over the years) .

Sometimes I would hear him playing the guitar through my bedroom window, noodling away at some ditty or other. In later years, as first my brother and then I graduated from high school and college, I had the opportunity to converse with Mr. Kiefer at our graduation parties. Far from frightening, he possessed a keen intellect, and a great interest in music. I learned he was a teacher, and in fact taught two of my cousins some years ago.

 Remembering those conversations, I wonder if perhaps Frodo felt similarly when meeting Farmer Maggot in The Fellowship of the Ring. Chased off the farmer's land as a youth by Maggot and his dogs, Frodo remarks in later years, "I've been in terror of you and your dogs for over thirty years, Farmer Maggot, though you may laugh to hear it. It's a pity: for I have missed a good friend" (p. 137). While I've never been chased by Mr. Kiefer or his animals, nonetheless I think I understand Frodo's sentiments a little better.

For this I am especially thankful, as too frequently I think we let our first impressions carry undue weight in subsequent meetings. To borrow a term from Malcolm Gladwell, we take a "thin slice" of impressions, and use them to judge the whole; like using a slice of a potato to determine if the whole is moldy or not. However natural, this method is clearly flawed, and it is good to have such impressions modified, especially for the better.

I'm glad I got to know Mr. Kiefer a little better, and appreciate more fully the gifts he possessed, and the life he lived. He touched many people, and will surely be missed.

Peace, neighbor

jc

On the difference between action and agent

It's Election Day here in the US, a "holiday" held annually on the first Tuesday of every November. For those who haven't noticed (and I would not fault you if you didn't), our national politics have lately been quite polarized. More than perhaps at any time in my life, there seems to be a kind of vitriol and visceral anger just below the surface of much contemporary discussion, even on topics only remotely related to politics.

Why this is I cannot say, but its result appears to be the polarization not only of political ideas, but also of the respective people who hold political views of any kind. And while the former may be inevitable--that there are usually multiple sides to and interpretations of every issue--the latter is perhaps not, because an action or idea is not the same as the thing that does the act or conceives of the idea. As the Dalai Lama writes in "Ethics For The New Millennium" (1999):

"When we do something negative, we are capable of recognizing the difference between ourselves and the negative act. But we often fail to separate action and agent when it comes to others. This shows us how unreliable is even apparently justified anger" (pp. 96-97).

Read the comment section of almost any news story from an online paper today, and you will probably see not only a substantive debate over ideas, but also attacks of varying degrees against people who hold them; for example, an advocate of single-payer healthcare becomes, in the eyes of some, a socialist-taker-moocher-leftist-traitor, and a global-warming denier an ignorant-uncaring-regressive-right-wing-tea-party-nutcase. Not one of these labels include "human," which I assume all commenters are, and few seem interested in dissembling a person's ideas from who they actually are. We are thus left not only with divided politics (which has been historically normal and even healthy in most democracies and republics), but also a divided sense of who warrants the basic respect afforded to people in general. So while a difference of opinion and world-view is perhaps a good thing for a country, it becomes less useful when we forget that those with whom we disagree are people too, and are more than the sum of the ideas they have.