On Growing Up “Poor”

January 28, 2010

Those  of  you who have perused the ponderings in this place may remember On Being “Wealthy”.  It therefore seems reasonable to also think about growing up “poor” in our country, and to ruminate on long-term effects.

I have never felt rich; and I have never felt poor.  But I must concede that my family actually was poor:  a single mother supporting her three children and her elderly mother on what she could earn—without alimony, child support payments, or any form of public assistance.

Many people have confessed that when they were growing up they didn’t know their family was poor because everyone in the neighborhood was poor.  I guess I was too dense to reason that everyone in our vicinity was not exactly affluent.  Of course, the rented house and the neighborhood we lived in was not upper class in any manner.  Therefore it is a reasonable assumption that at least a few of our neighbors were also poor.  However, my sisters and I were a bit  perceptive and we could detect a few differences in standards of living between families.

Our mother was, of course, eligible for Aid For Dependent Children (AFDC) in our state.  But she believed that such public support programs were like steam boiler pressure-relief valves:  a last-resort safety mechanism.  She was also aware that not signing up for that particular welfare initiative precluded limited assistance for  medical and dental care or eye exams and glasses.  Even on those dark-moment occasions when another of our not-too-rare serious financial hurdles was facing us (such as another of the occasional eviction pending notices) she still held that those support programs were intended for “people who needed them more than we do”.  I never thought of my mother as a particularly strong person, but on reflection I believe she must have had either a substantial reserve of self-confidence or the optimism of a problem-solver that a solution can always be found.

On a practical, day-to-day basis, life for us children was probably not much different from that of most children in middle class families, families that would not have been categorized as “poor”.  I don’t remember any mealtimes with sparse food at home, and my sisters and I always had a sack lunch or cafeteria money at school.  The content of our meals did not seem different from those of my neighborhood playmates:  some number of meatless meals; less-expensive cuts when there was meat; common vegetables; corn bread or store-bought white bread; milk, iced tea or (rarely) soda pop; and only occasional desserts (Mother was convinced that sugar was the cause of cavities and other dental problems).  Because our mother was working full-time, and as much overtime as available, our grandmother prepared most of the meals (and that is an essay of its own, waiting to be expressed).

Our financial coping strategy (although “strategy” implies more thought and planning than we actually expended) was most likely the same as that of all poor families.  We avoided all of the expenditures that we could, and we postponed the inevitable costs as long we could possibly get by without the particular goods or services.  Regular, preventive medical checkups were unknown to us—doctors or dentists (with the exception of early childhood vaccinations).  Shoes, which were worn only during the school year, could be made to suffice with homegrown patches as needed, until the point where our feet could no longer be stuffed into them.  Clothing could be patched, be let out to its maximum extent, have legs or sleeves cut off for summer casual, and the fading of so many washings could be ignored.  Of course, we took maximum advantage of parks and public libraries and anything else that was free and within walking distance.

My memory today of things we were “deprived of” (if that is correct terminology) is of mostly small “extras”; my older sister and I accepted this as normal (there was five years age difference between each of us, so I did not experience the leanest years, and our younger sister even less,  from the same perspective).  Fashion was certainly not an issue for a boy in that time:  blue jeans, long- or short-sleeved shirt, and a pair of (barely) presentable shoes—tennis shoes were not yet ubiquitous.  A sport coat, or a suit, was almost unheard of in my neighborhood at that time.  What about my older sister?  I confess to being so self centered and fashion-ignorant that I didn’t notice; but I don’t remember her and our mother huddled in any serious clothing finance councils.  Living in a family of women, I did get (via osmosis?) that girls thought more in terms of mix and match, and coordinated components, rather than in complete outfits off the rack

Another condition that my sister and I accepted as normal was that we had some, albeit limited, capacity to earn money.  Babysitting was a natural for her, and mowing lawns (with our manual push mower) was a possibility for me.  In addition, collecting discarded soft drink bottles to return for their two-cent deposit was a means of financing occasional movies, do-it-yourself toys and craft projects, or other small “luxuries”.  Perhaps that is why I don’t recall very many disappointments caused by not conforming to the latest fads or owning the must-have “in” things.  The thought that we had done our best probably also provided some degree of satisfaction.

Curiously, my sisters and I always assumed we would go to college, as if that were the normal, routine thing for all children.  I don’t recall any anxieties, or even any substantive discussions, about financing a college education.  As it worked out, we went to college just like a lot of other students had done for many generations, using various scholarships, part-time jobs, full-time summer employment, and desperation-enforced frugality.

As I mentioned, postponing expenditures as long as possible was a way of life for all of us—clothing, shoes, household items, etc.  Looking back, I can see that at times I was entirely too literal.  For example, at some point in the primary grades I realized that my eyesight was changing, and that I would eventually need glasses.  But it seemed perfectly logical to me to wait until I really needed glasses to admit my problem.  Besides, I reasoned, all I had to do was ask the teacher in each class to seat me in the front row because I had difficulty reading the blackboard from the rear of the room.  I also knew I could beat the periodic eyesight screening checks held in the schools:  just memorize the placement of the letters in the eye chart while in line waiting for my turn.  But this strategy was not altogether satisfactory; some teachers were completely inflexible in their seating schemes.  One result was that I barely squeaked by in junior high school algebra, not to really catch up in algebra until the time of differential calculus in college.

Another bit of shortsightedness I used to blame on being poor, until I was forced to admit to myself that it was just my own bad decision.  The College Board Scholastic Aptitude Tests were nigh when I found out we had to pay for them—as I recall, about $6.00 in those days.  I must have reverted to third-grade reasoning, deciding not to spend the equivalent of almost a week’s worth of school lunches on some bureaucratic test.  At least one result was that I thereby ensured myself of no possibility of competing for a National Merit Scholar slot or receiving any potential scholarship value that might come out of a decent test score.

When I look back and contrast today’s pervasive government quilt of “safety net” social services with the situation at the time I was growing up, I wonder what long-term effects the absence of those entitlements had on my contemporaries and me.  But in our politically-incorrect time, though, we had one unknown (to us at that time), but highly beneficial, modification to our environment.

From junior high on, students were assigned to classes on the basis of their IQ scores.  I suppose that approach was just another pop-psychology initiative to ward off damage to our delicate psyches.  But the most value to me was the resulting environment, where children from the richest side of town mingled with those from the poorest side.  I really don’t remember ever being jealous of any fellow student’s advantages of affluence:  vacations, travel, private lessons for sports, music, ballroom dancing, etc.  In fact, what I still feel good about today was being able to vicariously share in the richness of the collective experiences of my classmates.  Without implying that my teachers did not accomplish their goals, I still believe the preponderance of my total learning in high school came from my classmates.

Another positive, in my opinion, was our learned tendency to to first begin a search for solutions to our personal problems, turning elsewhere only after exhausting our own store of potential remedies.  I also believe that my own problem-solving failures usually were caused by my reluctance to ask some knowledgeable person for advice (shyness is definitely a minor form of disability).

In some slight way, growing up poor was like a right of passage, from dependent child to independent, moderately confident adult for my sisters and me; I suspect the same was true for a number of our contemporaries.

Leave a Comment » | General | Tagged: , , , | Permalink
Posted by thedrake01

On Coming of Age

July 27, 2009

The phrase “coming of age” crept into my consciousness before I could even read.  I had determined that it meant a point of transition, although “transition” was not yet in my vocabulary.  No one ever told me what chronological age equated to that point.  Perhaps that’s why the phrase, in my mind, represented a continuum of transition points, most of which were positive and to which I looked forward.

Like a lot of things viewed from the higher-ground advantage of some accumulation of age and a tad of wisdom, most of my transition points seem trivial today.  Some were significant, a few were not pleasing and one or two were absolutely loathsome.  But the majority represented at least some pride of accomplishment (if continuing to live can be interpreted as an accomplishment).

Most of those “comings of age” have faded from my memory, or at least the descriptive details have.  For example, I was impatient to reach the point at which I could learn to read:  a necessity when you’re the first one awake on Sunday mornings and can only look at the picture panels in the funny papers, without a clue as to what is being said in the balloons above the characters.  I can’t remember the age point at which I expected to somehow learn to read.  But this little transition was different from most:  I figured out how to influence the continuum and advance the timing of the result.  I pestered my older sister to read to me until she taught me to read in self-defense.

I suspect that everyone has a similar memory of his or her life’s transition points; I hope they looked forward to them as eagerly as I did.  One disappointment was the age to begin school. Kindergarten—to a child who already knew the alphabet, the colors, the Arabic numerals, and who could read at some elemental level—seemed a total waste of time. But the completion of each successive grade and entry into the next remains a positive memory.

A few transition points were bittersweet in nature.  The “age” for a bicycle was not chronology-dependent in my family; it was purely financial.  In a similar manner, getting a drivers license was not triumphantly meaningful at 16 because our family did not own a car.

High school did not rank very high in the comings-of-age hall of fame, possibly because it appeared to be just another bit of continuum.  College was also bittersweet:  the first two years were almost a repeat of high school, and I then learned that my engineering curriculum was about fifteen to twenty years behind the current technology.

One coming of age was a twofer:  legal drinking age and voting age (but since I never learned to tolerate the fuzzy mind induced by alcohol, drinking was eventually recorded in the “unpleasant lessons” category).  Draft registration at 18 was a meaningless bit of bureaucracy—until the draft notice came at 22.

Marriage and family are important points which most men and women look forward to.  But for some reason, those two points were missing on my comings-of-age chart.  Luckily, though, they still happened to me, in my clueless progression up the chart.  Someone up there was looking out for me, making sure I did not miss the joy and richness of life that a family brings.

From this point forward my memory of the comings of age are much sharper; they were fewer and farther apart.  Retirement, which was way out on the horizon of my chart, was just too far away to even think about.  But the Howard W. Woods, Jr. definition of retirement (“That point in life when you can do what you want to do, instead of what you have to do”) sneaked up on me.  The reward was an ability to control the course of a second career.

My view of the retirement genre of comings-of-age is that they are strongly positive or strongly negative; some of those a ways out on the chart are frightening downers.  I do remember looking hopefully to that age when I could move to the other side of the National Ponzi Scheme, taking a little money out rather than dutifully putting it in.  But the next point past Ponzi, Medicare, looked more frightening from a distance and continues to hold true to expectations.

Lyndon Johnson worked hard to disguise the “absolute government monopoly / absolute citizen compliance” aspects of Medicare:  illegal for health insurers to sell to persons age 65 or older, and illegal for persons 65 or older to purchase health insurance.  But Johnson did live long enough for a little comeuppance as the $15 billion per year Medicare cost projection for its 15th year actually arrived in its third year.  We who have arrived at the Medicare point remember Lyndon’s Folly each time we think about our private Medicare Supplement insurance (absolute necessity for everyone with the means).

There are a few wistful points on all of our comings-of-age charts which we try to take in stride, as cheerfully as we can:  wills, burial plots, funeral arrangements, etc.  I put these in the same category as draft registration:  a necessity preceding an event very, very far in the future.

But recently a new and unforeseen point is working its way toward a place on all our charts:  our “duty to die”.  This concept is not new—think about elderly Eskimos on ice floes—but we thought we were past such things in our society.  The “Health Care Reform” bill sneaked through the House of Representatives and the Senate and was gleefully signed by the President.  As expected, a foundation for “The Duty To Die” was included  in the bill, and the President has appointed a Medicare chief who is an avid proponent of that civic duty.

I have truly mixed emotions about this particular coming of age.  I’ve had a very good life, far exceeding my adolescent-years expectations.  It is inevitable that each of us will die, but I had somehow thought that God and I both had some involvement in the timing.  In my mind it was my responsibility to not do something stupid (like texting and driving?) and God’s responsibility to help protect me from myself.  How will I react when I am required to be “counseled” every so often on my societal obligation to die?  Would I “take the pill” or “drink the potion” like a “good little old man”?  That’s not a comforting thought.

Another thought is to question the inevitability of our politically-induced “programmed expiration”.  Just because the people in power, under the influence of a pipe dream or a lifetime of warped ideological indoctrination, have managed to punish us all with irrational, twisted-logic nightmares is not really a reason to passively lie down in the path of their next actualization of evil, irrespective of their motives or ignorance.  We have survived a number of these devilish plots, and we can with God’s help do so again.

We outlasted the politicians who maliciously exploited inflation, using fixed income tax tables that drove families into higher and higher tax brackets even though their real income remained level or declined.  We painfully exposed a racist and abhorrent notion, that black children were unable to learn except in the presence of white children, for the political power play that school busing was.  We endured Jimmy Carter’s Thermostat Police and mandatory nationwide speed limit:  a fairy-tale wish that was supposed to get us on the path to energy independence.  Surely there is a way to educate a plurality of Americans to recognize a Marxist-Leninist Con Man’s preposterous ideological fantasies.

Surely there is a path to get Americans to the point where some number of them, possibly the younger ones, can see that THE EMPEROR HAS NO CLOTHES!


Leave a Comment » | General, Political | Tagged: , , | Permalink
Posted by thedrake01

Data Security: Can It Be Politically Correct?

March 29, 2009

The relationship between data security and its degree of political correctness probably seems a little curious.  However, that relationship may be critical to seriously reducing hacking, viruses and other negative aspects of an insecure data network environment.

As I read, too often, about hackers, cyber-warfare and digital vandalism, I am reminded of the emperor’s new clothes:  surely some small child will eventually exclaim, “He has no clothes!”  But, alas, no child has yet noticed, and we go on, day by day, each of us praying silently that it is not our turn to be the winner of Shirley Jackson’s Lottery.

This passive attitude is not new in human history.  Before modern science and the invention of vaccines, prayer was the only action we could take to prevent contracting the plague, smallpox or other deadly diseases.  There is undoubtedly a very long list of large and small disasters which we simply accepted for years as unavoidable.  So waiting for an inevitable encounter with the hacker trolls isn’t new, from a historical perspective.

Surely there must be a better way!

SECURITY 101

We know a lot more about data security principles and practices than might be guessed from observing present circumstances.  We know that we have to consider physical, technical and procedural measures.  Physical includes tangible things such as padlocks, strong doors and the like.  Technical includes alarm systems, computer hardware and software features, cryptography, and so forth.  Procedural involves passwords (changed often), regular audits of the locked doors and the hardware / software safeguards, backing up of data off-site, etc.  When the physical, technical and procedural measures work together the way they’re supposed to, the bad guys have to work much harder.

Computer hardware and software is at the front line of data security. The computer processors must include instructions for protecting memory (both store and fetch operations) and for protecting access to the small number of powerful privileged instructions which are designed for use by (and must be restricted to) only the operating system or control program.  The Intel architecture design (and its “me-too” competitors) used for a very large number of small computer processors today incorporates essential security features, as does every (or almost every) large and small computer processor available today.

But if genuine security is as simple as it seems, why are we still vulnerable?   If you don’t physically engage the lock on your door, the quality of the lock and strength of the door are moot.  If a bank should decide that an existing greenhouse could be the vault for its new branch location, you might wonder if enough add-ons could ever make that vault secure. Just imagine a “security” cottage industry peddling stronger glass panes, selling encyclopedias of glass-breaking “hard” things, and an infinite number of security-feel-good services!

But if the computer operating systems or control programs do not fully utilize the built-in security features of the processors’ hardware, how could we expect secure networks and systems?

How did we arrive at what seems such an indefensible position? Two curious facts from the paradigm shift represented by the change from steam locomotives to diesel electric locomotives give us a clue.   None of the companies which developed and produced the diesel electrics had ever been in the locomotive business; and none of the companies which produced steam locomotives ever started producing diesel electric locomotives.

DATA SECURITY LORE AND HISTORY

The large mainframe computers, which preceded general purpose microcomputers, had (and still have today) very stable, reliable and secure operating systems and networks.  Unfortunately for all of us, little of that existing body of security knowledge, architecture and experience crossed the gap into the world of personal computers.

Way back when, AT&T’s Bell Labs and Western Electric divisions were the preeminent designers and manufacturers of telephone switching computers.  To help streamline the integration of rapidly-arriving new solid state electronics technology into communications switching computers, Bell Labs computer scientists developed the “C” programming language to help speed up the programming (as contrasted with low-level assembly language).  A related follow-on was the control program, Unix.  Because the world of telephone-switching computers was absolutely internal to the AT&T network and the Bell Telephone companies, the Unix software architecture design did not include the robust features now considered necessary for security.

A good corporate citizen, Bell Labs provided the source code for Unix essentially free to colleges all over the U. S.  Therefore, to most computer science students the Unix design was their familiar model—security deficiencies and all.  As an expected follow-on, Unix-like control programs became the norm for the growing population of small computers and the microcomputers we call “personal computers” today.

Another unfortunate (for security, that is) aspect of computer networking was the design criteria for the U. S. Department of Defense’s Advanced Research Projects Administration Network, ARPANET.  The intent of this network was to facilitate communications between the scientists who were working worldwide on DOD unclassified projects.  Because these projects were pure research (not applied research) and therefore unclassified, the decision was made to dispense with the hassle of normal DOD security precautions.  Because only accredited scientists working on existing contracts were provided with network connections, there was very little fear of mischief making.

But a funny thing happened on the way to network:  ARPANET became the basis for what we now call the Internet.  Adding the essential security  to a wide-open network has been somewhat analogous to adding security to the original non-secure Unix control program (or making a bank’s greenhouse secure enough to be its vault).

MORE LORE THAN HISTORY

From this point, we phase into more lore than history.  What we know is the result of informal conversations with individuals who worked in the various computer and communications disciplines during the extremely rapid growth of personal computing and networking.  In short, this information is comprised of leaks, inadvertent or intentional, by the principals involved.

Personal computers were being sold several years before International Business Machines finally developed a general personal computer product.  But there is no argument that IBM’s entry into the general personal computing arena was what really accelerated the phenomenal growth of the PC, its associated support businesses, and the Internet.

IBM had actually been successfully building and selling personal computers for some number of years to the scientific and engineering niche market (what we might call “engineering workstations” today).  Other divisions of IBM also had extensive experience in microprocessor design, manufacture and programming.  However, this wealth of expertise and experience unfortunately caused, or contributed to, decision paralysis:  which division should be assigned the new general personal computer project?  Failing to make a real decision, IBM formed a small independent business unit to create the PC product.

It’s easy to be a Monday morning quarterback, and there were a number of questionable decisions made by this independent business unit.  Two of those were significant in setting the path to the insecure data environment in which we find ourselves today.  First, the business unit chose a microprocessor supplier that didn’t really have a product that met the unit’s requirements; second, the business unit made a microprocessor control program supplier decision, which even today seems bizarre.  The hardware manufacturer subsequently worked diligently to improve its product, and it has little or no inherent security shortcomings today.  Unfortunately, it does not appear that the same can be said of the control program supplier.

DATA SECURITY GOING FORWARD

The Wham-O¹ marketing strategy has proven to be very successful.  However, the use of that strategy for computer control programs and software does not appear to have good results for consumers and users of that software.  We all want new bells and whistles (“the sizzle sells the steak”) but most of us, given a choice, would put reliability, maintainability and security way ahead of new features.

But we have not been given that choice.  Insiders tell us that an essentially complete redesign (and recoding) would be required in order to have architected, built-in, state-of-the-art security features in the Unix-like microprocessor control programs or operating systems used in small computers today.  Those insiders also tell us that such an extreme redesign would be quite expensive and that there is no business case for such a project today.

POLITICAL CORRECTNESS TO THE RESCUE!

One thing many of us observed over the past twenty or thirty years  is the power of political correctness.  Once an idea, a concept, or even a food item is accepted as politically correct, we can count on forty percent of our population to support it—irrespective of its degree of rationality or absurdity.  So our challenge is to convince a critical mass of citizens that secure computers and secure data networks are politically correct.

During the last few years of apartheid in South Africa many of us refused to buy South African products or invest in South African companies.  This was the politically correct thing to do; and we have numerous other examples of shunning companies and products which were not politically correct.

Surely if the word gets out, a number of us (possibly including an occasional enlightened government organization, perhaps the Department of Defense?) will refuse to purchase computers of any type that are loaded with Microsoft Windows (or other Microsoft control programs) until Microsoft produces a control program / operating system that is as secure as IBM’s “MVS Server Family” of operating systems.  (This is not a promotion for IBM’s software; it’s just that MVS is a good basis for security comparison).

Bill Gates is widely admired for his political correctness and for his philanthropy that supports politically correct endeavors.  If buyers avoid the Windows control program because of its lack of robust security, perhaps Mr. Gates will get the message that data insecurity is definitely not politically correct. I would hope that he then might use his still-important influence to convince Microsoft executive management that a secure operating system could indeed be a profitable project.

A DATA SECURITY LAST RESORT

There is one other, much less desirable, path to significantly improved data security.  Whenever a disaster of unacceptable dimensions occurs, such as an airplane crash with huge loss of life, the federal government goes into high-visibility public safety reaction mode.  Resultant changes, although frequently crude and awkward, usually do address the problem and occasionally even its causative factors.  None of us wants to see or experience a huge and traumatic disaster, but that may be what it  eventually takes to get the ball rolling toward truly improved computer and network security.  Yes, political correctness (preposterous as it sounds) would be a better way to lock the door solidly on hacker criminals.

—-

¹The Wham-O Company is an admired and successful west coast company which has brought us, among other blockbuster products, the Hula Hoop and the Frisbee.  The Wham-O strategy has been to roll out an attractive product quickly, grab as much market share as possible, and utilize intensive marketing as the inevitable copycat products of competitors start arriving in the retail supply conduits.  It is likely that many companies have studied Wham-O’s techniques and adopted them for their own products.

Leave a Comment » | General | Tagged: , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by thedrake01

Health Care Done Right

March 21, 2009

I wish our government could do a few things as well as Kentucky Fried Chicken does chicken (and biscuits, for that matter).  My qualifications for judging fried chicken are sparse, but genuine:  I grew up in the south, eating my grandmother’s fried chicken.  Recognizing the difficulties of doing things on the monumental scale that KFC does, I really believe they do chicken right.

It’s too bad the government can’t learn a little bit from KFC.  Government does a small number of highly focused things effectively.  At the local government level, fire and police protection is mostly adequate to excellent; at the national level, the military has kept us intact as a country for over 230 years.  But by and large, government does almost nothing well.

When it comes to health care, government has performed up to its mediocre-to-unacceptable reputation:  expensive, tons of bureaucratic details, unable to effectively combat overuse and fraud, etc.  The next chapter in health care, the so-called Health Care Reform (actually, a gratuitous solution to an undefined problem), is being mindlessly rushed toward becoming the Mother of all Government Disasters.  But its spectacular failure won’t be for lack of funding:  how about eight to sixteen times that of the Department of Defense?

We might imagine how Colonel Sanders, and the management teams of the subsequent KFC owners, would approach the task of making health care affordable, accessible and effective.  First, they would make sure they know what the goal is.  This sounds overly simple, but has anyone heard a single elected or appointed government official state a real goal, or endpoint, of health care reform?  The only defensible real goal (as yet not mentioned by Obama, Pelosi or Reid) is healthy Americans, substantially healthier than they are today!

We are not going to go from our current state of health to being as healthy as we can be in a short time.  It will take at least two generations; but we would be consistently improving all along the way!

First, we need to implement an ongoing healthy living initiative with the goal of assuring that everyone has the opportunity to learn all of the practical information that we have accumulated to date about health maintenance and disease prevention.  This initiative, involving public schools and universities, government health agencies, and private organizations from the health care community, can be implemented and maintained indefinitely for what amounts to pocket change, compared to the cost estimates for the currently envisioned “health care reform”.

A world-class, full-court-press health initiative can, on its own, significantly reduce health care costs as more and more Americans take heed.  This effort, unlike any of the “health care reforms” proposed to date, starts accruing health benefits and health care cost savings from day one.  This initiative is also essential to the long-term success of any genuine health care reform.

Second, the current health care system must be documented and defined, including its strong points, deficiencies and everything in between.  For example, medical schools failed to ramp up for an impending shortage of doctors:  why did that happen, and what are ways to prevent a recurrence?  This systems analysis will be a large and costly project, involving operations research problem-solvers, systems analysts, and experts from every public and private area of health care.  It would, of course, be broken down into multiple sub-projects in order to keep each segment within manageable size.   While this effort will be costly (although nowhere near the sums politicians are proposing for “reform”), it is the critical first step if we are going to have health care that is effective, accessible, and affordable by our families and by our country.  The health care system  analysis also provides the information necessary to make truly informed decisions on public sector / private sector responsibilities and authorities.

This approach has several advantages. Improvements can be recommended, approved and implemented as the various segments are completed. It would be expected that some elements could be started independently, while others will need to be coordinated with related segments.  Projected costs of the individual recommendations will be much more accurate than would have been possible with one giant “health care reform” unknown.

Third, we must eventually get around to open, honest and thorough discussion and debate of “entitlements”.  One entitlement, Social Security, is by far the largest item in the federal budget.  Another, Medicare, is the second largest item in the budget, far more expensive than the much-maligned Department of Defense (the fourth largest budget item, behind number three, Interest on the National Debt).  Unsustainable cost is the most immediate and most obvious concern about entitlements; but you will presently see the real problem that entitlement creates for effective health care.

Our Social Security program works exactly like the scheme Bernard Madoff pulled off; Social Security is also headed for the same collapse as Mr. Madoff’s little $65 billion, tragic fiasco.  Medicare, which was originally projected to reach a $15 billion per year cost by its 15th year; actually reached that level by its third year, and the government has been scrambling ever since to try to keep it under control (by reducing provider reimbursements, thereby effectively rationing health care).  Also, the government has been unable to root out the intractable twenty-plus percent of fraud and waste from the Medicare and Medicaid programs.

The critical “entitlement” questions that need to be asked, studied, and debated are (1) “What is the obligation of each individual citizen?” and (2) “What is then the obligation of the government?”

Although cost, or cost-versus-worth, is the concern usually debated, the most serious entitlement problem is rarely, if ever, mentioned.  Most people are familiar with Descartes’ “I think, therefore I exist” (cogito ergo sum).  But in our entitlement era it has become “I exist, therefore I deserve”.  We can, and do, endlessly debate all the moral aspects of entitlements.  But the one thing we forget to ask is:  does our entitlement mindset actually create a barrier to accomplishing the intended benevolent result?

In the case of health care, “entitlement” creates the illusion that absolutely nothing is required of the individual.  But I seriously doubt that a single medical professional can be found who would agree that an ignorant, uncommunicative, uncooperative patient could truly benefit from his or her health care—irrespective of cost or accessibility.  While we have heard the word “accountability” in almost every utterance by the politicians in power, they are nonetheless extremely reluctant to ask individuals to take a serious interest in their own health.  It appears that the vote-attracting potential of entitlements precludes the advocating of personal responsibility, and it therefore also makes healthy Americans an unattainable goal.

Given the choice, I would prefer Kentucky Fried Chicken for my primary health care over any form of  “universal health care” that the political powers have proposed.  An added bonus might be a drumstick and a biscuit with honey at each doctor’s appointment.

Note:  Republished this date because of ITYS.

Leave a Comment » | General, Political | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by thedrake01

America’s Most Common Serious Disease?

November 14, 2008

In the last fifty or sixty years the United States government has had a measure of success in eliminating or  reducing the incidence of certain targeted diseases.  In several instances the fight against diseases was conducted in cooperation with the governments of other countries, sometimes with assistance from the United Nations.  Among diseases targeted over the years are infantile paralysis (polio), smallpox, tuberculosis, malaria and aids.  But now there appears to be a groundswell of public clamoring for targeting yet another disease in the U. S.

This latest disease has sneaked up on us, only recently entering the general public consciousness.  But, as with some other epiphanies, awareness seems to be all that is needed to generate political demand.  The latest disease to be put up for government management and control is RDS, which many of us have never heard of.  We should, however, resist our first tendency to dismiss it as a trivial problem.  It turns out that to a growing number of individuals and organizations RDS must be the most important factor in their existence.

Part of the reason RDS has only lately begun to enter the public discourse is that so little is known of it.  There have been few, if any, rigorous scientific studies of the disease.  Yet it is much more widespread than we might have believed.  There is no known cure at present, and there is a wide variation in the therapies used to control it.  Even an unlikely folk remedy is reportedly used:  incorporating a common bird (corvus brachyrhynchos) into the patient’s diet.  But the usual therapy is a short period of isolation, plenty of bed rest, and professional counseling.

Experts believe RDS has both genetic and environmental factors.  There is not much agreement on how contagious it is, but a lot of anecdotal evidence suggests that it can spread quickly through groups of people.  The disease has only one principal symptom; but a number of related factors or sub-symptoms have been recorded, including outbursts of rage.  In most cases the disease is episodic; some observers believe stress can trigger an episode. One of the more annoying aspects of RDS is the common inability of those afflicted to articulate this main symptom; undoubtedly that has led to many instances of misdiagnosis.  In cases where the disease has spread quickly, infecting most of the individuals in a group, it has left friends, families and health professionals mystified.

By all accounts, RDS is extremely painful to most of those infected.  Yet this has not been widely reported.  One possible reason is that the primary purpose, focus or mission of an afflicted group overshadows the misery of individuals in the group.  Usually it is only after completion of the groups’ purposes that mention of the RDS symptoms begin to leak out.

The recorded history of RDS is relatively short, but some researchers have recognized its main symptom in a number of historical accounts, some dating back hundreds of years.  Like a few other diseases, it was named after a victim rather than the person who first identified it.  This victim suffered from the disease for many years; his doctor subsequently named it the Rodney Dangerfield Syndrome, or RDS. Fortunately for all of us, Mr. Dangerfield described his painful symptom in some detail before he died.

The anecdotal evidence of the stress relationship to RDS episodes is abundant in this period between national elections.  A few observers expressed an opinion that there is a correlation between the degree of partisanship of an individual and his or her likelihood of an RDS episode.  These observers have pointed out that it did not appear to make any difference whether the campaign was for an elective office or for a ballot initiative.

There is substantial disagreement as to whether the government can actually help in the fight against RDS.  The more pessimistic side points out that the government does almost nothing well, and that it might  aggravate the problem.  The more emotional side responds that it is worth the risk of getting the government involved because of the obvious degree of suffering.  Furthermore, the emotionalists point out that we all can see it first hand.

With all of today’s reporting channels—professional, amateur, network, cable, internet—we all have the opportunity to see the suffering of a number of RDS victims.  Although the disease usually runs true to form, with most of those afflicted unable to specifically tell us what hurts or where, there are numerous exceptions.  If you have ever seen a tape of Mr. Dangerfield describing his symptom and his pain, you will immediately recognize those sufferers when you see them in the media.  On several occasions while watching some poor victim comiserating, I could clearly visualize Rodney Dangerfield passionately crying “I get no respect”!

Leave a Comment » | General | Tagged: , | Permalink
Posted by thedrake01

Curing Our Worst Addiction

September 3, 2008

Addictions in this country have touched a significant percentage of our families. We see revelations of high-profile peoples’ addictions, and their pursuit of treatments, in the media almost on a daily basis. It would be difficult to find a single person in the United States who is unaware of the widespread problem of addictions.

Starting in the 1950s, there has been an increasing volume of “addiction” stories in the media.   One recent report tallies the annual cost of addictions in my state at $5.8 billion per year. The total cost is comprised of $1.2 billion in direct costs (jail, prison, and medical costs) and $4.6 billion in indirect costs such as lost productivity, family assistance, etc. These are just the substance abuse addictions in my small state (three million residents); imagine what the total U. S. costs are!

If the damages from alcohol, tobacco, marijuana, cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine, and addictive prescription drugs were not bad enough, we now see numerous varieties of compulsive behavior being referred to as “addictions”. When the costs of addictions to gambling, sex, over-eating, etc., are added up, it becomes obvious that these are also serious problems—irrespective of their “habit” or “addiction” label. Even the latest “addiction” story in the media, Americans’ addiction to oil, points to a non-trivial problem with long-term, serious consequences.

But there is a far worse addiction in the United States than drugs or oil, an addiction that threatens the country more than wars or economic crises.  However, this addiction is seldom mentioned in the media. Perhaps we are afraid to speak of this addiction because so many of us understand what a danger it represents.  It would be going too far to say that if we can’t find a cure the United States of America will cease to exist. But if this addiction continues, it is not an exaggeration to state that the quality of life in this country will slide downhill to approach that of a third-world nation.

Our worst addiction—which is not a substance addiction—will cost us more than can be calculated if we cannot break it. How can we calculate the cost of losing the way of life in this country as we know it? Did the politicians in 1930s France have any inkling that their proclivity for political brinksmanship would enable a tragic and humiliating military defeat by Germany early in the Second World War? Our unspeakable addiction is likely to be putting us in a more precarious situation than that of prewar France.

Americans must find a way to break their addiction to government! My state, one of the last few admitted to the Union, was at the outset highly suspicious of government and government’s potential to do as much harm as good. The populists who wrote my state’s constitution, which is many times longer than the U. S. constitution, carefully spelled out exactly what government would be allowed to do and what it could not do. It is not known if the writers actually defined the office of Dogcatcher and its duties and limitations, but the document is certainly at that level of political detail.

But what a change today! Attitudes in my state are likely mainstream, probably similar to those in most other states:  Whenever a problem is identified, we immediately call for government action! That call usually comes long before there is an adequate problem definition, and certainly before any alternative path to solution is considered. Because my state is one of the youngest, we may well be naive, but it doesn’t appear that we have that many Socialists, Marxists and Communists among us—the people you would expect to be in favor of Government ownership, regulation and control of everything. Nor do I think the the United States as a whole has that many devout left-leaning ideologues.

I believe our propensity for assigning all problem solutions to government is a compulsive-behavior habit which has reached the severity of addiction. The phrase that describes it best is “knee jerk reaction”. How did so many of us get to this point? Are we just lazy and resent having to think very hard about problem solutions? Have we been scripted by the Socialists and their fellow travelers? Because our addiction to government does not get much press, it is unlikely that we will soon get any insights into the how and why of our addiction.

But how do we go about breaking a long-standing, multi-generation, debilitating addiction?  Short of enrolling the whole country in a 12-step program, each of us, whenever we are confronted with a problem of wide or significant impact, must take a deep breath and remind ourselves that government does almost nothing well.  However, that is not to say that government cannot in limited areas be effective.

Things that governments may do well are also rarely popular. One example is maintaining a large, integrated military force (but think about the places where multiple warlords in a country maintain their own separate private armies). We must have an effective military force to protect our nation; however, history tells us that there is no such thing as an efficient army.

Government has also proven to be good as a single, official repository of standards. The U. S. National Institute of Science and Technology (NIST, formerly named the Bureau of Standards) is not just effective, it’s also relatively efficient. A few other other specialized U. S. government functions have performed somewhat better than expected, with an arms-length advantage of having been reorganized as tax-exempt, not-for-profit corporations that derive their missions from public law, such as the Civilian Marksmanship Program.  However, effectiveness and efficiency of a number of other functions in that general category remain dubious (e.g., the U. S. Postal Service, Fannie Mae—the Federal National Mortgage Association, Freddie Mac—the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation).

But, by and large, government is a poster child for ineffective, inefficient, overly-expensive, sloppily-run, waste-ridden and at least minimally corrupt organizations. How can that be said, without slandering millions of honest, competent, hard-working government employees? The answer is simple, but easily overlooked. Functions performed by government are not viewed as having any owner; if they belong to everybody, they belong to nobody, and are treated as such.  Do you treat a rental car as well as your own? Are you as careful with your hotel room or vacation cottage as you are with your own home?  If you are like most of us, the answer is no.  But government properties and services are even worse off:  they have no Hertz or Holiday Inn owner; they belong to all of us.

Before we call for yet more bureaucracy, we need to exhaust all other possible paths to solving whatever problem is at hand.  Government must remain the provider of last resort for any function or service that we deem necessary.  We must stand firm against the knee-jerk politicians whose first instinct is to add another government agency at the drop of a hat.

That government which governs least governs best; and governments do almost nothing well.

Leave a Comment » | General, Political | Tagged: | Permalink
Posted by thedrake01

Biased Media: Corruption or Incompetence?

May 31, 2008

Only because of my age, I can remember a time when reporters were held in much higher esteem. This was way back in the days when journalism had a limited set of widely accepted rules: Who, What, Where, When, and How; accurate quotes; no opinions or inflammatory adjectives except on the editorial page (but with a certain amount of slack for Sports and Human Interest stories). Good spelling and a fundamental understanding of grammar were expected qualities for reporters.

Another of the old-time attributes found in the better writers was a storehouse of trivia. Those reporters who knew a little bit about a lot of things had an advantage in understanding the context of developing news situations. For example, a good reporter’s knowledge base would contain the distinguishing characteristics between an airliner and a small private plane when one or the other was the focal point of an aviation-related story. But today’s job market for reporters seems to offer more rewards to those who have studiously avoided cluttering their memory with such low-value facts.

A specific example, although a bit technical, comes from the world of broadcast news.  An NPR reporter was conducting an interview with a green activist / expert on threats to the Arctic environment.  The expert commiserated, “There are droves of people exploring the Arctic coastline, looking for oil deposits.  They know that those areas were forested 10,000 years ago”.  The NPR reporter / moderator let that statement slide by with no additional questioning (perhaps that was because it did have a tenuous connection with the facts).  If the expert had said coal instead of oil and had said millions of years instead of thousands, the statement would be factual (oil is formed from tiny marine animals and coal is formed from plant materials).

It is understandable that any individual who takes pride in his or her competency, and who has a modest amount of ambition, would seek the rewards that come with higher levels in a profession. In the news business, it appears that “Commentator” is a higher pay grade than “Reporter”. But what is not apparent is the distinguishing action that transforms Reporter to Commentator. Could it be as simple as those reporters who want to be commentators badly enough just discard any remaining rules of journalism and proceed to write opinion or fiction as they so desire?

Or could it be that the technological advances in the media have gradually obsoleted all the journalism school dictates of our grandfathers’ day? Does the ability to read others’ words from the teleprompter trump the skill needed to compose those words (similar to sight-reading music versus composing it)? How would an old-time reporter fare today, trying to write third-person objective news stories without injecting his or her opinions.

It’s possible nowadays to envision a help-wanted ad: “Opening for news reporter / commentator. Journalism or communications degree required. Must be able to read teleprompter with 85% accuracy. Experience writing news stories not disqualifying. M or F. Shoulder-length blond hair preferred; blue eyes optional. Clothing allowance for senior-level employees “.  (Please don’t take the ad’s female slant as a sexist statement—it’s just a recognition that in on-air talent women either dominate now or soon will.)

Let’s think about such a media environment, one in which reporters decide how and what they want to write / report. If the management allows these writer-reporter-commentators to make individual choices regarding which side of an issue to champion or to defame, then the management is merely incompetent. But if management assigns personnel to cover certain individuals or to cover specific aspects of certain issues, then management is both corrupt and incompetent.

Years ago Rich DeVos, a co-founder of the Amway corporation, had addressed a group of distributors whose sales organizations had reached a notable goal. In the following question-and-answer session one distributor asked DeVos about Amway’s acquisition of a radio network, noting “it looks like an opportunity to advance free-market ideas”. DeVos quickly replied “There’s no need to editorialize; just making sure both sides are heard is enough”.

Perhaps we are seeing today’s equivalent in the Fox News cable network. They have their share of blond, blue-eyed attractive ladies to be sure, but I haven’t heard accusations of incompetence. What I hear, from both public and personal sources, is questions regarding bias toward the conservative (or Constitutional) portion of the political spectrum. I am certainly not in a position to judge if Fox is biased, and, besides, there are plenty of news watchdog organizations who have the means to sniff out bias and to tabulate the for-and-against balances of air time and news story counts.

What about my concern for spelling and grammar skills, and about reporters’ knowledge bases? In the case of Fox News, they are no worse than the best of their competitors. It seems that there is a dividing line between the trivia-rich and the knowledge-challenged people in the news business, Fox included, based on an individual employee’s age. It appears that those reporters below the 45-to-50 age range have been trained to keep their minds clear of everything beyond the current three-to-four-day news cycle. The older reporters, untaught in the empty-mind tradition, do have a treasure of trivia.

So far as spelling and grammar goes, what could one expect of a generation that is immersed in the patois of cell-phone texting? Can our alphabet survive with as many as 16 or 17 letters? I guess we old mossbacks will have to accept the notion that sentences, paragraphs and cogent streams of thought are a thing of the past.

Leave a Comment » | General, Political | Tagged: , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by thedrake01

On Being “Wealthy”

February 25, 2008

The presidential campaign in the United States seems to proceeding under the theme of Change, although I must have missed the announcement of this election’s theme by the organizers of the current extravaganza. As in all political campaigns, the change being promised (or threatened) by the candidates is hinted in vague and ambiguous word pictures, wrapped in layers of soothing adjectives. Perhaps the theme announcement I missed was “Change as Seen Through a Filmy Curtain.”

Candidates define the changes they propose as Urgent, Necessary and Beneficial, and the changes their opponents call for as Cruel, Heartless and Devastating. One thing on which all sides agree is: change is going to cost the taxpayers. The painless solution to that uncomfortable revelation is simple–raise the taxes of the wealthy (who have so much money they will probably not even notice the increase). We Americans have taken comfort in that solution for more than 75 years; each of us knows that the wealthy are so far above us financially that we will escape the tax pain. Some of us even secretly take a little perverse satisfaction in seeing the fat cats get their just due.

Fortunately we ordinary taxpayers are lucky enough to have had for many years a not-for-profit organization with no ax to grind which analyzes IRS public records. We can see (literally, nowadays, with the internet) which economic tiers of our citizens pay what fractions of the taxes. To our individual satisfactions we can verify that the wealthy are truly paying much more than we do. In fact, the Tax Foundation (and similar organizations) report that those in the top one percent of all incomes now pay almost 40% of the total federal individual income tax. In fact, those top one percent income earners pay more taxes than the entire bottom sixty percent added together. I guess the really fat cats are carrying a pretty heavy load.

But what of the not-quite-so-fat cats? The top 20 percent of income earners pay about 85 percent of all taxes, and the top 40 percent pay 99.4 percent of all taxes. My take: the fat cats, the not-so-fat cats, and the well-fed-to-normal cats are carrying all of us. But are the well-fed-to-normal getting a fair shake?

The only reality check I have is out of date, going back to the pre-Reagan tax cuts and pre-inflation-indexed tax table days. (I think that today it’s not so much of a reality check as a “feel and understand your pain” check). All of my income at that time came in the form of a paycheck from my employer. It was a good job, but certainly not one that gave me any delusions of grandieur. My wife’s income from real estate sales was also pretty good, if somewhat erratic. With two incomes, our family of six got by nicely with careful budgeting and realistic wish lists.

At the time when two of the children were in college and we survived only by borrowing nine months’ of college expenses that we could take twelve months to repay, I was flabbergasted to find out that inflation had pushed our income into the 53% bracket! Our only tax deduction of any size was our home mortgage expense, so to the Internal Revenue Service it was veni, vidi, vici. At that time, under those circumstances, I realized that I had successfully impersonated a rather well-fed cat, if not a genuine fat cat.

Undoubtedly, if a winner of the tax-and-spend lottery is elected president, the well-fed-to-normal cats had better pull in their belts, hunker down, and be prepared for a bad economic winter. Let’s face it: there just aren’t enough fat cats to pay all the bills for “change”. But with the stroke of a pen, Congress and the President can redefine even nuns who have taken a vow of poverty as “Wealthy”. There is nothing to stop a determined President and Congress from trying to outdo the 102% (yes, one hundred and two percent!) tax rate in Great Britain during the darkest days of the Socialist government there. Of course you know what’s coming! We middle class, less-fat-than-the-fattest cats, will have our economic status redefined so we can help support the waves of legislative megalomania.

Most likely, our comfort and apathy regarding taxes will then decline, along with the business indicators and the stock market. If the governmental overindulgence runs true to form, at least two things will counter with an upward trend: interest rates and inflation. The last time that happened, the subsequent edition of “change” was change for the better. Maybe we need an expensive and painful reminder that there really is no such thing as a free lunch.

Now, what’s that Fair Tax proposal I keep hearing about?

Leave a Comment » | General | Tagged: , | Permalink
Posted by thedrake01

Next Entries »
Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.