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?

Image courtesy of quirkypixel.com

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.

Image courtesy of quirkypixel.com

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?

Image courtesy of quirkypixel.com

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.