Statement https://www.socialpsychology.org/member/aaron-davis
If you’ve recently watched movies like "Inequality for All" with Robert Reich or read Andrew Yang’s book,
“The War on Normal People” or wondered how the country has become so polarized by right and left wing
headbangers, we may be sharing the same uncomfortable feeling called cognitive dissonance (the discomfort
from holding two conflicting beliefs). How can technology, automation and artificial intelligence offer us all
such amazing Positive Selves while the Self-schema that over half of Americans accept barely pays the bills
and offers little chance of living above subsistence level social security income when we inevitably become
permanently unemployed. Do we attribute this to our capabilities and attitudes, to our chosen media's
salient messaging of what a “good life” is, or to some unforeseen situation we just find ourselves in?
Not everyone gets a great career with a powerful company that offers generous 401k contributions, to secure
our future. Many are unprepared to adapt to the biggest immediate threat they face. Compared to other
popular issues like Racial Replacement Theory and COVID-19, more lives will be shortened if even a small percentage of the
200 million Americans living below the Micawber Threshold (MT) become homeless. We’re fortunate that
we only have 600,000 Americans who are homeless, and living an average of only 17.5 fewer years. As a
lifespan issue this is much worse than cancer, heart disease, cigarettes or anything else I can think of. We need to act
fast to save as many as we can and stop this slide into a country of scroungers, and kleptoparasites, dependent on handouts from
a few compassionate elites.
Last year's financial stimulus payments helped reduce the numbers who live hand to mouth from a high of
70% to around just 56% of the population. But this was just a temporary $6T band-aid that our children will
somehow pay for. But the problem with Yang’s Guaranteed Minimum Income or the Democrat's Child Tax Credit is that it
cannot be sustained without a serious nudge, (or maybe a shove) to encourage people to save more
of their income. We can expand social security and Medicare to 50% of wages like they've done with the Singapore Central Provident Fund, or recognize the true value of under compensated workers with a Universal 401k plan that offers everyone what Voltaire's Candide resolved "Cultivate Your Own Garden", but with a portfolio of appreciating assets rather than a literal garden..
What Voltaire suggested in Candide is we forget about the media and the markets and use whatever capacity
for foresight and good judgment we have to, “Cultivate One’s Own Garden”. The difference between now
and 1759 is that today’s garden is not an orchard of figs and dates. Rather the garden of today is a portfolio
of appreciating assets cultivated and nurtured over many generations to provide for a long and happy life.
The purpose of this Statement and my being a student here, is to find ways to change both attitudes, and
situations using the science of Social Psychology to persuade those above poverty, but below the MT, to
challenge hyper-salient Madison Avenue misconceptions of the good life and embrace programs like
Financial Independence Retire Early (FIRE), fellowships and or other support networks that can help as many
as we can to avoid homelessness. For my single reviewers, let me know what you think about the FIRE Dating
App https://firedating.me/ .
Further reading:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/agricultural-and-biological-sciences/kleptoparasitism
Thaler, R. H., & Sunstein, C. R. (2008). Nudge: Improving decisions about health, wealth, and happiness. Yale
University Press.
https://www.cnbc.com/2022/01/19/56percent-of-americans-cant-cover-a-1000-emergency-expense-withsavings.html
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5739436/#:~:text=The%20average%20life%20span%20of,9.
85)%20of%20a%20homeless%20female.
"The Micawber Threshold (MT) divides those able to engage in a virtuous circle of savings and accumulation
from those who cannot. it otherwise might because one‐off perturbations can have persistent effects, i.e.,
the system can be shocked from one stable equilibrium to another by a single event. "
http://barrett.dyson.cornell.edu/Papers/Barrett%20Carter%20Poverty%20Traps%2012%20May%20revision.
pdf
https://www.dallasfed.org/~/media/documents/research/papers/2012/wp1204.pdf