THE TYGRRRR EXPRESS

As the son of a Holocaust survivor and a proud Jew, I genuinely want the Jewish people to exist. As the son of two retired schoolteachers, I see the Jewish people on the way to slow disintegration one schoolteacher or social worker at a time.

For the sake of full disclosure, I have always hated school. To me, school is like jail. Junior high school is maximum security prison, high school being medium security, and college being minimum security. Sure, you can play tennis, but conjugal visits are not common enough. Graduate school is like probation.

Having said that, it is one thing to go to school when it is mandatory. It is another to voluntarily choose to teach others. When I run into young Jewish individuals, I beg them not to become schoolteachers, social workers or entertainment industry personnel. I explain to them that the survival of the Jewish people depends on their avoiding these professions. There are three reasons for this.

The first reason to avoid these professions is economic. The pay is dreadful. Jewish people have political power in this country because they have economic power. Jews gained this economic power by being successful in business. We were bankers, and more importantly, merchants. Whether it be agriculture, textiles or precious metals, Jews excelled in import-export and other trade related professions.

Nowadays Jews, especially Jewish women, gravitate towards professions that may be noble, but are disastrously low on the socioeconomic scale. I doubt these women grow up dreaming of a life of economic insecurity, longer hours, frustrating bureaucracy, and powerful supervisors who prefer a rigid routine where creativity is considered rebellion. The day of the creative teacher is long gone. They spend hours working on lesson plans that must conform to a central plan approved by their high commanders.

Schoolteachers often complain that a star athlete can make millions while they struggle. This is because only several hundred people are qualified to play professional sports. Every year the players get stronger and tougher, and the standards get higher. In education, the standards keep getting lower. This allows more people to become teachers, which lowers the market value of the entire profession. Supply and demand works. If enough people would simply refuse to become teachers, there would be a shortage, and their pay would rise.

For those who see college professors making six figure salaries, professors are not teachers. They spend a few hours a week teaching, and the rest of their time engaging in self-aggrandizing pursuits designed to enhance their own portfolios. It is publish or perish. Now I have zero objection to people devoting their lives to their own selfish causes, but for some reason college professors refuse to admit that they do this, offering pablum about noble pursuits and greater goods. Going into research or going on the lecture circuit is lucrative. Actual teaching is not.

Then again, schoolteachers are financial geniuses compared to social workers. Some people find watching families on the verge of destruction 12-14 hours a day while earning very little pay in exchange for much emotional heartache to be fulfilling, but you cannot pay bills or feed a family on emotional agony.

Entertainment industry people are the worst. Yes, there are actors making 20 million per movie. There are also lottery winners. The number of people who get destroyed in pursuit of a dream few ever attain gets washed away by the celebration of the few who succeed. Unlike sports, Hollywood is not a meritocracy.

Jewish moms are still praying that their daughters marry doctors and lawyers. These prayers would be unnecessary if their daughters would become doctors and lawyers themselves. Not legal aid lawyers, corporate lawyers. Hired guns willing to defend tobacco companies, gun makers, fast food companies, alcohol manufacturers, etc. earn lucrative salaries, corner offices, and healthy bonuses.

Jewish women need to start acting like men, only with breasts. They need to become investment bankers, stockbrokers, international trade merchants, corporate lawyers, and accountants. They need to become salespeople, be it life insurance or automobiles. They need to learn skills that allow them to charge whatever they want. How many Jewish women become plumbers, electricians, auto mechanics or carpenters? Jewish moms may find these blue collar jobs to be beneath their daughters, but we give hundreds of thousand of dollars to these people because we can’t change our oil, fix a sink, or install any system in our home. The plumber that is not good enough to be the son-in-law is making more than the schoolteacher because the plumber’s income is not limited.

The second reason for the education-disintegration link is also economic, but it is the cause, not the effect, the means, not the end. It is the concept of risk. America was founded by risk takers. The pilgrims had to succeed. If they failed, they died. Whether it was wars, famines, pestilences, diseases, or bad harvests, they learned how to do things. They did not have Harvard MBAs, and yet they were educated. The Founding Fathers risked everything when they declared independence from the French (just checking to see if you were paying attention…lord knows what your teachers are teaching you).

America is about entrepreneurship. It is a place where risk takers can be rewarded, often quite handsomely. Yet Jewish people, again primarily the women, are risk averse in their professional choices. Being a schoolteacher is the epitome of being risk averse. You receive a safe paycheck, have a safe work schedule, and are condemned to a life of safety, or what the business world calls mediocrity. If one is truly blessed, they can become an Assistant Principal, then a Principal, and then a Superintendent, but this is rare. Those decisions are political, and cronyism does exist. Education is not a meritocracy because so many people are qualified to be teachers. When athletes succeed, they get bonuses and rich contracts. When good teachers succeed, they are rewarded with the worst students, because they can handle it. The worst teachers get the best students, because that is all they can handle. This hurts teachers and students.

The internet age has been a Godsend for everyone. It has allowed entrepreneurship to flourish. Home-based businesses are booming. Startup costs are low, and barriers to entry are even lower. From Ebay to Craigslist to anythingyoucanimagine.com (go ahead and use it), the options for people are limitless, as is the income potential. The only thing required is the ability to take an ounce of risk, much less than the Pilgrims needed.

Social workers are not risk takers, unless you count showing up at the home of each case, or as I call them, potential death threats. So yes there is risk, but financially where is the reward? It is all the downside with no economic upside. The entertainment industry does have an element of risk, but it is not a calculated risk. It is a lottery. Skill is outweighed by luck. This is not taking risks. This jumping off a bridge in the hopes of flying.

When Jews become teachers and social workers, they force their own limited world view on their innocent victims, known as students or families. My teachers did not influence me to try and succeed on Wall Street. I had to do it on my own. They taught us about how safety and security were important, and that being part of a successful collective will lead to happiness. Successful individualism is discouraged. Bright students are forced to slow down so that the dumb students do not have their feelings hurt. How can children learn about careers that make money if no one teaching them knows anyone who actually does?

The third reason why Jewish people need to stop going into the education and social work fields are political. These professions are overwhelmingly politically liberal. Jewish people are angry at how little we supposedly contribute to education. Why should we? If somebody brought me an investment that they guaranteed me would cost more money, while giving me worse results, I would hide my wallet quickly. The solution is not to give more money to education. The solution is for people to stop going into these professions to begin with. Then when America becomes desperate, the system will be improved. College Universities in America are the envy of the world because of competition and the free market. Colleges fight for top professors. They offer financial incentives to do what would otherwise be a thankless job. It works. Despite professors being liberals and/or socialists, they benefit under the capitalist/conservative system.

When liberals take over education and social work, they have people dependent on them…students and families. This then creates liberals creating more liberals, where these new liberals learn that equality and collectivism are good, making money is evil because profits are greed, and sugar and spice and everything nice is the way to live. Safety and security are paramount. Wall Street works because conservatives teach those who enter it conservative business values. The question then becomes, why are the conservative values better to teach? Because in real life, they actually work. Liberalism talks of noble intentions. Conservatism brings results. Kids need to develop a cold-blooded reality that the schoolteachers will not share with them…that life is ruthless and cutthroat, and if they expect anyone in life to save them they will get swallowed up by life. Ask European Jews in the 1940s the benefits of trusting your neighbor to help you enjoy a good quality of life. The tough Jews that relied on themselves…that escaped to the USA…they knew that survival, even in America, cost money. So they began the task of making alot of it, risk by risk, dollar by dollar.

Some of you in this world might say that there is more to life than making money. If making money is not important, that is commendable. Go to Africa and help blind kids learn to see. Travel to a poor nation and help feed the homeless. Run a soup kitchen in a poor neighborhood. You will barely subsist yourself, but you will feel good, and get into heaven well before most people, myself included. However, a carpenter would know how to build the soup kitchen. The investment banker can raise the money to make the soup kitchen a larger and better shelter. The electrician can set up the lights. Rich people can give more money to charity than poor people, because they have it.

Jewish people, particularly women, gall me with how their face lights up when they help people. Tikkun Olam is their guide. (A good orgasm makes my face light up, and I can’t feed myself on sex. My face lights up because I make enough money to afford the things that cost money but allow my face to light up.) They would rather be happy than make money. This would be taken seriously if their mothers were not demanding that they marry an actual achiever so that their kids do not eat snow for dinner (or grass and dirt if you live in Los Angeles).

Wake up Jewish America. The best way to help people and live a quality life is by getting wealthy. Wealth can be used to create more wealth. There are a billion Christians in this world, many who believe that Jesus commands them to help the poor through labors of love. Let them spend their lives on the downtrodden. We do not have the manpower. There are too few of us. We need to help ourselves, or we will cease to exist as a people.

Until Jews are on the streets panhandling en masse, this will not be taken seriously. We are one step away. Mortgages are getting expensive. College tuition is skyrocketing. Vacations are a thing of the past for many. Living paycheck to paycheck is becoming the norm. So stop becoming schoolteachers, social workers or entertainment industry dreamers. Get high paying jobs. Our future survival depends on it.

Lastly, remember the words of Jewish entrepreneur Norman Lee, who used his money to build a University. In 1993, in finding out I was a graduating business major he said, “Never be ashamed of making money. It is easier to give back when you have money. Live life the right way, make money, and be happy. I’m rich…and I’m very happy.” This was less eloquently but still brilliantly expressed by Ben Affleck in “Boiler Room,” when he said, “You think money doesn’t make me happy? Look at the f*cking smile on my face.”

God helps those who help themselves. So please my fellow Jews, quit ruining the lives of the young and downtrodden who don’t appreciate you. Enter the business world, build an empire, and live happily ever after as the Jewish Kings and Queens used to live.

eric

This entry was posted on Saturday, March 17th, 2007 at 7:21 pm and is filed under POLITICS. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.