Missives

Another buzzword is born

Of everyone earning a wage in 2008, 1 in 34 earned nothing in 2009. That’s right, roughly six million individuals just dropped out of the economy all together, not earning a single penny last year. The data show that there were just 150.9 million Americans who earned any wages in 2009. That means there are actually fewer wage earners than there were in 2005, when there were 151.6, despite a growing population. And even though there are fewer workers, they are taking home less. The average wage in 2009 fell $243 to $39,269, and the median wage was just $26,261, falling by $159. Far from keeping up with the cost of living, both the average and median wages fell by 0.6 percent compared to the year before. Half of all workers took home less than $505 a week.

Political equality is a sacred idea to Americans; economic equality, however, is not. Spreading the wealth is what Marx wanted to do, and Mao. One rallying cry of the Tea Party has been that health-care reform, the stimulus, and the proposed climate change legislation all amount to stealthy ways to redistribute billions of dollars downward. The impending elections are expected to sweep into Congress a crop of Republicans vehemently opposed to the leveling effects of activist liberal government.

So it might be surprising to learn that Americans are in broad agreement on the need for a more equal distribution of wealth. Yet that’s what a forthcoming study by two psychologists, Dan Ariely of Duke University and Michael I. Norton of Harvard Business School, has concluded. When asked to give their ideal distribution, they described, on average, a nation where the wealth distribution looks not like the U.S. but like Sweden, only more so—the wealthiest quintile would control just 32 percent of the wealth, the poorest just over 10 percent. “People dramatically underestimated the extent of wealth inequality in the U.S.,” says Ariely. “And they wanted it to be even more equal.”

Let’s play a “what if” game. What if Foursquare wasn’t using MongoDB? What if they were using something else?

Their first main finding: increases in inequality are associated with a conservative shift in mood and increasing opposition to welfare. Their second main finding: increases in inequality are associated with a conservative shift among both the wealthy and the poor. One natural objection: perhaps some citizens, and especially poorer citizens, just do not realize that inequality has increased. But the third main finding contradicts this: over time, the poor are actually more likely to perceive increased inequality than do the wealthy.

Mad Men: Uh no. You see, our show is about the world of white ad men. Blacks weren’t part of that world. It’s not racist, it’s just how it was and our show reflects that… but we do have female characters… and we do find a way of addressing women’s issues… which weren’t a part of an ad man’s world either really so… um…

Boardwalk Empire: When you’ve got a show, you decide who the show is about. It isn’t born in one concrete unchangeable way. Our show is about a corrupt white politician, and his mobster cronies, but we’ve also got a fantastic black character. It’s not so hard to do you know. You just make a black character that’s relevant to the life of your main guy. There you go. Bada boom. Psst, you write the show, you create the characters remember? It’s only “pandering to a rosy version of history” if you ain’t creative.

Alabama apparently does not want any thoughtful dialogue on the national championship race. The Crimson Tide wants to end the discussion on half of the national championship matchup in January and make itself the plain choice for the title game against any of a half-dozen challengers who all look like underdogs.

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They’re not rivals, they’re not equals and they’re not friends, and the next time the schedule sends Urban Meyer to Bryant-Denny Stadium, his own personal house of horrors, the Florida coach might want to plan another sabbatical. The last time they met, they rushed Meyer to the hospital later that night. They should rush him back to the drawing board this time.

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This is the Alabama everyone feared Nick Saban would build. Whine about oversigning if you want. Complain about how bloodless Saban can seem if it makes you feel better. But don’t dispute this: Alabama is the best team in college football right now, and a team that can turn a squad full of fleet five-star recruits into mincemeat despite all but forgetting about the accelerator in the second half.

2105:

On average, a Facebook user who “likes” your content has more than double the number of friends than does a typical Facebook user. This could mean the user is more “social” or more influential, but on the other hand, it could mean the user is an attention-seeking narcissist. While it’s fatuous to read too much into that statistic, the number does show that the average “liker” is more active from a social-web standpoint.

An even more interesting stat about the likers is that they click on five times more links to external sites than the typical Facebook user. If clickthroughs are what you’re looking for from your social media strategy, this is good news.

I’ll be honest, we see more upside from Shares than Likes in terms of Facebook verbs. Even looking at the deck’s “model citizen” users, the difference in how Facebook *shows* the content is key to spread across Walls.