Compassion and Morality and the Healthcare Debate

I have now written a number of posts about the healthcare debate. It is the news topic that has been foremost on my mind in recent months. I'm not alone. We have all watched with bated breath as liberals and conservatives have fought over this issue. Emotions have run high. We saw the town hall meetings bring out the crazy fear mongerers who are convinced that the country is one step away from facism. We followed President Obama's reaction to this very volatile issue while he touted the public option as such an important piece of this legislation and then appeared to back away from it. Tonight he will deliver the most important speech of his presidency thus far. We will find out whether he will draw a line in the sand and stick to promises he made during his campaign. My sincere hope is that he has been doing what he has done a number of times in the past. Perhaps he has let the debate rage on so that everyone can have their say. Maybe now that all is said and done, he will stand up for a bill that institutes real reform and complete universal health care coverage.

You may already know that I am strongly in favor of the inclusion of a public option in the healthcare bill that comes out of congress. I have already expressed my opinion that a single-payer option would be the best system but that having the option for government subsidized insurance would be the next best thing. In previous posts I have talked a lot about the practicality of universal coverage. If everyone is covered, premiums ultimately go down for everyone in spite of higher taxes. Costs could also be cut through greater efficiency and quality would improve.

What I have not yet discussed much in my posts is something I have not heard anyone discussing very much at all. We have all been so caught up in the intricacies of the health care plan. Is it pragmatic? Will it work or not work? How much will it cost? But there is a broader issue that has only been touched upon when the uninsured and underinsured have come forward to tell there stories. Sometimes these people have been cast aside or even heckled.

Try something with me for just a moment. Try to forget about how much healthcare reform will cost or how much it will save. Put aside thoughts about taxes. Forget about which plan is the most efficient. Forget about the corrupt insurance companies. Let's think about this more philosophically. Isn't the most important reason for healthcare reform that it is the ethical thing to do?

I was reminded of this last Saturday when I first saw the movie "Sicko." This movie came out over two years ago, and I should have seen it back then, especially since Michael Moore is among my favorite directors. Anyway, it is an extremely topical film that deals with the reality of how "sick" the United States healthcare system is.

Several people were profiled and told stories of how people who had gone without care or been driven to financial ruin due to serious health problems. There were two that particularly resonated with me.

One story was about an uninsured man who had cut off two of his fingertips in an accident. He was told that he could have them reattached, but one of the fingers would cost $60, 000 and the other would cost $12,000. Essentially he was faced with the choice of which finger to have reattached if any. He could not afford the $60,000 but was able to manage the $12,000, so he is absent one fingertip to this day.

The other story was of a woman who had insurance through the hospital where she was employed. Her husband was also covered under his wife's insurance. One day they discovered the husband had terminal cancer. They thought he would die until they discovered that a bone marrow transplant was possible and that the man's brother was a match. It had a happy ending because the man survived, right? Wrong! A decision-making panel for the insurance company decided to deny coverage of the procedure even though it had been successful before on the grounds that they deemed it "experimental." At that point in the film my husband turned to me and said, "Now that was a real death panel." Honestly, I am not a big crier, but the irony brought tears to my eyes.

What is my point in retelling these two stories that you may have already heard about two years ago? It is simply to illustrate that this debate is more about ethics and compassion than anything else. What is happening to people is immoral and cruel. How is it that we are telling people to make a choice between body parts or that we have the capability fix you, but we are not going to do it? At times I feel like I am living in a science fiction novel.

I'm not that naive. I realize that the details of how to achieve healthcare reform are not that simple, but isn't that which is at the crux of the debate really that simple? Shouldn't we have universal coverage because we want everyone in this country to thrive and because we care about our fellow citizens? For years I have been trying so hard to wrap my head around the reason that people so often give for not wanting reform. How many times do you hear this? "I work hard. I don't want what is mine taken away. I don't want to pay for someone else's coverage." I still cannot grasp this mind set on so many levels.

My family has basic health insurance. At the moment we are happy with that insurance, but we have not had any catastrophic illnesses while under our current plan. (I could tell a far different story about a previous plan, but that is for another discussion) Yet I am still dissatisfied with the state of health care. I do worry about what would happen if we ever lost our health insurance, but I also want every single person to have access to basic healthcare because it is the right thing to do and the compassionate thing to do. We don't send our seniors out into the forest to die. We give them Medicare. People in a number of other industrialized nations would think I was silly for making such a statement. They don't even question this basic principle.

Let me try putting it another way. Let's say a child comes to the door. The child has been injured and needs help. Almost no one would be heartless enough to turn that child away. Few would deny that child help because of what it would cost them in bandages and medicine or even think about this. Why? Because helping that child is the compassionate thing to do. Universal healthcare is nothing more than this on a national scale. We live in a society, and we have the obligation to help one another survive.

The Loss of a Personal Hero

My intention for today's post was to write about the new CIA documents that were released on Monday and President Obama's recent appointment of a special prosecutor. This morning I realized that discussion would have to wait for another time. Instead I would like to join much of the country in making a comment about a hero of mine. Yesterday, in the late hours, he finally lost his battle with brain cancer.

Let me start by saying that there are many different kinds of heroes. Some of them have fought in war valiantly and selflessly, enduring horrors unimaginable to the rest of us. Some have made a career out of saving people, risking or losing their lives in the process of giving someone else the gift of life. Others have been flung into heroic acts on the spur of the moment such as those courageous passengers who overcame terrorists and brought down United Airlines flight 93 on that awful day in 2001. Then there are those unsung heroes who mentor our kids on a daily basis for little pay and frequently little gratitude. There is no doubt that these people can be called great American heroes.

Senator Ted Kennedy was none of these. He is certainly not unsung. We know a great deal about him. There was even a time in his life where he was considered an anti-hero of a sort. Living in the shadow of his assassinated brothers who had fought for civil rights, he was known for leaving the scene of a fatal accident that resulted in a woman's drowning. This almost cost him his career. Fortunately, for all of us, Kennedy moved past this and spent the next decades transforming into a different kind of hero.

During his nine terms as a U.S. Senator, Kennedy sponsored over 2,500 bills. Here are just a few of these: The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, The National Cancer Act of 1971, The Voting Rights Amendment Act of 1982, The Employment Opportunities for Disabled Americans Act of 1986, The National Military Childcare Act of 1989, The Americans With Disabilities Act of 1990, The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, The Family Opportunity Act of 2006. The list of progressive social reforms for which he is responsible for seems endless.

Although he worked throughout his career on a wide variety of issues, Senator Kennedy may be best known for his tireless efforts at accomplishing that task that we have been so passionate about in recent weeks. He served as chairman of the Senate's Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions. He looked upon health care as a "fundamental right" of every American, and he was on a mission to enact healthcare reform until the day he died. Some say that it will be much more difficult to achieve comprehensive reform without his guidance, and I think, sadly, that there is much truth in this.

Perhaps the thing that made Senator Kennedy the most heroic is that he accomplished something that no one else in congress has really managed with such great success. He was often viewed as one of the most, if not the most, liberal person in the Senate. His views sometimes left him in the minority. He was one of only 23 senators who voted against the Iraq War Resolution. And yet, not only was he greatly respected and admired by his most conservative colleagues, he actually managed to compromise with them on countless key pieces of legislation without sacrificing his commitment to his ideals. One can guess, but I don't think anyone will ever really understand how he did this.

To say that Ted Kennedy was heroic is not to say that he was perfect. No hero ever is. He made mistakes and spent some of his life combatting the kind of personal problems to which many of us can relate. There wasn't anything very dramatic about his heroism either, but, for me, Senator Kennedy was the voice of reason in a world that often seemed insane. What he said always made sense. He never resorted to the emotional tactics of persuasion through distortion and lies that we so frequently see in politics. He is a hero because he understood what people needed, and he spent his life giving it to them through his legislation. The United States is a better place because of him, and we have experienced a great loss.

Image Courtesy of chrisseddon.com

No More Compromise! Keep Your Grubby Hands Off My Public Option!

Well, ladies and gents, we may have just lost our best chance we have ever had for healthcare reform. Over this past weekend a combination of statements made from members of the Obama Administration suggested that it is backing away from its push for a public insurance option. President Obama said that the public option is not the "entirety or healthcare reform." Robert Gibbs, a white house spokesperson, commented that the president could be satisfied with a bill that did not include the public option. In an interview Health and Human Service Secretary Kathleen Sebelius stated that the public option is not essential. While none of these officials ever said that they were giving up public health insurance, their statements seemed odd for people who have been putting a public option at the forefront of this debate since it began. Adding to the uncertainty about the matter was Senate Finance Committee member Kent Conrad of North Dakota who said that a bill with a public option would never make its way through both houses of Congress.

The thought that the White House could even be considering dropping the one thing that will make any real difference for healthcare reform is a deeply disappointing one. I doubt that the bill would even be worth passing without the public option. While it might serve to reform some of the corrupt practices that private insurers use, we would not get the sweeping changes in our infrastructure that we so desperately need. I am in complete agreement with what Howard Dean said on the "Today Show" on Monday. Other parts of the bill might be about enacting "insurance reform." This could lower costs and improve terms for some people who are already insured. However, real healthcare reform will not be likely to happen without the public option because it is the only way to expand coverage to everyone.

As I stated in a previous post, public healthcare clearly makes the most sense. Statistics show that Canadian and European single-payer systems are cheaper, more efficient, and result in higher quality healthcare than the system we now have. They are not perfect. People in these countries have a complaint from time to time, but by and large, they are satisfied with their healthcare. They have far fewer worries because they know they are guaranteed basic care. These are simple facts. What I find so frustrating is that in the United States so many of our decisions are not based on reason and pragmatism. Pragmatism means looking at what has worked someplace else and trying it for ourselves.

So what is keeping us from using logic and common sense to make these important healthcare decisions? These two things: fear and profit.

The greatest fear is of the great, evil socialist machine. Some how any government involvement in our daily lives is going to take us on the path toward totalitarianism. If you think about this in any kind of rational way, this is the worst of slippery slopes. All my life I have lived in a country with public schools, a public post office, public emergency systems, medicare, and social security. I have yet to see a representative from the government wearing a swastika and beating down anyone's door. That isn't to say that we haven't witnessed some things that are reminiscent of this type of behavior. Let's see. I don't know...How about our government's invasion of a foreign country for reasons that were completely fabricated? How about the torturing war prisoners in a complete violation of the Geneva Convention? How about the government spying on it's own citizens? These things do not have the mark of totalitarianism, but try saving lives by giving everyone more affordable health care and people are suddenly terrified of becoming victims of the next Third Reich?

The other fear I hear time and again is the fear of being taxed. We are already so burdened with taxes, and the government wants us to pay more? How is it going to pay for this high priced healthcare option? The Administration can't explain this. The truth is that President Obama has explained this over and over again. The tax revenue will come from those making over $250 thousand dollars per year. Remember them? That's right. They are the ones who have been getting all the tax breaks for the last eight years or so. The rest will be paid for through streamlining and by eliminating inefficiency and waste. It couldn't be that simple, could it? How do we know when we haven't ever tried it? Even if the average person's taxes were expanded, healthcare would likely still end up being cheaper than it is under the current system.

Now we come to what is, perhaps, the most motivating fear of all. The private insurance companies are terrified of losing their precious profits. Who wouldn't feel sorry for those poor little corporations that won't be able to compete with such a brutal, totalitarian government? Numerous commentators have predicted that a public option will result in a death spiral for the private insurers. Well, in the first place I don't know if this would be such a bad thing. I am someone who has had the experience of having a very large medical expense, and who spent years trying to iron it out while insurance companies tried to screw me over. Secondly, this isn't necessarily the truth at all. Insurance companies could compete easily if they made the necessary adjustments in cost and services. If they are not willing to do so, then I say the same thing they would say to their competitors. C'est la vie. Survival of the fittest. Finally, we have recently seen what corporate greediness did to the world's economy. Why would we want to leave decisions that could determine whether we live or die solely in the hands of those who want to make a buck off of us?

There is another option that the Senate Finance committee has been kicking around in order to make the bill more palatable to the House. This is the idea of government subsidized co-ops. Using government seed money, consumers get together and produce their own companies. Because they are non-profit, this takes out the big, fat CEO paycheck as the primary motivation. This sounds like a great compromise, right? This has been tried before on a limited basis, so it does give us some real facts to look at unlike the emotional arguments the people have been screaming about in the recent town hall debates. Well, here is the problem. A 2000 study conducted by the U.S. General Accounting Office has already evaluated the effectiveness of such programs. The study found that the co-ops were not able to substantially lower costs. Thus far there is no evidence to indicate that expanding co-ops would make any real change in the current health insurance market. So this is not really a viable compromise. Besides, as one citizen so succinctly put it on NPR this week, we have already compromised. Many of us would prefer a fully government-funded, single-payer healthcare system. Having a public option that competes as one among many is already a compromise.

Linda Douglass, a different White House aide recently said that Obama still very much favors a public option. I hope this is true, or real healthcare reform will die and the president will be complicit in its death even if spineless Democrats in the House accept some kind of bill without the public option.

I am one angry liberal, and I know I am not alone. We are as pissed off as Howard Beale. (If you are too young to remember Network, look it up.) We could try screaming out of the window, but I don't know that it would accomplish anything. Then again....maybe it would. Maybe we should disrupt town hall meetings and scream ourselves hoarse. Isn't that the tactic being used by the squeaky wheels who object to the public option?

It would still make a lot more sense to me if such decision could be based on proven results, statistics, and sound reasoning instead of the unsubstantiated fears of the uninformed.

Why We Should Listen to FDR and Larry Flynt

"So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself."

We have heard this statement from Franklin D. Roosevelt's 1933 inaugural address so many times it might seem like cliche. That does not stop it from being one of the most profound statements ever made. In fact I cannot think of a sentiment expressed in any political speech that has ever been more true.

Fear is by far the most complicated of emotions. We need it like we need lungs. Without it we would jump into the fire and burn ourselves up. I personally would have jumped off a tall building a long time ago just to see if the tree would catch me. Yes, logic and reason certainly play a part in these types of decisions, but fear is what stamps out that first impulse to do something really insane.

Unfortunately fear is also the thing that so frequently kills the human spirit and keeps us from doing things that might really help us. A little fear can seriously impede our progress. A lot of fear paralyzes us. It makes us do stupid things and then try to rationalize our cowardice as thoughtfulness. Being careful is a good thing. Refusing to move forward or try new ways to accomplish our goals out of fear is not only ridiculous but can be incredibly damaging to ourselves and those around us. Let me cite a couple of examples of what I mean.

Why did we elect George Bush for a second term? (When I use the term "we" I mean the American people. I never voted for him.) The first time he was not even elected by popular vote, but if he had been, it would have been at least somewhat understandable because we couldn't see into the future to observe the train wreck that would ensue. By 2004 most people knew that he was a terrible president, and anyone who did not must have been living under some kind of delusion. The awful decisions he made are too numerous to list, but we are painfully aware of the the very worst of them. He brought us into the most idiotic war in our history. The war is largely responsible for our enormous deficit and something that, in itself, serves as an example of irrational fear.

There was nothing at all wrong with John Kerry. Senator Kerry was a qualified person with a distinguished career in both the military and the senate. Maybe he wasn't all that exciting as a candidate, but if we had elected him in 2004, we would likely be in a much better place. So why in the world did we re-elect someone we already knew was doing an awful job? I don't know how it happened. Perhaps it really was the whole swift boat fiasco, but somewhere along the line, people developed an irrational fear of John Kerry. It was a crazy fear. He simply was and is not a scary person, but what do people do when they are afraid? They choose not to act, and to stay with the status quo no matter how distasteful. This must be how George Bush was elected to a second term.

Here is another example of a fear campaign that I think was a little more orchestrated. In November of 2008, California voters passed Proposition 8 which removed the right for same-sex couples to get married. I have written about this in earlier blog posts, so I will not go into great detail about it here. I will just say that it is another instance in which people feared something that was completely fabricated or imagined. Choose your fear. Jesus will hate you. Your kids will be corrupted. Roaming bands of homosexuals will take over the world. The institution of marriage will die. This was total insanity, but Prop 8 still became law.

I, of course, am not immune to the irrational fear that plagues us all. I am cringing as I write this paragraph even though I like to write. I wanted to become a writer way back in high school, but I believed that I couldn't do it. I was afraid of what? I don't know. Perhaps, it was failure. I have finally reached the point where I have realized I should try to write a book. However, I still am deathly afraid of letting anyone read what I have to say. Why? Maybe someone will hate what I write so much that they will take out a big sledge hammer and beat me over the head until I die, but that is pretty unlikely. This blog is part of my attempt to conquer that fear.

So what is all my blather about fear about? It is about my fear of......well, fear itself. I am concerned that this pervasive fear we live with will once again overcome every shred of common sense we might have had. Most of us clearly want healthcare reform AND a public option, for instance, but will fear choke the life out of it in its early days? Our president seems wishy-washy (although I haven't given up on him because I suspect that if we are a little more patient, we will find that he has his own subtle way of getting the job done.) Those Republicans of the blue dog/Lieberman variety that like to call themselves Democrats are trying to water down the bill so heavily as to prevent any real change. The "real" Democrats are, perhaps, the worst of all for allowing the bill to be railroaded. I believe in compromise up to a point, but this is too important. The system is broken, and they all know it. We tried it the other way, and now it is time to plunge in and try something different. Instead the whole debate is all centered around fear. There is the fear that the new system will not work, fear that we will somehow lose our choices, and fear of stepping on anyone's toes. I am confident we could do this if only we were not so afraid.

Here is where Larry Flynt, the producer of Hustler magazine comes in. Mr. Flynt is an irascible individual. He frequently acts inappropriately, expresses himself in a rude and shocking manner. He's not someone most people would hold up as being of the highest moral character. He is not someone with whom I would choose to be friends. Basically, he is a disgusting ass. In some ways he is reminiscent of Rush Limbaugh, but here is how he is different. He is frequently right, and he does not use fearmongering to get his point across. We can count on Larry to say what needs to be said.

Recently, he told the president and congress to "grow a pair" of gonads. It isn't the way I would have phrased it, but it needs saying. Perhaps I should put it this way. We should take to heart what FDR told us so many years ago. We should start being afraid of fear.

Disjointed Ramblings About Sotomayor, Walter Cronkite, and Boring News

As expected Obama's nominee Sonya Sotomayor is likely to be voted in as the 111th Supreme Court Justice sometime in the next week or two. Last week's four days of testimony went as smoothly as could be with no big revelations that would lessen her chances of being confirmed. Sotomayor has wide Democratic support and growing support by Republicans. While some members of the GOP remain opposed to her nomination, there is no sign that they will filibuster or attempt to block the inevitable confirmation.

Last week, while I was painting my kitchen wall, I listened to parts of the confirmation hearing. It was about what I would have expected. Sotomayor was grilled on a number of different court cases and several interesting points of law were discussed. She answered the questions with calm deliberation. When they asked her about specific cases, she commented extensively. When they asked her opinions on very broad issues that have come up before the Supreme Court , she stated that she could not answer because law is typically decided on a case-by-case basis and might be applied very differently depending on the circumstances. I learned a few things, and, yes, I did find it to be a little boring.

What I really want to comment on, though, is what I heard on MSNBC in between and following segments of the hearing. Chris Matthews was talking with some other pundits. They were all talking about how absolutely dull the confirmation hearings were. Sotomayor has sometimes been known to be somewhat of a hot-head in the courtroom, they said. Why were her answers so measured? Why was she glancing at her notes from time to time and treating the confirmation hearings like a job interview? After all, she's a shoe-in for the job. Why didn't she show the public some of that fiery passion? How boring! To be fair to MSNBC I heard this sentiment expressed by other news agencies after the hearings.

At the risk of sounding like a Jerry Seinfeld parody, I have to ask this question. How ridiculous is that? If a Justice's confirmation hearing goes well, it should be boring. The process is about determining whether this person has the experience, demeanor, and ability to analyze the law and make decisions that are based on the law. Yes, there might be a few emotions involved in the process. Compassion might be a consideration. Supreme Court Justices are not robots. However, I personally don't want someone sitting up on the highest court in the land who flies off the handle when put under pressure. The last thing we need is someone putting on a show. We need people who think carefully about each decision and how they express those decisions. The confirmation hearings were just what they should have been. There was a great deal of substance and little fanfare.

This brings me to another point I have thinking a lot about lately. Does everything need to be entertaining? Sometimes I really just want news, and the recent death of Walter Cronkite made me consider this more than I might have otherwise. In case you don't already know this, Mr. Cronkite was a serious and respected news journalist that was an anchorman on CBS for 19 years. He had a lengthy career before that as a newspaper man and reported on several famous historical events. He was a big believer in objectivity and the idea that his job as an anchor was to simply report the news without bias. For the most part he stuck with this formula although he was known to insert his opinion on occasion. What I am wondering is if Walter Cronkite might have been one of the last of the "real" news people.

A lot of what calls itself news today is not really what I consider to be news. Standard news outlets are dying, and what they are being replaced with is a different animal. It seeks to constantly entertain or to make a point. (You might think this is pretty funny since that is what I am always doing in this blog.) There are so many different opinions out there. Whoever you are and whatever you believe, you can pretty much find news that is tailored to your viewpoint.

There is a positive side to this. Information is abundant. Freedom of information is a part of democracy. We are in the know, and we can all express ourselves. Because of wider dissemination, it is more difficult for totalitarian regimes to hide their brutality and to keep a firm hold on their subjects. We are witnessing this in Iran.

The flip side of this, however, is the absurdity that we see on a daily basis when we turn on our televisions. I won't even discuss Fox News except to say that it is so inaccurate and biased as to be beyond ridiculous, and I think many of us already know this. Think about some of the other shows you see though. The silliness exists everywhere along the political spectrum. I find it harder and harder to find a standard old news report. I used to watch MSNBC a lot. I still watch it sometimes, but it is increasingly becoming less about dissemination and more about Chris Matthews and Pat Buchanan trying to outdebate one another. In other words they are trying really hard to entertain, and I'm afraid it's a vicious cycle because if they don't entertain, they won't get ratings. If they don't get ratings, they will be booted off the air.

I'm not saying that news always has to be strictly about informing us, and that editorializing cheapens a news show. I spend a great deal of time listening to National Public Radio. NPR presents a great deal of interesting information and thought-provoking discussion. It has been mocked as being overly mellow in much the same way people criticized the Sotomayor hearings. It has also been accused of having a liberal bias, and I strongly disagree with this assessment. NPR presents many sides of many different issues. It's commentators do have serene voices. They talk about popular issues. They also choose unusual stories and ask questions that result in quality broadcasts that make you think. I can remember hearing a story about how bagged salad is manufactured, and it was, surprisingly, very interesting. There is almost no showmanship, with the exception of comedy shows they have on the weekends, and even these are more clever than most.

What is my point here anyway? I guess it is this. I'm tired of the general way that the news media operates lately. I miss the Weekly World News, a funny old tabloid that didn't ever present itself as real news. If real news is boring, then I guess I want boring.

Also, I'm really sorry if you found this boring! Next time I'll make up for it by talking about Brittany Spears and all of the Senators and Governors who have cheated on their wives.

Image courtesy of quirkypixel.com

Looking for Silver Linings

These are dark days. The U.S. deficit has quickly passed the $1 trillion mark. It will likely climb much higher before the year is out. It might even reach $2 trillion, and we could soon be faced with higher interest rates, inflation, and a further weakening of the dollar. The worst aspect of this is that our children will inherit our massive debt.

As bleak as this picture looks, it is basically unavoidable. A majority of economists agree that our government will have to take a Keynesian approach to clawing its way out of this depression. (Call it a recession if you want. At this point its merely semantics.) There is no way around the need to inject income into the economy by investing in infrastructure, focusing on job creation, and fixing such underlying problems as our disastrous health care system. Otherwise the next generation will be left with the fallout of a Great Depression AND saddled with serious debt.

You have to admit that the situation looks pretty bleak, especially with the massive job losses. Any recovery will be slow and painful, and it is going to require a great deal of patience and resilience. However, as someone who likes to try to find the silver linings beneath the blackest of clouds, I wonder about what good things might possibly emerge out of the beating we are taking as a society. I keep wishing there had been an easier way to go about it, but maybe we have learned some things. Could we be on the brink of a paradigm shift in the way we view several components of our world? Here are a few positive things I think might come out of this mess.

Changing business models

Could it be that while large corporations are dropping like flies, the little guys will make a resurgence? It is becoming increasingly clear that the world of huge conglomerates is not what it was once cracked up to be. Regulation was practically non-existent, and several CEOs ( a.k.a. Robber Barons) ran rampant with shareholder money. While this was occurring, quality suffered enormously. In the simplest of terms companies just became too large to be efficient. GM, for instance, just filed for bankruptcy and serves as an excellent example of a poor business model. It grew into an enormous corporation with poorly made, redundant cars until it simply fell apart at the seams.

What is GM doing to save itself? Its downsizing. It has promised to shed its unnecessary brands and become a leaner, meaner company. Unfortunately, this means greater job losses, but maybe this is something that had to happen in order for GM to sustain itself. These people are hurting, but maybe they will ultimately be better off if we can find something better for them than working for a company that could not make a profit because people no longer wanted to buy its crappy cars.

Here's an example of what I mean by a better business model. Think about Trader Joe's for a minute. Compared to other grocery chains, it is a tiny store. It offers a small selection of environmentally friendly, healthy products. Several items are from its own private label. If you have ever been to Trader Joe's, you know that its products are of superior quality. A few things are priced higher than other stores, but most are priced significantly lower. The company pays its employees generously, contributes to a retirement plan, and automatically offers health benefits to part-timers. The number of consumer choices offered is small, but what it lacks in variety, it more than makes up for in quality and great customer service. Did I mention that Trader Joe's has seen huge economic success? It's profits are not the largest in the business but enough to ensure plenty of wealth for its owners.

Perhaps in the future we will end up with more companies that follow the Trader Joe's model. Maybe it will become more difficult to find a store that offers a hundred varieties of wine, but we won't care because we will have happy, pleasant people selling us really delicious wine.

The end of supply-side economics

Maybe we will finally get it through our thick skulls that giving the bulk of the tax incentives to the very rich simply does not work. What has happened in recent years has clearly shown that economic health is not created from the top down. The rich became richer, the poor became poorer, and everything came crashing down. The only place where I have ever seen pure self-interest naturally resulting in loads of heroic rich people making everything peachy is in the fictional universe of Ayn Rand.

Regular people, the vast majority of consumers, are what power the economy. Regular people spend money. What is the point of tons of goods and services if a vast majority people have little money to spend on them? If our first priority is to concentrate on making regular people safe, healthy, employed, housed and able to care for their families, regular people will have money to spend and the economy will become healthy once again. Think of it as a form of long term self-interest. Working toward such goals will benefit everyone.

No more senseless wars

The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and the "War against terrorism" are not only a major cause of our climbing deficit but have severely damaged this country. Scores of our bright, young people are dead. Our reputation around the world is severely tarnished. In some ways we have become what we were fighting against. The wars were the start or our spiral into an economic tailspin, and it was all for naught. Terrorism was always a problem and has actually become worse due to our invasion of other countries.

Maybe we will revert our earlier policy when we had to be dragged kicking and screaming into a fight. Maybe we will stop declaring war unless it is absolutely necessary for our defense or the defense of our close allies. If senseless casualties isn't a good enough reason, maybe economic collapse will be the incentive. What? It could happen.

The Circus Comes to Town

The circus comes to Los Angeles this week at the Staples Center sports arena. It's free to attend but so crowded that you can only get in by lottery. Do not expect any elephants, high wire acts, or clowns although I wouldn't, at this point, be surprised if such things were included as part of the spectacle.

Up until now I avoided commenting on the death of pop star Michael Jackson. I knew that we would all be up to our eyeballs in Michael Jackson related commentary, so why should I annoy myself and whoever else happened to read my blog with yet more discussion about that "king of pop"? It was only after reading about the public memorial service that my feelings of disgust became strong enough to demand a blog entry. I apologize.

Why are they even bothering to call what is happening on Tuesday a memorial service? I thought memorial services were quiet ceremonies attended by the departed person's family, close friends, and acquaintances. The sideshow they are calling a funeral involves thousands of people, many of them giddy with excitement, clamoring for tickets in huge lines. The winners are twittering statements like "OMG, OMG, I'm so happy I got tickets to Michael Jackson's memorial." Such persons sound far more like children who have just won a trip to Disneyland than grief-stricken fans.

Of course public funerals are nothing new. Every time a world leader dies there are crowds of people that come to pay their respects in some form of public procession. The death of Abraham Lincoln affected a great number of people, and throngs of mourners attended his funeral. However, the key word here is "respect." Even when funerals are public, I would think they would be subdued events where people quietly and respectfully gather to remember a person they admired.

I didn't personally know Mr. Jackson, but, perhaps he would not have wanted his passing to be viewed as if it was the latest Ringling Brothers act. We do know that he was a very private person in his last years in spite of his great fame and eccentricity. What Michael Jackson would have wanted, though, is probably beside the point. I believe that funerals are for the living and not for the dead. While I am not a religious person, I do think memorial services are a way to help people mourn loved ones who have passed. It would be perfectly natural for Jackson's family and friends to hold a memorial service for themselves. Even if the family decided to hold a wake to celebrate the man's life instead of a traditional memorial service, it seems prudent that the occasion should belong to those who truly loved Jackson, remaining free of gawkers and curiosity seekers.

So why is a city with a $530 million dollar deficit sponsoring an opportunity for all of these crazed and jubilant fans to cram themselves into a sports stadium? Something about this just seems terribly disrespectful to Jackson's family and friends. These thousands of other people might have great enthusiasm for Michael Jackson's music, but they did not know who he was. They only know what he did while in the public eye. It's as if they do not realize that he was actually a person just like you and me. Perhaps they looked up to him as a role model and entertainer and just want to show their admiration for his achievements, but is there not a more polite way of doing this than creating a bigtop extravaganza out of what should be primarily a gathering for those that knew Jackson? There are a lot of other ways individual groups could pay tribute to his career.

I was not a huge fan of Michael Jackson. I thought he was among the world's most talented dancers. I felt sadness when I found out that he had died so young just like I felt sadness following the death of Heath Ledger who's work I probably admired more than Jackson's. I also know that Mr. Jackson was a human being with people who loved him. They deserve greater respect in their time of sorrow.

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California's Maddening Budget Crisis

There's no doubt that the state of California is in serious trouble. The beginning of the fiscal year is July 1st, and we have a deficit of some $24 million dollars. On Sunday Democrats and Republican members of congress locked themselves up in legislative sessions in an attempt to reach some agreement about how to deal with the budget gap. Democrats want to raise the additional revenue by raising taxes on tobacco and companies that drill for oil in addition to increasing the vehicle license fee by $15. Republicans are dead set against any new taxes and want to deepen the cuts of several previously wounded state programs. As expected, lawmakers have failed to reach a compromise. Democrats will pass their budget plan, and Governor Schwarzenegger will surely veto it. When this happens the state will not be able to pay its bills and the state controller will begin issuing IOUs in place of checks to college students, contractors, low-income seniors, and a wide range of others that depend on money from the state of California. State workers will be given a third furlough day without pay on top of the two days that have been forced on them since February.

No, this isn't de ja vu. We've been through this before. Back in February lawmakers finally passed a 2- year budget plan after months of fighting about these same issues. Schwarzenegger agreed to a temporary increase in the state sales tax after Republicans managed to remove a 12 cent gas tax from an earlier version of the budget. So why are we back to rehashing the same tired, old debate once again? Well, unfortunately the state has basically run out of money. We still don't have a balanced budget because massive job losses have led to a 34 percent loss in income tax revenue.

Figuring out how to fix this budget gap is maddening. There is no solution to this problem that amounts to anything approaching satisfactory. Further cuts will do even more damage to everything from construction projects to health care programs that are already suffering from severe underfunding. We certainly don't want to be saddled with new taxes. I do not personally know anyone who is happy about having to pay more for consumer goods. So how do we solve this budget problem? Well, I am not an economist. I know next to nothing about formulas and projections. However, common sense does tell me one thing. We are now at the precipice and forced to choose between the lesser of two evils.

Governor Schwarzenegger proposes that instead of raising taxes again we close hundreds of state parks, remove health care benefits from 930,000 low income children, and make further reductions in the salaries of state workers. Now place these evils on an imaginary scale opposite the idea of raising the tax on tobacco, those companies that drill for oil, and charging $15 dollars a year more for vehicle license fees. We can probably live, sadly, without our beautiful state parks, so let's just forget about that one for a minute. Let's see. Now it's between risking the health and lives of nearly a million children while further threatening the livelihoods of yet more families versus some of us having to pay a little more to engage in a deadly habit, to suck out of the earth a substance we all know we should have stopped using long ago, and add what amounts to the price of one family meal at McDonalds to our yearly car registration. Hmmm. Which one of these makes more sense?

It seems to me that California Republicans are determined to avoid any more tax increases whether they make sense or not, and they are not alone. Governor Paterson of New York, for instance, was practically crucified for proposing taxes on items such as sugary soft drinks, alchohol, cigars, and luxury cars. I think the reasoning behind it goes something like this. Raising taxes will discourage consumerism thereby contributing further to the economic problems of the entire economy. While it is true that we do not want to discourage spending, especially in this economy, we still have to consider which option is more likely to worsen the situation with which we are faced. Commodities like cigarettes and alcohol are things that some people want but don't need. Those that can still afford to buy these things will pay a few cents more for them if they want them badly enough. Of course, since I'm no expert, I could be wrong about this, but wouldn't trying this course be preferable to taking money and desperately needed services away from people who have already had their salaries cut and, in some cases, lost jobs. If we are trying to encourage consumerism, this seems like an odd course to take because people cannot spend money that they do not have.

Increasing the car tax is a little bit more complicated since this is a fee that applies to almost everyone. However, this would not really be a new tax but only going a little further to reinstate a tax that should have never been removed in the first place. The car tax was raised by Gray Davis to help in balancing the budget in 2003. We all grumbled about it, but after a while we started to get used to it. One of the biggest mistakes Governor Schwarzenegger made was repealing this tax shortly after taking office. If he had left it alone, we would still be facing economic problems due to the recession, but I doubt we would be buried so deeply.

Here is, perhaps, the most confusing thing of all. Schwarzenegger was previously a big advocate for health care reform. He has expressed his interest in working with the Obama administration on this very issue. Now he is saying that removing health care benefits from nearly one million children is a a better course of action than raising the price of a pack of cigarettes?

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What the Latest Polls Might Tell Us About Ourselves: Still Impatient but More Compassionate?

During the last presidential election I became quite interested in the public polling that was conducted on a daily basis. I followed those polls religiously, biting my nails and watching my preferred candidate gain and lose points as the days went by. It was interesting to see how public sentiment was influenced by different events. I was not the only one. Americans like polls a lot. All the major news organizations conduct Polls and organizations such as Gallup and Harris Poll exist for the sole purpose of conducting polls on everything from presidential favorability to laundry soap. I think that polls are so popular with Americans because they fit in so well with our democratic philosophy. Our vote and our right to voice our opinions are vitally important to us all, and as we have seen from watching the events unfold in Iran this week, Americans are not the only ones who feel this way.

Interpreting polls is a much more difficult task than conducting them, however. We have to be careful about reading too much information into them. Objectivity can be skewed by the type of questions asked, and public opinion can be influenced by the results of other polls. People with different political agendas might get two very different interpretations from the same poll. There's an idea for a new poll. Let's poll people to find out how they interpret the latest polls.

I usually try to avoid analyzing polls too heavily because of their high volatility, but I couldn't help making some observations about two polls that came out in the last week.

The more recent of these two polls was released by Washington Post-ABC news a couple of days ago. Respondents were asked if they thought that the economic stimulus that was passed earlier in the year was working or was likely to improve the economy. Just over 50 percent of those asked said that the stimulus would work and that was down from the 59 percent that were confident about its success two months ago. I found this perplexing since the economy has been showing some signs of improvement. The market has been improving, housing is beginning to stabilize, and businesses are starting to talk about profits again. Unemployment is still up, but we know that these figures are the last to recover in an ailing economy. So does this drop simply reflect the fact that we are impatient?

The economic slump we are in is the result of a mentality that developed at least two decades ago. It took years of greed, accumulation of debt, and a poorly regulated financial market for the whole system to come crashing down on us. Now maybe it is just overly optimistic thinking on my part, but it stands to reason that if the stimulus gets us back on track, it is going to take more than a few months. If history is any indicator, this type of stimulus should improve the economy, but the government cannot just wave a magic wand and make it happen overnight. We want what we want, and we want it now. It is this very impatience that made the economy spiral out of control in the first place.

Our impatience is also evident in the way we live our lives on a day to day basis. Perhaps, it because advanced technology allows us to have so much of what we want at our fingertips. I, for one, find that I am constantly annoyed by the silliest inconveniences. I get irritable if my web page takes more than a few seconds to load. Waiting in a long line of cars can drive me insane. This finally dawned on me one day when I was waiting in line at Starbucks. They were especially busy that day, so I had to wait about ten minutes for my cup of coffee. The young man at the counter apologized profusely and gave me my coffee free. I graciously accepted it, but then I suddenly felt guilty. I assured him that it was perfectly all right and that I was old enough to still remember having to wait for things. That was just a long way of saying that if we can no longer wait ten minutes for a cup of coffee, it's no wonder that we are dubious about long-term investments in our future.

All right. I am through complaining about how impatient we are as a society because I want to discuss the other poll that caught my attention. This is actually the more important of the two polls, and at the risk of reading to much into the numbers I will say that it warms my heart. A New York Times/CBS poll on health care reform reported that 72 percent of respondents support having a government administered insurance plan as an option. This was enough to make be jump for joy, but it wasn't this that had me gushing with love for my fellow Americans. Consider this. Seventy-seven percent said that they were at least somewhat satisfied with their own personal health care. Although at least half had concerns that the quality of their own health care might suffer under a new system, more than half were willing to pay higher taxes if it meant that everyone would have coverage. A majority were concerned about rising costs, yet only 25 percent of people felt that lowering costs was more important than covering the uninsured.

Not only do we clearly think that it is time to reform health care, but a majority of us want everyone to have access to it even if it could involve a degree of personal sacrifice. Perhaps this is simply because we understand that health care will ultimately cost less if everyone is insured, but I think it says something much more fundamental and wonderful about our culture. We are compassionate. We care about whether other people are alive, healthy, and happy. We understand that each of us does not exist in our own little bubble and see ourselves as part of a larger community. This was further evidenced on an even larger scale this last week when so many of our citizens expressed their deep concern about the people of Iran.

So maybe we still have something to learn about the virtue of patience, but we haven't forgotten that a little compassion goes a long way. My cup runneth over. I know. I know. It's only a poll, you say, but let me have my moment.

FDA Regulation of Tobacco. Now What About That Other Weed?

Some congressmen and health advocacy groups have been trying for years to put cigarettes under the control of the Food and Drug Administration. Today their wish came true. President Obama signed legislation that places the regulation of tobacco under the auspices of the FDA and gives that agency the ability to put tougher restrictions on both the manufacturing and advertising of cigarettes. Among his reasons for signing the bill, Obama cited the need to ensure that the tobacco industry does not market its products to minors and that it more fully discloses the harmful effects of cigarettes. He pointed to the fact that most smokers, including him, started smoking as teenagers and sees the bill as a further step toward prevention. An adult's access to cigarettes will remain unaffected and legal.

The signing of this bill into law is a logical step. Tobacco is a drug, so the FDA should be able to regulate it as they do any other legal drug. We have a right to know how much nicotine is in cigarettes, what other additives they contain, and what all the possible side effects are. Tobacco should not be available or made attractive to minors. Smoking should be prohibited where its harmful and annoying effects might infringe on another individual. Smoking should, of course, also remain legal. A person should be entitled to put whatever nasty substances she likes into her own body so long as it isn't a direct threat to the health of another. Serious problems would result from banning such substances, anyway, as we learned from the prohibition of alchohol in the 1920's.

The fact that the FDA can now regulate tobacco makes sense, but it puts even greater emphasis on this question: Why is marijuana illegal?

This question came up recently in California during the wrangling between Congress and Governor Schwarzenegger over the ongoing budget disaster. The Democrats draft a budget. Schwartzenegger vetoes it, refusing to consider any new taxes (a ridiculous situation best left for another discussion). Anyway, assemblyman Tom Ammiano introduced a bill back in February that called for the state to legalize, regulate, and tax marijuana. What a great idea! Marijuana is already the biggest cash crop in our state, and in 1996 voters made it legal in California for medical purposes although the federal law still technically prohibits this. Why don't we just decriminalize it outright and impose heavy taxes? The revenue could go a long way toward helping California and other states with their budget crises. Besides that, think of all the money our criminal justice system could save. Furthermore, legalizing marijuana and putting it under FDA scrutiny would allow for more societal controls over it than it currently has as an illegal substance.

President Obama was posed with this very question during a virtual town hall meeting back in March. The most popular question asked by voters was whether legalization of marijuana could help to improve the economic climate and job creation. The president disappointingly swept the topic under the rug saying only that he didn't think it was a "good strategy for growing the economy." He never said why, but I assume it has something to do with not wanting to condone the smoking of marijuana. This is the reason most often given by those who oppose its legalization.

There are a number of reasons not to condone marijuana use, especially for young people. Marijuana can impair concentration, coordination, and organ function. The smoke from a marijuana cigarette can potentially damage the lungs in the same way tobacco smoke can. However, in practice there is a big difference between tobacco and marijuana use. While tobacco use kills about 440,000 people a year, several studies have shown that smoking marijuana does not kill people. This is probably because marijuana smokers smoke far fewer cigarettes than tobacco smokers. Are there deaths occurring due to accidents caused after marijuana use? Possibly, but most of these accidents involve the additional use of heavier drugs that are more likely to have caused the accident. The number is negligible compared to the amount of accidents attributed to alcohol, that other legal drug.

In addition, marijuana has been shown to be beneficial in some ways that tobacco has not. It has been shown to ease the pain of cancer patients and counter the affects of nausea caused by chemotherapy.

So there are a lot more reasons to avoid condoning cigarette use and the over-use of alcohol. Both of these are drugs are dangerous, and many of us have personal experience with the harm they can cause. Both of these substances are also legal, taxed, and subject to surgeon general warnings. Cigarettes are now under FDA regulation. Should these be banned? Certainly not, but once again that nagging question about that other weed surfaces.

And just in case you think I advocate the legality of marijuana for personal reasons, I will say that I have never touched the stuff and am unlikely to, legal or not, since I detest the very smell of it.

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Stephen Colbert, Satire, and Patriotism

This week Comedy Central will air its hit show The Colbert Report from Iraq where Stephen Colbert will receive a military style haircut and perform for the troops in Iraq. If you have seen the Colbert Report, you are familiar with Colbert's persona, a right wing megalomaniac who holds himself up to be the ultimate patriot while spouting all sorts of irrational arguments and, for some unknown reason, maligning bears. If you haven't seen Colbert's show, I urge you to watch it this week.

Thinking about Stephen Colbert performing over in Iraq this week brought to mind this little irony. The character Colbert plays is a false patriot, a prime example of precisely what patriotism is not. The real Stephen Colbert, the actor and comedian, is what true patriotism is all about.

False patriots are those who think they are patriots because they sing the Star Spangled Banner loudly at football games. They proudly display bumper stickers on their cars that say "Support our troops." They fly the American flag outside their homes. They continuously extol the virtues of God and country. They take any criticism of anything American by anyone foreign as a terrible, personal affront. True patriots might also do some of these things, but they recognize that these things are not what makes a person patriotic.

Mark Twain once said, "Patriotism is supporting your country all of the time, and your government when it deserves it." True patriotism means loving your country so much that you want it to be the best it can be. True patriotism means criticizing those in power when they are doing harm to the land that you love. True patriotism means loving and caring for the citizens of your country and defending their rights as well as your own. True patriotism means constantly striving to make your country a better place for everyone to live. And, yes, patriotism means showing respect and understanding for those who lay down their lives for us every day even if they were sent to war by a government with poor judgement.

So what is the real Stephen Colbert, the actor and comedian doing while his ludicrous persona is delivering his searing criticism of false patriotism, war, and intolerance through the use of satire? He is busy raising money for charitable organizations that support the troops, children, autism research and a variety of other causes.

In many ways Colbert reminds me of that other great satirist, Mark Twain. Twain used biting satire to rail against slavery and other terrible injustices of his time. He hated war and hypocrisy. If you read between the lines, you realize how much he loved the South and the people in it.

Interesting, isn't it, that we sometimes need to look to the most ingenious of men to find the genuine article?

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Ideal Health Care Reform: Single-payer

Health care reform is something we have needed for far too long. Those of us who have clamored for such reform for years remember our disappointment when ambitious plans to repair health care fizzled out under the Clinton administration. We are confounded that in one of the most prosperous nations in the world we have so many people without access to such a basic need.

This is why I'm glad to see that, with all of the issues that are on his plate, President Obama is determined to move forward on health care reform. In his most recent weekly internet address he outlined his ambitious goal of extending coverage to the 45 million uninsured, improving the quality of health care, and keeping consumer options intact. He pointed to the Mayo Clinic as an example of one institution that has succeeded in providing high quality health care at a lower cost.

It looks more and more like we will see some form of bipartisan reform bill come down the pipes in the next few years. Whatever is negotiated is bound to be an improvement over what we have now. The question remains, though, whether President Obama will be able to win the debate over whether to include a public insurance plan as a choice among private sector plans. One proposition that will definitely not be on the table is the option of converting to a single-payer system. Obama has already made it clear that this will not be a consideration and asserted his preference for rebuilding what is currently in place by continuing procedures that work while weeding out those that do not. Even if his administration did favor a single-payer system, the idea is so repugnant to most Republicans in congress that it would be blocked.

I applaud the pragmatism of President Obama's plans, but I think it's a shame that a single-payer health system will not be considered. It would clearly be the simplest, most efficient way to ensure that every person in the country has coverage. It makes little sense to me that we have public systems in place to ensure access to emergency services and education. We look at these as basic needs, but what is more basic than keeping people from getting sick or dying?

Let's leave compassion out of the picture for a moment and consider cost alone. The U.S. spends almost double that of most other industrialized countries on health care in spite of the fact that our private sector pays a greater portion of costs. We also have a lower life-expectancy and higher infant mortality rate. We spend more out of our pockets for fewer services. If you look at it from a pure economic standpoint, privatized health care has not been very cost effective.

Maybe you are insured and you care only about yourself. You don't see any reason to pay taxes that will finance the health care of others. If you don't think you are already paying for them, think again. Doctors have taken something called the Hippocratic oath. This means that, in an emergency, they are obligated to save the life of an uninsured person. This results in higher premiums for the insured. If your employer pays for your insurance, your employer incurs the cost of these higher premiums. At some point this will trickle down to you in the form of reduced services or higher out-of-pocket expenses.

Those who oppose a single-payer system worry that choice will be eliminated. I believe that this is a fallacy. The most important choice when it comes to an individual's health care is which caregiver or facility works best for you. There is nothing that would prevent an individual from having a free choice of doctors and hospitals just because the service was publicly funded. I also personally think that choice is overrated. Receiving quality medical care without spending the rest of my days paying expensive medical bills is all that really matters to me. If I am receiving this, what other choice do I need?

One of the biggest fears associated with a single-payer system is that the U.S. will suddenly become "socialist." There is certainly nothing inherently evil or repressive about socialism. Socialism and democracy are not mutually exclusive, but this is beside the point. The idea that single-payer health care would turn the U.S. into a socialist empire is hogwash. If having certain basic needs publicly funded is what will make us a socialist country, then we are already socialist. Fireman, police, public schools, medicare, and social security are all services we pay for with taxes. Amazingly, we still have a free market!

It is true that single-payer systems are not without their problems. Critics have pointed out that Swedish and British citizens often endure longer waiting periods for non-emergency or elective surgery. However, any American who has dealt with the red tape or HMO's knows that we have similar problems with private insurance. It is difficult to iron out what procedures are covered, and you might spend months going from one specialist to another trying to get approval for a given procedure.

Single-payer systems are, on the whole, more efficient, less expensive, and deliver higher quality care. Our best hope for now is that we are offered the choice of a publicly funded insurance plan. If this happens, perhaps some of the people who once feared it will see the benefits and feel a sense of relief that the country has not fallen into ruin. Then we can dispense with all of the nonsense and move on towards something even better.

Courage

Twenty years ago Chinese students protested repression by the Chinese government in Tiananmen Square.  The violent response of the Chinese government left many people dead and wounded.  We will never forget this man who stood in front of a line of tanks to prevent their passing.  After the incident he disappeared.  No one knows who he is or what happened to him

I do not have much time today, so this will be a very short post.  I just wanted to share this sentiment expressed by my husband.  

Why would anyone think bravery is walking into a church and shooting an unarmed man?  What you see in this drawing based on the famous photo of the unknown Chinese man----now that is true courage.

Image courtesy of quirkypixel.com

The Return of an Old Friend Named Fiscal Responsibility

We are finally beginning to get a little bit of positive economic news. In his testimony to the House Budget Committee Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke said that while the economy is still on a downhill slope, it is contracting at a slower rate. Financial markets are sluggish but showing a trend toward something approaching normal.  The housing market has shown signs of bottoming out.  Some major banks are slowly raising money and are not depending as heavily on government loans. Bernanke predicts that while our recovery will be slow, we might see some growth by the end of the year. What qualifies as good news today is very different from what would have been considered anything approaching good even a year ago, but we will take what we can get. 

The U.S. might be beginning to move itself onto to the right track or at least moving down the wrong track more slowly, but it is still faces a terrible quandary.  Several economists agree on the need for government expenditure to pull us out of recession.  It stand to reason that if we don’t invest in infrastructure, prop up some of the larger corporations and financial institutions, and repair health care and other systems that have sucked us dry, we will be seeing another Great Depression.  On the other hand, all of this spending will increase the deficit which, thanks largely to the Bush administration, is already way out of control.  Bernanke warned that the the growing deficit would discourage investors and spoke of the need for “fiscal balance.”  This means that the government needs to perform what seems like an insurmountable task .  It needs to spend money but figure out how to reduce the deficit. In his comments Bernanke was referring to the country as a whole, but this is the exact same problem individual consumers are facing.  We have more need than ever, especially those who have lost jobs, and at the same time so many of us are racked with debt. The return to fiscal balance and responsibility begins with each one of us.  

This didn’t happen to us overnight.  In simpler times most people earned an income, bought the things they needed, and put a little money away each month into a savings account.  Maybe they invested in Blue-Chips.  Maybe they saved up for a down payment on a house and paid for the remainder with a standard 30-year-loan.  A few decades go we somehow became possessed. We started thinking magically when it came to personal finances.  We didn’t care whether or not we could afford something.  We made stupid investments in start-ups without really doing the research, thinking of how rich we were going to get.  We went to Las Vegas.  We applied for credit left and right and became willing to pay exorbitant interest rates.  We bought the things we wanted without saving for them, and they weren’t just little things.  Instead of settling for modest houses, we bought mansions and filled them with expensive furniture.  All right. Maybe not all of us did all of these things,  but a good many of us did at least one of them. Master Card, Visa, and our greedy banks exacerbated the situation by telling us what we were doing was perfectly sound. Now we have realized far too late in the game that we are in deep doo-doo.

 Even if you did some of these things right, you may be suffering consequences.  My husband and I bought our house the old fashioned way but have hardly any equity due to sharply falling prices, yet we consider ourselves to be lucky.  So many people, through no fault of their own,  now find themselves jobless, homeless, or can’t pay their medical bills.

So how do we pull ourselves out?  The solutions to our individual problems are as complex as the one our government faces. Obviously, it will depend on the individual circumstances. Some will have to reorganize their lives completely. Some people will have to work longer and harder.  Some will have to declare bankruptcy.  Many will be forced to start from scratch. However, there is one thing all of us will be forced to do unless we are very rich.  We have to change the way we think about money.  To put it even more simply we all have to become cheapskates.  Becoming a cheapskate is not as easy as you might think, but it is based on a very simple premise.  You have to spend less money than you make.  This means buying what you need and saving to buy the things you want.  It means that you have to keep track of everything you spend.  It means that you have to stop using credit cards unless you can control your spending enough to pay the balance every month. It means you will have to plan your purchases so that you find the best quality goods you can afford at the cheapest price.  It means that if something breaks you will have to live without it until you can save the money to replace it.  It means that you will have to admit it to yourself and others when you can’t afford something.  It means saving every extra penny you can scrounge up to pay for necessities down the road.

In my twenties I became aware of the need this the hard way.  I became mired in credit card debt, and it took a very long time to climb out of it.  After that I became a cheapskate, and I am proud to say that I’m getting better at eat each day.  I buy last years three-dollar sweaters and recycle aluminum cans.  My new blog, The Weekly Cheapskate is meant to discuss some of the things I have learned.  Sometimes it’s a little embarrassing, but it’s helpful that being cheap is no longer the stigma it once was.

Here’s what being a cheapskate does not mean.  It does not mean that you have to eat potatoes and beans every night.  It does not mean that you can never take out a conventional loan to buy a car that you need to get to your job.  When I was a kid, we had this man in our neighborhood that walked the same route everyday, wore the same clothes all the time, collected all the recyclables in the neighborhood, and grumbled about everything.  He never vacationed anywhere.  If anyone reminded me of Ebenezer Scrooge it was him.  I don’t know what he ate for dinner, but it was probably gruel.  One day when he was pretty old, he moved away and we found out he was a millionaire who owned acres of land in the Midwest.  He had saved all his life, but did he have a happy life?  The need for  “fiscal balance” also applies to our own personal survival.

 So let’s all be cheapskates with fiscal balance, and there is something even more important that we can do.  Let’s teach our children fiscal responsibility.  Let’s either tell them not to use credit cards or show them how to use them responsibly.  Let’s stop buying our kids everything they want right away.  Instead we will give them chores, allowances, and piggy banks.  Let’s impress upon them that being happy and kind, not rich, is what is most valuable in life.

Image courtesy of quirkypixel.com

Thanks Conan!

Last night Conan O'Brien made his first appearance on the Tonight Show. I purposefully stayed up later than usual to watch the first half hour of the opening skits and monologue. Conan has always been my favorite of the late night comedians. I used to watch his show frequently when I was younger but haven't seen much more than clips of his show in years. I started to go to sleep earlier than I did back then, and he was simply on too late. Last night made me realize why he is my favorite and how much I have missed his show.

At first I was a little hesitant to watch this first installment of the Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien. I don't dislike Jay Leno, but I've never been a big fan either. I find his brand of humor to be more subtle than Conan's, and I was worried that their might be expectations for Conan to tone it down a notch. Well, after only a few minutes into the show it was pretty clear the spirit of Conan would stay the same.

The show began with a segment in which Conan moved to Los Angeles by running and swimming across various backdrops all the way from New York, stopping briefly to examine a doll shop. When he arrived, he decided to see what it was like to work as a tour guide on a Universal Studios tour bus. He commented on the exhibits, screamed during the scary parts of the tour, and took the bus on a detour onto the city streets. He stopped at a $.99 store where he bought such dollar store treasures as toilet paper, soda that nobody has ever heard of, and whiffle bats. He gave one of these to everyone on the bus. His monologue was also full of the usual funny jokes, and I was delighted to see that Andy Richter, another favorite of mine, has returned as his sidekick.

Conan represents something that is too often missing from comedy as of late--pure silliness for the sake of silliness. You know. It's the kind of goofy stuff we used to see on the Carol Burnett show. I watch Comedy Central from time to time but have often found the stand-up routines to be dull. Too many of them are the same. They are either one sex joke after another or sarcastic social criticisms that are good for the occasional giggle. Some of these I really do like. I enjoy the sardonic wit of Louis Black or watching John Stewart poke fun at the all of the uptight, self-righteous nonsense that goes on in the world. However, these guys are often dark because they mock things that would otherwise make us cry. Conan, on the other hand, is just plain weird and has that ability to make me laugh without really knowing why. Even when he is mocking someone or being crass, it is so over the top as to not seem at all mean spirited.

So here's a big thanks to Conan (and Andy Richter) for bringing his absurd craziness to an earlier time slot.

Conan image courtesy of quirkypixel.com

How Did We Get Here?

Today GM filed for bankruptcy, and President Obama announced that the government will take 60 percent ownership of stock in the company while it is being overhauled. This situation is certainly less than ideal. I personally don’t like the idea that anyone’s hard earned tax dollars being used to rescue GM. There is a part of me that wishes we could just consider it a casualty of the economic collapse and let it disappear like Bear Stearns or Circuit City. However, it appears now that we don’t really have any other alternative than the partial nationalization of GM. If the company were allowed to liquidate, it could result in tens of thousands of job losses that we clearly cannot afford.

The demise of GM and that of Chrysler, for that matter, is incredibly disturbing but not because the partial government takeover will suddenly spell out the end of capitalism and plunge the country into socialist regime. That is not likely to happen. I do not find the concept of democratic socialism all that frightening anyway. What really bothers me about the failure of the American auto industry is the whole question of how it happened.

How did these companies get into the mindset of producing such gas guzzling poorly made automobiles? Why did people continue buy these products? If you are my age (40) or older, you probably remember the oil crises of the 1970’s that resulted in the gasoline shortage, high prices, rationing, and huge lines at the pump. Why did this not result in a huge wake up call to our auto companies and to consumers back then that we needed to move away from our dependency on oil? Why did attempts to produce alternative technologies stall? Why did we not learn from the lessons of the past and start buying mini vans, hummers, and SUV’s? Was it greed, ignorance, apathy, deregulation policies, politics, or all of these factors that caused us to lose are way?

I haven’t found a good answer to these questions. Historians and economists will probably be debating this for years to come, and politicians will go on pointing fingers. Only one thing is clear. We absolutely have to become a culture that starts to think heavily about long-term ramifications even if it is painful or inconvenient for the time being. Otherwise we will have a great deal more to worry about than the “threat” of socialism.

The Obama administration has been criticized for spreading himself thin and trying to tackle too many problems at one time. While I am not supportive of every decision that our new President has made, I certainly don’t take issue with his initiative. So many things have been ignored for so long that we have no alternatives but to confront them now in the same way that there are no other real alternatives to saving GM.