Healthcare

Healthcare is certainly something on a lot of people's minds(or at least in a lot of politician's rhetoric). Health insurance is a great thing. To know that one can afford the wonders of modern medicine if someone is in need of them is almost as important as the existence of the medicine itself. However, our healthcare system is quite frankly not healthy. The problem is a complex one because health insurance is not a pure market. Large businesses have to get their full time employees health insurance, and can write off that outlay when they pay their taxes. The problems is, this creates reason for businesses to spend a lot on health care. With a lot of businesses willing to pay a lot for insurance, insurance companies got smart and started to raise there prices ever so slightly over time. Those price hikes have added up, but the pressure on prices are two fold. Hospitals are for the most part paid by insurance companies. Hospitals are in a pinch because they are required to care for patients, but also have bills to pay. This makes hospitals pass the bills from the people who can't pay (the uninsured) to the people who can pay(the insured). They do this in the form of ten dollar aspirin and band aids and what not. Additionally the way insurance companies pay gives hospitals even more reason to jack up prices. An insurance company and a hospital have a contract that lists the most the insurance company will pay for procedures and what not. If the hospital charges less the insurance company pays less, but if the hospital charges more the insurance company still only pays its top price. This means that hospitals charge the highest price any one of their insurers is willing to pay for every procedure. Factor in the rising costs of malpractice insurance, and it all adds up to very expensive healthcare. Universal healthcare is one solution that would alleviate many of the problems. Many Republicans are apt to say "let the market work for you." However this requires a more nuanced solution than most Republicans seem to acknowledge. To alleviate pressure on hospitals there needs to be some form of healthcare available to everyone. This could come in the form of a mandatory plan whose cost are rebated. Also the spending of corporations, which has meant profits bonanza for health insurance companies, also must be addressed. This might mean restructuring the tax code. Doing this could also create some revenue which could be used to help small businesses pay for their employees healthcare. And the problem of hospital-insurance company contracts as well as malpractice insurance both are much trickier to handle. So in conclusion real solutions that maintain the market require changes in tax structure, and miss some areas universal healthcare might address. So what appears to be the simplest and most effective solution is some form of Universal healthcare. Naturally this may not be perfect, but it is a step towards a fairer and more efficient solution too healthcare in America.

McMansions and the American Dream

People's houses are too big, their cars are too big, and I think their families are too small. A three car garage and the cars too fill it will not make someone happy. Instead of buying a house with a three car garage try adopting a mutt from the pound. One pretty disappointing mutt will bring you a lot more happiness then three very nice cars (My barks over Beamers theory). Also 2.5 kids is not enough. People limit their kids too make sure they are taken care of, but I know I wouldn't have traded any of my brothers or my sister for a Playstation or a bedroom of my own. People's cars are too big. Cramming into the family car for a family vacation may seem unpleasant, but everyone tells the horror stories of those trips with the biggest smiles and the heartiest laughs. People should eat dinner together more. It is not impossible with the modern kids schedule, and the fact is the family is more important than soccer, cheerleading, SAT prep, and piano lessons. You may or may not make it rich, but living your dream should not hinge on that. Americans are blessed to live in a world where you can raise a family safely and securely. Happiness is so accessible to so many in this country. All it takes is recognizing the heroism in the mundane. All it takes is realizing how great it is to be a mother, a father, a sister, or a brother. How great it is to have kids bickering over toys, and spouses bickering over whose house they're going to for thanksgiving. If that is the worst of it, than you are living a dream, and what else can one ask for but that.

Rock On

The music industry is a very frustrating to me. There seems to be little to no correlation between good music and good money for artists. To a point one can earn a living on talent, but it seems to me that blockbuster dollars are distributed more or less randomly. The problem is this irrationality permeates almost all genres (even to a degree the sacred region of classical music). The costs are in the breadth and depth as well as the quality of music you run into with normal exposure. Why is this relevant? It speaks to the importance of the debate on DRM (Digital Right Management) Technologies. Steve Jobs has recently switched his views on the technology labels require him to package itunes mp3s with. He now supports selling music without the safeguards. This would make the flow of music and information on music much more liquid. In addition, the consolidation of music reviews on websites like allmusic as well as the expansion of music blogs like this also would help liberalize the music industry. This flow would mean better music for customers, and better money for better artists (much fairer then the lottery like wealth distribution of the industry presently).
A semi-unrelated frustration I have with music is people irrationally decide what they do and don't like. The two most common victims of unjustified ill will are country and techno. Country contains a lot of the feel good melodies and engaging lyrics (albeit sang with a twang) that people claim to like. But people let biases they have towards what they stereotype as country listeners prevent them from giving the genre a shot. Techno suffers from the same discrimination, and in some ways even more so. Electronically created music is largely the future of music. Sampling and Computer Editing of sound have become the driving forces for not only techno, but also pop (from rock to rap). Techno is also more than thumping bass, and ranges from heavy dance music to mellow chillout music. My point is that prejudicing your choices of music based on the scene you fancy your self part of cost you in terms of finding music you really like. Finding good music is not about sticking it to the labels, or fulfilling some requirement of your scene. It's about improving your car rides, the concerts you attend, and in some small way your life. The fight against DRM technology should not be seen as a crusade against evil corporations. It's about moving an industry forward. A lot of people are doing a lot of interesting things and the easier it is to connect future fans to current artists the better off everyone is.

I'm Bored

"Boredom is often from within and rarely from without." A priest told me that. It sounds like a saying. Something held onto more for the clever turn of phrase than for real depth of meaning. Nevertheless, this is no trite piece of advice. I think it is something that shapes me more and more everyday I stop and reflect on it. How much of what we do is to escape boredom? And how often do our attempts to escape boredom fail us? Quieting oneself is a skill that is no longer taught once one has mastered temper tantrums, but it is a lesson that we should never stop learning. How often is it that that which seems most tedious is most rewarding? The greatest books require immense concentration to read and even more to really grasp, yet those clearly have the most to offer. Happiness and peace, not entertainment and pleasure, should be goals for us. It's not a matter of stoicism and asceticism. One should not deny oneself one's desires, but desires are not always so obvious and superficial. Many would "choose" an afternoon on a couch in front of the TV, but how often would one be satisfied with that decision once the afternoon evaporated. Sometimes hard friendships are the most rewarding. Often sweat makes one happier at work than scratching by with the minimum effort. The security and happiness of a simple life is greater than that of a life of conspicous consumption. At the end of the day, no matter what our political stripes, we should always seeks to make the path to real happiness as straight and as clear as possible.

Reaganomics

A lot of people in this country do not believe in taxes. They believe that they can handle their own money much more efficiently than any bureaucracy ever could. Opponents to taxes, generally speaking, believe that more money out of the hand in government is a good thing. How little or big government should be is certainly an interesting question. But instead of entering that maelstrom, today I'd like to talk about the progressive income tax. Trickle down economics in a lot of ways is a criticism of progressive income tax. The logic goes that if we free up capital amongst the richest (theoretically the entrepreneurs) then business will boom, and if business booms, then so too will America boom and everyone will benefit. A lot of things about that logic seem faulty to me, but a recent article in Commonweal illustrates my concerns empirically.
Despite the DOW's climb over 13000, the biggest growth area in America is the wealth of the wealthy(especially the wealthiest of the wealthy). The results of a 15 year study on inequality in America were just released.

The figures are startling. Since 1980, a period of prolonged stagnation in inflation-adjusted median incomes, the income share of the bottom 90 percent of families has fallen by about 17 percent (see Figure 1). Even the very upper-middle class folks in the 90-95 income percentiles barely kept their shares constant, while the top one-thousandth and top ten-thousandth have more than doubled and tripled their shares. The top ten-thousandth, fewer than fifteen thousand taxpayers, now collect 3 percent of all personal income.(Morris, Commonweal)

If you look at inequality over time today's levels are the highest since 1928, whereas the lowest periods were the 50s-Early 70s. Highly taxed upper tax brackets and strong Unions kept inequality low in the period after WWII, a period of tremendous economic vitality and growth. The 1930s stand in stark contrast and were the furthest thing from economics vitality in this country's history. Any similarities between our economics state and the climate preceding the Great Depression should be troubling enough, but I mention the history only to illustrate my point that heavily taxing the rich does NOT prevent growth. The rich do not drive American growth, the middle class given good prospects for growth and advancement drive American growth. If nothing else taxes can provide a means a redistributing wealth. Trickle down economics does not make sense. If you want growth you should fuel the engine. You should not pour fuel on the hood hoping it will find its was down to the engine.

"This is Sherwin..."

You know what ads infuriate me. The ads for the Christian Children's Fund. You probably think I'm horrible person for saying that. But think about the ads, Children as cute as any you've ever had to babysit or saw at the playground, as cute as you were when you were 4 or 5 years old. Real Children living in the most dire situations, and all they're asking for is a dollar a day. That's it! Yet, how often have any of us called in? I am sure that every bone in body yearns for me to call in every time I see those ads and I don't. How desensitized has the television made us? How self-centered and isolated have we become? And still we rationalize this behavior. " I can't really help" "What's one kid?". One kid is the world and everyone can help one kid. But we go further then just those initial excuses. We think about kids living in an African tribe, that they can be happy in their own way. This is not only a situation much rarer then we think, but it is also no excuse. Money is not happiness, but it certainly is not detrimental. Even a kid in a tribe who is happy could lead a better and more secure life with a little help. We also point to problems immediately around us. "Well I've got problems my own." But do we really? Do we really have problems that occupy all of us, that take everything? Faced with a world of problems we numb ourselves to the desires within us and choose to just throw up our arms in frustration.

I'm not asking anyone to donate right now (though if you want to
click here), but too often faced with tough problems we throw up our hand in exacerbation, to often people dream of making it big or winning the lottery and do not realize that we already have. You have the means to help, to change you world, and to be happy. You needn't donate today, but start to listen. Do not suppress the heartbreak that children's cries for help create.