All The Lonely People

Albert Brooks left the American Enterprise Institute this year.  He’s really concerned about poverty, and the welfare of people.  Since the turn of the century with adoption of the internet we have been able to do some amazing things.

However, it has consequences.

People are feeling more isolated than ever before.  That’s sort of a weird conundrum because all this social media was supposed to connect us.

The trend of mom and pop stores going under was well underway by the time the internet really took hold in mainstream America.  Walmart, Home Depot and other big box chains were a threat to them before the internet happened.

I do think that our institutions really changed.  Mainline churches became much more concerned with topical social issues of the day and moved to the far left politically.  The Catholic church had scandal after scandal that they covered up.  Crony capitalism really took off in the 80s and is around today.  The lockstep public sector unions march in with the Democratic party is frightening to a lot of people and unethical to citizens.

With all this in flux, people feel out of place.  They don’t feel connected.

Ironically, when I was a trader we had an “institution” you could believe in.  It was our network.  The one built up over generations that persisted no matter what.  But, the internet blew that up too.  It is ironic that the network blew up at the same time the internet was grabbing hold of America.  People in that network feel totally disjointed and out of place.  Even with things like social media, because we don’t see each other physically in one place and have a common purpose it’s not near the same.  It’s easy to turn off and ignore.

America’s mental health seems to be off the rails.  When socialism becomes a popular ideology, it is not because socialism works.  It’s because there is mistrust of a lot of things.  People become vulnerable to the idea of socialism when that mistrust persists.

Albert does a podcast and here is a link to it.  It’s worth a listen.

I don’t agree with Albert on a lot of things.  I think he is way to conciliatory on a lot of issues.  Mostly though he is spot on.