I was at Harvard, Princeton, Berkeley, and Stanford before I
was 5 years old. I’ve been around the
world twice, visited 31 countries, 49 states, and 10 Canadian provinces. Some only for hours, but most for well over a
week. I grew up in a neighborhood that
was restricted to University Professors. My mother, father, grandfather,
grandmother, uncle, aunt and cousin are all psychologists. I got straight A’s
in Logic, with a BA in Art History. I’ve
spent over 40 years in the Life Insurance Industry and hold a CLU designation,
(the first financial planning designation and pertinent to estate planning). I’ve also sailed my own boat three times from
the Great Lakes to the West Indies. Although
I am a nobody and you have never heard of me, I do qualify as an Elitist. I’ve been living out my fantasy calling it
reality, and am old enough to realize that this is what everyone does, whether
they know it or not. Reality is
connected to our everyday lives, and colored by our past experiences and
beliefs. Many of us confuse reality with
truth and there is a difference. We all
share truths that we call reality: eating sleeping, working, and relationships. Our reality is different, however, colored by
what we eat, when we sleep, what kind of work we do and who we talk to, listen
to, what we believe in and depend on. Much
of our reality is made up of things we have no direct experience with but is
fed by others to gain their ends. Few of
us have had an abortion, less have died by terrorists, immigrants haven’t taken
our jobs, (they are always others’ jobs), gays getting married don’t produce
more gays and I’ve never heard of anyone volunteering to go door to door to
take guns away. The fact that many people’s reality includes a belief that our
President was born in Kenya and is a Muslim doesn’t make it true, or have any
real relevance to those peoples actual lives. The media and politicians color our reality
with issues that have little substance while they ignore the real issues of our
day, which would challenge their power.
My father, who was good with statistics, used to say “50% of
the population is below average intelligence”. Our politicians are actively courting this 50%
with their fear, lies, blame, and desire for power at any cost. A large part of the other 50% is
disillusioned and either thinks that there is no way to correct things, have
only one issue that concerns them, or
have such a low opinion of our politicians that they can’t vote for any with
good conscience. It’s become clear to me
that no changes will take place until a large part of the population realizes
that the crap they are fed by both political parties and the media is just
that: crap. Then we can begin to change the way we elect our leaders.
The special interest
groups are leading the way into a dumber public by campaigns of misinformation
that will keep their special interest strong.
The media is now so biased that you can’t get a real read on what’s
happening in the world without editorial comment meant to bias the facts. Anyone who relies on only one or two news
sources can’t discern the truth, and any who just rely on the internet are
filled with false impressions and phony news stories. On top of this, our younger generations are
being taught to pass tests, rather than how to think for themselves. Most of the country feels that the US is
heading in the wrong direction, but the
powers that exist are quite happy with the situation because it keeps them in
power. With all the promises of change,
we will find out our politicians are unwilling and unable to make any change
that is going to get the country going in any direction.
The media and political parties want us to believe that one
party wants to give lots of free stuff to anyone who wants it, while the other
party simply wants to keep what they have and to hell with everyone else. My discussions with both liberals and
conservatives find that they are not that far apart. No conservatives want to toss people out on
the streets, (other than cheats), and no liberals want to provide for those who
are too lazy, but able to work. All
agree to the idea that government should provide for our security and
prosperity and only disagree on the extent and details. I believe that most of us have only one or
two issues that we are greatly concerned about and then have to chose our
political party based on how they view those concerns. We then hold our noses about the other
disagreeable issues that “our” party endorses.
With my reality being substantially different from those
views I find in the media, I have been able to live out my “American Dream”. I
thought it would be helpful to let others in on my world view and maybe they
could find ways to live lives that are more fulfilled and happy. My
interactions with others tells me that many share some of my views, even though
they seem far from the portrayed mainstream.
In my studies of art history and the renaissance, I realized
many similarities to those times: New
ways of viewing the world are developing.
Those with the new views are challenging those with the old view and are
coming up with huge amounts of resistance to change.
Prior to Copernicus, the Earth was the center of the
Universe, and predicting the position of the planets involved circular orbits around first the earth and then that
orbit, and then that orbit and so on until the proper position was found and
recorded as having “so many orbits each
with its own radius and speed” that positions could be found and calculated. Copernicus moved the Sun to the center of the
Universe but used the many circular orbits and calculations of their number and
radii to calculate the positions. It
wasn’t until Kepler many years later, that the true elliptical nature of the
orbits was determined. While Copernicus
got the view right, he got almost all of the details wrong. He is celebrated as the genius behind
astronomy because he was willing to say that there is a better way of looking
at the world than exists. We now find
out that the concept of the “Center of the Universe” may not represent
anything. While I am sure that many of
my details may not be right, I am
positive that the way I view the world can lead to solutions to many of the
dilemmas we face today.
It’s significant that The Inquisition and the Renaissance
occurred at the same time. While one group
of scholars was learning more about our world another group was burning
heretics while their brain trusts were busy counting angels on the head of a
pin. Now we also have pseudo scientists
spinning statistics in favor of their employer.
There are many things in this world that we can never
understand. As a heterosexual, I cannot
make sense of homosexuality. There are
also many things that we don’t want to take time to understand: As a computer user, I don’t want to learn how
0’s and 1’s can be turned into letters on a screen. Much of our population has been taught that
if you can’t understand something, it must be either heaven-sent or bad and
feared. I am hopeful that a new
viewpoint will make understanding issues a little clearer, and this perspective
will present some solutions to our problems.
What I wish to do is challenge many assumptions that we make
without even thinking about them, (and a few we do). The reason we do many things is that we have
always done these things. This is not
necessarily wrong, but it is a good reason to look closer. To many, these thoughts may seem unpatriotic,
but let me reassure you that I believe the USA to be the best place to be in
this world and wouldn’t foresee changing
that view at any point. I believe myself
to be left of liberal and right of conservative, I try to distance myself from the political parties
as I find much of what they do to be disgusting. I wish to discuss some things I have
experience and knowledge of; ethics, words, economics, health care, power, democracy,
religion, and education.
ETHICS
The issues of what is right and wrong behaviors have been
discussed and debated for centuries. I
have seen my moral code evolve over the years, so I don’t want to put value judgments
on anyone else’s morals. I do want to
point out some observations. Ethics is
about how we put the public interest over our personal interests. We often talk about someone’s moral
compass. I like to start here as there
is a similarity to navigation with a compass.
When navigating, we have a true direction, a magnetic direction and a
compass direction. The true direction is
just that, the “magnetic” direction
varies from the true depending on where on the globe you are, (the magnetic
north is not at the North Pole). The
compass heading varies from the magnetic due to local magnetic influences on
the compass, this is called
‘deviation’. Ethics has similar divides
between True ethics, Social Ethics, and Personal Ethics. It’s wrong to steal is an example of True
ethics. Personal and social ethics are
subject to change. While I was growing
up gambling was considered immoral.
Obviously it no longer is. It was
also considered unethical for lawyers and drug companies to advertise. Slavery used to be considered ethical as
well.
Because the most vital instinct of a bureaucracy is
survival, most bureaucracies have developed their own code of ethics, without regard
to the greater society. These may be
formal or totally unwritten. Currently
we see this with; ‘what’s good for coal is good for Kentucky’, or ’what’s good
for a police department is good for the city’.
We tend to incorporate these “special interest” ethics over time, and
don’t actually realize that we hold beliefs that are different from most of
society because we are with people with similar beliefs every day at work. These
special ethics are most disturbing when major retail companies pay their
employees so little that it is necessary for the taxpayers to support them
through welfare. The prevalence of bait
and switch marketing seems to also go unquestioned.
Many say that the purpose of a business is to make
money. I would say the purpose of a
business making money is to allow it to continue to provide goods and/or
services to its customers. Many businessmen now believe that if it can’t be
measured it doesn’t exist. This push to
metrics in business has pushed many business’s to ignore ethics and rely on the
law in its stead. While many congressmen
might disagree, just because it’s legal doesn’t make it ethical.
The judging of others, when there is no personal
involvement, seems to have changed greatly with the advent of the
internet. The media has determined that
anger, fear, and outrage are what gets readers or viewers and have couched many
of the stories of today in these terms. They editorialize within the news,
while ignoring facts that are pertinent to the truth of the story. We used to either ignore or condemn zealots. Now everyone seems to want to tell us what to
believe while having no tolerance for those who don’t happen to agree. Daily, we are asked to make judgments about
things we know little about, or have been told only part of the story
about. It is very hard to determine when
this is happening as we don’t have the means or time to learn the truth about
the issues. Criticism has replaced
activism as it is so much easier to call names and place blame than it is to
actually fix something.
I am worried by the idea that your worth to society is
measured by your income. Your worth to
your employer may be measured in income, but a person is more than his/her
job. This seems to be part and parcel of
the materialistic world we live in. The
one who dies with the most toys, does not win.
Equating a person’s net monetary worth as equal to their worth as a
human being is a very distasteful practice we all seem to take part in. The high salaries of executives is, to them,
a way of measuring how they are doing against their peers. There are enough ways to get rich without
regard to ethics that we have many wealthy people out there who’s actions are
despicable, but are still admired by many.
I think that wealthy peoples’ worth should be measured by how many
others they have made wealthy, among other factors. Being poor doesn’t automatically make you a
substandard human being.
The financial services industry is especially
troubling. When I entered the financial
services industry, making money was not considered a reason for being. You had to be interested in providing for
widows, orphans, and old people, or finance homes or business’s if you wanted
to be hired. In the 70’s those involved with Wall Street were either
“Investors” or “Speculators”. The
speculators were considered the scum of the earth and no action would be taken
that would help them in any way. We now
call these people “Traders” and give them respectability. The “Investor” would buy and hold and was
important to the whole economy. Now long
term investors are labeled as dumb,(with a few exceptions like Warren Buffet)
and someone who can make multiple trades in a second is hero material. We
have regulators with fancy names like The Financial Industry Regulatory
Authority that is run by a combination of the securities exchanges and the
broker dealers that work with them. They
are constituted to regulate themselves.
I think we know how well that works; the simple securities
representative is scared to write a letter without sending it for compliance
approval, while one of the founders of the NASDAQ exchange was able to steal
billions of dollars prior to turning himself in, (Mr. Madoff). We are also told to trust our banks, even
though they seem to love to pay huge fines to cover up their misdeeds. We see banks manipulating interest rates,
exchange rates and commodities and no one goes to jail. They are able to avoid pleading by just
accepting a fine that punishes the shareholder, while the corrupt people who
figured out these schemes are free to go on to their next one. Why do we continue to entrust these people
with our valuables?
The fact that hypocrisy has become so accepted in our
leaders is of utmost concern to me. A
persons integrity is best measured by whether or not they do as they say they
will. We have become so accustomed to
our politicians not doing what they say, that personal integrity seems to hold
no importance in elections anymore.
Down through the ages, we’ve had several guidelines for
determining what is ethical behavior.
The Ten Commandments, The Eighth Fold path, and The Golden Rule for
example. I have found asking what the
world would be like if everyone did what is being contemplated is a good
additional guideline.
WORDS & PHRASES
We have played loose with our words so much that many of
them have either lost their meaning or have different meanings for different
people. When you can’t win a debate with
reason, you can only win by calling names.
These words are signs that reason in no longer in attendance. We
must be careful both when we use these words and when we hear them to be able
to discern what the speaker was really saying;
Conservative
I was
brought up to believe that a conservative was a person who was resistant to
change. While I still feel that way,
there are many who have other definitions.
Liberal
My
upbringing said that a liberal was just someone with an open mind. The word now has many connotations from
progressive to unmentionable.
Capitalism,
Socialism, Communism
The fact
that we are still using definitions of economic systems that were first
proposed in the middle of the 19th
century should give us pause. The world
back then was substantially different than it is today. Trying to fit the systems of the world into
definitions such as capitalism, socialism, or communism just don’t work. Much rhetoric has been spent accusing one
party or the other of being one of the isms doesn’t move us in a positive
way. The American economic system is a
blend of the 1850’s ideas; to each
according to their needs, spells out our welfare system, to each according to
their abilities describes our business system.
Public ownership of our roads, ports, and airports are necessary to
allow easy entry into a system that rewards private ownership over all of our
other means of production. The real
question is how much should government interfere/intervene in the free market
system? When the above words are used,
today it is almost certainly a sign that someone is insulting someone else.
Family Values
Isn’t being
used much anymore. I believe the folks
that trumpeted it so much in the past realized that most people’s family values
included toleration and love. This
didn’t fit the picture that was being presented and we don’t hear much about their
importance anymore.
American Dream
I’m always
amazed that this phrase is always in the singular. During the depression it
was: “a chicken in every pot” while I was growing up, it was epitomized by the
phrase: “two cars in every garage”. Now
we are told it is the ability for our children to be better off than we
are. My American Dream was to sail my
own boat to the Caribbean. I believe
that each American has his/her own dream and that Jefferson had it right when
he wrote “The Pursuit of happiness”.
Without knowing the speakers definition, it is impossible to know what
he is talking about when mentioning the American Dream.
Rich, Poor, and
Middle Class are fluid concepts that change relative to the person talking
about them. Everyone says they are middle
class, You only admit to being poor when
you are applying for benefits, Only a
few billionaires would admit to being rich.
Many years ago I read a survey that has been backed up by my experience
in the financial services that a rich person has either twice your income or
twice your net worth. To someone earning
$50,000 a year a rich person is earning $100,000 a year. To someone worth 1 million a rich person is
worth 2 million. When these terms are
used without qualifiers, there is no way to know what the speaker really means.
Tax Simplification
is one of the biggest lies out there. I
have seen several “simplification” acts passed and each one makes taxes more
complicated. If you ask any tax preparer
or CPA about this, I am sure they will agree.
Income (or wealth)
redistribution is a sure sign that a
rant about poor people will follow. It’s
a phrase that is sure to get blood pressure up.
For some reason it is only mentioned when wealthy people feel that
something will be taken from them. The
fact is that wealth is redistributed each time money or property changes hands.
One of the greatest redistributions of
wealth has been occurring over the last decade or so of the poor’s assets going
to the rich.
Some People Say Is being used by news broadcasters more and
more. This is an indication of
editorializing on the news while presenting the item as news. One network seems to say this every time I watch
its’ news show, (not that often). They
don’t tell you who said it or how many people said it. When I hear it, I have to tell myself that it
is the boss of the network that said it, thus putting the proper importance to
it.
Islamist is the
most misused word I know of. None of the
people that are described as such practice Islam as Mohammed laid out in
the Quran. The Quran explicitly states that those who
commit suicide or the killing of innocents will go directly to Hell. The Quran also states that Jesus was the
greatest prophet and that his teachings should be followed, (though not
necessarily those of the apostles). The
hate and anger that are caused by the misuse of this word is one of the
greatest tragedies of the day.
ECONOMICS
Over the years I have taken three
courses in economics and all of them started with the statement that we should
ignore everything we had learned previously and that what was about to be
taught was correct. Many of my beliefs
about economics came from reading “The Capitalist Manifesto” by Louis
Kelso. His idea of turning the entire
population into capitalists has real appeal to how we could be living. The
Employment Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) was passed in 1974 just after
I had read Kelso. I was intrigued with
all the exceptions he was able to get put in ERISA for Employee Stock Ownership
Plans (ESOPS) and contemplated a career working with these plans. Growing up across the street from Walter
Heller, (Chief economic advisor to Presidents Kennedy and Johnson and
instigator of the cut taxes to grow the economy concept), I asked Professor Heller on his thoughts
about Kelso and ESOPs. He told me that
it wasn’t his area of expertise, but that the idea held merit. At the time, I couldn’t understand how he could
say this was out of his area of expertise.
I now understand that economics is truly a dreadful science that can
answer only very specific questions and even then without exactitude. The relationship between two trees may be
clear, while the entire forest is a mystery. I have followed economic issues
since my entry into the financial services industry in the early 70’s. As more
and more economists go to work in the private sector it will provide for more
self serving studies like those that prove tobacco is not harmful. It’s still
true that money can be made only from man at work or capital at work. It’s also still true that capital is simply
labor that has been stored and or combined with natural resources. I have concerns with how we believe in the dynamics
of interest rates, jobs, and growth.
JOBS
There is a big disconnect between what Americans believe
about the job market and the reality of what it is. We educate our young people to fill a
particular job and then talk about how it can turn into a lifelong career. We
cling to Plato’s concept that a man should practice only one occupation so that
he may become the best in it. Most of
the career’s available to me as a young man no longer exist. Only a few professions and trades can boast
of being a lifelong career, and even then they require constant continuing
education. Many of today’s “high flying”
jobs won’t exist in 20 years and we don’t know which ones they are. Most workers will have many jobs in their
lifetime, and I would suggest that only a few of them will be similar to the
first real job they held. Most of
today’s higher paying jobs require the holder to learn more and more about less
and less. Realizing this people begin to
believe that they don’t know enough about “other” matters that they will leave
them up to the ‘experts’. Unfortunately in the internet world of today all it
takes to become an expert is to call yourself one.
American’s relationships with their jobs has taken on an unhealthy status over the last few decades. It never used to be possible to get “Rich” by a job. You used to have to create something of value and through the entrepreneurial process you either sold or stewarded your creation through the building of a business. We are now rewarding bureaucrats based on the number of people they have working for them, without regard to how well they are performing their jobs. We also seem to highly reward those whose create value for a small few without regard to what that does to the rest of the world. Well into the 20th century, people used to change from entrepreneur to employee and back again several times in their lifetime. Under our current economy this no longer takes place as often, if at all.
I passed on taking up my “family occupation”; dealing with career counseling, to enter the world of financial planning. Being a little more exposed to the idea of ‘we are what we do’, I quickly realized that we as individuals lie on a line between working solely for sustenance or working totally out of passion for what we can accomplish. Most of us envy those who display a true passion for their work. We emulate it and hope that it will contagiously rub off on us. The nature of our jobs is such that we are not willing to admit a lack of passion; as that is the surest way to a dead end future. It is clear to me that most of those who successfully reach the highest point in their organizations have this passion and know how to look for it in others. Many of us fakers are able to rise quite a ways in the organizations we work for, but frequently end up burnt out and ready to leave.
When you look around you at people you interact with, it is pretty obvious where people are on this line: You love interacting with those that are passionate about what they do because you know they really care. Those just earning a check, you would rather not have to contend with as they will do just enough to get by. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if everyone you dealt with was passionate about what they did! We would be happier and much more efficient.
This won’t happen until we change the way we assign our self worth to our occupation. It would also help to change our society just enough to allow people to survive and thrive without a steady job. Most of our beliefs and political persuasions can be placed on a continuum of security to opportunity. The more security we have, the less opportunity, and vice versa. Many look at this as a continuum of bureaucrat to entrepreneur and this can be useful if we realize that even entrepreneurs want some security while the most hidebound bureaucrat is likely to say they would like more opportunity.
I believe there is a huge contingent of Americans that would love to quit their jobs and occupy themselves in non or lesser remunerative ways. We discourage this by our social policies: We tax Social Security benefits (for those who have been fiscally responsible), and we tax Unemployment benefits, (who knows why?). If you are employed you can deduct $15,000 to over $40,000 into a retirement plan. If you have no “earnings” you can’t contribute a penny and deduct it. We also tax dividends twice while the retained earnings only pay tax once, allowing the bureaucrats to decide what to do with the money rather than the owners, (shareholders). No one on their deathbed wishes they had spent more time in the office. It seems silly that we spend all this money on labor saving devices only so we can labor more at something else.
Most of the country now believes that more jobs is the only
way to get the economy moving. While I
don’t deny that more jobs do help get the economy moving, I don’t believe they
are the holy grail they are made out to be.
When politicians talk about creating jobs, we must remember, that the
only way they can create jobs is with bureaucracies and regulations. President Bush got us out of the 2000
recession by creating the TSA and its thousands of medium pay low skill
jobs. Currently about a third of the US population
is not working, while less than 6% is looking for work. By giving tax breaks to seniors and children
a lot of stimulation could be accomplished.
Those that are not working are much more likely to spend the extra
dollar they get then those that are working and able to save some of every
extra dollar.
A common lie is that
taxing higher incomes will stultify job growth.
This is patently false as everything about creating a job is tax
deductable. If an entrepreneur is facing
higher taxes, he/she would likely invest in the business for future growth by
adding a few new deductable positions.
If we put our
emphasis on adequate incomes for all rather than jobs we could see things much
differently. Incomes to include
interest, dividends, rents, royalties, and capital gains as well as welfare. Many of the structural changes and reforms
that this country needs will never be realized because the industries needing
reform would lose so many jobs that the special interests and politicians won’t
be able to structure reforms until the lost jobs can be atoned for.
GROWTH
Like Jobs, Growth is one of those economic factors that has
realized significance way beyond the reality.
We say that: if we are growing, everything is good and if we are not
growing we better get back to growth as soon as possible. Unfortunately the economists have good tools
for measuring growth and because it is “easily measured” it stays our major
indicator of the economy’s status. Many
business’s believe that if they are not growing they are dying. Things are much more complicated than
this. As the population grows the
economy should grow at least equally. If
the population shrinks, so should the economy.
There is a major difference between the micro and macro economics as far
as growth goes. While many business’s
should be growing throughout their life, some business’s should not grow. Once an electric utility has all the
customers signed up and wired, growth can only come from more power being
sold. This is not a good sign for the
environment. Growth in health care means
either more people are getting sick or more expensive procedures are being
used. Neither of these is a good outcome
for society. Inflation is a phony type
of growth and how it is accounted for in GDP statistics has to skew the numbers
in ways we can’t tell. Growth also involves the using of natural resources,
which are finite and could be used up. We have come to use economic growth as a
way to say how well our nation is doing.
This ignores many factors that are really important to all of us;
fulfillment, happiness, and security,
The Nation of Bhutan has taken a step in this direction by instituting a
“happiness index” to measure how their politicians are doing. The EU is working on some similar
measurements; We need to be changing the
way we think about this.
INTEREST RATES
The country has been bamboozled by the bankers over how
interest rates work. The economists like
to lower them to “jump start” growth and raise them to put the dampers on
things. The Federal Reserve has adopted
these beliefs and they are quite self serving as the Fed consists almost
totally of bankers. The Fed has three
basic tools to use in its monetary policy: The ability to print money also
known as quantitative easing, the ability to change interest rates it charges
banks, and changing the amount of reserves banks have to hold. By lowering the discount rate the banks can
make much more money on their spread between deposits and loans, keeping them
happy. Lower interest rates also
devastate the conservative saver who doesn’t trust the stock market. Before 2007 many retirees lived off the
interest on their FDIC savings accounts.
This is no longer possible, forcing these folks to either gamble in the
market or to spend principal. Most responsible citizens save for their future
and those that tend to be the most secure financially buy things for cash
whenever they can. The wise
investor/consumer will only borrow for things that will go up in value over the
life of the loan or in case of an emergency.
The government, society, and especially the bankers, however, wants us
to finance all our purchases, no matter how small, so that the economic
activity happens immediately instead of in a deferred future. We’ve seen how this developed in the 2008
crisis and yet we keep on the same instant gratification pipeline now as we
were then. There is no talk about making us an “ownership” society but only
keeping us an “indebted” society.
Back in the high inflation 80’s interest rates were
continually being raised in “efforts” to bring the inflation rate down. Only after a 1 year CD was offering an 18%
rate did this seem to have any affect. I
couldn’t help but think that the continual raising of rates only contributed to
inflation. Paying more in interest was
fine because inflation would increase the value of what was being bought more
than the interest price. Higher interest
rates led to higher prices as the borrowing rate is part of any sales
price. Back then I wondered why the Fed
didn’t raise the reserve limits on banks to tighten the money supply. It would have forced the banks to lend less
and bring down inflation by quashing economic activity. Of course they didn’t do this because the
banks would have had a much harder time making money. We now have the foxes running the hen house
and until a majority of the Federal Reserve Board is made up of non bankers we
won’t have much change.
HEALTH CARE
After 40 years insuring human beings, I am amazed at the
sudden appearance of hoards of health insurance experts as it relates to
Obamacare. The word ‘Insurance’ usually
puts people to sleep, but all of a sudden everyone seems to like their insurance
company? The Health Insurance industry’s
lobbying is the most effective in the United States. No politician can fight an industry that can put a dozen agents in every congressman’s
office with just a few hours notice. I
still don’t know how America’s Health Insurance Plans, (AHIP) was able to
participate in the writing of Obamacare while at the same time donating $83
million to The US. Chamber of Commerce to run ads attacking the plan using the
Chambers name rather than their own.
They can use one side of a story to make people angry, and it’s obvious
that angry people don’t think with clear minds. Consider:
1.
Announcing that Obamacare will increase
insurance premiums. What else is new? Insurance premiums have gone up virtually
every year in memory. Now the insurance
companies can blame someone other than themselves for this.
2.
Scaring people that a government bureaucrat will
be deciding the type of medical care you receive. Right now you have a private insurance
company bureaucrat deciding what medical care you will receive. Not only that, but he may get pay increases
by keeping claims down.
3.
Health insurance company profits have been huge
in the years since the passage, and
analysts generally are bullish on future profits.
4.
With the exception of large self insured plans,
all insurance is regulated by the states.
Each state has different rules and procedures for insurance
companies. That Obama didn’t know this
is deplorable.
5.
Social insurance is provided by the government
and allows us to manage risks that pertain to all of the population. The Armed Forces insures the country’s security,
covers all risks and is paid for by all of us.
Social Security, The FDA, OSHA, and Medicare are other examples.
6.
Private insurance companies are formed to manage
risks of groups of people, over and above what the government covers, and does
this by underwriting , (selecting the best risks and not covering the worst).
7.
The Canadian system is in fact at least 10
separate systems. One for each
province. Some do a great job, others
not so good.
8.
The insurance companies are allowed to keep 20%
of premiums for “expenses”. Medicare is
able to do it’s administration for 4% of premiums.
9.
Obamacare has Republican roots that can be
traced from Romney to Nixon. It is
nothing like what the Democrat’s had ever proposed before.
10.
Because all 50 states have laws that require
hospitals to serve the uninsured in their emergency rooms, we’ve had the most
expensive kind of universal health insurance coverage for a decade or so.
11.
The way most hospitals pay for these uninsured
ER visits has been by corrupting their billing system by charging different
prices for the same procedures, because of deals they make with separate
insurers, causing the highest billings to go to the uninsured.
12.
Because the government under Obamacare will take
care of the catastrophic claims, the private insurance companies have no risk
to manage. Without underwriting, the
insurance companies are not taking part in the practice of insurance, they are
simply transferring money. Is it any
surprise that United Health Care is putting so much effort into their Optum
Bank?
13.
“For Profit Healthcare” is an oxymoron that more
people should recognize. All those
feeding at this trough won’t consider any dissent, unfortunately. Logic says that the only way to more profits
is to increase the number of unhealthy people, raise your rates, order more
diagnostic maneuvers, and treat more chronic conditions. Curing people is decidedly not profitable.
Until the American Voters realize that the special interests
are interested in maintaining their power through divide and conquer tactics I
see little chance for positive change.
The biggest problem with health insurance today is the insurance
companies. As long as they are at the
table in the discussion of Americas Health we will be spending 15-20% more than
we need too. For an industry that relies
on keeping its promises their dishonesty is deplorable.
My recent qualification for Medicare is a good example: Under Obamacare, My policy was just over $300
a month and had a $6,500 deductable. Now
enrolled in Medicare, my policy costs, $100 a month, Medicare A costs $100 a
month for a total of a hundred dollars saving and a deductable that is now
about $50. Remember please that I
am a year older which should raise
rates.
It makes me ashamed to be an insurance person. The recent actions of the Health Insurance
industry show just how little they can be trusted. I don't deny that their industry is at
risk: If you provide universal coverage
without underwriting age or pre existing conditions, you don't have private
insurance you have social
insurance. The real issue is who gets to
keep their jobs. With several million
jobs at stake this is a real concern.
The fact that we already have universal coverage in all 50 states with
ER laws has been roundly ignored. The
real issues are: can I keep my doctor,
and can my doctor charge what he desires?
This could be solved relatively easily by paying a set fee schedule,
(similar to Medicare), but should the doctor want to charge more than the
schedule, he could do so, but then be reimbursed for less than the schedule
with the patient making up the difference.
This leaves a spot for private insurance similar to what developed
around Social Security. True universal
coverage, like Social Security, has precedents and doesn't force any
purchases. It's time to ignore the
lobbyists and do what's right for the country.
This could be paid for by taxing employers the same amount that they
claimed on their 5500 tax form for health insurance benefits in prior years.
POWER
Ultimately, power comes from the barrel of a gun. Civilization has kept the exercise of this
type of power limited to nations and outlaws.
Even though many in this country seem to have a desire to demonstrate
the power of a gun, I hope that our culture will keep this from happening here. Power is the ability of having other people
do things that you wish to be done. We have all seen the corrupting influence
power has on people, and in the past, our Country has taken steps to limit the
amount of power any one individual has. There are two basic ways to obtain
power: From above and from below. A
persons initial ascent to power usually comes from above. Someone with power recognizes someone’s
talent and confers a position of limited power to them. Once in a position of power, people tend to
want to keep it and expand it if they can.
Proper Ass Kissing is one of the most common ways of gaining power from
above. Gaining power from subordinates
is the best way for expanding power from below.
Power operates in a manner similar to love. You can jealously guard your love and not let
any others in, or you find out that the more you share the more that you
have. I think that one of the reasons we
have such a “Celebrity” culture is that most celebrities have received their
power from below and we as a country love that.
Most business’s have a top down power structure that frequently seems
like cronyism to those below. Our
Democratic/Republican structure of government is predicated on power coming
from below. The incursion of money into
politics today, has changed the prescription and now our politicians are
anointed by those with the cash to fund a campaign. By the time we at the bottom get to exercise
our power in the election, it is limited to those that the top has chosen.
The exercise of power is usually in the form of
leadership. Those wishing to be leaders must accumulate enough power to
attract followers. The motivation for
becoming a leader is most telling of the type of leadership that will be
practiced. There are those who simply
want to be powerful and those who want to accomplish something for those that
are following. It was Harry Truman who
said: “you can accomplish anything provided you do not mind who gets
credit”. Unfortunately, many of our
leaders follow the examples of “The Prince” by Machiavelli and the “Art of War”
by Sun Tzu in formulating their leadership tactics. Divide and conquer tactics have been used
down through the ages and have been very successful for periods of time. Our current political parties have
impressively increased their number of zealots using fear, blame and anger to
move their points Unite and prosper
seems to be a much better way of accepting differences between peoples. The example of the two world wars illustrates
this best. After WWI the conquered
Germans were treated horribly and forced to pay reparations for they were
conquered. The problems with the peace
led directly to WWII. At the end of
WWII, we were wise enough to worry more about rebuilding peacefulness than
extracting punishment. By funding both
Germany’s and Japan’s reconstruction we were able to build good allies from
bitter enemies. We as a country have
accomplished some of our greatest feats during periods like WWII and the years
thereafter when our parties where talking to each other. We actually had a very stable tax code
between 1954 and 1974 which allowed both citizens and business’s to plan with
certainty how our taxes were going to affect our actions. Unfortunately, Fanny Fox put a stop to that
when she forced reporters to pay more attention to the personal lives of our
politicians. Presently we don’t know how
much in taxes we will pay for a given year until after that year is almost over
and the “continuing resolution” is passed.
Everyone agrees that we have to reform Social Security, Medicare, and
the Alternative Minimum Tax, but arguing about the credit and blame keeps
anyone from doing anything positive about them.
"Naturally, the common people don’t want war. But after
all, it is the leaders of a country who determine the policy, and it is always
a simple matter to drag the people along whether it is a democracy or a fascist
dictatorship, or a parliament or a communist dictatorship. The people can
always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to
do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of
patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in every
country." Hermann Goering, president of Reichstag, Nazi Parliament, 1934.
Our leaders have proved the truth in Goering’s quote doesn’t
only apply to hot war. The cold war was
a way of using fear to unite the country even though we had little to fear from
the Soviet Union. Our values were
attacked in both Vietnam and Iraq as well as the country with 9-11.
ISIL is using fear in much the same way as Genghis Khan did
to make the largest empire the world has ever seen. When Genghis conquered a town, the losing men
were rounded up and given the choice to fight for the Mongols or die. If they chose to fight they were put in the
very front of the charge into the next town, without weapons. If they didn’t fight, those behind them would
kill them. If they survived the
massacre, they were given weapons for the next conquest. Those
that rose to the top were the most brutal fighters that killed the most
enemy. The use of ruthlessness and fear
to co-opt integrity and truthfulness dooms these organizations to relatively
short life spans. Genghis’ empire lasted
less than two generations, which
unfortunately for those living then was much too long a time.
Many of our worst politicians are using fear and anger to
completely disguise many issues we have in this country: I’d like to meet the idiot that’s going to go
door to door to take the guns away. Is
an immigrant really going to take your job away? Do the police really want to shoot black
people? Why is addressing voter fraud so
important, when there is so little of it?
What’s so scary about bi-lingual business’s? Does anyone refuse to talk English to
you? Why do I get a very unchristian
reaction when I say “Happy Holidays” to some?
You have a better chance of being hit by lightning than being hurt in a
terroristic attack. Why do politicians
scare us?
Power and Religion are natural allies. When the power comes from “ABOVE” and the
penalty for not submitting is hell, you can get away with most anything. Despite the Gospels, the scariest part of
religious power is the intolerance of other beliefs. I often wonder what those who want prayers in
public venues would say if they heard Muslim prayers in those venues? The folks who fear Sharia Law in America seem
to be the same ones that want to impose Christian Law in America. It’s one of the paradoxes of the United States
that we were formed out of several colonies that began as places where only one
religion was allowed, and grew up as a place where all religions were
allowed. We truly did unite and prosper!
DEMOCRACY
Democracy and Republic are some of those words like
Christian and Muslim that are often used to hide ugliness. If it is either a Democracy or a Republic how
could it possibly be bad? Many countries
claim to be republics like Russia and China and have no intention of letting
the citizens decide their future. It’s
always surprised me that around the turn of this century, democracy was claimed
to be the savior of the world. When I
was growing up it was always explained to me that democracy only worked if you
had an educated electorate. After a stay
with a Rasta man in Jamaica during an election campaign I came to see the truth
in this. He was a sincere and caring
holy man, who could just barely read and not add properly. His vote was going for the politician that
promised the most, even though it would have been impossible for this
politician to keep any of his promises.
He was not going to vote for the incumbent because he hadn’t kept his
promises. His lack of education kept him
from making a rational choice and he went with the gut instead. Democracy in an illiterate country is going
to end up with warlords and corruption because the best liar will win.
Our founders laid out a geographic republic within our
Constitution. The original plan was to
only let landowners vote for representation by someone who lived near
them. While we now can vote directly for
our Senators and Representatives, even if we don’t own land, we are still voting based on those that live
near us, or at least in our State. In
the nineteenth century we shared most of our interests with our neighbors that
were engaged in the same type or complimentary livelihoods. Corn farming in one part of the country,
wheat in another, cotton in another, shipping in the ports, and so on. When the representative went to Washington
they knew the issues that were important to their neighbors and were able to
vote to bring those issues home. If
issues came up that didn’t apply to their concerns they were able to trade
their vote on those issues to other representatives whose votes on the “right”
issue would help. Back then, a rich
person in Boston may have helped a politician from Braintree get elected, but I
am sure that they never even thought about contributing to an election in
Virginia. As our society has become more
complex, the relationship of location with personal interests has been
broken. A doctor in New York feels he
has more in common with a doctor in Miami than a plumber in New York. This complexity has given rise to the
“Special Interest” groups that originally were giving advice to our
lawmakers. With the breakdown of
campaign financing these special interests are now nominating our politicians
and writing our laws through their proxy lawmakers. We voters have accepted this state of affairs
when we send money, and thus our power, to the lobbyists (our special interest group),
instead of our congressional representative.
The current situation allows unlimited money to be used in
politics, and it doesn’t seem to matter where the money comes from. A rich foreigner can buy a US corporation and
have it donate as much as wanted through a Super PAC and no one knows where the
money came from or how much it is. The
biggest beneficiary of this unlimited money is the media. All of the money ends up with the media and
because of this we don’t hear why it is a bad thing. The second biggest beneficiary of all this is
the incumbents, who have always ended up with more contributions than the
challengers. The third biggest
beneficiaries of this money is the special interests themselves with the
political parties coming in fourth. All
these beneficiaries are hoping to hold the status quo and work hard to keep
anything from changing or they will lose their power. When I hear any of these groups talk about
change, all I can do is hold on to my wallet.
The only hope to get money out of the campaigns is from a grass roots
movement.
The Supreme Court has opinioned on this when they called
campaign contributions a function of FREE SPEECH. I understand how money can be used to buy
speech, but somehow it isn’t free. We
currently have several forms of speech that are not free. You can go to jail for shouting “fire” in a
crowded space. You can be sued for libel
if you lie about a non-public person with your speech and you can be jailed for
lying under oath. I believe that a
Constitutional Amendment defining electioneering as a special type of protected
speech is the best way to get the big money out of politics and to return it to
a local issue. The amendment would read:
Notwithstanding
the First Amendment, efforts to influence elections to public office in the
United States and its’ subdivisions shall be limited to those who are able to
vote in said election.
Congress shall have power to enforce this article by
appropriate legislation.
This would eliminate money from any source that can’t breath
as well as limit money to those geographically interested in the election. It would keep the political parties to their
original purpose of guiding legislation through Congress. It would make lobbyists use intelligence in
their arguments rather than money. It
would make the news media come up with new sources of money in the campaign
seasons. And it would be fought by every
successful special interest group in the country. It would also cost thousands of mostly high
paying jobs.
We have to remember that the job of an elected
representative is to determine taxes and spending. They can only do this by compromising. It is a shame that so many of our politicians
use the rights of minorities to stop the will of the majority. We now have a disloyal opposition that will
do everything to bring down the other party, no matter how bad it is for the
nation. The political parties are more
interested in a divide and conquer strategy than a unite and prosper one! The refrain has been: “If you are not fully
with us, you are against us.”
RELIGION
Being suddenly faced with retirement, I decided to face a number of questions that
had never been answered to my satisfaction.
As is common with most people, my first direction was that of
religion. With a Jewish father and a
Christian mother I was brought up with no religious education other than
reading the Bible. I decided to read the
holy scriptures from cover to cover in a speedy manner. Because the God of Abraham is worshipped by
the majority of the earth’s people I started with the Old Testament, the New
Testament, the Quran, and ended with the Book of Mormon. Religion serves the purpose of explaining
that which we can’t understand. The less
we understand about our world the more we ascribe to religion.
While this read took a couple of years for me to complete,
it was because of putting it down for periods of time and not because I was
re-reading or thoroughly studying certain sections. I felt this was important to be able to
identify themes that ran through, while ignoring single issue type of
items. It soon became obvious that you
could back up any point you want to make by a scripture quote, (sometimes
two). The Scriptures are used in two
different ways: I believe the original
purpose was to provide a guide to a better place both before and after
death, they are also used to gain and
consolidate power.
The “Highway to Heaven” is best described by Mohammed when
he writes: “My deeds are mine and your deeds are yours. You are not accountable for my actions, nor
am I accountable for what you do.”[1] The Scriptures provide a path to behavior
that will put you in God’s positive light.
We know these as the “Ten Commandments”,
the “Golden Rule” and much of the Quran.
Interestingly enough, I only came up with one example of someone being
brought into heaven by another, that of the thief crucified along with
Christ. There also is no “requirement”
to go to Temple, Church or Mosque, in order to be blessed and go to heaven.
The people that brought forth the great religions were
unanimous in their belief that the existing religion was corrupt and no longer
providing the path to heaven. Moses had
to deal with the golden calf. Jesus
railed at the corruption of the Temple in Jerusalem and kicked the money changers
out. Mohammed didn’t like the way the
leaders of his time combined animism, object worship and the beliefs of “The
Book”, and, of course, Luther railed
against the Church selling passes to heaven.
Joseph Smith had to leave New York for eventually Utah in order to avoid
the corruption he saw all around. It’s a
true statement that “Buddha wasn’t a Buddhist, Christ wasn’t a Christian, and Luther
wasn’t a Lutheran.
The belief that the Bible is the “infallible word of God” is
particularly distasteful to me. The
Bible was the result of the Emperor Constantine being unable to govern a
Christian world without consensus as to what was “Christian”. He ordered the top religious minds of the
day to convene and come up with one book that would be the “Bible”. The many writings that didn’t conform to the
attendees particular needs were excluded from the Bible and most were lost to
the following generations. All this
happened hundreds of years after the death of Christ, so is a reflection of
Constantine’s beliefs instead of a “Clear Message from God”.
EDUCATION
With a daughter that teaches and a wife who worked for many
years in the public school system I am certain only about two things in
education:
1.
If the teachers are doing a poor job it’s most
likely because they aren’t being allowed to teach. My mother was involved in the first National
Educational Assessment in the 60’s and I remember her statements about how this
job was impossible and could only serve politicians interests. The idea that you could compare the education
of an inner city child with that of one living on a farm accurately is sheer
folly. We have embraced this idea and
now testing is the only thing that is important to our educators. What is needed is children that can think for
themselves and not be taught to pass a test.
We have the anti union zealots saying the teacher tenure system is all
screwed up and not realizing that the principals can get rid of the bad
teachers, no matter their tenure! School
administrators need to do the hard work of getting rid of substandard teachers
and then get out of the way and let the teachers teach. The very best teachers may have students with
very poor test scores due to the kids situations that have nothing to do with
the quality of teaching.
2.
We need to be teaching personal finance from an
early age. I didn’t learn what leverage
was until after I had graduated from college.
This is a complete shame. We read
that the average person in their fifty’s has about $10,000 in savings after
earning many 100 of thousands of dollars.
With technology eliminating many thousands of jobs, it’s incumbent upon
us to make sure people can live on their capital assets. Most people today don’t even know what a
capital asset is, much less have any.
It’s a known fact that almost anyone can get rich slowly but we all want
to do it overnight. Winning the lottery
may be a fine fantasy, unfortunately it is many people’s retirement plan. High school graduates should know about:
balance sheets and income statements, types and terms of leases, how to balance
accounts, calculate interest rates, types of legal entities; trusts,
corporations, partnerships, LLC’s, and proprietorships. Attaining financial independence is part of
most people’s American Dream. We need to
do a better part educating how to achieve this goal.
As a child watching afternoon cartoons, my mother made me
very aware of the purpose of the advertisements and their attempts to make me
believe stuff that was to their benefit.
I’ve always thought that this was one of the most important things I’ve
been taught: Every communication
contains the bias of the presenter and will aim to get you to believe in the
relevance of that communication. There is no Media that is fair and
unbiased. We need to understand the
medias bias and include it in our assessment of what they are presenting. My hope is that we will try to consider the
world that we want to live in on a personal basis and look beyond the dogma to help
shape the world that we want to be a part of.
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