Cheers to China

In the early years of my business career, I viewed the US as the ideal place because our culture had generated a strong middle class, meaning relatively few rich and poor in terms of standards of living. Of course, there are a wide variety of methods for describing a "middle class," but we all know it means the ability to have a decent standard of living - house, car, job, college for children and retirement. However, during my business career, college costs skyrocketed, jobs became increasingly service oriented, houses have recently become prohibitively expensive and retirements diminished. At the same time, conspicuous consumption in terms of mansions and conspicuous poverty in terms of tent cities has shot up. No one really has the answer. Interestingly, the same dynamics have begun to plague China and China is responding.

The recent crackdowns on tech billionaires, the opposition to private tutoring and the housing speculation are all receiving regulatory and financial management. The goal in China is to drive a "middle class" solution. While this approach does have human rights issues, the widening disparity in the US does not seem to indicate a better approach. The challenge is that capitalism works, but many capitalists don't. Rare is the example of Warren Buffett, who energetically allocates capital while minimizing consumption and grandiosity. It does cause me to wonder if the "middle class" outcome early in my career was simply a fortuitous event or, as I had thought, the result of a certain kind of Protestantism with its obsession on deferral of gratification, disgust with consumption and the accumulation of capital.