t is reporting that Google, Meta and other tech giants are getting rid of their DEI related groups. So diversity equity and inclusion. Apparently they had too many of them so they need to get rid of them. Now do you get rid of anything that's working? No you do not. If it were working they would keep it. So apparently it doesn't work or at least doesn't work well enough.

So here's the question I ask. Is it too soon for me to demand reparations? Too soon to demand reparations? Here's my argument. I was born without any apparent benefits of slavery. I didn't, nobody in my family owned any slaves and indeed my cousins the President Adamses were big warriors against slavery. So I made my own money but I would have made a lot more if I had been able to do my corporate career. I know that sounds weird but yes I would have made more money if I just kept my job because I was working in the Bay Area. Silicon Valley was taking off. I would have been in some startup that just paid crazy amounts of money and I'd be retired by now. But I didn't get that option. I had to go do my own thing which worked out.

But I wonder how many people would have made a lot more money if they were not white and male because they didn't get the promotion they didn't get the raise etc for about 30 years. Yeah a lot. Now here's the real question. If you're going to calculate reparations you should calculate the net right? So you should calculate what is owed to slaves if you buy into that narrative what would be owed the descendants of slaves but you'd have to also calculate what was taken already. And if what is taken already from white men is greater than what is owed then you say oh okay I guess we're good and we're done right? So you have to get the net. It wouldn't make sense to calculate only what you think somebody's owed without calculating what has already been paid because the sacrifice of the raise you didn't get is a tax right? Because otherwise you would have gotten the raise.

Now here's the tricky part and this is why it's so hard to do an analysis of anything. Statistics can lie based on your assumptions. Just think how painful this next assumption is. How much money did the slaves or let's say somebody's life today their great grandfather lose because of discrimination? Well it'd be probably a big number. You might say something like well they could have made as much as the average white person whatever your argument is and then you'd