I think that what a lot of us failed to anticipate was the general feeling of euphoria on the approach of a millennium. The United States, with minimal effort in comparison with earlier wars, has made Yugoslavia do what it wanted it to do, and that follows the collapse of the USSR which in turn followed the successful gulf war. Until just recently, oil prices have been so low as to give us almost a free ride--and even now, you can fill up a gas tank in the United States for $20 that it would cost you $75 or more to fill in England. About 40% of the population has seen their apparent wealth increasing at 25% a year without any particular effort on their part. A hundred million people are feeling rich, smart, and safe--and in three weeks it will be the year 2000. It all seems to fit together.
I recently attended a meeting of a Phi Beta Kappa chapter (on a whim, I seldom do) and discovered that the entire scholarship fund is in the stock market, and that the officers are more or less mesmerized at how much money is there, letting it grow and only giving out about 2 percent of it in scholarships. I did not dare say anything about the market, of course (it doesn't matter if someone thinks you are a lunatic on SI, but it does matter where you work). But I did suggest that paying out 5% was more typical for such funds. |
