Critical Thinking. Yes, It's Important.

Some time ago I promised to present an entry on critical thinking. I keep my promises, so here we go. First, though, we need to define a couple of terms.

A "message" is a piece of information. Keep in mind that information is more than just a plain fact, or a bit of data, or a single picture. Information has meaning, but what it means may be different depending on your background. One person may hear about a protestor getting beaten by a police officer and think, "Good, that punk got what he deserved." Another may hear the same story but think, "That officer belongs to the oppressive police state." It's the same story, but we can get any number of different messages from it. For most of us, the information doesn't teach us anything, it only reinforces our prejudices.

A "source" is someone who gives you a message. It may be a website, a magazine, a co-worker, a talking head on TV, or someone else. Most of them are passing along a message they got from somewhere else. The plain truth is that they all make some kind of change when they pass along that message. Some of them don't realize they're making the change, but some of them do.

To put it simply, critical thinking is what you do when you ask questions about messages and sources. Where did that source get that message? How has that source changed the message, and why did it choose to change it in that way? What was the message before they changed it? Perhaps most importantly, how is that source hoping to influence your thinking with that message?

Another way to look at it--we're now thinking about the process of thinking itself. Where do ideas come from? How do we make decisions? Why do we accept some messages as true and reject others as false, even before we have any evidence?

Here's a simple example. You see a defense lawyer on the news. He claims that his client is innocent. You probably don't believe him, but why? Because that's part of his job. He may know that his client is guilty, but he edits the message to include everything that favors his case and to leave out everything else. On the other side, the DA will edit the message in the opposite way, to make the defendant look guilty. In this oppositional framework, you get both sides of the story, so you have some idea of what each side is ignoring.

Here's a more complicated example. The Senate recently released a report on the CIA's use of "extraordinary rendition" and "enhanced interrogation." People outside the bureaucracy, without its propensity for doublespeak, would call those procedures "kidnapping" and "torture." Sensible people (and I include you, dear reader, among them) know that this is not a left vs. right issue but a human vs. inhuman one. The CIA itself concluded in 1989 that torture is counterproductive, that is, the information collected is false more often than not, and the costs outweight the benefits in the long run. For instance, the inevitable publicity eroded our standing in the global community and made it acceptable for the other side to torture our people in return. At the most basic level, torture as an instrument of policy violates the Golden Rule, which appears in some form in every major religion. As we all know, however, the torture happened without a real public debate.

What is the source here? Primarily, the Bush Administration. What is the message? After 9/11, torture is permissible in the defense of our country. Unfortunately, the opposing message was fragmented and muted.

Let's ask some questions. Since we know torture doesn't produce good intelligence, why do it? The only conclusion we can reach is that their goal was not to get intelligence. Their goal also ignored the repercussions abroad, so it must have been something domestic.

All right, what were the domestic goals of Bush and the other neoconservatives? The only one that fits is their use of emotional manipulation to mislead the public. If you get people frightened enough, they won't pay attention to the other things you're doing.

The real trouble is, it's working. A bare majority of Americans (according to a recent poll) believe that torture was justified. These people aren't thinking, they're reacting to emotions. If that weren't bad enough, many states are trying to ban the teaching of critical thought. Are you starting to see why?

One more example. The scientific community is almost unanimous in its opinion on climate change. The opponents are loud, but who are they, exactly? Pick one, doesn't matter who, I don't want to prejudice your choice. Do a little research on that person. Find out who paid for her research, who she works for, who she cites for her evidence. Who is the secondary source for your primary source? Once you have the secondary sources, do more research. I can guarantee you that you won't have to dig very far.

There's a market for this junk science, and there's only a handful of scientists willing to compromise themselves so thoroughly. One of your sources for climate-change denial will lead you to this group. Remember, though, that they're only passing along a message. They work for the oil industry, which has a vested interest in maintaining the market for fossil fuels. In other words, rather than invest in a solution for a problem, they want to convince you that there is no problem, so they can continue to maximize their profits. For them, spreading these lies is nothing but another marketing campaign.

Here's the bottom line of critical thinking. Ask yourself, who benefits? The lawyer collects a fee whether is client is guilty or not. The Bush White House used federal law to transfer wealth from people like us to the have-mores, and few people noticed. The oil companies are still making record profits, and renewable energy is still in its infancy. All Americans should be using critical thinking and raising their hands to object to these deceptive strategies. That's not happening.

Why? Think about it.

Master Plot, Step 1

Here at Camp Wachagonadu, we don't spend all our time bashing rich white guys. We also watch college football on TV. That got us thinking.

Who runs college sports? Not the colleges. Not the players. Not the government. As you probably know, it's the NCAA (the National Collegiate Athletic Association), a private non-profit organization. Ostensibly, it promotes fair play among student athletes. It also oversees an industry that handles billions of dollars every year, has millions of customers, and has brand loyalty out the wazoo, all with practically no government oversight.

So why hasn't anybody tried to privatize college football? That would further several goals of the Money Party--show that capitalism works in every situation, reduce the size of government (since many schools are government entities), and deny funds to education.

In a capitalist world, sports teams would be free to hire any player of any age for any amount of money; they would play as often as they liked against whoever agreed to play them; anyone anywhere could start, buy, sell, trade, or dissolve a team. Only the market would limit what the players and the operators could do. In the real world, though, the operators would have to agree (for instance) on schedules with each other, as well as on rules and penalties so that the players could train properly. The NCAA does so by including school sports directors as members, and they help define the rules.

Once they started to coordinate their efforts, the operators could spend all their money on the best players and start playing. After a while, though, the operator with the most money would win most of the games, the public's interest would decline, and attendance would drop. They would need some kind of artificial limit to keep their teams competitive with each other. The NCAA does it by sharing revenue between schools.

Even with revenue sharing, one team could have a better team by hiring more players. They must set a maximum team size and make it tougher for players to even try out. The NCAA does it by setting eligibility requirements.

With their competitive teams, the operators can hold games every week of the year. Except that players would become injured more often. And star players would rotate in and out due to fatigue. They would have to limit the number of games per year, maybe concentrate them during a particular season. The NCAA, of course, sets schedules.

Finally, they'd want to keep another group from forming and cutting into their market. The NCAA claims that it's voluntary and doesn't discourage competition, but then, who could possibly compete? If someone could put together a private minor-league football system, don't you think it would have happened already?

So the NCAA doesn't follow the teachings of capitalism. In fact, it has all the distinguishing marks of a cartel: collusion, side payments, limiting supply, and barriers to entry. And there's one more thing about college sports that isn't capitalistic at all.

The core values of the NCAA, according to their Web site, are learning, balance, spirit, community, fair play, and character. All very commendable, but I take exception to the "fair play" part. That's because college athletes are indentured servants.

To put true capitalism into action, instead of just talking about it, you must allow college-age athletes to offer their skills to the highest bidder. Education has always come second for athletes, so why maintain the fiction? If a player wants to attend school, he can do it on his own time and with his own money. An athletic scholarship is just a euphemism for slavery. The school forces the athlete to work without pay (and it is a job), while the school (and the NCAA) reaps all the rewards. An axiom of capitalism is that you, not someone else, gain the benefits of your own abilities and efforts.

The current system doesn't really work for anybody involved. Either the athletic side or the academic side has to change ... or both can change. And that is the first part of my master plan.

College sports programs should have the option to spin themselves off from their colleges. Once they do, they become businesses in their own right. They can rent their facilities from the school or buy them over time, which continues the financial support that sports programs have always provided for schools. They can continue to use the school's symbols by paying a licensing fee, or they can develop their own symbols. They can even become a minor-league team for a professional team, a type of arrangement already in place in baseball.

As for the NCAA, these new private programs can still belong to it and still participate in all the same activities. We've already seen that the system needs some kind of oversight. All I'm suggesting is that we do away with the injustice of "amateur" athletes.

The employee athletes will have more time for training, since they don't have to attend classes. They will get the same amount of money from the program, but paid directly to them instead of as a scholarship. They may get food and lodging as part of their compensation package, or they may take cash instead. Since they'll be treated as adults, they'll have to act as adults, meaning they won't have (or need) all the restrictions of living in an athletic dorm. If they behave in a way that negatively impacts their performance or the image of the team, the team can always fire them.

With this one change, everyone can get what they want and deserve. The only real difference is that athletes get the money they earn. Of course, that means less money for the schools ... which leads to the second part of my master plan.

Something for Nothing

Back in February I vowed to find a better way to redeem America (see previous post). I'm back here to say that I didn't. However, I did learn a couple of things.

The election is upon us, and it probably won't change much of anything. If Obama wins, the Republicans will control the House, and nothing will get done. If Romney wins, the Democrats will control the Senate, and nothing will get done. Then again, that's the point. The election coverage (and the hyperpartisan feuding in general) is infotainment, a cloud of dust that obscures the real issues.

Many people, myself included, predicted a bad outcome from the Citizens United decision (see another post). The Money Party is pouring record amounts of money into the campaign, much of it in secret. The media are obscuring the real issues by distracting their viewers with infotainment.

I consider myself a moderate. I'm more interested in balancing the two major parties than in following one or the other. At the moment that means pulling left to counteract a pull to the right. If the left had a big advantage, I'd want to pull right. I point this out because, during my hiatus, I tried to convince people on both sides to see the big picture. As in my driving analogy (in an earlier post), both parties are so consumed with fighting over the steering wheel that they don't see where the truck is going. Apart from these activists, there's a significant portion of the country that doesn't care where the country is going. Either they're too busy trying to survive, or they're too wrapped up in their infotainment.

See the common thread? Infotainment. It's an endless diet of garbage served up on televisions, computers, radios, magazines, and anywhere else someone might suffer the risk of momentary boredom. I can't possibly compete with the quantity, but I have a shot at producing better quality.

So Wachagonadu will continue. As far as I know, only one person currently reads it (and you know who you are). That means doing some marketing, publicity, whatever you call it, to get more eyes. I have to hope that my observations and ideas will draw more attention once people become aware of the blog. Without a voice of sanity, our civilization on its present course could well spiral down into anarchy or oblivion.

Or not. Things rarely get as bad as you expect (but see my later post on "climate change").

That's one thing I learned. The other is that Americans are lazy. We want something for nothing.

Think about it. In general, people on the right want lower taxes, but they don't want any decrease in government services. People on the left want more services, but they have only vague ideas about how to pay for them. Both want the government to give them something for nothing.

Same thing with schools. The right wants lower property taxes, which is how most places fund their schools, but they expect their children to get a good education. The left wants schools to do what parents ought to do.

Health care? The right wants government completely out of it, but they ignore the huge cost increases that HMOs have brought. The left wants everyone to have world-class care, no matter what it costs, but someone down the line has to pay for that.

Politics? Worst of all. The right wants their entire agenda implemented, no compromise possible, and they'll hold up everything else until they get it. The left is even more cowardly, if that's possible, for letting them get away with it. And again, that's the point. Who benefits if the government is in perpetual gridlock? Only the people who can already pay for the services they need--the Money Party.

What ya gonna do? We expect the government to do ... something, even if we're not sure what, and we don't want to know the details of implementing it or how to pay for it. Because we're lazy.

I said I hadn't found a better way to redeem America. I now believe that this blog is the best way. If nobody listens, I've done what I could, but if there's an audience, my work will at least start a helpful discussion.

So it's time to stop being lazy. Find out how government works. Go to your local school board meeting, city council, or homeowner's association. Lurk for a while. Find out what the issues are. Then get involved.

Or you could follow my master plan for reviving America. It starts next time with ... football?

Enough Is Enough

Recently, I reconnected with someone who had been a good friend, in fact one of the best. We began a dialogue of phone calls and emails to get caught up with each other. Then he remembered that I was a "liberal." The calls stopped. Messages went unanswered. I had become the enemy. The truth didn't matter. Our prior relationship didn't matter. Has nobody noticed how foul the atmosphere has become in the United States? Did it happen so gradually that we became accustomed to it? Do we not become outraged because there's a fresh, more outrageous outrage every day? Enough is enough. Presidential candidates compete to see who can make the most heartless statement. They make thinly veiled threats against minorities. They insult everyone who isn't like them. They say their top issue is "beating Obama" despite the worst economy in generations. And they get applause for this behavior. Enough is enough. Politicians who are stupid enough to dispute climate change are fouling their own nest. They take money from the oil companies (or anybody else) and say what they're told to say. They put politics and their own careers ahead of the well-being, possibly even the survival, of humanity. Enough is enough. The arguments over "class warfare" and "wealth envy" are ridiculous. I don't hate the wealthy because they have money, I hate them when they abuse the power that money gives them. Making money is not an end in itself. Operating under the assumption that it is gives rise to amoral behavior. Excusing that amorality has become just another theme of the endless media circus. Enough is enough. When did religion become part of politics? Not just in the #1 distraction issue of abortion, but in the whole good-versus-evil, no-compromise, take-no-prisoners attitude towards every issue. We seem to have forgotten that politics doesn't work without compromise. Pretending they can get everything they want is childish. Enough is enough. I am angry. Complaining about things in a blog is no longer enough. Writing pointless letters to Congress isn't enough. Casting pointless votes isn't enough. I have to find a way to make a difference. When I do, I'll post it here.

Sucks to Be American

Here it is almost three months later, and my "talking points" thing hasn't gotten off the ground. It's not like the Republican candidates for president care about logic or context or history or facts. Their supporters don't either. By the way, if all the participants in a debate agree on all the major points, is it really a debate? So let's take a detour to the real world. In Money Party news, there is a new irritant bubbling up from the underclass. I'm talking about the Occupy Wall Street movement, of course. The wealthy seem confused about how to handle them. There's no leader to attack. There are no talking points to trivialize. The attitude towards the poor, the near poor, the middle class--in fact, anyone who's not a millionaire--seems to be, "Let them eat cake or dirt as they wish, but I don't wish to hear their complaining." For the benefit of someone who doesn't have time to read all my earlier entries, the Money Party is my term for the top one tenth of one percent (one percent in OWS shorthand). These uber-rich have bought up all the influence on our federal government and most on the states. Under the banner of "government bad" they are ruining our schools, our infrastructure, and our regulatory system. With ownership of almost all the major media outlets, they are poisoning our public discourse. They are busily removing the last vestiges of democracy with unverifiable voting machines and voter restriction laws. Ordinary citizens in this country have ceased to matter except as profit generators. The only serious response to OWS from the Money Party, apart from having the police interrupt the protesters in their constitutionally protected protesting, seems to be a note from a futures trader in Chicago. The general tone of the note is threatening, but in an economic way--"you take away my job, I'll take both of yours." He points out that he works long long hours, which also illustrates his sociopathic pursuit of money. For some reason, though, he never explains why his job is so important. What is an important job? Take the oil industry. Someone looks for a possible oil deposit. Someone drills down to the pocket of oil and pumps it out. Someone refines the oil into gasoline. Someone sends it down a pipeline. Someone puts it in a truck. Someone drives the truck to a gas station. Other someones design and build the geological equipment, the oil rig, the refinery, the pipeline, the truck, the station, and all the other pieces and parts that keep the whole system going. All of those someones and pieces and parts make up the real economy. Our futures trader does nothing but move around virtual pieces of paper and associated piles of money. He does it so that the already wealthy people who buy and sell gasoline can have a slightly less volatile price at some point in the future. This kind of financial wheeling and dealing is not part of the real economy. Unfortunately, this bogus kind of wealth creation is now responsible for a larger portion of our gross national product than the real kind of wealth creation. It's important only because it makes the wealthy wealthier even faster. It's like a giant vacuum cleaner sucking all the money out of the country, leaving less and less for everyone else to use to keep the real economy going. If you want a simple answer, there it is. That's why America is in trouble, that's why people are angry, that's why there has to be an Occupy Wall Street.

Talking Points Destroyed: Unions

The Money Party's noise machine is burying the needle to get you numbed up for the next election. I'll be demolishing their talking points one at a time for the next few posts. First up, for Labor Day, unions. They're evil, of course, because they're corrupt. Well, corporations are corrupt, governments are corrupt, your local PTA is probably corrupt. Anyone with unchecked power becomes corrupt. Unions are different because they're supposed to be on your side. Have your ever tried to talk to your supervisor about unsafe working conditions? Probably not, because you know it's futile. You're outmatched before you even walk in the door. Who's on his side? The Chamber of Commerce. The Supreme Court. The Republican Party. Industry groups. The media. The stockholders. The list goes on and on and on. One way or another, the Money Party gives money to all of these groups. Who's on your side? Only you. You're on your own. There are supposed to be government agencies, such as OSHA, to help. Even talking to them can get you into trouble. Usually they don't get involved until someone gets hurt or killed. A company like, oh, British Petroleum, can push workplace safety to the back burner. The government agencies who are supposed to check up on oil rigs have their hands tied, with slashed budgets, congressional interference, and indifferent staff. The company itself pushes management to skimp on everything, including safety equipment, safety training, emergency manuals, and routine maintenance. If a situation has become obviously dangerous, employees are discouraged from complaining to their supervisors, the government, or the media. All these conditions come about because the company wants to make a few extra bucks, and they are deliberate. When an oil rig or a coal mine blows up and kills people, then, it's not entirely an accident. It's dangerous to work on an oil rig, or in a coal mine, or atop a skyscraper under construction. Some accidents are simply unavoidable, and people will die because of them. Some accidents are avoidable, but if you let management decide how much effort to put into avoiding them, they'll err on the side of profit, not safety. One reason the union is there is to protect you from avoidable accidents. Yes, that cuts into profits. The question here, though, isn't about whether employees will risk their lives. They do that every day. The question is about how much risk they're willing to take and about who decides on an acceptable level of risk. If you belong to a union, you have a seat at the table, and you can help make those decisions. If you don't belong to a union, you're on your own. You can take the risks your employer decides are acceptable, or you can look for another job. On the company's side, spending more on safety adds to the cost of drilling for oil or mining coal. The human cost of getting at those resources should be reflected in the total cost. If the cost of drilling a mile down in the Gulf of Mexico becomes prohibitive, then alternative energy sources become more attractive ... and that's exactly how free enterprise is supposed to work. Another reason for unions is to keep wages fair. If you ask your supervisor for a raise, you have no leverage, nothing to bargain with. As with safety, the deck is stacked against you, but with a union, you and your co-workers can negotiate as a group. You have a seat at the table. During the reign of the Money Party, we've seen productivity go up, which means profits have gone up. Wages, on the other hand, have stayed practically flat. I keep saying that the wealthy are greedy and short sighted. This is a prime example. Because they refuse to share their increased profits with their employees, the people who make those profits possible, they keep more money in the short run. At the same time, they tell their employees--in their own terms, economically--that there is no reason to work harder and increase productivity any further. Productivity levels off, profits level off, and they lose money in the long run. That doesn't sound complicated, does it? And yet it's a lesson they haven't learned in thirty years. What ya gonna do? Management and labor should be partners. Both are affected by decisions about the direction of the company. The employees in the trenches know how the industry works from the bottom up, while the officers see things from the top down. Putting those perspectives together can only help a company. Partners don't always agree, but they both want to advance their shared enterprise. By making the workplace safer and keeping wages in line with productivity, management and labor can both benefit in the long run, which also makes our country stronger.

Have a Cookie

Everyone's talking about the debt ceiling, as if this is somehow different from everything else government has done (or rather refused to do) lately.

They call Republicans the Party of No. In a two-party system, there is a place for conservatism, for a voice asking us to consider if we're going down the wrong track or moving too quickly. No doubt there are real conservatives out there. Today, however, we have a pack of spoiled children who are drowning out all the rational adult voices.

In a classic behavioral experiment, psychologists give children and adults a choice: they can have one cookie now or two later. Almost invariably the children take the single cookie, while the adults opt for two. They call the childish behavior "instant gratification" and the adult behavior "deferred gratification." Deferral is one of the bases of civilization. If you don't eat your whole crop during the year and set some aside, you can plant again next year. If you have extra money, you can loan it to someone who starts a new business, and later you may get your money back with interest. If everyone pays their fair share of taxes, the government will invest some of it in infrastructure and research, and later everyone benefits.

Today's Republicans appeal to the impulse for instant gratification. You should have your tax money now instead of waiting for it to bear fruit. You should run your business however you want now instead of coping with regulations. You should attack other cultures now instead of trying to learn about them or talk with them. We'll give you one cookie now if you'll sign over your interests in two future, and possibly imaginary, cookies.

They may not think that way, but they behave that way, and that's what counts. It's shameful, it's embarrassing for the grownups, but worst of all, it's helping to destroy our society and our country.

If it sounds like hyperbole, consider this. Since deservedly losing power in 2008, Congressional Republicans have accomplished nothing. Absolutely nothing. In the midst of the worst economy since the Depression, they've given up on their responsibilities to their constituents, to their country, and to their duly elected president. They behave like children who kick and scream because they don't get everything they want.

Republicans have managed to succeed at one thing: brainwashing. They've found a flaw in our democracy. To work properly, a democracy must have informed voters. For various reasons, though, Americans have mainly tuned out public matters. A good government is a boring government. A bad government gets certain people excited, and not in a good way. People make emotional decisions when they get excited, which is when they most need to make logical decisions.

So the Republicans tell the same lies as often and as loudly as they can. If they stir up greed, hatred, fear, anxiety, bigotry, if they make their opponents seem weak or indecisive, then they can always get certain segments of voters to the polls. It doesn't matter what we think we're voting for, just that we vote for them.

Here's something nobody talks about: why do Republicans want to get elected? They say government is the problem, so why become part of the problem? They say being an outsider is good, so why fight to become an insider? The truth should be obvious: they're lying. Their only goal is to gain power, and once they have it, to keep it. Once they have power, though, they don't know how to use it. They only know how to campaign. They become slaves of their wealthy contributors. The rhetoric and propaganda that got them into office make for lousy governance. Once the voters realize all that, they vote the Republicans out of office, and the cycle begins again.

That's where we are today, and that's where the real tragedy is. They never learn from their mistakes. Our country is facing problems that destroy livelihoods, families, institutions, even lives, and they do nothing but complain because they're not getting their way. The true work of a politician is to find workable compromises. These Republicans refuse to compromise. They have failed at their jobs and should resign.

Some call them zombies. Motivated by hunger, zombies have no conscience. Republicans have consciences, yet they choose to misinform, spread fear, block help for needy people, and funnel public money (your money) to those who already have too much. What they do is shameful. Even more shameful is that they get away with it so thoroughly. Apparently, though, shame in Washington became unfashionable after Joseph Welch called out Joseph McCarthy.

When children misbehave, they lie to hide it, and when they get caught, they lie to cover it up. The only difference here is that politicians are better liars. We the people need to be the adults and take back our country.

It's Not Really a Market, and It's Not Really Free

Nobody in the media talks about the basics of health care insurance. Of course, if you know the basics of economics, you have to start asking some difficult questions, and the media don't like difficult questions.

At the heart of economics is the transaction. You have a buyer, a seller, a product or service, and a medium of exchange. The seller gives the buyer an item or does something that benefits the buyer; in return, the buyer gives the seller money. The seller wants to charge as much as possible, but he knows the buyer can go to other sellers, who may have lower prices. The buyer also knows that there are other sellers, so he attempts to find the lowest price among them.

Almost too simple, right? But you can't even fit insurance into this model. How much does a policy cost? It depends on your age, your medical history, and other variables that they won't disclose. Once you have a quote, what are you buying? You don't really know, because they can rewrite the policy or drop it at any time, for any reason or for no reason. Once you have a policy, what is it worth? When (not if) you get sick, you don't know what they'll cover and what they won't, because they'll do anything to avoid paying a dime to the people who treat you. How does one policy compare to another, so that you know you've made a good deal? Well, you can't be sure of the cost, or the value, or even if you'll have a policy when you need it, so you'll never know if you got the best price. You can't make an informed decision about your purchase when you don't really have any information.

It gets worse. When you have health insurance, what exactly do you have? Nothing but a promise that, when you need medical care, someone else will pay the bills. Insurance is not a product or service in itself. The medical care you receive is a service, but you don't have the option of shopping for it, and you never really know what you paid for it. Insurance companies routinely force medical providers to take a lower fee for the promise of getting more customers. In another industry that would be called a kickback.

It gets worse. You've heard horror stories about people losing coverage, so there's no need to go into that here. If it happens to you, what do you do about it? In the classic transaction, if the buyer is cheated, he knows not to buy from the same seller again, and he will tell all his friends about the bad seller. The seller knows, even if he makes a short-term profit from cheating someone, his bad reputation will mean a long-term loss. If the insurer cheats you, though, where can you go? When your employer provides your coverage, you have no choice. It would be nice if your employer gave you some money and let you pick the insurer, but in some states that's illegal.

Suppose you could go to another company? Well, in most states, you only have one other major player. In 39 states, two insurers control more than half the action, and in Hawai'i the top two control 98 percent! You see plenty of ads for car insurance; you don't see many ads for health insurance because there's no point. In another industry that would be called monopolizing the market. The insurance companies write their own rules, though, so it's not only legal, it's mandatory.

Can it get any worse? Oh yes. We all know that the price of insurance is increasing much faster than inflation. Where does that money go? Before HMOs, and even as recently as 1995, about 96 cents of every premium dollar went to medical expenses. That's what you pay the premiums for, right? Today that number is closer to 80 cents. The difference goes, not into profits for the insurance companies, but into overhead and reserves. Insurers, as a matter of course, refuse to pay benefits. You have to dig up papers, fill out forms, make phone calls, all to get something you've already paid for and were promised you would get. They're wasting resources, you're wasting resources, and we're all paying for it. We pay twice as much for health care as civilized countries, and that's one big reason.

Another reason we pay more is because government tilts everything in their favor. Congress tried to pass a law requiring them to pay out a minimum percentage of premiums. They made sure it died.

The other expense is reserves, that is, money put aside to pay future claims. But insurance companies literally have so much money they don't know what to do with it.

There are two bottom lines. Economically, if you consider your health as an asset, you have to pay to maintain it, just as you would a car or a house. Here is the root of the problem: the term "health insurance" doesn't make sense. You buy insurance, not to maintain an asset, but to replace it. You can't replace your health. If you can't afford to maintain your house, then eventually it collapses, and you're left with nothing. If you can't afford decent health care, if you can't maintain your health, it will collapse.

Here's the other bottom line. If America considers itself religious at all, if we believe that human life is important at all, then we have a moral imperative to make health care available for everyone. Jesus didn't tell people to work harder and buy things, he healed them. People who support the current system either refuse to see how broken it is, or believe in an amoral capitalist system, or blindly follow demagogues who are profiting from disease and death.

Health insurance as we know it is inefficient, unfair, opaque to consumers, and basically a criminal enterprise. There is no free market.

What ya gonna do? The whole point of insurance is to pool the risk. A small but predictable fraction of people will need huge amounts of resources to deal with serious illnesses. A small fraction will need next to nothing. Everyone else will need occasional treatment and checkups. If everyone pays into the same pool, the payments are as small as they can get, and the risk is minimized. That is known as the single-payer system, but it was never seriously considered when they "reformed" the system in 2009-10.

Consequences

One of the major themes of this blog (if not the major theme) is that the wealthy control America, not the right or the left. On top of that, they're doing a pretty lousy job of running things. Their basic problem, I believe, is immaturity.

As parents, we have an impulse to shield our children from the unpleasant truths of life, for instance, that actions have consequences. Suppose you see your son spit chewing gum on the ground. A trivial thing, really, but what they call a "teachable moment:" you can take your son aside and explain why littering is wrong. It makes the area look bad; someone could step on the gum; a dog might eat it and get sick; and so on. Most of all, it gives you a chance to counteract the child's natural tendancy, which is to be lazy, sloppy, inconsiderate, and self-centered. Bad habits, like trash, tend to accumulate.

Suppose it's a few years later, and your son leaves his dirty clothes on the floor. Another teachable moment. There is a hygiene issue; taking a few seconds and using a hamper is not a hardship; someone eventually has to pick them up and wash them. You could even make him responsible for his own laundry. Suppose, though, that you let it slide. You now reinforce, not counteract, his childish tendencies. He does what he wants without consequence, knowing that you will take care of any messes he creates.

Suppose it's a few more years later. Your son has discovered cars, sex, drugs. A teachable moment at this point could involve a night in jail, and you don't want to do that to your little snowflake.

And now he's a trader on Wall Street. He's still lazy, making a living by moving around other people's money. He's still sloppy, using financial instruments he doesn't understand. He's still inconsiderate, not caring what could happen to others, to the economy. He's still self-centered, focusing only on his bonus. He's surrounded by people just like him, all reinforcing each other's behavior. When the economy crashes, it's not his fault, because nothing is ever his fault, he never learned that actions have consequences.

And you still have to clean up his mess. You can't possibly save his bank with your own money, so you go to the government and blackmail or bribe them into using public money.


Take a step back. Now you're a taxpayer again. You have to pay, with your taxes, even with your job, to clean up a spoiled child's mess. It's not just unfair, it should be a crime. Actions have consequences.

The wealthy, though, can make consequences go away. We all know there are two sets of laws in this country, one for them, one for the rest of us. They can commit crimes and force others to suffer the punishment. Make no mistake, someone always suffers.

Don't believe me? Look at our infrastructure. In the 1950s the federal government invested in the future by building a system of wide, uninterrupted, public roads: the Interstate system. At the time they knew that the materials they used wouldn't last more than 50 years. The clock is ticking. Like any other roads, Interstates need basic maintenance. To do all these repairs, refurbishments, and replacements would take manpower, thus providing jobs for the foreseeable future.

In the 1980s federal spending became unpopular. Other industrialized nations spend about 10% of the national budget on their roads; our share has drooped to 2%. The roads are in bad shape, and they will get worse. If we start work immediately, they will get even worse, but then they will get better. If we wait too long, they will become almost useless. Without the Interstates, trucks will have to divert to state roads, which are also poorly maintained. Goods will take longer to get to market--including basic goods like food, gasoline, clothing--and they will be more expensive. Travel will become more dangerous. Bridges will collapse, like the I-35 bridge in Minneapolis in 2007. And it will get worse before it gets better.


That's not quite what you expect if you believe in less government spending, is it? But actions have consequences. Less spending on infrastructure means less infrastructure. It's that simple.

The wealthy want you to believe in less government spending. That means they pay less in taxes. As a bonus, the government, starved of funds, can't regulate business properly--even more profit. They win, we suffer the consequences.

Still Unfair

It's been ten long years since Bush v. Gore. The Supreme Court, in what was already an increasingly blatant series of partisan cases, installed the worst president in modern history. The justices tend to cite landmark cases in their later "work," but they have never referred back to BvG. Alito tells people to "get over it," a playground retort that tells you: a) he won't discuss it because he can't defend it; b) he won't apologize for it because he has no shame; c) he won't admit it was partisan because he's still handing down shoddy, biased decisions; and d) he doesn't care what anyone thinks because he's publicly involved in political affairs. He is a hack, not a judge.

If you don't remember the specifics, here's a quick review. The presidential election of 2000 apparently ended in a dead heat. Bush had 246 electoral votes, Gore 266, with only Florida's votes not included. Those 25 votes would decide the election, but the difference in the state's totals was less than one-half percent between the two candidates. Under state law the election officials had to perform a recount and report within seven days. That was when the circus began.

Lawyers for both sides flooded into the Sunshine State. Stories about voter intimidation, purging of eligible voters from rolls, and other irregularities began to surface. Secretary of State Katherine Harris, who had co-chaired Bush's Florida campaign, tried to invalidate the recount by certifying each county's totals as originally reported. In other words, she wanted to use her position to ignore the actual totals and declare the election over because her candidate had ostensibly won.

A Bush family crony and unindicted co-conspirator, James Baker oversaw a blizzard of legal diversions. Recounts in various counties started, stopped, and started again, all under the watchful eyes of lawyers. Reporters breathlessly told us about different kinds of chads. The actual votes, the will of the people, got pushed further and further into the background. The Florida Supreme Court displayed an unhealthy interest in facts and evidence, going so far as to order a complete and final recount to resolve the election properly. The Bush legal team went over their heads. Reagan and Bush Sr. had appointed the majority on the Supreme Court, so that was where the case needed to go. Bush had to win; the legal justification was almost an afterthought. Best of all, with SCOTUS there could be no appeal. More than a month later, the federal justices stopped the recount, effectively appointing Bush the new commander in chief.

There were plenty of issues to provoke outrage. For me there are three that still resonate a decade later.

One, the whole process became politicized too quickly. The country can't have confidence in an election if the votes are pushed aside in favor of legal hair-splitting, partisan maneuvering, and endless debates over established procedures. The higher the stakes, the more important it is to follow the law. If a county has a recount procedure in place, follow it to its conclusion, flawed though it may be. Fix the flaws later. Bush may have actually won, but we'll never know.

Two, a democracy (even a representative democracy) lives or dies on the integrity of its elections. The only point in the political process where you have any real power is in an election. If someone interferes with how your vote is recorded, he is taking away your power, he is substituting his decision for yours, he is subverting the democratic process and committing treason. Americans don't seem to understand how important their votes are. The general outrage over Florida soon dissipated, with few reforms ever put in place. The biggest "reform" was a switch to electronic devices, which I've covered in another entry. The time for reform is now, before the next election.

Three, the Supremes are supposed to be impartial. They're human beings, but judges are allegedly chosen for their impartiality. They are supposed to have the training and experience to put their personal prejudices aside. That's their job, that's their duty. With Bush v. Gore they abandoned their duty. They are indirectly responsible for the ensuing disasters, from two pointless wars to Katrina to the current depression. They have become as corrupt as the rest of the federal government.

A Letter

A friend forwarded a letter to me. I won't name the author, who (according to the letter) is an actor on a popular television series. He might be surprised to learn that his name is being used for propaganda.

Make no mistake, this type of message is propaganda. There's a patina of respectability because it claims to come from a known source. There's even a photo of the actor, so it must be genuine.

The refrain in this message is that the author is "tired." He's worked hard all his life. I'll give him that one. Acting is marketing oneself more than anything, and marketing is hard work.

Then the moaning begins. He's tired of the government taking his hard-earned money and giving it to lazy bums who don't work as hard as he does. He doesn't understand that some people are simply not capable of working as hard as he does. In fact, he's been lucky to avoid a long period of disability, which happens to half of all Americans, or a chronic illness.

He's tired of paying taxes to bail out people who tried to flip pricey houses. Actually, the big bailouts went to the big banks. He's also tired of the government programs that created the bubble. Actually, the banks paid Congress to deregulate them. The bubble happened because of too little government in one area, not too much.

He's tired of limousine liberals who trash America. Who loves his country more: someone who blindly favors one side over another and continually smears all government, or someone who points out the flaws in both sides in order to have a better country?

He's tired of hearing about Muslims who want peace, because the news is full of Muslims committing acts of violence. He might want to put some of that hard work into learning something about Islam and Arab countries before he makes such blanket statements.

He's tired of affirmative action. Apparently he doesn't see the discrimination going on all around him. It's easy to ignore the misfortunes of others when you are so fortunate.

He's tired of oil money going to establish mosques in America, when Christian churches aren't allowed in Muslim countries. Here's one idea: don't buy oil.

Wait, that won't work. He's tired of hearing about global warming, but he won't put some of his hard work into learning a little bit about climatology. Instead he will take the word of think tanks who create junk science with oil company money.

He's tired of paying to help junkies, who obviously meant to wind up destroying their lives when they took that first snort of cocaine. They aren't ill in any way, even mentally ill, so they don't need treatment. When you're lucky, you don't need drugs to cope with the world.

He's tired of illegal aliens. They should be hard-working, lucky anglophones like him before they can become citizens.

He's tired of unpatriotic people trashing the military for torturing terrorists. First, the CIA, not the military, did most of the torturing. Second, they had to make it up as they went along, because our government had nobody who knew how to torture. Third, the blame rests squarely on high-level people like Dick Cheney, who must be happy to see this kind of blame-shifting going on. There's more, but the message here is that questioning the government is unpatriotic. Unless the government is actually accomplishing something at home, then it's time to start impeachment proceedings.

He's tired of political parties blaming each other for everything; they're both bunches of liars and cheats. Except that the Democrats are much worse. At least he's fair and balanced.

He's tired of celebrities and politicians who get caught with their pants down and apologize gracelessly. Once again, I agree.

Heading for the big finish. He's tired of hearing people blame everyone but themselves for anything and everything, when they should blame themselves. This is the "personal responsibility" card. When you're lucky, you don't have problems, so all you do is take credit for your good luck. When you do have problems, you should magically solve them yourself, whether they're medical, legal, cultural, or economic. And "personal responsibility" always goes with "corporate irresponsibility," which means corporations are never held responsible for anything.

So, we have welfare queens, house flippers, limousine liberals, Muslims, minorities, more Muslims, tree huggers, junkies, Mexicans, hippies, and irresponsible people of every stripe, with a healthy sprinkling of Obama and big government. All we need are trial lawyers, communists, and the liberal media for a complete list of tried and true conservative targets.

I'm tired too. I'm tired of hearing how much conservatives hate everyone who isn't like them. I'm tired of the blind allegiance to conservative politicians who don't know how to do anything but throw sand in the motor. I'm tired of hearing the same old rhetoric that perpetuates problems instead of solving them. I'm tired of hearing opinions from people who don't know anything (and, much worse, don't want to know anything) about a topic. Finally, I'm tired of hearing litanies of complaints without a single suggestion about how to address them in a meaningful way.

What ya gonna do? If government isn't solving your problem (and odds are it isn't), get out and solve it yourself. Talk to people--the best cure for intolerance is spending time with your "enemy." Do some research--you may be surprised by how much the politicians on both sides are lying to you. Find or found a community group--you may be surprised at how many people are frustrated enough to get off their couches. Don't write to your congressman or run for office--it's a waste of time.

An Analogy

If you're still having trouble picturing the political landscape, here's an analogy that may make it easier to follow.

Imagine a wagon full of apples rolling downhill on a bumpy road. You're supposed to be the one driving the wagon, but your friends want to drive too. Some of them pull the wheel one way, some pull the other way. They're so busy fighting with each other, they don't watch the road ahead. You can pull the wheel one way or the other, but you have to pull for a while to overcome your friends. Did I mention the road was bumpy? And there are ditches on either side? And no brakes?

Wait, it gets worse. A bandit stowed away on your wagon. He's furiously throwing your cargo of apples off the wagon. He's also promised a share of the apples to some of your friends, but you don't know which ones. The bandit could care less if your wagon crashes.

That's a pretty desperate situation, but unfortunately, that's where our democratic process is.

Obviously our country is the wagon. You are the independent voter who tries to keep our country on the right track by voting for the right people. In the real world, different groups want to use the government for their own ends, so they tug and strain and curse to turn it their way. Ideally, in our republic, the government turns right, and the voters correct the imbalance by turning left; a few years later the reverse occurs; in the long run we avoid trouble by not going too far in either direction. That doesn't happen any more.

For one thing, the mass media and the parties have done their best to alienate the electorate. Typically, 40 to 50 percent of potential voters don't bother. They're not represented in the analogy, except in the inertia of the wagon.

Most of the actual voters have made up their minds before they vote. About 40% vote Democratic no matter what, another 40% Republican. The numbers may be even higher these days. These partisans are the "friends" in the analogy who pull the wheel left or right without understanding the consequences.

That leaves 20% (or even less) to decide the election. Many of them vote based on their personal economic situation, which should keep the country in the center, just by the law of averages.

The bandit represents the wealthy in this country. They're robbing the rest of us blind, and as long as they can keep up the stealing, they don't care if the economy goes into a ditch. Their latest target is Social Security. You've been paying into it your whole working life, but if they get it privatized, Wall Street will have a trillion-dollar lunch off of your money. Do you want to get to the bottom of the hill and find out your cargo is gone? Then keep voting Republican.

Our wagon has been veering to the right for some time, and we've already got two wheels off the road and almost into a ditch. The voters pulled the wheel left, just enough to keep the wheels out of the ditch. The danger is not over, but the wagon is still veering to the right. It's just a matter of time before we run off the road. Another good bump like 9/11 could take the choice out of your hands.

What ya gonna do? You don't want the wagon to run off the right side of the road. You don't want to overcorrect and run off the left side, either. The first job is to center the wagon, by keeping the Republicans from getting more control. It's not just about putting people in Congress, you see, it's about the judges they appoint, the projects they fund or don't fund, the laws they pass or don't pass. Fixing the Great Recession will take more than two years.

After the election, the next step is campaign financing. The Citizens United case was the equivalent of giving megaphones to each of the wheel pullers and putting a blindfold on you; it will be impossible to make rational decisions about the future of our country when you can't hear yourself think and can't see the road ahead.

We have to save our country before it's too late. Democracy may not work very well, it may seem like the worst system on earth, but as Churchill pointed out, all the others are worse.

Vote Money

Still not sure who to vote for this time? Take the guesswork out of elections. Vote for the Money Party!

You don't have to choose between Democrat and Republican. You don't even have to go to the trouble of voting! You're still voting for money.

The Money Party platform is simple: rich people deserve to get and keep every dime they can, however they can. That's it! No complicated issues to think about, no campaign promises to break, no opposition party to slow things down.

Are you too busy making a living to follow politics, make an informed decision, and vote? Congratulations, you've been distracted! The Money Party counts on you staying away from the ballot box.

Are you fed up with negative campaign ads, or the sheer number of ads? Or do you just not pay attention and wait for *American Idol* and *Desperate Housewives* to come back on? Congratulations, you've been distracted! The Money Party counts on you staying hypnotized.

Are you following the election like it was some kind of reality show or popularity contest? Do you care about polls, about who's ahead, about the horse race aspect of it all? Congratulations, you've been distracted! The Money Party counts on you ignoring the issues.

Are you listening to the DC pundits, who explain everything in terms of political advantage? Are you listening to the other pundits, who paint the other side as buffoons or criminals? Congratulations, you've been distracted! The Money Party counts on you making partisan and emotional decisions.

Are you fed up with big government? Congratulations, you've been distracted! The Money Party counts on you looking the other way while they let our roads and water lines crumble.

Are you a disciple of laissez-faire capitalism? Congratulations, you've been distracted! The Money Party counts on you allowing them to get away with murder.

For the Money Party, money isn't everything, it's the only thing. Government works when they tell it to work and does what they tell it to do. Tax cuts? Deregulation? Tax breaks for moving jobs overseas? Forcing everyone to buy overpriced health insurance? Bailouts for investment banks? It's all gravy.

Ask not what the Money Party can do for you. They don't care about you.

What ya gonna do? Obviously, most people don't engage in the political process, so let's cut them out of it. People who don't even bother to vote, people who don't know anything about the issues, people who vote with their emotions, none of them deserve a voice. People who do care about voting should show that they're serious and committed to the political process. Let's charge a fee to register, how about, oh, a nice round number, one million dollars? We can stop pretending that your vote matters. You don't have to sit through those ads any more. The real voters can stop making all those bribes and tell their representatives how to vote. Better yet, cut out the middleman, let the real voters write the legislation. They're already doing it, why not make it official?

So vote Money! ... while you can still vote.

But seriously, folks, don't take my word for it. The vast right-wing conspiracy (especially these guys) is doing better than ever. You didn't notice? Congratulations, you've been distracted!

Treason

You want to be a good citizen. You pay attention to politics. You listen to the candidates. You make your choices. You go to the polls. When you go to all the trouble of voting, you want your vote to matter. These days, though, it's entirely possible that your vote is irrelevant, that you wouldn't know about it, and that you have no way of finding out.

It doesn't matter which party you belong to. A bad election hurts everybody. If your side doesn't get hurt this time, it will next time. That's human nature.

We'd like to live in a democracy, where we can vote on every issue, but that's not practical. Instead we vote for representatives, and they vote on the issues. The brilliant idea behind a republic is that we have a controlled revolution every two years. We agree on the rules ahead of time, we put limits on the possible changes, and we abide by the results. If enough people play by the rules, it works--crudely, but it works.

What we have now is a loose confederation of people who routinely break the rules. We don't publicize them enough or punish them enough. They are trying, in a limited way, to overthrow our government by replacing a duly elected official with someone else. That is treason. We hang traitors.

These traitors are computers masquerading as voting machines. More specifically, these traitors are the people who make, sell, and operate the computers, because the computers themselves are pretty stupid. It turns out the people who make the computers are fairly stupid themselves. Smart people who know computers have been saying for years that these machines are vulnerable to manipulation, by the makers, by the users, and by hackers.

Here's a simple and common trick. A computer is pretty stupid; you have to spell out names for its codes, such as X for Smith and Y for Jones, so it will display the names. When you vote for Smith, the computer adds one to column X, and that's the only fact it records about your vote. Here's the trick. When they set up the computer for the election, they switch the codes: Smith becomes Y and Jones becomes X. Now, when you vote for Smith, your vote goes into column Y instead of column X.

Think about that very carefully. If you are a Republican, you may have just voted for a Democrat. There is no way to go back and check the numbers, to recount the ballots. On election night, the computer has a total in column X and a total in column Y, nothing else. If the traitor can switch the codes in the morning and switch them back at night, without being detected, it's the perfect crime.

It doesn't stop there. What if the computer changed every tenth vote from one column to another? What if it simply generated the totals without counting any votes? How would you know? The companies who make these computers won't let you see the code that runs them. Partisan politicians will protect their election officials. These computers aren't monsters like the Terminator, but they're dangerous just the same.

Here's the bottom line: whichever side you're on, it might be your vote that they change. If you didn't vote for them, then it's not really your government, it's someone else's, regardless of who you voted for. You're no longer living in a republic. Your government is no longer accountable to you. To those traitors and their masters, your vote doesn't matter, and you don't matter.

So what ya gonna do? Get an absentee ballot. If you go to vote, ask for a paper ballot. If they won't give you one, ask for a receipt from the machine (you won't get it). Don't make a stink so big that they have you arrested, but make a stink. And remember that the poll workers are volunteers. Don't blame them, blame the people who are buying our elections, and our candidates, and our government, and our souls.

After the election, tell your representatives that you demand they get rid of the computers. Do you have so much faith in computers, in the people who make and use them, that you are willing to give them absolute control over your vote? Do your trust your government that much?

Real Health Care Issues

The recent "reform" was, like most politics, a distraction. That plan was more about paying for health care than about actually delivering it (see a later entry), and the right steadfastly ignores that it's almost identical to the plan Mitt Romney set up in Massachusetts. The delivery system is just as broken, though. Almost nobody talks about these problems, and the government won't touch them. The dangerous idea here is that "we have the best health care system in the world." In a handful of metrics we do better than other countries, but overall it's a bleak picture: we pay more and get less for our health care expenses. The insurance apologists seize on anecdotes from other countries and that handful of metrics, but they can't change the facts, and they certainly can't save any lives.

Problem the First: Basic economics. The principle of supply and demand is easy to understand: when supply goes up, prices go down; when demand goes up, prices go up. In other words, something that's easy to get is cheap, while something that's hard to get is expensive. The demand part of our health-care system is us--that is, people who get sick. That demand is only going to go up as the population gradually increases and even more as the boomers age. The supply part is medical personnel, such as doctors and nurses. Everything else is incidental: you can't staff a hospital, run a test, or prescribe a drug without personnel. The supply has actually gone down, because almost all medical students these days (an amazing 98%) become specialists, not general practitioners. Specialists earn much more money, which tells you where their priorities lie. So supply is going down while demand is going up: prices are inevitably going up.

Solution the First: Doctors have abandoned the role of general practitioner, so we need a different profession to fill that role. Nurse practitioners are the likely stopgap solution. In the long run we must have primary care providers who can diagnose and treat simple problems, prescribe medicine, and refer patients to providers with more specific skills. A major step toward fixing this problem (and several others) would be to blur the line between doctors and everyone else, that is, create grades of medical personnel based on function, not education. Allow people to learn as much as they can about medicine in whatever way they can, then let them take tests to certify themselves. If I can learn what a GP should know without the time, expense, wasted energy, and built-in prejudices of medical school, why shouldn't I be able to do a job that doctors themselves refuse to do? It wouldn't be a bad thing, either, to show doctors that they can be replaced; that might put a dent in their arrogance.

Problem the Second: Geriatrics. One-third to one-half of all medical spending in this country goes to keep people alive in their final month. Preserving life is a worthwhile goal when it makes sense, but postponing the inevitable for a few hours or days doesn't make sense. The patient goes through unnecessary indignity, discomfort, and pain. The family goes through false hope and often financial hardship. The only benefit goes to the doctors, hospitals, and drug companies, and that benefit is purely financial.

Solution the Second: Encourage living wills. This has nothing to do with "death panels"; nobody wants to kill your grandmother. Try to understand the distinction. It's one thing to euthanize people who are still healthy. It's another thing entirely to allow someone to pass away quietly, someone who would die anyway and has already made an informed decision to do so without any fuss. I'll repeat the critical part--someone who would die anyway. There is too much focus on the quantity of life and not enough on the quality of that life.

Problem the Third: Prevention. An ounce of prevention, in medical terms, is worth about ten ounces of cure. Less than a pound, but still a substantial savings. It may be dramatic for surgeons to save someone's life with a risky operation, but real life is not like TV. It's much less expensive to teach someone at risk for heart disease to eat properly than to do bypass surgery. There's no mystery here. Most chronic diseases can be prevented. For some reason, though, many of us listen to the politicians, who would rather pretend to solve splashy expensive problems than quietly prevent them from ever happening. The system is geared towards trauma care, towards rescuing people from imminent demise, towards the dramatic rather than the sensible.

Solution the Third: If you're at risk for, say, heart disease, get some exercise and change your diet. If you refuse to do so, you are committing slow-motion suicide. The medical establishment should recognize this fact by classifying you as a coronary DNR. If you ever have a heart attack, nobody will try to resuscitate you; nobody will perform bypass surgery on you; nobody will try to save you from your own bad behavior. On the other hand, if you have a genetic predisposition to heart disease, you should get treatment and medication to reduce the risk of a heart attack, and you should be treated properly if you do have a heart attack. Conversely, if you have no risk factors at all and still have a heart attack, you should get treatment. The operative principle here is to prevent what you can and treat what you must.

The bottom line: Somehow we have gotten the idea that medical resources are infinite. We can treat everyone for everything, we can look for cures to every known disease, we can save every accident victim and premature baby, all at the same time. Is it any wonder that prices are going through the roof?

Introduction

A word about the title. In one of his concert films, the late Richard Pryor talks about his cocaine addiction. Jim Brown, a football player, intervenes and asks, "What ya gonna do?" Pryor tries to justify his habit. Brown keeps repeating, "What ya gonna do?"

Well, Pryor didn't do anything. Shortly afterward, he set himself on fire (accidentally or on purpose, there's no way to be certain). He spent several painful months in a burn ward.

This blog will be, among other things, an occasional look at some of the addictive and potentially dangerous ideas in American politics. We've already been burned by some of them, and unless something changes, we'll get burned again and again.

My nominee for most addictive idea is that the wealthy somehow deserve a break from the rest of us. It begins with someone arguing for "trickle-down" economics (or whatever they're calling it this year), which is nothing more than a simple "bait and switch" con. Bait and switch works because it's simple and it plays on greed.

Here's the scam. Someone approaches you with a wallet or bag containing money and claims to have found it. He or she would be happy to split it with you if you'll just put up some money for "security." That's the bait part. If the two of you find the original owner, you get your security back; if not, you get your security and half the money. You can't lose.

You go to the bank and withdraw your security money. Your new friend puts it in the bag. After a while he hands you the bag and tells you he's going to look for the owner, or contact the police, or use the bathroom--anything to get away from you. That's right, this is the switch part, and you're "left holding the bag." During that brief time between your putting your money in the bag and his handing you the bag, he has switched bags on you. When you get nervous enough to look inside, you find only scrap paper.

What does that have to do with tax breaks? Remember that the government's money belongs to everybody, including you (that's oversimplifying, so we'll cover it later). The bait in this case is jobs. We hear that if we allow wealthy people and corporations to keep more wealth, they will invest it and stimulate the economy. In an ideal world, it might work. In the real world, it doesn't. Just in America, we've tried it about twenty times, and not once has it worked as advertised. That's the switch: they promise to use your money to help you, but they only help themselves. An individual who gets conned ought to know better, but as a country, we've fallen for it every time. One definition of insanity is repeating behavior and expecting a different outcome.

I have two main objections to cutting taxes for the wealthy. One, they've already gotten ample rewards from the economic system. There is absolutely no reason for them to get further rewards from the political system. On the contrary, as the ultimate beneficiaries of society, they have a vested interest in maintaining that society. Over the last three decades, they have made short-sighted decisions that have instead harmed society: sending jobs overseas, keeping wages flat, adding profit motives to the health-care system, discouraging union activity, repealing consumer protections, and starving government of funds for things like infrastructure, education, and research. All these strategies have weakened our country as a whole, simply to make the wealthy even wealthier. The government should have stopped every one of these schemes as a matter of national interest.

Two, the other part of the argument is that the wealthy somehow know best how to invest. Two words: Bernie Madoff. The wealthy are at least as gullible, if not more so, than anybody else. Where were the responsible investors who should have researched instruments like collateralized debt obligations, realized they were bogus, and told everyone not to buy them? Why did anyone ever buy a "junk bond"? How many people gave their money to Madoff simply because everyone else was doing it? And Madoff is by no means an isolated case.

The whole "invisible hand" idea of capitalism relies on diffusion, not concentration, of wealth. As in politics, the more people we have making decisions, the better those decisions turn out to be in the aggregate. Yes, some people lose money, but with more people handling smaller shares of wealth, the risk is spread out. We have seen this idea turned on its head, with more and more wealth flowing into fewer and fewer hands. For instance, in 1980, the top 1 percent of Americans owned 7 percent of the wealth. Today that same 1 percent owns 20 percent of the wealth. The capitalists are destroying capitalism.

The 1890s version of the trickle-down scam used the "horse and sparrow" analogy. You feed a horse oats, they pass through its digestive system, and sparrows eat the leftovers. Think how many sparrows you could feed with those oats if you bypassed the horse entirely. That's what happened in the 1940s, when the New Deal got a chance to work. Ordinary lower- and middle-class people were able to go to college, get good jobs, and spend money. The result was the longest and strongest economic expansion in human history. Apparently the capitalists considered that a bad thing, because they set about reversing everything the New Deal accomplished. Part of that reversal, of course, included tax cuts for the wealthy.

Here's another point nobody talks about: when exactly does this trickling down reach the rest of us? After three decades of helping the wealthy, shouldn't the economy be doing well? Instead we have the worst conditions since the Great Depression. But the wealthy are doing better than ever. They don't need a break. The rest of us do.