There is Nothing for You Here: Book Review

There is Nothing for You Here: Finding Opportunity in the 21st Century (2021), Fiona Hill. Hill became a senior director of the NSA in the Trump administration. She was called to testify in Trump’s first impeachment hearings. She demonstrated both expertise and competence, without being able to move the Trump team on foreign policy. The is a memoir plus her recommendations for enhancing opportunity for the non-elite. Her story is both interesting and unusual, although I could have done without her policy prescriptions (they’re not bad, just every think tank has its own version with little likelihood of having much influence).

Hill was born in the mid-1960s and raised in the obscure Bishop Auckland in northern England, a former coal mining area with a father who had been a miner. There was little opportunity because of the lack of funding: “The constraints on mobility in America today form the core of our country’s ongoing crisis, as do a similar set of problems in the United Kingdom” (p. 5).

Introduction: From the Coal House to the White House. “I studied at St. Andrews University in Scotland, then in Moscow, to America’s northeast corridor and Harvard University in 1989. … I discovered that I was a real-time study in mobility—both downward and upward. … I became a long-standing fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington, DC, in its foreign policy program. I served in the US government as the top intelligence officer for Russia on the National Intelligence Council (NIC). Then I joined the National Security Council at the White House in the aftermath of attempts to interfere in the 2016 US presidential election. I served as deputy assistant to the president and senior director for European and Russian affairs under Donald Trump from 2017 to 2019. … In the heartlands of both Russia and the United States, I saw grim reflections of the decline of my hometown and my family’s experiences in the UK, and I watched similar populist impulses emerge” (p. 8).

Deindustrialization in the UK devastated her family and area, limiting opportunities. “Educational attainment is now a significant predictor of whether someone will have the opportunity to secure stable full-time employment and, crucially, how that person will vote. … College graduates in the 21st century can feel just as forgotten as everyone else. … America is marred by low societal cohesion, political fragmentation, loss of public trust in government, weakened national institutions, and reduced civic engagement. It is also geographically polarized into area of haves and have-nots” (p. 9). There is immense wealth and a load of billionaires, along with desperate people latching onto populist messages—made worse by the shift of heavy manufacturing to the Asian tigers and automation. She uses the term “infrastructure of opportunity” as needed to promote the interests of working-class people, especially the potential opportunities of young people.

Hill describes Putin as the first populist president of this century. “Putin set a personalized, bravura style of leadership that others, including Donald Trump sought to emulate. … Under the guise of Putin strengthening the state and restoring its global position, Russia slowly succumbed to authoritarianism” (p. 11), noting that democracy is not self-repairing.

“Thanks to rapid deindustrialization, poor-quality education, and other indices of poverty and inequality, parts of the US were in the same need of regeneration and redevelopment as low- and middle-income countries in the former Eastern bloc” (p. 13).

Part I: The Coal House

Chapter 1: Call the United Nations. Factors for opportunity include geographic origin, parents’ educational attainment, and the kind of schools a kid attends. The “post-industrial era” beginning in the 1960s became particularly problematic. Improved transportation and then automation were new issues. Educated and skilled workers were needed, which were not available in the “rust belt.” Free-market growth was encouraged, with lower taxes, privatization, and deregulation.

This chapter has a good discussion of the rise of coal-centered areas over a century. England is where it started.

Chapter 2: Grasping at the Future. Chapter 3: Out of Your League. Hill was an outsider for college but got her own “infrastructure of opportunity” though various new programs (which she viewed as somewhat comparable to the GI Bill in the US), later Pell Grants. In the UK before the 1970s, the school system was stratified and reinforced class divisions. Moving on depended on selection, which allowed a few to colleges and more to technical and vocational schools. The UK then tried to raise education quality. “When opportunity presented itself, I was learning it took resources to seize it” (p. 48). Hill faced both class discrimination and gender bias. Thatcher reduce what she called “coddling” of the welfare state, as well as closing mines, shipyards, steelworks, and others. Ashe described the exclusionary nature of Oxbridge, which she faced (“steep barriers to opportunity”). She went to St. Andrews after an instructor described in detail courses and requirements. A few times Hill fought opportunity just by a chance meeting with someone in the know (and occasionally connected).

Chapter 4: Common Northerner. “I was propelled up the social ladder with little practical preparation for confronting Britain’s class divides” (p. 69). !980s economic and other issues led to violence and identity conflicts: English, Scots, Welsh and Irish, race riots, and police issues mainly over race and a rise in white nationalism, plus protests by working class. Many similar issues happened in the US (including now). Hill found a bubble at St. Andrews and claimed she suffered imposter syndrome. Her solution was long hours in the library.

She studies in Moscow for a year, funded by the British government. This was when the Soviet Union was falling apart but trying to open up under Gorbachev. Moscow infrastructure was crumbling, and the working class were heading down like her experience in northern England. She felt somewhat at home with working class Russians trying to get by. Hill volunteered for tasks such as pick potatoes. Moscow was a world-class cultural center, with the surrounding poverty outskirts and many metropolises.

She became a stringer with NBC News, accompanying camera crews. She found out about American scholarships from a Columbia professor—and who to talk to. One was Mike Bird of the British embassy who helped on scholarships. Harvard was on a recruitment drive for low-income students.

Big cities were where the “locus of opportunities” was, and the US was “bicoastal.” In 1991 the soviet system collapsed, devastating for the working class.

Part II: A Divided House

Chapter 5: The Land of Opportunity. Hill came to the US in 1989 (Bush was president). The Northeast in particular was deindustrializing. Going to Harvard (for a masters in Soviet studies) meant she lived in Cambridge. It was a bad time for Russia. The planned economy meant “no autonomy, little room for individual innovation, and thus no system flexibility” (p. 95). This was a system that never delivered for ordinary people (Hill points out this was true for the other countries she knew). Gorbachev was repudiated and the USSR broke up in 1991. Both the US and UK adjusted to changing technology, like Massachusetts.

London and South England boomed in the 1990’s due to bank and consumer services. Russian was like the UK and US; Moscow became a boom town, while the rest continued to crumble. “Successive governments and prime ministers after Margaret Thatcher did not care about the people’s plight” (p. 96). The big manufacturing sites were “purpose-built for a specific time and place … close to major sources of raw materials, energy and transportation. … Place-based economies and societies crumbled” (p. 97).

Hill faced discrimination because of her north England accent. It was no problem in the US, her accent was just British, but the situation was particularly bad for non-whites (plus the usual sexism—she experienced that directly). “By coming to Harvard, I had also left class behind. … No one had any idea about my accent. … There was poverty in Boston and segregation by ethnicity and race. “Boston had begun to integrate its de facto geographically segregated school system only in 1974, and then only because of a court order. … By the time the court-ordered busing ended in 1988, white students had emptied out of Boston’s school district” (p. 106).

The collapse of the USSR made her master’s degree obsolete, and she switched to a PhD. in history to retool.

Chapter 6: Shock Therapy. The USSR promised job security, although not serving consumer needs. Job losses became widespread after it disintegrated. Yeltsin called it shock therapy with free-market policies—reminders of Reagan and Thatcher with similar results. The US, IMF, and World Bank tried to help. Privatization basically led to kleptocrats. The welfare system was effectively gone as prices shot up with hyperinflation. Transition dragged on for the decade. “The advent of full-blown capitalism put a stake through the hearts of both Northeast England and post-Soviet Russia … prioritizing defense spending over health care” (p. 119). Allowing residents to buy state housing was thought to create a new infrastructure, resulting in increasingly drab housing. They were good assets only in some reasonable areas, in most a burden. Speculators moved in. Moscow and London had the best opportunities.

Hill faced budget constraints and women in the workplace issues, with a “workplace environment that was unequal.” “Gender shifted everyone’s assumptions about my role setting alongside men and reduced my opportunity to participate fully in discussions” (p. 129)—she called herself “the notetaker and tea lady. … Does everything a woman says have to be repeated by a man to be heard?” (p. 130).

Chapter 7: Women’s Work. There were indignities to women in Russia: an endurance test and “an illuminating experience.” Over time as a professional she and other understood their disadvantages and the need to “level the playing field.” She was asked “why do you need to be paid so much?” The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009 provided some relief. She was part of the NIC in 2006 as the national intelligence officer for Russia and Eurasia, on loan from Brookings (intergovernmental personal agreement). She returned to Brooking in 2009.

Chapter 8: Unlucky Generations. Hill was lucky to get educated, because of various programs, an experience of millions since the GI Bill after World War II, seeking a better life than their parents. A big problem was education: “By the end of the 1990s, the expectation in the US was that young Americans should and would have to pay for their own education … with a focus on individual responsibility and attainment. … The ethos of Thatcherism and Reaganism had spread from economics to education” (p. 149). Job opportunities could also be bad. The Tea Party movement was a reaction against the 2007-9 bank bailout, presenting themselves as fiscal conservatives. This all encouraged populist movements in the US and UK, partly because of “cultural despair (Fritz Stern).” Inequality increased, as incomes stagnated for the bottom 90%, made worse by race. Health insurance meant longer life, all resulting in “deaths of despair,” from loss of identity and other causes. Governments at all levels had reduced budgets and therefore reduced services. “By the 2020s, the state of crisis was indeed normal life for some people” (p. 158). Handouts from food banks became common during the Covid crisis.

Hill talks about the Cardiff team to improve k-12 education by creating networks of teachers to share effective materials and procedures. “White British” became a neglected group. Asians and Blacks went to universities in higher percentages (mainly because opportunities were better in London and other big cities). The problem was location, not race.

Part III. The White House.

Chapter 9: Me the People. Britain had “Brexit in 2016, just before the US election, well-funded including outsiders like Nigel Farage and Boris Johnson. David Cameron ran the remain campaign. It was a landslide for Brexit (61%), with considerable misinformation during the campaign. Trump jumped on their strategy. So did the Russians with interference. Populism is a link to “the people,” not an ideology. Putin started about 2000. Slogans featuring us versus them work better than formal plans.

“The Brexit and Trump platforms were heavy on fearmongering and blame-shifting and light on the sort of detailed policy agendas that might actually stand a chance of fixing these deep-rooted socioeconomic challenge” (p. 173). Both focused on immigrants, like Trump’s “build a wall.” Trump invented “policy by tweet.;” “Trump was a celebrity, on a show you can seem smart because it’s scripted. The millions of people who voted for Donald Trump in 2016 thought they were voting for a ‘people’s champion. … They did not anticipate that Trump would instead … endlessly obsess about himself and how other people were treating or mistreating him” (p. 176).

He abrogated the Paris Climate Accord, removed environmental regulations, added hefty tariffs on Chinese and other goods. “Trump was far more interested in seizing the opportunity to claim credit and say he had done something amazing. Everything was self-referential” (p. 178). Trump did personify success (downplaying inheriting millions) and talked like an average person (probably a 4th grade level). He went after trade unions (after winning their vote), health care, safety codes and so on. Russians helped based on the perceived grievances. Putin controlled the populist forces in Russia and used similar techniques in the US.

“Russian operatives employed propaganda, disinformation, and deception. … The Russians used a sophisticated combination of new cybertools, alongside the state-backed media, to hack the email messages of prominent American political figures, disseminate leaked documents, and amplify inflammatory news items. The Russian government set up ‘private proxies’ …like the Internet Research Agency. … The IRA analyzed US public opinion and social divisions, scrutinized US polling, and hired droves of young Russians with English-language skills to pose as Americans on internet platforms” (p. 182). Race, religion, and gun control were some of the issues. Red/blue could be determined by specific categories, education levels, urban/rural, income, race, and various opinions. Russians promoted both Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump. The GRU was behind the Clinton emails and hack. One feeling was the political elite were ignoring them.

Then there was Trump and his thirst for profit with hardball tactics and corruption. “Trump also couldn’t believe that anyone would genuinely do something out of altruism. … In Trump’s worldview, everyone was self-serving” (p. 186). [Calling soldiers suckers and losers.] “That was the point of the big show [like the Apprentice], making the president look good. Trump took all the credit for initiatives” (p. 189).

Chapter 10. “Russia Bitch”: that would be Hill, called by Reince Priebus and others. Hill joined the NSC: “On the job I spent more than two years essentially fighting home front fires. Because throughout the Trump presidency, America was at war with itself, including inside the government” (p. 191). She prepared reports on Brexit and rise of populism. She worked with Michael Flynn. “I was never going to have any kind of sit-down with Donald Trump on talks about Vladimir Putin or Russia or pretty much anything else in my portfolio. … As far as Trump was concerned, my academic and professional credentials and expertise were irrelevant. … I was not part of his team” (p. 194). After Flynn was fired, she worked under HR McMaster.

“Trump was selfish to his core and had the most fragile ego of anyone I had encountered to date. Everything and everyone was seen through his eyes in terms of how their interactions reflected on him. … He wasn’t someone you could engage with in any meaningful way. He was unpredictable and quick to judge” (p. 199). She was with Trump in the White House with a bunch of officials talking to Putin, but she was the only one who spoke Russian. She had concerns but could not express them. She was called to retype the press release: “Hey, darlin’, are you listening?” (p. 202). Figuring out where and how to type it was a challenge; apparently everyone seemed insulted by her (and no one came to her aid). That was basically how Trump looked at any aids, certainly women.

Despite it all: “I made sure that my boss, the national security adviser—first General McMaster and then Ambassador Bolton—and all my colleagues at the NSC got the best advice I could offer on Putin, Russia, and everything else in my portfolio” (p. 206). “Trump favored a top-down approach to governance while demanding bottoms-up support. Issues were rarely open to consultation outside his inner circle. … Trump demanded constant attention and adulation … Trump was easily induced into action by someone who first praised him or his policies and then recommended or asked for something” (p. 207).

US political commentators would try to get themselves on a Fox News program that was prime Trump viewing to influence him in this way. … Bolton had initially been one of those, as was Anthony Scaramucci. … Foreign counterparties quickly learned to be obsequious with the president Putin took pains to flatter Trump in press comments” (p. 208-9). Ditto, Abe of Japan, and Macron. “Trump was so sensitive to slights that we were instructed to scour the pronouncement of world leaders for anything harsh they might have said, at any point” (p. 210). Also, US embassies; ultimately compile a “nasty list” to exclude.

“He was thin-skinned and quick to anger, with little hint of self-reflection or consideration of other options. Trump would never take any responsibility for a problem of his own making” (p. 211). “Discussions with world leaders became ‘me, me, me’ sessions. Trump rarely talked about US policy, and never really bothered to read the briefing materials. … I know this better than all of you. … What do you have to tell me? I have been doing deals all my life” (p. 216-7).

“Everything was framed like a hard-nosed business deal. Eventually foreign leaders like German chancellor Angela Merkel and French president Emmanuel Macron started to call him out on it in their exchanges” (p. 217).

Chapter 11: The Price of Populism. “Trump’s perverse machismo … more malign than benign” (p. 218). The point is an authoritarian streak in the presidency, including strong-arm tactics, assisted by strange characteristics of the presidency (head of state, commander in chief, chief executive, and the nuclear football) and political party system. Add the authoritarian playbook of Putin. “After his first impeachment trial, in January 2020, he seemed to believe that he now had license to commit political murder—usurping power” (p. 219). Trump: “It’s funny, the relationship I have, the tougher and meaner they are, the better I get along with them—because he literally wanted to be them. … He wanted raw power without much in the way of constitutional or other checks. Autocrat envy. … Putin, even more than the others, was the ultimate international populist in style, swagger, and potential wealth. … Internationally very rich, very powerful, and very famous” (p. 219).

Hill pointed out that the people connected to Yeltsin, then Putin, grabbed everything and became Russia’s oligarchs, then part of the authoritarian state. Those that run the company, own it. The likely result was a stagnant economy. Trump wanted to duplicate that. He called Mary Barra of GM to not close four Ohio factories. He worked at putting his cronies in top government offices, including the Post Office. Taxes, like the military were for suckers and losers. “Smart” meant not paying them. This attitude makes the US less of an investment opportunity. Particularly scary is how similar Putin’s base is to Trumps. The same attempts at manipulating the media. Putin ruled as an insider, but not Trump. Putin went after weak groups, then called them pro-Western. The US was an enemy in this context. Unlike Trump, Putin stressed unity, based on his definition of Russian culture. There was no room for militias. “Putin wanted one Russia. Trump wanted many Americas” (p. 225). Trump was something of a Manchurian candidate, promoting Russian interests.

The Helsinki Summit was a disaster for Trump and the US. Orban of Hungary and Erdogan of Turkey would call Trump directly to bypass “bad advisers.” “Classic Putin ploy: … make people complicit … by introducing it in a vague way … then created guilt by association” (p. 230). Putin denied any involvement in the 2016 election at a press conference. Trump: “I don’t see any reason why it would be.” Headline: Trump believes Putin, not his intelligence officers. Somehow, Trump saw it as a personal attack (he won because of Putin). Trump then nagged about Clinton’s emails.

Summary: “He was mesmerized by autocrats, carried away by his own sense of infallibility, and unwilling to do the homework necessary to follow through on a coherent foreign policy strategy” (p. 236).

Chapter 12: Off With Their Heads. Ukraine Ambassador Yovanovitch for Ukraine. Giuliana with Parnas and Fruman were creating a myth about Biden’s son and against the ambassador. Trump: “get rid of her!” “The video demonstrated just how easy it was for people to hand Trump a piece of bait to get him riled up and then push what they personally wanted—in this case, to get some obstacle (a US ambassador) out of the way. … If someone told Trump that another person had crossed him, he would immediately believe it” (p. 240). It was easier for Trump to dismiss women. On Twitter Hill was called a “Democrat stooge,” “a globalist,” a “Soros Mole,” a New Trumper, and so on. She was featured on Jones’ Infowars website, including as a “Soros mole.” The Soros mole started in 2008 by Orban to help himself by demonizing Soros, a Hungarian Jew still connected to Hungary. Orban won.

“The Protocols of the Elders of Zion was a fabricated document circulated in the early 1900s, outlining a long-running Jewish plot to subvert European governments. … The Soros conspiracy was only one of many that Trump and others around him, like Alex Jones and Roger Stone, deployed for political mobilization. It was a useful tactical weapon against those on the enemies list” (p. 248). Hitler used the Protocols. Trump used “birtherism.” QAnon used child-trafficking pedophiles headed by Hillary. Mike Flynn embraced it. The Soros conspiracy was a downside to US-Hungarian relations and overall foreign policy. Trump of course had Orban in the Oval Office. EU ambassador Gordon Sondland and others used political opportunities for personal gain over national security. Sondland had no role in Ukraine but was active anyway, apparently to aid Trump but not the NSC.

Trump called president Zelensky in 2019 to get dirt on Biden and son Hunter, telling Zelensky he would hold up military and other supplies unless he cooperated. “The first impeachment process was essentially a big civics exercise for those who watched it unfold” (p. 257). Respect for government was at an all-time low, with trust at 17% according to Pew poll. Trump had forced a government shutdown over 2018-9 as an easy political target. Hill worked without pay (as “essential”) and viewed Trump as an embarrassment.

Hill’s testimony: “I had been subjected not just to intense questioning but to political grandstanding and posturing” (p. 260). She was there as a fact witness. As a woman, how she looked was considered critical. Also, she couldn’t show anger. She pointed out that men use anger strategically. She viewed Sondland as running an operation running parallel to normal channels to force an investigation of Hunter Biden.

Chapter 13: The Horrible Year: 2020. The US, UK and Russia all failed to mount serious, well-coordinated responses to the pandemic, with high infection and death levels. Countries with populist leaders tended to do poorly, ignoring experts. Then the George Floyd murder and protests against police brutality. Government must have an interest and ability to solve specific problems. “The strongmen had arrived, but the rest of the populist dream had gone unfulfilled” (p. 266).

“Populist governments are, almost by definition, ill-suited to handle complex problems of governance. Style, swagger, and atmospherics, superficial and simplistic solutions, and enthusiastic sloganeering for the core of the populist’s playbook” (p. 267). The GAO had recommendations to solve the supply chain gaps, only 10% of which were implemented by Trump. The US healthcare system has been deteriorating. Fauci detailed his experiences with Trump, which were like Hills. Trump was dismissive, insisted on take-charge actions and refused to wear a mask—a sign of weakness. Fauci initially was to appear in costume and say nothing, ending up on the “nasty list.” Trump appointees tended to be uninterested in how their institutions worked or learn from career experts. Lies had started with the size of his inauguration crowd and never stopped. Then claiming he won in 2020, leading to January 6. He looked for any weak points for his “self-coup.” Only after this, did Facebook and Twitter cut him off.

Part IV: Our House

Chapter 14: The Great Reckoning. “Trump had been a one-man big show and his administration more of a personality cult. … He had thrown the existing Republican Party’s ideological and government policy frames for addressing issues out the window but failed to replace them with anything more durable. … He had weakened the checks and balances of the system, pushing out government watchdogs and pulling back oversight mechanisms” (p. 286). The rules-based global order was in jeopardy. Lack of opportunity seemed the major problem.

Multiple sectarian camps now existed. Trump captured much of the “white working poor, the socially disaffected, and white evangelical Christians” (p. 290). The culture of despair is usually needed for polarization and populism. Trump focused on “culture wars,” claiming working class rights were “stolen by the left-wing, immigrants, and others.

Chicago Professor Robert Pape: “examined the backgrounds of 377 Americans who were arrested after storming the US Capitol Building on January 6. They were mostly from counties in states where the non-Hispanic white population had sharply declined relative to minorities. The people arrested were predominately white and male (95% and 85%, respectively) and clearly uncomfortable with the steady diversification of American society. … They were not from the lowest US income strata. Still other studies showed that many of them had lost assets or seen a negative change in their material circumstances. … [They] had come from regions at a demographic tipping point, who believed their social status and economic prospects were impinged on. … [Thus] a collective, desperate attempt to counter their change in circumstances” (p. 292).

Public service was demonized, although these were nonpartisan experts. Some how they became associated with partisan politics. Many were hounded out of government and received death threats. Extreme trends were fostered by the internet and social media. Putin used the media to stabilize his regime, while weaponizing technology against the US, including the idea of shared purpose (like fighting a pandemic). There are no national allegiances on social media.

COVID-19 “provided the kind of universal and immediate shock to the economy that the US had not seen since the Great Depression. … The disease and its economic fallout had the greatest impact in the poorest regions” (p. 295). The knowledge economy did well. Everyone was in the same basic position, but it soon transformed into partisan fights. There were negative effects on education, partly lack of funds and partly the need for online instruction. Billionaires did great. There is a lot of government welfare/relief money in the system, but not well coordinated or effective.

Chapter 15: No More Forgotten People. “’White supremacy’ was deliberately promoted after the American Civil War to pit working-class whites against Blacks. It was frequently deployed to undermine workers’ solidarity in labor disputes” (p. 307). Race is a common political tool in the US to eliminate any shared feelings.

“Those at the top of the educational and political system find it hard to grasp the problems of low-income and minority students unless they have experienced poverty, discrimination, and failing schools for themselves” (p. 312). The education is increasingly skewed to favor elites, including a continuing meritocracy: “unfair opportunity hoarding.” Add racial discrimination for Blacks and Hispanics. Networks and mentorships are good for all but can generate resentment. Whites have the best network advantages, especially males. “I started out contact-poor (“cultural capital”) but ended up with a rich personal and professional network” (p. 318).

Chapter 16. No More Forgotten Places. Europeans are baffled by the lack of a single-payer health-care system in the US. An evil of socialism? Hill presents various healthcare and other public program ideas (e.g., Brookings’ ideas). Streamlining existing funds seems good idea.

Conclusions. “Poverty, not innate ability or lack thereof, is the key predictor of poor educational attainment. … Place, class, race, and gender all come into play in limiting educational outcomes for children. … Networks become accelerators of progress” (p. 352-3).

Useful quotes: “The life’s experiences of individuals who find themselves in the spotlight, by choice or by chance, shape their country’s written history” (p. 3).

“Russia is America’s Ghost of Christmas Future” (p. 10).

“Barriers to opportunity and social mobility are personal and universal” (p. 11).

“Education in all its forms … is the beating heart of the infrastructure of opportunity” (p. 46).

“Derek Foster [Labour Party] told us that education was not just about acquiring information but about doing something with it” (p. 59).

“Race was an evident impediment to opportunity in America. It was a kind of negative force multiplier for every other obstacle” (p. 104).

“His professional trajectory was downwardly mobile” (p. 110).

“Poor people and unemployment are the downside of every market economy. … Markets cannot and do not solve every social problem. … Society will always be divided into haves and have-nots; the key question for economists and policymakers to resolve was how to bridge the inevitable income and opportunity gaps” (p. 115).

Biden: “What are the common objects we love that define us as Americans?” The first “Common objective” that he listed—before security, liberty, dignity, respect, honor, and the truth—was opportunity.”

“There is no such thing as a wrong place to live” (p. 329). “Education can lower the barriers to opportunity” (p. 352). “People’s skills will always need upgrading” (p. 353). “Life is a team sport” (p. 355).