Down The Tubes

It finally happened. No, not a nasty letter from the State Bar. It finally cost me over 50 dollars to fill up my gas tank, $51.00 to be exact. I knew this day was coming, the cost to fill up my tank has been going for in the 30 dollar range, to the low 40’s, then the high 40’s, and now finally it breaks 50.

Scott had two recent posts that got me thinking about this topic more. The first was discussing an New York Times article (I have to stop reading these articles from the Times, I’m going to get kicked out of Texas) by Thomas Friedman.   The second is about our love for trucks and SUVs.

Basically, Friedman states in his column that with the way things are going, he who has the oil is going to make the rules.  While that’s probably an accurate statement of the world today, he states the balance of power is going to keep shifting, and even the mighty United States, with all our advantages, may be reduced to Canada-like status.

The failure of Mr. Bush to fully mobilize the most powerful innovation engine in the world — the U.S. economy — to produce a scalable alternative to oil has helped to fuel the rise of a collection of petro-authoritarian states — from Russia to Venezuela to Iran — that are reshaping global politics in their own image.

If this huge transfer of wealth to the petro-authoritarians continues, power will follow. According to Congressional testimony Wednesday by the energy expert Gal Luft, with oil at $200 a barrel, OPEC could “potentially buy Bank of America in one month worth of production, Apple computers in a week and General Motors in just three days.”

Friedman then wonders how the US its going to pull its collective bacon out of the fire this time.

For too long, argues Zakaria, America has taken its many natural assets — its research universities, free markets and diversity of human talent — and assumed that they will always compensate for our low savings rate or absence of a health care system or any strategic plan to improve our competitiveness.

“That was fine in a world when a lot of other countries were not performing,” argues Zakaria, but now the best of the rest are running fast, working hard, saving well and thinking long term. “They have adopted our lessons and are playing our game,” he said. If we don’t fix our political system and start thinking strategically about how to improve our competitiveness, he added, “the U.S. risks having its unique and advantageous position in the world erode as other countries rise.

Scott’s take on the article is that Friedman is confident the U.S. will figure out something, and everything will turn out fine.  He (Scott) goes on to say he’s not as confident, and what’s going to happen if there is no magic bullet.

This is what Friedman talks about when he remains optimistic about encouraging the United States economy to perform its magic yet again.  He believes in miracles.  He believes that our captains of industry, our engineers, our scientists will come up with something, anything, to save the day if only we push them.

What if they don’t?  There is no guarantee that another internet will come along just in the nick of time to save the day.  Maybe we’ve used up our good fortune.  Maybe the ride is over.  You only get so much good luck before your luck runs dry.

Friedman may be right, that we still have some juice in the economy to pull us out of this jam.  Perhaps “Mr. Fusion” is right around the corner, and the rest of the world will come running to us for their needs.  But even so, can we count on another miracle to come along the next time?  And as long as Americans continue to hide our heads in the sand, there will most assuredly be a next time.

I disagree with Scott that Friedman is optimistic.  Maybe I’m reading the article wrong, or perhaps he’s a regular reader of Friedman, but I don’t take from this article that Friedman is especially optimistic.  However, I agree with Scott that keeping our heads in the sand and just hoping that something will come along to save us isn’t a good way to handle the situation.  I don’t know what the answer is, assuming there is one.  I’m just a simple country lawyer.  But I do know that the current path isn’t the answer.

It Figures

The week that blog traffic gets a boost is the week that I’m way too busy to provide any new content.

On the 10th, Scott Greenfield at Simple Justice mentioned my humble little blawg in a post noting that Texas seems to have an abundance of blawggers.  He went on to note that I have “inexplicably chosen to post anonymously, and that Texas blawggers don’t really focus on anything outside of the Great State of Texas.  Then on the 14, Grits for Breakfest commented on Scott’s orgininal post, so there I was again.

To deal with the latter comment first.  Scott is absolutely correct when he says, “I just think they don’t give a hoot about what happens in foreign lands, like the United States of America.”  There’s enough going on in Texas.  Why worry about what the Okies, or God-forbid, the yankees are doing?

My main reason for the secret identity is that I felt it would be just be easier.  This was never intended as a marketing tool or anything along those lines, just a way to for me to write about being a lawyer and occasionally blow off some steam.

So my question for my small readership is, do you really care who I am?

And I promise I’ll post more than once a week.  Or at least, I promise I’ll try to.

Crusade

The courts are closed today with the observance of Dr. King’s birthday, and since I don’t have any timebombs going off this week, I decided to take the day off. And so the day wouldn’t be completely unproductive, I figured I’d clean out my email, namely sort through all the emails that the ABA and the Texas Bar send me. I figure I’m safe ignoring those, I’m sure if I was in trouble with the Texas Bar, they’d send me a letter, or a subpoena.

In one of the emails, there’s a link to a story about Kristen Wolf, a Boston University law graduate who is on a one-woman crusade to discourage people from going to law school. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal’s Law Blog, Ms. Wolf said:

I’m on a one-woman mission to talk people out of law school. Lots of people go to law school as a default. They don’t know what else to do, like I did. It seems like a good idea. People say a law degree will always be worth something even if you don’t practice. But they don’t consider what that debt is going to look like after law school. It affects my life in every way. And the jobs that you think are going to be there won’t necessarily be there at all. Most people I know that are practicing attorneys don’t make the kind of money they think lawyers make. They’re making $40,000 a year, not $160,000. Plus, you’re going to be struggling to do something you might not even enjoy. A few people have a calling to be a lawyer, but most don’t.

To Ms. Wolf, I say, preach on!

While none of the criminal defense blawgs I read mentioned this story, Susan Cartier Liebel talks about it in her incredibly informative Build A Solo Practice blog. Ms. Liebel notes that Ms. Wolf didn’t go to law school because she felt a real calling to be a lawyer. Instead she went because she had a liberal arts degree, no apparent job prospects where she could put that degree to use, and had figured that she would make a decent living being a lawyer. Turns out, those starting six-figure salaries are reserved for a precious few, and Ms. Wolf wasn’t one of them and is currently not working in the legal field.

Ms. Wolf’s story sound all too familiar. Law school is filled with people who probably shouldn’t be there. Not because they’re not smart enough, or talented enough, but because they really have no desire to be there or be lawyers. Heck, I probably fall into that category. I went to law school for the same reasons Ms. Wolf talks about in her interview. I had a graduated from college and had a liberal arts degree, the economy was in the tank, the job I had unloading trucks was a dead end. Why not go to law school?

Let’s face it, law school isn’t fun. A relative once asked me what law school was like, and I told him to picture the worst people he knew arguing over the most pointless topics he could think of. My school hasn’t invited me back as a guest speaker for some strange reason. You’re spending a lot of money to get that degree, plus three years of your life. And what happens at the end? Chances are you don’t have that job making six figures lined up for you. Then you realize that those 10 people from your class that are going to make 100K or so have skewed the average starting salary high, and there’s no way you’re even going to earn 60K (or whatever your law school claims for a average starting salary).

Wrapping this up, I really only agree to a certain extent with Ms. Wolf’s cause. Talking people out of going to law school isn’t a bad idea, if for no other reason than to give me less competition. But not everyone who wants to go should be dissuaded. Only those who plan on using law school as a way to escape the real world for three more years. There will always be room for another good, passionate, and committed lawyer.