I’m a lawyer applying to MBA programs. Will my background turn off potential employers?

“I am an Argentine lawyer with a LL&M degree in Law & Economics from a top school in Argentina. I am now considering applying to an MBA at a top business school in the USA.

However, I’m not sure whether a lawyer background is going to interest a potential employer. In addition, it may be difficult to obtain a summer employment due to a lack of substantive business experience. Any advice?”

The Harvard MBA says:

Actually, having doubts about your ability to convince employers to let you transition to a different role or industry is one of the best reasons to go for a top-tier MBA.

Getting your Harvard MBA is like going to confession: All previous sins are absolved. 

Plenty of my friends at HBS had ZERO previous business experience.  Many came from the U.S. military (the last bastion of socialism in the U.S.).  Others came from a non-profit background.  Some were physicians.

The point is, none of them would ever have been hired by General Electric, McKinsey & Co., Goldman Sachs, Microsoft, and so on.  But with their Harvard MBA, they were able to do precisely that.

My friend Eron had no previous work experience, and came out of the Air Force.  Now he’s a very successful manager at Microsoft.  Same for my friend George, who was a Navy pilot, and is now a top performer at Goldman Sachs.

You’re paying a lot for your MBA–the least your school can do is put you on a fast track to get a job at a top employer, regardless of your previous lack of work experience.

I’m a 34-year-old single woman. Where do I find a decent guy?

I’m 34, a single woman and looking for a partner. I don’t know where to start.  I have been so busy finding a career and getting hooked up too an ex-boyfriend that I have missed the best years of my youth.  Now I am ready to settle down and get married. I want children.  Right now the pickings are slim.  Heck, where do all the single guys out there hang out?  Plenty of men are available but most are married or have girlfriends–they just want a fling. Where do I search for a decent guy?

The Harvard MBA says:

I’m actually working on a dating book, but because it hasn’t been released yet, I’ll try to provide the summary version and some key recommendations.

First of all, recognize that you’re not alone.  With the declining marriage rate and the tendency for people to postpone starting a family, you’re in good company.

In the 80s, there was a widely quoted article that said that a 40-year-old woman had a better chance of being killed by a terrorist than getting married (urban legend, of course; the writer of the article was clearly speaking tongue-in-cheek).  Back then, 40 seemed very late in life to get married.  Today, it happens all the time.

The Bible on getting married is John Molloy’s “Why Men Marry Some Women And Not Others“.  Do read my outline of the book–it’ll only take a few minutes, and it may end up being the most important thing you ever read.

But for the lazy, it says that there are six basic guidelines for women who want to marry:

1. Insist on it.
2. If you find yourself in a dead-end relationship, move on.
3. Love yourself first.
4. Commit yourself to the idea of getting married
5. Keep in shape, watch your weight, and take care of your appearance
6. Time is running out–use time wisely in your search for the marrying man

It sounds like you’re on the right track, now that you’ve dumped your loser of a boyfriend.  And if men are offering to have flings with you, you are probably reasonably attractive, which is very important. (By the way, don’t pay attention to the negative Amazon reviews of Molloy’s book; a cursory glance shows that they are all written by overweight women who are outraged that men would be such pigs as to prefer the svelte, sexy, and attractive.  Next they’ll be complaining that men should stop wasting time watching sports on TV.)

Your big issue seems to be that you’re unable to find the “decent” guys.  Here is where market segmentation and targeting comes into play.  According to Molloy’s research, the peak marrying years for college-educated men are 28-33 (30-36 for men who go to graduate school), and that the chances that a man will get married plummet after the age of 38.  Therefore, you need to target men between 28 and 38–right in your current age range, another plus for your chances.

Within that age range, there are certain types of men who are more likely to marry:

  • Men whose friends and siblings are married; 60% of newly married men reported that they had a friend who had married within the last year, and men who didn’t have any married male friends were 2-3 times as likely to say that they weren’t ready to marry.
  • Consider unpolished jewels, men who are just as nice, intelligent, hard-working, and successful, but lack looks, height, or social skills; 88% of men over 50 who were marrying for the first time were marrying divorced women. The women told the researchers that they had already tried the tall, suave, type, and he didn’t make a very good husband.

In other words, find good-hearted men who may not look like Brad Pitt, but might clean up well after getting the “Queer Eye” treatment.  The best bet is a guy who has a lot of married friends.

Now for the $64,000 question–where can you find these men?

Here’s the (very) relevant advice from Molloy:

1) The best places to meet eligible men are clubs and groups based on common interests. Join organization that have single men as members.

  • 21% of engaged women over 40 said that they had met their fiancée at an athletic club
  • Sports clubs that focus on activities that attract singles (trips, bicycling) are best
  • Next best are tennis, and golf.
  • Third come professional or social organizations that are overwhelmingly male, like engineering associations or collectors of sports memorabilia.
  • Fourth come organizations that have a singles scene, or sponsor events that give singles a chance to socialize with other club members.
  • Dances, picnics, and charity golf or tennis tournaments are also a good place to meet men.

2. Have an active social life

  • Women who go out twice a week, even just to dine with other women or do volunteer work, are 3x as likely to marry than those who don’t go out.
  • Going out three times a week boosts your chances even further.
  • However, going out more than 5 nights a week decreases your chances. (I call this the Lohan Law)

3. Men who attend religious services are more likely to marry.

A few final thoughts for you:

Only 7 out of 2,000 men interviewed said that their fiancée was dressed in a very sexy outfit when they met–dress attractively, but not provocatively.

Most men propose after going out with a woman for 18 months.  If at the end of 22 months, a man has not proposed, the chances that he will start to diminish.  For 3.5 years, the chances diminish gradually. After that, it plunges. After 7 years, your chances are virtually zero.

Give men a second chance–20% of brides to be said that they didn’t like their husband when they first met him.

Women with a large number of female friends are more likely to marry than women with a large number of male friends; men don’t go out of their way to introduce their female friends to other men.

Men are attracted by the physical, but marry character; newly engaged men said that what attracted them to their fiancées was how classy, positive, energetic, enthusiastic, and upbeat their future wives were.  While 68% gave a physical description of their fiancée, only 20% said that what attracted them was how gorgeous and sexy their fiancée was. Over 60% described their personalities, even if the women in question were very beautiful.

Don’t forget to take geography into account.  What is the gender balance of your location on the Singles Map?

Good luck.  It sounds like you’re already on the right track.

How do you know when you’re at the cusp of success in your life and career?

How do you know when you’re at the cusp of success in your life and career?

The Harvard MBA Says:

I’m tempted to quote Potter Stewart on hard-core pornography: “I know it when I see it.”  The problem is, most people don’t know success when they see it.  Thanks to the hedonic treadmill, even those who achieve unquestioned success often feel that it isn’t enough.  The NBA Finals currently feature Kobe Bryant, a star basketball player who has won three championships, is acknowledged by his peers to be the best player in the world, and recently received his first MVP award.  Yet I doubt he’ll consider himself a success unless he exceeds Michael Jordan’s six championship rings.

More relevant to most of us, I’ve spoken to many retired HBS alumni who have observed both the course of their own lives, as well as those of classmates.  Most of those who went to Wall Street to make $10 million succeeded; yet when they finally made their number, it didn’t feel like “success.”

I’ll suggest a different measurement for success in your life and career.  If you can design a life for yourself where you are happy, and where your work regularly helps you reach a state of flow, you are successful.

To help determine when you are on the cusp of success, track your happiness.  Ask yourself each week, “Am I happy?  Is my work fulfilling?” (I generally recommend using a 5 point scale).  The process should be a continuous one, and achieving “success” will be a function of gradual and incremental improvement.

Should I apply for a fellowship to study in Paris even if I’m not sure I can afford it?

I’m a freelance writer specializing in architecture and design. I’m about to apply for a 1-year fellowship that only supplies $23,000 maximum to cover tuition, room & board and airfare. This  isn’t enough for where I want to go: Paris, France. What’s more, I own a condo here in the good ole u.s.a. Do I bite the bullet and apply and see what happens?

The Harvard MBA says:

I’m not a big fan of applying for schools/jobs/etc that you’re not willing to accept.  I remember that when I was applying for business schools, I was thinking about whether or not to apply to the Sloan school at MIT (an excellent school, natch).  My wife simply asked me, “Even if you were rejected by the other schools and you got into Sloan, would you go?”

Since the answer was No, I dumped the application form and saved myself hours of useless work. (To answer the inevitable question, the only two B-schools I applied to were HBS and Stanford.  This echoes my philosophy from my college apps as well, where the only schools I applied to were Stanford, Harvard, MIT, and Yale.  I didn’t know as much about colleges then, or I wouldn’t have applied to Yale!)

HOWEVER, the key factor is whether or not you’d be willing to accept.  It sounds like you really want to study in Paris, but you have financial hesitations.  The questions I’d ask you are these:

1) Will there ever be a better time for you to do this (for example, after you have a spouse and kids)?  Will you regret it if you never fulfill your dream of studying in Paris?

2) What is the level of financial hardship you’d have to go through to fulfill your dream?  Let’s say that the fellowship leaves you $10,000 short.  If there were a fellowship available to cover all your costs, would you pay $10,000 to an application coach who guaranteed that you’d win the fellowship?  Sometimes it pays to take a look at the situation from another perspective.

3) Are there any creative ways you can make up the shortfall?  Can you get a freelance assignment to write about your time in Paris?  Or are their financial sacrifices you’d be willing to make to fulfill your dream.

I don’t know you personally, but my guess is that you really want to go to Paris.  Better to do so with $23,000 in aid, rather than completely on your own dime.

How can a person strive for success and excellence while simultaneously trying to be content?

“How can a person strive for success and excellence while simultaneously trying to be content?  If you’re content, where is the motivation to achieve more?  But if you’re always trying to better your life, then how can you be content?”

The Harvard MBA says:

The question of contentment vs. ambition is one of the fundamental questions that most of us face.

I have friends who are never content and are always paranoid, and whose self-inflicted misery makes them extremely successful and productive workaholics.

I was chatting with one of them yesterday; I asked him what he had planned for the weekend, and he replied that he was probably going to be working.  “I’m doing a consulting job for a friend, and I’m not satisfied with my report, so I’m going to work hard this weekend to bring it up to my standards.”

This is the sort of fellow many have in mind when they wonder if contentment will blunt their edge.  According to this mindset, motivation is like hunger.  The drive to strive for success and excellence results from the gulf between desires and reality.

The logical corollary to this is exactly what you imply with your question–if I’m happy with what I have, and there is no gulf, will I still be motivated to succeed and excel?

As I mentioned before, there are people for whom this is true.  I spent many long hours trying to convince my friend that being happy wouldn’t destroy his productivity, but I’ve since given up.  Being a pessimist is part of his fundamental character, and if he didn’t feel his constant misery and worry, he’d become disoriented and, ironically enough, unhappy (albeit in a different way).

But for most of us, motivation is intrinisic, rather than extrinsic.  We don’t strive for success and excellence because we’re dissatisfied with what we have; we strive because it is human nature to do so.

Mihály Csíkszentmihályi’s work on flow shows that one of the most important motivations we have is the desire to experience that mental state.

“Flow is the mental state of operation in which the person is fully immersed in what he or she is by a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and success in the process of the activity.”

In many ways, flow is a prerequisite of success; how often have you done great work without the feeling of being “in the zone” or “in the groove”?

More importantly, whether you are content or not is irrelevant to your desire for flow.  Flow can only occur when you act; you must strive in order for it to occur.  Striving is not a negative which we only perform because of discontentment with our lot in life; it is a positive action we seek out in our pursuit of flow and meaning.

In case you’re still not sure, you should check out the work of Edward Deci.  In his book, “Why We Do What We Do“, he cites research into intrinisic and extrinsic aspirations.

The extrinsic aspirations are the ones we classically associate with success and excellence: To be wealthy, famous, and good-looking.

The intrinsic aspirations, in contrast, are less flashy: Having satisfying personal relationships, contributing to your community, growing as an individual.

Extrinsic aspirations look outward; the depend on others, and the self-esteem they produce is contingent.  The instant they go away, so does any self-worth they’ve brought.

In contrast, intrinsic aspirations provide their own reward, and satisfy our deep down needs for competence, autonomy, and relatedness.

Most damning of all, the research showed that those who focused on extrinisic aspirations were less happy, even when they achieved their aspirations.  Any glance at Us Weekly will quickly convince you of the truth of this research.

So if you can, stop using your desire for success as a motivator; focus instead on your intrinsic aspirations and your innate need for flow.

But if you’re like my unhappy friend, don’t despair.  Contentment won’t blunt your edge, because the research shows that even if you achieve success beyond your wildest dreams, you’ll likely never be content!

Do You Need A Killer Instinct To Be Wildly Successful?

After reading SI’s profile of Kobe Bryant’s incredible drive, Ben asks, “Are the big time CEOs freakishly competitive, mind-blowingly arrogant, and singularly focused on their business goals even at the cost of “balance”?

The Harvard MBA says: 

In a word, yes.  History is pretty clear on the fact that most great men (and women) are bastards.
Even Gandhi was a philandering jerk.

But, and this is an important but, there are exceptions.

Chekhov was a living saint.  Bill George at Medtronic always coached his kids soccer games.  I’ve heard from many that Richard Branson is actually a pretty decent dude.

And certainly, being an asshole doesn’t guarantee sustained success.  Just ask Al Dunlap.

There is a lot of evidence to suggest that for most people, being likeable is a better career strategy than being a jerkBob Sutton has all the details in “The No Asshole Rule.”  So if you don’t suffer from the ambition to be king of the hill, you’ll probably do fine.

This issue is this: If you scorn balance, work like a machine, and devote your entire life to excelling in one area, it’s going to be tough for “nice guys” to match your performance.  If the balanced guy works 40 hours per week, and you manage to work 100, and at a monomaniacally greater level of focus, you’ll probably climb that latter that much faster.

Moreover, there’s no insurmountable reason that you can’t be insanely driven and focused (to the exclusion of having any kind of personal life), and still be polite and likeable.  Warren Buffett is just as obsessed as Kobe, but because he comes off as warm and funny, we like him AND worship him.

If, like Warren Buffet (or Chekhov, or Bill George), you can carry off this achievement mania without making everyone around you think you’re a weapons-grade prick, you *can* avoid the asshole penalty.  It’s just rare as heck.

So if you do have that crazed, burning drive to be #1, and you consider that achievement worth any cost, go for it.  Just don’t be a jerk or complain about your lack of family or happiness.

Go Lakers!

(This post originally appeared as a comment on Ben’s blog, and is also cross-posted to AskTheHarvardMBA)

Are you a complete loser if you don’t attend an Ivy League school?

“I am a high school counselor in Singapore where everyone is programmed to apply to Harvard from the womb onwards. Can I ask, Where did you do your undergrad education??? I constantly fight the battle of the perception that one is a complete loser if you don’t do your undergrad education at an Ivy League school…any thoughts?? Don’t worry…my feelings won’t get hurt if you agree with the perception…I was just wondering what your experience has shown you.”

The first part of the question is easy; I’m a proud graduate of Stanford University.

The second part of the question is harder.  There is no clear yes/no answer.  On the one hand, attending an Ivy League school or its equivalent (Stanford, MIT, Caltech) does confer significant professional advantages.  On the other hand, the name on your degree is far less important to success than the person who earns it.

Attending an elite school provides four key advantages:

1) Other factors being equal, it provides a better education.  Yes, it is possible to get an excellent education at a less selective school, but the fact is that elite schools attract top professors and have more money to spend on teaching.  While there are Nobel Prize winners who are horrendous teachers, the fact that I took multiple classes from Nobel laureates while I was at Stanford gives some indication of the quality of the education.

2) It gives you better opportunities to form lasting friendships that can have a positive impact on your career.  While this is less essential than in business school, networking during your undergrad years is a major advantage.  If you want to found a Silicon Valley startup, there is no better college to build friendships with future co-founders, partners, and investors, than Stanford.

3) It gives you access to a powerful alumni network.  For better or worse, Ivy League alumni do favor their fellow alums.  And the graduates of Stanford and Harvard are generally in a better position to help you out than graduates of less well-known institutions.

4) It sends a powerful signal to future employers.  Some cynics argue that elite schools simply hoover in the most talented students, which makes their eventual success practically guaranteed, regardless of the quality of the education provided them.  Whether or not this is true, the fact is that many employers prefer to hire the graduates of elite universities.  At D. E. Shaw & Co., we had a list of the 25 schools we’d recruit from.  If you didn’t attend a school on that list, tough luck.  The same is true today of employers like Google.

But notice that this enumeration of advantages does not include several key factors.  Attending an Ivy League school does not improve your work ethic, create your passion, or determine your level of entrepreneurialism.

Most of America’s greatest entrepreneurs never completed college, let alone attended Harvard University.  Edison, Carnegie, and Ford didn’t seem to suffer too much from their lack of an Ivy League diploma.  Even today, icons like Steve Jobs and Michael Dell succeeded despite dropping out of college (we won’t count Bill Gates, who dropped out of Harvard, rather than Reed or UT Austin).

Closer to home, I can think of numerous examples.  My good friend and business partner, Tom Kuegler, followed a checkered education path that included dropping out of West Point and working for the CIA before getting his degree from Loyola in Baltimore.  (Tom has often said, when people ask if he wishes he had a fancy degree, “I don’t need to go to HBS.  I know Chris Yeh.”)  Another friend, Ben Casnocha, will probably end up dropping out of Claremont McKenna (a great school, but little known outside of Southern California and certain policy circles)…and I’d bet that Ben’s degree or lack thereof will never ever get in the way of his career or life.

I wouldn’t discourage your students from trying to get into Harvard–it’s definitely a big advantage–but I would counsel them not to focus so singlemindedly on getting that Ivy League diploma that they fail to get an education.  Moreover, tell the folks who don’t get the fat envelopes they’re dreaming of that being denied by the Ivy League is a disappointment, but also an opportunity to focus on building up all the other advantages they have, and that those strengths will matter far more in the long run than the name on their diploma.

Welcome Brazen Careerist Readers!

Thanks to this flattering post from my friend Penelope, a lot of new folks have been stopping by “Ask The Harvard MBA.”

You’ve asked so many questions that I’ll break my usual practice of answering one question per week and try to knock out a bunch of quick answers.  Onward and downward!

“I am sorry for being rude, but if you are a Harvard MBA, how come your website uses corny clipart and ice cream pastels? When I came here, I immediately thought I was in the wrong place!”

The Harvard MBA says:

I strive for a playful, retro feel for the site.  Since my goal is to entertain and edify, I feel like an overly serious look would send the wrong message.

Also, if I used the Harvard logo, my alma mater would unleash a phalanx of lawyers.  I’ve already been sued for $100 million dollars, and I’m not keen to repeat the experience.

“Can I ask you about your own investment portfolio?  What are your favorite investment choices?”

The Harvard MBA says:

I have a Jekyll and Hyde investment portfolio.  Most of my money is invested based on the advice that I give to everyone who asks: A broadly diversified portfolio of low-expense ratio, low-turnover no-load mutual funds.  My personal asset allocation is 95% equities/5% fixed income; 60% domestic and 40% overseas.

The crazy portion of my portfolio consists of angel investments in individual startups.  Here, I’m betting money that I can afford to lose with the hopes of getting lucky.

There is at least one CS professor at Stanford who is now set for life because Larry Page and Sergey Brin needed $4,000 to buy some servers, and he happened to have his checkbook with him that day.  It’s unlike that I’ll ever be that lucky, but I’m pretty confident that I’ll get a good long-term return on my investments, though the beta (risk) is through the roof.

“I’m a fourth year Mechanical Engineering student, who desperately needs a new laptop!  However - there are so many brands and options and numbers thrown around, I really don’t know what I want or need.  Can you recommend 2 of the best brands and give me some basic guidelines as to what capabilities I should be looking for?  The laptop will serve school and personal purposes. 

PS - Neat blog; what a great idea!”

The Harvard MBA says:

While I may not be a laptop expert, I am an expert cheapskate.  Unless you’re going to be running heavy-duty number crunching on your laptop, pretty much any laptop will do.  My advice is to keep an eye on Slickdeals.net, and buy whatever laptop the active community members rate as a good deal.

For example, I recently saw a Dell laptop with Intel Core Duo processors on sale for under $500.  I don’t know how good that is, but I do know that I’m still running just fine on my 2002-era laptop, and it probably has 1/10th the processing power.

Just make sure that you don’t buy a laptop with Vista.  Since Vista’s release, I have yet to speak to a single person who likes the new OS.

If money is no object, go for a Mac.  They’re that much better.

“I’m a 30 yr old male, working in software dev in NYC for a large media/finance corporation.  I graduated from an ivy school 8 yrs back, bounced around a bit during the rocky dot.com bubble burst, and ended up where I am because I wanted a stable gig with a large company.   I’ve been here 4 years now, got a couple modest promotions; but it really doesn’t provide much fulfillment.  I’m not into corporate politics and mentality and climbing the ranks over the long term isn’t really a goal.  Salary is decent, but I’m not getting rich and it’s just a slow climb in the rat race.

I used to be really driven by inspiring technology projects, entrepreneurship, and the fast paced style of smaller companies.  So my question is that I feel very stuck in this corporate sludge and am wondering if you have advice on how to make a lifestyle change to get back into the technology/startup/entrepreneurship environment (steps to take, paths to investigate, bold actions to take)?  I’m not really looking to go back to school, I’m more a hands on person.  I’d love to move to silicon valley but am hesitant to do that w/o a job there, and that is difficult to get from nyc.  The big names there haven’t bitten much on my apps, and I have the traditional fears of giving up my stability of course.”

The Harvard MBA says:

Quit your job tomorrow and move out to Silicon Valley.

The bottom line is that your fears of corporate sludge are justified, and if you stay much longer in a situation where you’re uninspired and unfulfilled, you may develop bad habits that you won’t be able to break.

Look, you’re in a good position.  You’ve got a great education, solid experience, and you’re still young and flexible enough to take risks.  I’m going to assume that you’re unmarried and don’t have a sick parent that needs you for physical and financial support (usually the folks who have spouses and obligations mention that fact in their query).  If not now, when?

While there is definitely trepidation about the macroeconomic situation, Silicon Valley continues to hire like mad, and it is still a seller’s market for talent.  Yes, there’s a risk that the bubble will burst, and that you’ll end up unemployed in two years.  But how big is that downside?  You weren’t getting promoted at your corporate job, so you can always go back and not have lost out much.  And if the economy goes in the toilet, it’s quite possible that your solid, stable, established company would decide that the best way to ride out the story would be to downsize your ass anyways.

I hear a lot of people say, “I want to find a job before I move.”  It took one of my friends THREE YEARS to finally make the move to Silicon Valley.

Don’t give yourself the chance to make excuses or procrastinate.  And if you do follow my advice, let me know, and I’ll personally take you to one of the many startup events that occurs practically every night and make introductions for you.  How’s that for mentorship, eh?

Can a single man and a single woman be friends without sexual tension arising?

I’m a freshman in college, and I see a lot of close male-female friendships.  My question is, if neither is in a relationship, can they be friends without an underlying sexual tension arising?  A lot of people swear that they can, but I don’t believe them.

The Harvard MBA says:

A single man and a single woman can definitely be friends without sexual tension, as long as at least one of them is gay or hideously unattractive.

Otherwise, you’re right and your friends are wrong.  Sex will always be a part of the equation.

In an earlier era, this was called the “When Harry Met Sally” principle, after the hit movie starring Meg Ryan and Billy Crystal.

Unfortunately for the sake of this response, “When Harry Met Sally” was released in 1989, which means you probably weren’t born yet, and are wondering, “Who’s Meg Ryan?” and “Who’s Billy Crystal?”

Regardless, this famous snippet of dialogue is illustrative:

Harry Burns: You realize of course that we could never be friends.
Sally Albright: Why not?
Harry Burns: What I’m saying is - and this is not a come-on in any way, shape or form - is that men and women can’t be friends because the sex part always gets in the way.
Sally Albright: That’s not true. I have a number of men friends and there is no sex involved.
Harry Burns: No you don’t.
Sally Albright: Yes I do.
Harry Burns: No you don’t.
Sally Albright: Yes I do.
Harry Burns: You only think you do.
Sally Albright: You say I’m having sex with these men without my knowledge?
Harry Burns: No, what I’m saying is they all WANT to have sex with you.
Sally Albright: They do not.
Harry Burns: Do too.
Sally Albright: They do not.
Harry Burns: Do too.
Sally Albright: How do you know?
Harry Burns: Because no man can be friends with a woman that he finds attractive. He always wants to have sex with her.
Sally Albright: So, you’re saying that a man can be friends with a woman he finds unattractive?
Harry Burns: No. You pretty much want to nail ‘em too.
Sally Albright: What if THEY don’t want to have sex with YOU?
Harry Burns: Doesn’t matter because the sex thing is already out there so the friendship is ultimately doomed and that is the end of the story.
Sally Albright: Well, I guess we’re not going to be friends then.
Harry Burns: I guess not.
Sally Albright: That’s too bad. You were the only person I knew in New York.  

Humorous, but true.

Trying to deny the existence of the sex drive is absurd.  Sex is nature’s way of fooling us into having kids.  Given the hassle and risks of childbearing, I’m pretty sure that if we humans didn’t have an overwhelming urge to bone, the entire population would die out within 100 years.

In the old days, this wasn’t a big deal.  By the time you were old enough to have sex, you were pretty much expected to get married and start a family.  Marrying a 21-year-old was like getting hitched to Demi Moore.

Unfortunately, modern life has made a hash of the whole business.  Plentiful food (and possibly hormone-laced milk) is causing kids to mature at an earlier age.  At the same time, marriage and childbearing are being deferred later and later.  Rather than becoming sexually mature and getting married at 16, now you hit puberty at 10, and don’t have kids until your late 30s.

Small wonder that abstinence-only sex education has been a miserable failure.

Now take a bunch of males and females at the peak of their sexual voracity, put them together in shared housing (usually with coed floors), remove all parental supervision, sprinkle liberally with a porn-infused pop culture, and add a generous dollop of judgement-impairing alcohol and drugs.

Basically, my friend, you live in a sexual powderkeg.  It’s frankly amazing that the average Friday night at the dining hall doesn’t devolve into a massive Roman orgy.

I can’t speak for teenaged girls, but as a former teenaged boy, I can testify to the truth of Harry’s assertion.  Alas, just because said tension exists, doesn’t mean it’s always acted on!

Is global economics a zero-sum game?

I have only a fuzzy understanding of world economics. Is it a zero-sum game? I read today that Europe and the US face recessions; is this because the Middle East and Asia (specifically China) are doing so well?

The Harvard MBA says:

Great question, especially given the fact that presidential candidates are busy burnishing their anti-globalization bona fides.  I’ll be happy to answer, though those seeking a more rigorous explanation based on economic theory may wish to look elsewhere.

World economics are definitely NOT a zero-sum game.  Were that truly the case, you’d still be sitting around your cave with your buddies Thak and Grunt, snacking on beetles and grubs.  Clearly, the world economy is larger today than it was 25 years ago.

A slightly more nuanced interpretation of the question might be, is international trade a zero sum game?  If China does well, does that mean that the United States will do poorly?

Again, the answer is clearly no.  If that were the case, then the Great Depression would have been viewed as a boon in at least a few countries, rather than a global disaster that wrecked the economies of nearly every industrialized nation and gave rise to Facism.  In fact world economies are getting more and more correlated; China is plenty worried that a slowing U.S. economy will affect their own, since so much of their growth is built on exporting goods to the American market.

But while these may be the facts, I believe that you can get a more visceral understanding by examining the simplest possible example.

Let’s return to our friends, Thak and Grunt.  Our cavemen friends spend their days gathering and eating beetles and grubs.  Then one day, Thak discovers that the blackberries on the bush outside their cave are plentiful and edible.  Both Thak and Grunt are now better off.  Their meals are tastier, and it takes less time for them to gather their daily food.  Their simple economy has grown.

Man has done this many times throughout his history, from the discovery of agriculture, to the Industrial Revolution, to the electronic age.  We broaden our horizons, and our entire economy grows.

Now let’s look at something trickier.  Let’s say Thak discovers the blackberry bush, but keeps it a secret from Grunt (and Grunt is too dim-witted to figure out the myster).  Does Grunt benefit?

First of all, it’s pretty easy to see that Grunt can’t be harmed.  He can continue to gather exactly the same quantity of beetles and grubs as before.

Second, if we introduce the concept of trade, Grunt will certainly be better off.  Perhaps Thak decides that eating nothing but blackberries is monotonous, and misses the crunch of beetle exoskeletons.  He might trade some portion of his blueberries for some of Grunt’s beetles.  Thak wins.

But Grunt also wins.  Grunt gets to benefit from Thak’s blackberry discovery.  And because trade is a voluntary transaction, by definition Grunt feels that he is better off swapping beetles for berries–otherwise he wouldn’t agree to the exchange.

So now we’ve seen that economics is not a zero-sum game, and that trade brings benefits to both parties.  So why is it that there are so many bitter people in Ohio and Pennsylvania?

The answer is that while economics is not a zero-sum game, and trade always benefits the participants, change can still produce winners and losers.

Let’s take a look at the plight of the Detroit auto worker.  In the old days, Mr. UAW managed to make a good living on the assembly line even without the benefit of a college degree or unusual technical skills.  Then along came Toyota, Honda, and Nissan, and pretty soon Michael Moore was running around Flint, Michigan railing against the evils of capitalism.

Someone won (Japanese auto makers), and someone lost (Detroit auto workers).  So is that an example of a zero-sum game?

Not really.  What’s missing is a full accounting of winners and losers.  Most importantly, American motorists were big winners.  The Japanese auto makers produced cheaper, safer, more reliable cars.  Car buyers ended up saving money AND getting a better product (which probably even saved a large number of people from dying in accidents).

Not only did the benefits accruing to the Japanese auto makers and American motorists outweigh the losses suffered by Detroit auto workers, the net benefit to Americans was almost certainly positive (not even counting the benefits enjoyed by that blowhard Michael Moore–a factor that I view as a big net negative for America as a whole).

The reason we think of the rise of the Japanese auto industry as being bad for America is because the winners are largely invisible (and unaware) and the losers are highly visible (and loud).

In 2005, the Big 3 US auto makers employed 250,000 workers, who were paid an average of $50/hour, or $100,000 per year (this compensation figure includes benefits).  The total value these workers received was $25 billion.  Americans buy about $600 billion of cars per year (17 million vehicles per year).  Do you think that American consumers have benefited at least 4.2% on the cost of new cars because of Japanese competition?  If anything, the equation seems like it is wildly on the favorable side, especially when you consider that those 250,000 workers could, presumably, get other jobs.

The problem is that the 17 million car buyers each year don’t think of themselves as a special interest group and don’t have their own political action committee to bribe–er, support–members of Congress.

However, even if America as a whole benefits from Japanese competition, our friend Mr. UAW does lose out.  There aren’t that many $100K jobs available for people without college degrees or specialized technical skills.  Most of the autoworkers who lost their jobs probably didn’t have the skills to make as much money in other fields.

The results were devasting, both personally, and for communities.  Detroit still hasn’t recovered.

The key question is not whether the government should try to turn back the clock and block globalization–doing so harms the country as a whole (even though most politicians and voters are apparently too thick-headed to realize this).  The question is, how do we take some of the value that globalization creates and use it to ease the transition for the losers, even though their losses are outweighed by the gains of the winners.

That, my friends, will have to wait for another essay.