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The Only Answer

Elon Musk isn’t busy enough with X, Tesla, and Space X.  Cars, tweets, and trips to Mars are on his plate.

More than a few folks think he rescued free speech when he purchased Twitter, now X, and fundamentally changed the platform’s guardrails.

So, yesterday, he flew across the Atlantic and was interviewed on stage at the European Jewish Association gathering.   He exercised his very own freedom of speech opining, “Always be wary of any name that sounds like it could come out of a George Orwell book.  That’s never a good sign because it sounds like, sure, diversity, equity, and inclusion.  These all sound like nice words, but what it really means is discrimination on the basis of race, sex, and sexual orientation.”

The acronym is DEI.  But, should it be DIE?

Is a company or organization better because of DEI, or better because they hire the most qualified person for any and every position necessary regardless of their race, creed, origin, nationality, color, or sexual orientation?

Rational and logical people know the answer.

But rational and logical left the planet a few years back.  But, is logic making a comeback?  Is DEI going to DIE?

Well, DIE might be a bit strong.  But its health is waning.  The pendulum seems to be swinging.

Its trip to the doctor was accelerated by the abysmal misuse of funds by Black Lives Matter.  Sure, its primary concerns are incidents of police brutality and racially motivated violence against black people.  But, it could have been so much more.

They squandered all of the donations that well-meaning companies contributed.  If you were a friend or a family member of its founder your life mattered.  Inclusion. The bucks stopped there.

If you want real inclusion you need a family and an education that gives you the fundamental building blocks to succeed.  If the family fails the schooling needs to succeed.  If the schooling fails the family must be the backbone.

When both fail, the child/student fails.  Their future success becomes more difficult.

Should a company “give” them a job that they aren’t best qualified for to make up for the failure?  If they want to fall behind they should.

What are those subjects that provide those fundamental building blocks?   Some, in no particular order, are Taxes, Personal Finance, Cooking, Insurance, Home Repair, Self Defense, Survival Skills, Social Etiquette, Public Speaking, Car Maintenance, Stress Management, Nutrition, Work Ethic, and Humility.

Add in a little reading, writing, and arithmetic, and off to work you go.

The only answer is education.  It’s a matter of who teaches what and when.

The who is the nuclear family(or what is left of it) and the school system.

The when should be “as soon as one can comprehend and lasting as long as possible.”

 

 

Comment section

Engage. Enrage. Enjoy.

  • Mixed bag here on the why. But absolutely no doubt on the solution. Education and training is the only way to balance the opportunities in our markets.

    School is fundamental and so is training. I like what some companies are starting to do. Build their own education programs and offer careers. Nobody knows what it takes to excel at Amazon like Amazon. It’s introduced a form of advancing degrees with offers of applicable employment.

    What a concept. Student debt? Zero. Make a living? Absolutely. I’d say this path may become commonplace in 3-5 years. And we really wont have to wonder why we took that Russian Lit class and the Mandarin Philosophy major who cant find a job.

    Oh and student debt will still be there. The same folks that want to wear brightly colored scarves, yell at students, and forgot about their me too movement, will still be indebted to me and you. The taxpayers.

    • The ability for large and profitable companies to implement the Amazon model is quite interesting. So many jobs still remain in the mom and pops though. We don’t profess to know the percent but a guess is greater than 60%.

      Oh, add online education for the first two years for any undergraduate to significantly lower costs and we’re getting even closer.