Firstborns get a special HeadStart program.
For accuracy, the Clinton-era laws against discrimination in housing (which caused the 2007 financial meltdown, by the way) were not justified by deliberate racial animus, but by “disparate impacts.”
Essentially, the government said, “we recognize that banks are doing what they’re doing for legitimate reasons, namely, because the blacks who have been rejected for loans are more likely to default on those loans. The point is that by creating policies to prevent bad loans, you have hurt black people more than white people. This means that more black people have to pour their money down the drain by renting, which perpetuates the poverty that is the excuse for rejecting loans to more black people.”
The bank that most resisted “leveling the playing field,” racially would be the one that was the most economically successful, since it made the fewest risky loans.
So, bankers and the government, including Republicans and Democrats, came up with a plan by which banks and their investors could share the risk: CDOs. The Bush administration even tightened the rules on bankruptcy in part to make CDO safer.
The problem was that the Clinton administration, supported later by the Bush administration, changed the rules AFTER the Gramm bill. Banks had to lend equally not only to blacks, but also to Hispanic immigrants, of whom a large percentage were illegal aliens. Once illegal aliens went underwater, they disappeared, their debts included. No bankruptcy.... just disappearance.
The more illegal immigrants disappeared, the more housing values went down, meaning more houses went underwater, encouraging more illegal immigrants to disappear, further driving housing values. Soon, the entire economy was collapsing and people were losing their jobs meaning they defaulted on their loans, driving housing prices down further.
My second born is my national merit scholar. Must be an outlier. I don’t think she has a higher IQ than her older sister, but her personality is one of being more resolute and driven.
No wonder the israel of the OT made such a big deal out of someone being firstborn. Apparently they knew something we’ve forgotten.
I can confirm my younger siblings are way dumber than, exponentially down to the last.
However, they are still smarter than the average bear....
Not to disagree, but merely to raise a point: the distinction is being made between heredity and environment. But the implication is the environment is exactly the same for first born and later siblings. I’m not certain we can “prove” that. In our house we tried to spend the same effort with each child, but I’m almost certain we were more involved with our first. Everything was new, all excited, etc. Does that “natural” inclination lead to differing personality traits, and ultimately to higher IQ? Don’t know, just asking.
Taggart: Let’s kill every first born male child in Rock Ridge.
Hedley Lamarr: Nah, too Jewish.
bfl
With a birth rate of 1.84, 54% of children are first born and 46% are second or later (ignoring combined families and child deaths). I would expect there to be a majority of first born winners. Plus we're naturally superior. :-)