Does America Got Talent?

Nowadays the most popular T.V. shows are neither comedies nor dramas - they are called reality T.V. shows.  Among the most popular are American Idol and America’s Got Talent.  Both shows audition thousands of American hopefuls who truly believe that they have a great talent.  The judges on these programs reduce the thousands to about 48 or 24 and then ask the American public to judge the performers and by their vote select and reject participants until only one remains.

Both shows originated in England (yes, I said England, not Great Britain or the U.K., but England!).  Both use judges from England as well as a few Americans to see if America really has talent.  And do we?

We watch the many pathetic souls who believe that their life’s salvation depends on some great talent if only it could be discovered.  We watch only to learn that in that case there is absolutely no hope for their salvation, since their talent was only  imagined.  It’s like watching the characters from Midnight Cowboy competing hoping for a miracle that never happens.

It soon becomes painfully obvious that barely a handful of the contestants have a talent of any real value.  The choices are usually so obvious that the voting seems spot on.  But then when the only really talented people remain, the top five or six, the voting becomes a popularity contest rather than one for talent.  The clearly best singer or act might not win because of some personal characteristic that does not appeal to the masses.  In American Idol it is usually because the talent seems too gay or too ethnic.  The winner is usually the nice, white, Christian person with some real talent, just not the most. The most recent winner was an exception to the rule.

I look at our country and see a similar situation.  We have nationwide, statewide and local talent contests every two, four and six years.  In every race, there are more contenders than positions and so the people must choose the one with the most talent for the elected office. Many of those running think that they have great talent that needs only to be discovered.  Many think that they can lead their electorate by making wise decisions on their behalf.  And we see it again now as the minority party tries to select a nominee to run against the President of the United States in “America’s Got A Talented Leader.”

There have been about nine people who formally announced their ambition to run for the highest office in the land.  How many of them have any talent for this competition?

There is the smartest of the group.  He has a Phd. in something basic like history.  He has white hair and used to be the Speaker of the House until his caucus told him to stop speaking for them and invited him to return to private life suggesting the professorial route given his education.  He chose the lobbyist/consultant route given his apparent propensity for greed and gluttony.  He had been doing the worst of the group putting his foot into his mouth each time it opened.  He reminded us why he lost his government job 15 long years ago.  We had almost forgotten how severe his hypocrisy really was.  But he somehow stayed in the competition and by a process of elimination rose to the top of this unsightly heap.

There is the one also exited from office and whose name means something unimaginably vile while his political opinions are almost worse.  He would eliminate Social Security and Medicare.  That would really do the trick.  No doubt, this candidate is eligible for neither so why should anyone else be?

Then there is a businessman who must have gotten lucky and made some money somehow.  It was not with intellect - no thinking or analysis there.  He got confused about what Libya was, came out with an absurd economic plan and then forgot about the settlements made to women who claimed he harassed them while he was carrying on a 13 year extra marital affair which he confused with a friendship with benefits.

These three contestants would have been eliminated at their first audition if this were a talent show.  That would leave six.  Check them out.

The leader of this group has been on the show before.  He was a contestant four years ago and was doing well until his policies came back to contradict him at every turn.  People quickly saw him as a phony who would say anything to get a vote.  His big pluses are that he is very rich and very good looking.  But those are his only pluses.

The understudy who was hoping to be there when numero uno falls, has a first name that seems to be an abbreviation of his character flaw - timidity.  He could not help appearing desperately weak while being too nice to be saying all those terrible things about his opponents. He has since departed quietly from the stage, almost unnoticed.  His best bet would be to change his name, grow a beard to strengthen his chin, die his hair white and run as an unknown, in Canada.

There is also a backup understudy who might even be related to the declared front runner.  They are both rich and are both very handsome and they share the same religion.  The understudy is more of an independent than a bone fide contestant in this talent show.  He is there just in case the judging audience comes to its senses, an unlikely scenario.

Then there are the next two.  One can only wonder who persuaded them to consider running for an office they could never win.  The two are very similar but not in good ways.  They both claim to be evangelical which means against gays, minorities, the poor, welfare, abortion and science.  They both feel that G-d speaks to them and that they respond because they want to help G-d do His work.  Neither has a clue about economics or foreign policy.  Their mantra is identical - cut taxes and shrink the government to its minimal and let the kindness and wisdom of the free market system driven by the richest among us rule the day.  The fact that both have spent their entire professional lives working for the government does not seem to faze them, it might actually strengthen their argument by making government employees look even worse.

At least with America’s Got Talent and American Idol, the five finalists have talent.  In this case the only one among them with any talent is the one most neglected because he is such a libertarian.  If he were on the talent shows he would lose because he isn’t the type to be popular even if he is the most talented.  Could he ever be forgiven for raising the son who went on to become Kentucky’s junior senator and its senior crazy?  Will he try to deny paternity at this late date?

I find it sad not only that this is all the talent the minority party can bring at such an important election, but that the American people are not surprised at our lack of political talent.  We have gotten used to being disappointed, so human failure is no shock to us. We’ve gotten used to inadequate news coverage of complex issues, and inadequate medical care caused by assembly line like appointments necessitated to maximize corporate profit.  We accept the fact that our public schools can not properly educate our children and that our precious tax dollars will be squandered in vain attempts to assist countries controlled by dictators.  We recognize that most of our T.V. shows and commercials as well as most of our movies will fail to entertain or enlighten us.  We have already stopped believing our politicians but nowadays we don’t even expect them to be intelligent, informed or having any integrity, with one notable exception, and from him we expect perfection, meaning doing everything we want. 

Foreigners always say that they hate the American government but love the American people.  Many of us have learned to accept that as making any sense at all.  In America we freely elect fellow Americans to run our government.  How are the two different?  The answer is they are not.

We Americans who know that we are the greatest people on earth living in the greatest country on earth under the greatest political system on earth, also accept all these afore-mentioned short comings in direct contradiction of and opposition to greatness.

Does America got talent? Does the emperor got new clothes?

Private and Public Ownership

For thousands of years, the notion of private property and ownership has been basic to Western Civilization beginning before the Old Testament and reinforced again in the New Testament.  We own many things.  Our possessions include our furnishings, clothing, cars, and real estate as well as less physical things like our names, our memories, our talents, our personality, our thoughts and, to some degree, our loved ones - human and otherwise.  Victims claim that losing their family member was like losing part of themselves.  Those who have dogs are called dog owners.

There is also the notion of public ownership.  Citizens are part owners of their homeland and residents are part owners of their public spaces, like parks, highways and bridges.  Those who pay for, use and depend upon public facilities have a vested interest in their continued availability.  Citizens elect representatives to not only make and enforce policies for the greater good, but also to properly maintain our public property.

The private sector which affects the flow of private property is driven by the profit motive, enlightened self-interest.  In our western, capitalistic society, the banking industry controls the flow of capital - the cause and effect of private ownership, by deciding to whom to lend money and for whom to deny it.

The public sector is controlled by government agencies whose bottom line is the efficient and effective distribution of public services to create and maintain public property not profit. 

Private sector workers are primarily motivated by the same profit motive as is their industry.  In this sector, in order to ensure maximized profit, employees are evaluated based on their    ability and effectiveness.  Just as private sector firms are competitive, so are their employees.  Only the best survive.  The better you do, the better you do.

In the public sector, workers are motivated either by a love of service to the community or the comfort of knowing that their jobs are safe and that their performance will not be used for or against them when it comes to raises and promotions.  This environment can foster a spirit of cooperation rather than competition.  It can also cause some to become less enthusiastic about doing much at work since it makes very little extrinsic difference.

We see this in education where poor teachers who have seniority don’t have to worry about losing their jobs because any layoffs that occur will affect the least senior teachers no matter how excellent their work has been.  We see this in our city’s and probably our state’s civil service system.  Public employees testing for promotional opportunities can not be judged on any of their past evaluations, no matter how behavior-based, because they could be subjective.  The promotion must be based on seniority as well as the results (subjective or objective) of a standardized oral and/or written examination.  Seniority and test taking ability are considered more important than actual performance.

The same is true in many public sector agencies where transfers to other units are granted based on seniority of the requester and the request and not past performance.

The effect of this difference in private and public sector performance is striking. The private sector employee is motivated by fear of job loss and ambition to succeed as well as any intrinsic motivations that might be involved such as pride in one’s work, wanting the organization to succeed, being of service and a nice working environment. The public sector employee can enjoy job security and excellent present and future  fringe benefits like a good pension, with some getting 90% of their pay in retirement and a Cadillac health plan.  There also is the satisfaction of serving the public to help make life that much more pleasant for the people affected by their services - police officers save lives and arrest criminals; firefighters save burning buildings and rush people suffering illness or injury to the hospital to sometimes save their lives; nurses and social workers help those in greatest social or physical need. Public sector gardeners can provide the community with beautiful spaces filled with nature as relief from the concrete and metal that surrounds us.

We must encourage our private sector by making wise purchases that reward quality and creativity, while our government agencies insure that the private sector companies can compete fairly and honestly in the free market to provide goods and services as effectively and efficiently as possible.

We must motivate our public service sector by treasuring our public property and insisting that it be maintained. Government agencies must stimulate their staff to maximize performance by holding them accountable to achieve certain agreed upon objectives and  responsibilities and by basing their career successes on their actual performance and not just their seniority.  

Historical, as well as current evidence, strongly suggests that the population is best served when there is a thriving, competitive, law abiding and creative private sector complemented by a vibrant, hard working, efficient and effective public sector to do what the other sector can’t or won’t. 

Alleviating the Foreclosure Crisis

There are said to be almost two million homes that are either in foreclosure or about to go into foreclosure.  It is estimated that more than one million homes will be foreclosed on this year alone. 

There are three main reasons for the foreclosures. One is that the interest rate on the adjustable mortgage has gone up making the payments for interest and principal too high for the homeowners to pay.  A second cause is financial hardship due to our damaged economy and high unemployment rates.  The third main reason is that the homes are now worth less than the money owed on it.  In some cases, the homeowners took out second mortgages to buy personal items figuring their homes would continue to grow in equity.  When they went down in value, not up, the debt exceeded the collateral’s worth.  Some of these homeowners elected to stop making payments since it appeared to be a losing effort.

In all three cases, everyone loses.  The homeowners ruin their credit rating, must move their family from their home and go rent something somewhere else.  The neighbors lose because each foreclosure in their area reduces their own home’s value and tears at the neighborhood.  The lenders lose because they must go months without payment and then must get the families out, fix up their homes and try to sell the homes at as little a loss as possible.

Most of the current programs to reduce this problem are themselves problematic.  The government spending money to help the homeowners is unwelcome now that we face such huge deficits.  To many, government intervention or banks forgiving part of the debt seem unfair remedies for the vast majority who do not have this problem.  Why should banks or taxpayers suffer because a few million families made financial miscalculations?  And how many people buy cars and pay loans on them that always exceed the car’s value, some might ask?

Here is an idea that could help some of  those about to be being foreclosed on because they can no longer afford their mortgage payments.

Why not rent the soon-to-be foreclosed homes to the homeowners until they can make the regular mortgage payment?  The rent would be equal to either the interest part of the mortgage or the current rental rate, whichever is less.  The mortgage would be frozen with the principal and interest waiting to be paid when the family is able or when values increase allowing the family to sell without losing a lot of money.

The family gets to stay put.  They do not ruin their credit rating, the family does not have to find a new place to rent, and no one has to be the wiser.

The neighborhood gains because it keeps the same neighbors and does not get a group of renters moving in.  The property values are unaffected because there is no foreclosure and the neighborhood maintains its feeling of community.

The bank gains because it continues to be paid for the place, does not have to foreclose and hurt the family, does not have to fix it up and sell it and does not look like the heavy forcing a helpless family to lose their beloved home.  The bank also avoids having other homes in the area lose their value which might make them more likely to foreclose.  

It’s a win-win-win.

A Simple and Fair Federal Income Tax

America is in the midst of an economic crisis. We have a federal debt in excess of $15 trillion dollars, we are running annual deficits of more than a trillion dollars, we have 13 million people out of work, 50 million people on food stamps and one in five of our children lives in poverty.  While job creation is essential, so is reducing the annual deficit by cutting unnecessary federal spending and by raising revenue.

Studies have found that the richest Americans are paying at an average rate of only 17%  for their annual federal income tax and that half of American households pay no federal or state income tax at all.

There has been much discussion about changing the tax code to make it simpler and more fair.  Conservatives want a flat tax with everyone paying the same rate.  They want to reduce the highest rate while expanding the base, meaning that more people would be paying taxes while the richest pay less than they already are.  The last time tax rates were lowered in favor of the wealthiest Americans, under the Bush/Cheney administration, the result was no new jobs,  record deficits, a Wall Street crash and the tattered economy we are now suffering.

I have a recommendation that would simplify the federal and therefore the state income tax code for individuals and couples, not including the self-employed.  My plan would be very simple, fair, and would raise at least $200 billion a year in new revenues.  This figure could be adjusted as can be the recommended tax brackets and standard deductions.

Under this plan taxes would have one purpose - collecting revenue with which to fund needed government services.  The tax code would not try to encourage or discourage behavior with deductions or credits.  It would treat all income equally be it from work (minus FICA deduction), dividends, pensions, insurance benefits, bonuses, interest, lawsuits, lotteries etc.

As of 2008, people’s income from stock dividends has been taxed at 15% while income from savings interest can be as high as 35%.  Actual capital gains are also now at the 15% level, down from 35%, while only a maximum of 85% of Social Security benefits are taxable and legal settlements are not taxed at all.  Under this new system all these income sources would be treated as equal.

Under this plan there would be no itemized deductions, only a standard one.  For discussion purposes it could be $15,000 for an individual or $30,000 for a couple.  There would be no deductions for children, medical care costs, charitable contributions, education costs, mortgage payments, state income tax etc.   Currently there is no itemized deduction for buying food for the family or for eating at restaurants with the kids, but people do it.  There is no itemized deduction for buying the family clothes, but people do it.  There was a deduction for interest paid on credit cards and car loans but that was dropped 30 years ago.  People still pay interest on them even though they can’t write it off.  The three martini lunch was dropped as a business deduction, but people still have them every day.

There would be only five tax brackets that would range from (after the standard deduction) 10% for net incomes up to $50,000, 15% up to $100,000, 20% up to $250,000, 25% up to one million, and 30% for income over $1 million These brackets could be adjusted to raise or lower the tax burden.

Here are some examples:

Imagine that there is a couple that earned $50,000 in net salary (after deducting FICA), $20,000 in Social Security benefit payments, $10,000 in interest and $5,000 in capital gains.  The total is $85,000.  The couple would deduct $30,000 in a standard deduction, leaving them a net income of $55,000.  The first $50,000 could be at a 10%  tax rate or, in this case, $5,000.  The remaining $5,000 of net income would be taxed at 15% or, in this case, $750.  The total tax would be $5,750 or 6.7% of their gross income.

Let’s say there is a couple who earned $200,000 in net salary and $310,000 in capital gains.  Their total would be $510,000.  Using the standard deduction, they would net $480,000.  The first $50,000 would be at 10%.  The second $50,000 would be taxed at 15%.  The next $150,000 would be taxed at 20% and the remaining $230,000 (net income over $250,000) would be taxed 25%.  So in this case, the couple would owe $5,000+$7,500+$30,000+$57,500 = $100,000 in taxes. That equals a 20.8% tax on their gross income.

As a third example has a couple making $5 million in capital gains, (including dividends also currently taxed at only 15%).  They would have a standard deduction of $30,000 and then owe $230,000 for the first $1 million and $1.2 million for the remaining $4 million for a total of $1.43 million or 28.6% in federal income tax.  

This tax code would not give an Earned Income Credit or a Making Work Pay Credit to low earners who currently not only don’t pay taxes but actually get paid taxes costing $115 billion a year.  The lowered rates for the wealthiest, under Bush/Cheney reduced tax revenues by almost $100 billion a year.  There would be no credit for student loan interest or for taking care of one’s young children.

That does not mean that those in need of relief for college loans, income supplements, special medical needs or anything else currently credited in the tax code would be ignored.  With the money saved, hundreds of billions a year, there would be money for these purposes.  More college grants and very low interest federal loans could be awarded to deserving students; low income workers could receive a reduced cost for health care benefits, help with rent payments, access to food discounts - benefits targeted at those in need of help.

But what about the loss of deductions for home mortgages and for charitable contributions? Will people still buy homes or give to charities?  Good question.

While home mortgages have other problems now, if people see buying a home as a lifetime investment in their own well being, they will continue to buy homes.  With some of the revenue raised by eliminating this deduction, more affordable mortgages can be funded to qualifying families.

With charities, it is an open question.  I have found in my own case, now that I have subjected my family taxes to the standard deduction, I still pay as much for charities and feel better about it because I am not also having to keep track of every receipt and tally them to see how much I can save for my kindness.  This way it is just out of the desire to help others without any expectation of reward.

I believe that this recommended tax code change would raise needed revenue by both expanding the base, meaning more than just half of all families will be paying some tax and by getting the rich to pay more but at a lower marginal tax rate. 

Then, if this plan is adapted and revenue is raised, it must be put to good use.  Government waste including fraud, inefficiency, ineffectiveness, duplication of effort and international overreaching must be reduced as much as possible.  Our tax dollars should go to good use. 
                            

Who Is Elite?

The word “elite” usually is used to refer to excellence.  An elite military unit is one that is the best trained and equipped.  An elite university, like Harvard or Stanford, is one considered better than most.  Statistically, the elite are those in the top of the bell curve, being at least in the third standard deviation above the mean or above 95% of the sample population.

Today, the word “elite,” means something very bad to the people on the left politically and to those on the far right.

To the people on the left, the elite are the cause of all problems in the world. Since the Left firmly believes that we were all created equal, it blames the manipulation by the elite to oppress the working class to increase profits and personal wealth for making the poor, poor.  They also believe that elite countries like the U.S. and England have been the cause of so many failed countries in Africa, Asia, the Middle East and Latin America, countries that would be successful were it not for outside intervention.

To those on the left, the elite are those who have the most money and power.  They are corporate CEOs, hedge fund managers, stock brokers, bankers and heirs to family fortunes.  The Left finds these people to be greedy, gluttonous, power hunger , cruel, biased and taking unfair advantage of the working class.  It is these elites, the Left says, who control our elected representatives with their demands for their special interests because they want to have all the money and power and want to control our country and then our world.  These elite pay lower tax rates and live the high life while the rest of us suffer.

To those on the right, the elite are those who are highly educated.  The elite attended our most elite colleges and universities.  They are college professors, medical doctors, highbrow lawyers, psychologists and psychiatrists, economists, philosophers, journalists, historians, and scientists.  The Right finds these people to be weak, condescending, amoral, controlling and trying to destroy our country’s moral and economic fiber with liberal laws and socialistic economic policy - taxing the rich too much to give free handouts to the undeserving poor.  The Right feels that many on the left pay no taxes while trying to bleed the productive members of our society in their attempt to force equality of outcome on all of us.

It has therefore come as a shock to those reading the latest data concerning our distribution of wealth.  It turns out that 90% of Americans are worth less than less than $600,000.  This personal wealth includes the value of one’s stock, real estate, equity, bonds, 401Ks, and art collection.  Many on the left, especially in the Bay Area, are worth much more than that.  Are they then the elite - the top 10% of household wealth?  And add to them many on the left who worked for local government and have retired with generous pension and medical coverage benefits?  What are they worth? 

A police officer or fire fighter who retires from service in San Francisco, as well as many nearby cities, will receive as much as 90% of his final pay as the base of his pension payments.  This same person also will receive a Cadillac health coverage that costs the City $15,000 a year, more if the retiree has a dependent. Say the total value of both (the pension and medical coverage) is $100,000 a year, how much would one need to have in the bank or in stocks to earn $100,000 a year?  At 2%, it is equal to $5 million.  That’s a lot more than $600,000.  So how many government retirees and members of the left are the elite?

The Right has similar problems though still comes closer to being its own ideal.  The Right hates the educated elite and yet many on the right have college degrees and some have advanced degrees.  But with the right, it causes one to wonder about the value of the education because of its lack of apparent effect.  One current darling of the right has a medical degree. Another got a law degree being in the first and last graduating class at her decertified law school and went on to get a post graduate degree at a school that offers no such degree - another singular educational accomplishment.  A third favorite of the right has a bachelor’s degree from the fifth college she attended.  Only about one of every four Americans has a college degree, less than 10% have graduate degrees.  So these leaders of the right who decry the intellectual elite, are themselves in that category, at least on paper.  The minute they start talking, we forget about their educational credentials and so do they.

So what are we to do about this apparent cognitive dissonance?  We can stop using the word “elite” in a negative manner and preserve it to honor excellence.  We can start using the appropriate adjectives to describe what we misnamed “elite.”

The Left should start to clearly identify the culprits and their sin.  I suspect that they are the corporate CEO’s, the Wall Street bankers and brokers, the lobbyists and the defense industry. Their collective sin is placing personal and corporate profit over morality or patriotism.  They are not elite but they are rich and powerful and could have used their talents to help this country rather than just themselves.

The Right must come to realize that intelligence, education, science and philosophy are not bad or scary things.  They are tools that can be used for good rather than greed.  Those on the right can also be educated and let their minds and hearts combine to do the right thing.  Their fight is, or should be, not with intelligence or education but with philosophy.  What they object to from the left is its apparent and mistaken belief that we are all created equal and so our lives should have equal outcomes. The Left seems to always blame society rather than the individual when both are at fault. Those on the right legitimately believe that some people work harder and have more talent than others and should be rewarded accordingly.  But they also mistakenly believe that the free market should be left to regulate itself without government interference disregarding the many past examples to the contrary. They would do well to realize that government regulation is necessary for everyone’s sake even the person or company that is tempted to trespass against someone.  The Wall Street crash and recent real estate debacle should be sufficient evidence of that.

The Left must recognize that we are not all created equal and our effort and outcomes will not be the same.  Some people have much more talent or perseverance than others in some areas.  Some provide services that pay more than others and some people will have a lot more money and all that it buys.  The people of the left must acknowledge that individuals and cultures have a responsibility to themselves and others to do their very best to achieve their full potential.  People must be more self reliant and less dependent on the kindness of strangers and taxpayers.  Unions, the darlings of the left, must appreciate individual differences and not treat all members as equally deserving regardless of actual performance.  Merit should trump seniority and politics.  The Left must accept the fact that with almost 50 million of our people living in or near poverty, we can not invite more poverty from other countries.  American jobs should go to Americans and not the imported or exported poor.

Those on opposite sides of our political and philosophical spectrum should be able to come together on our many shared beliefs.  We can produce a simple and fair tax system and use our collective wisdom to find the best uses for our redistributed wealth.  We can reduce or eliminate waste, fraud, duplication of effort, and inappropriate government activities.  We can encourage a culture that allows all of its citizens to achieve their highest level of activity and joy.  We can be brought together by our unanimous and unifying love of our country and its people.

Or we can allow our extremes to tear our country and culture apart. The choice is ours to make.

What is the American Dream?

Now that America is experiencing an economic slowdown brought on by a banking crisis, many Americans feel that they are missing out on the American Dream.  But what is the American Dream?

I think that it used to be that a poor, uneducated person can come to America, work hard at his greatest talent and become very, very rich.  His children will be brought up with everything money can buy and go on to father generations of rich, well educated, attractive Americans. This dream is still alive for the billions of poor, uneducated people all over the world - that if they can get to America, the Promised Land, they will also be rich and successful.  It seems almost guaranteed.

For Americans after World War II, the Dream became having a good job, owning one’s own home with two cars in the garage, having at least two kids and retiring with a generous pension after a long career of good work.

But sometime around the 1970s or 80s the definition changed again.  In recognition of the fact that while all of us are created equal some have much more than others and some have very much less, we decided to level the playing field by stressing variety over performance, diversity over excellence and entitlement over hard work.  We now live in a country where half the population pays no taxes while one percent of our people own and control most of our country’s wealth.  A recent study found that the average white American has assets (like homes, bank accounts, IRAs, pensions, gold etc.) worth 20 times more than the average black or Hispanic Americans do - $120,000 versus $6,000.  And more alarming that 90% of Americans have total assets worth less than $600,000.  We are hearing that now one in five children lives in poverty defined as $22,000 a year for a family of four.  (This same amount is what many of our congressional representatives go through each month for their lifestyle.)  We have 14 million people out of work instead of the normal 4.5 million.  There are now almost 50 million Americans on Food Stamps up 40% in a decade.

What is our American Dream now - more generous Food Stamp benefits, another extension of unemployment benefits, a lowering not only of our mortgage interest rate but also the principal owed or more soup kitchens serving better quality food?

And what is the Dream for our children?  Can they look forward to excellent, affordable education, at least K-12?  Can they look forward to getting objective and comprehensive news coverage from the media or to having political candidates who have the country’s interest at heart and the intellect and integrity to realize their highest hopes for the people?  Must they continue to work to fund the biggest military force the world has ever known covering every continent with almost 1000 military bases filled with our 2.5 million military personnel or foreign aid to cruel dictators to prevent worse dictators from taking over?  Will they have good jobs that are neither outsourced nor insourced and will those jobs provide them with a substantial pension when they can retire at age 75?  Will Social Security and Medicare still exist and will living and affording it still be possible?

What could the American Dream be now and in the future?

Could it truly be the greatest country with the greatest people who are united as a people not distracted with their identification with their foreign ancestors?  Could we be a country rich enough to eliminate poverty among our people, wise enough to dramatically reduce waste and pollution, practical enough to realize the primary importance of providing the very best education from kindergarden through college, secure enough to pull our troops out of foreign lands and wars knowing that the best defense is a strong economy and an educated united populace?  Could we once again be known as a country that makes great things that the world wants while able to be self sufficient in raw materials, finished products and needed services?

Is it just a dream and not an entitlement or guarantee?  Yes, but it is a dream that we can make come true if we work hard enough for it rather than sitting around waiting for it to happen.

Saving Medicare and Medicaid

During the recent discussions about reducing our national debt some have mentioned Medicare and Medicaid as sources of future fiscal concerns.  Baby boomers, people born between January 1, 1946 and December 31, 1964, are beginning to turn 65 at a rapid rate.  The government estimates that 10,000 people are joining the Medicare rolls every day.  Medicaid, a medical program for low income Americans, will be gaining 30,000 recipients in the next few years when the medical reform signed into law goes into full effect.

Medicare is funded by payroll deductions made by employers and their employees.  When eligible because of age or disability, recipients pay about $115 a month for medical coverage.  Companies paying for their employees’ private health care coverage costs spend about $1200 a month or ten times the Medicare contribution.  This disparity is unsustainable.  The accumulated funding for this program is down to a few hundred billion dollars and the current ratio is down to three workers for every retiree, not enough to make up for the cost shortfall.

What can be done?

First we must find where the major costs are.  Almost half of Medicare and Medicaid costs are in end-of-life care.  This includes nursing homes which can easily cost $100,000 a year; expensive surgery to extend life a little; and prosthetic costs for everything from knee or hip replacement to new dentures and dialysis for those not eligible for transplants as the biggest source of cost. The fact is that we are living much longer and using science to stay alive as long as possible as though in some kind of longevity competition.

We will have to make some moral decisions about our final days.  Do we want to exhaust all remedies to prolong our lives no matter how painful or costly?  Is quantity more important than quality?  I suggest that we must consider quality over quantity and think in terms of costs and benefits. 

If we are offered an optional surgery that will cost more than $100,000 while costing us only $20, should we consider its cost?  It’s not our money.  I say, yes, we should consider the cost as though we were paying for it ourselves. But do we?

In the new economy, we are being asked to make sacrifices for the greater good.  Here is a good kind of sacrifice.  Let us be willing to call it a day when our time comes and not accept expensive means to artificially extend our lives.

Since much of health care costs are hospitals and nursing homes, we must ensure that they are run as efficiently and effectively as possible. 

Then there is the cost of medical doctors and specialists.

Medical doctors must first go through years of education.  Undergraduate pre-med student spend at least three years taking chemistry, physics, biology and calculus, exclusively.  They take no philosophy, psychology, humanities or literature courses.  They are not encouraged to read novels. They are less well rounded than the average liberal arts major.  This could contribute to an alienation from the full human experience.

If they study hard and focus primarily on their studies and on getting great grades, they can get into a medical school.  They spend four years studying more about the science and math of the human body.  They then spend two years interning at a hospital followed by two to four years as a resident learning their specialty - internal medicine, heart surgery, oncology, etc.

By the time a doctor is ready to set up a private practice or join one, s/he is about 32 years old.  If the new doctor is not from a wealthy family, and many are, then there is a loan worth in the six figures to begin paying off.  The doctor must get insurance in the event that some ungrateful patient and crafty lawyer conspire to make money of this doctor’s hard work.  The doctor must earn money, real money and now.

Today there is a concern that doctors who are trained as primary care physicians cannot make enough money to pay off their loans, pay their insurance and live in a lifestyle appropriate to their rank and status. What will we do if doctors decide on more lucrative specialties?  Who will do the job?

Doctors going into specialties seem to quickly forget everything they learned that does not bear directly to their specific area.  A cardiologist doesn’t have to know anything about diabetes, or cancer or back problems or broken bones. An oncologist does not have to know much about heart function.  Most specialists show very little interest in any other area. 

Why is medical education so long, expensive, difficult and seemingly unnecessary while being so limited? Is this education meant to provide all the needed tools or is it a system to weed all but most elite within very narrow definitions?  Could medical training be made both much shorter and more relevant?  Instead of all that chemistry, physics and calculus, what about more courses in the social sciences and humanities?  What about courses in management so doctors can manage their staffs as well as their personal business affairs?

And if primary care physicians don’t get paid enough, why not use nurse practitioners for almost all primary care?  Can they be used as specialists too? Nurses are more hands-on than most doctors and rely more on the person’s body than on test results.  It takes about three years to train a nurse practitioner and they cost much less than doctors.

Then there is individual responsibility and, perhaps, sacrifice.  What would happen to healthcare costs if we all kept our weight under control, didn’t smoke cigarettes, exercised regularly, drank a minimum of alcohol and a lot of fresh water - became aware of and thereby controlled many of our unhealthy beliefs and practices?  What would happen to health care costs if we could prevent and/or cure cancer, heart disease, and diabetes?

This is, the kind of thinking needed to bring down the cost of all American health care including Medicare and Medicaid.

Reducing the Budget Deficit

The president has just agreed to a deficit reduction deal that would reduce federal expenditures by $900 billion over the next ten years beginning October 1, 2011.  The annual shortfall is currently at about $1.1 trillion.  This agreement would cut that to $1 trillion. 

There is a provision to come up with future cuts of more than $1.5 trillion over the ten year period.  That would reduce the $1 trillion annual deficit to about $850 billion.  Our current $14.4 trillion accumulated deficit would be $23 trillion in ten years if these cuts take place.

Some of us may remember that we tackled the deficit in the mid 1990s.  By fiscal 1999-2000, under Democratic President Clinton, we were running an annual budget surplus and headed to eliminate our then accumulated deficit by 2003.  But after 2001, our Republican President cut taxes mainly helping the highest earners and got the country into two wars.  The two wars costs were not considered as part of our budget which was running $500 billion in the red without these costs.  Then to make matters worse, the tax cuts added no new jobs and when the housing bubble burst, so did our economy.  We lost millions of jobs.  With as many as 15 million Americans out of work and losing 750,000 a month, the country’s tax revenues shrank while government costs for unemployment insurance and health coverage rose dramatically.

The incoming President inherited a $12 trillion accumulated deficit and was forced to spend more than $1 trillion a year more than we were taking in to save our very economy.

Now the deficit is at $14.4 trillion and we have to stop increasing it and then must work to eliminate it.  But how?  We are recovering from a devastating recession and still have very high unemployment.  The wrong kind of cuts could further weaken the economy.

Here’s what I would do.

First I would cut all costs which leave our country.  These dollars do not circulate here and stimulate our economy.  The first expenditure that comes to mind is foreign aid.  The U.S. which is now borrowing $.40 for every dollar we spend, gives 51 countries a total of $50 billion a year in foreign aid.  The biggest single recipient is Israel at about $5 billion.  But Egypt and Pakistan are also getting billions a year.  Most of the aid is misused and goes to corrupt leaders rather than their intended needy.  Some of our money actually goes to fund our enemies.

I say end all foreign aid, even to Israel the country that probably deserves it the most.  That would save $50 billion a year or $500 billion over ten years.  It would not cost any American jobs.

Next I would look at our 700-1,000 military bases overseas. 

I would bring our troops home from Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan closing all our bases there. I would close all of our non essential bases everywhere else including Asia (Japan and South Korea as well as the Philippines), Western Europe defending against a Soviet Union that no longer exists, and the Middle East.  Host countries that want us to stay, if any, can pay all our related costs.

The troops that are in the reserves stationed in Iraq and Afghanistan would return home to their civilian positions.  The enlisted service personnel coming home to U.S. soil would be free to leave the service or stay on meaning that we would recruit fewer replacements.  Over a 10 year period, this closing of foreign bases as well as ending our wars in the Middle East would save us at least $4 trillion.  Remember most of the  money we are now spending overseas, stays overseas.

Next, I would look to cut waste and fraud in federal programs.  That is said to be $150 billion a year according to a recent congressional study.  That is $1.5 trillion over the 10 year period.

That would be $6 trillion in savings over a ten year period.

But what about increasing revenue?  I would eliminate the subsidies for farmers and oil companies.  Then I would simplify the federal income tax code for individuals.  I would eliminate all itemized deductions and replace them with a standard deduction of $15,000/$30,000 for individual/couple. I would have all sources of income treated the same and combined.  So the net wages (not taxing the payroll deductions) would be added to the interest amount, the Social Security benefit payments, unemployment benefits, dividends, lawsuit settlements, bonuses, stock options etc.  There would be just five tax brackets ranging from 10%, for net incomes up to $50,000 up to a maximum of 30% for income over one million dollars a year. There would be no credits like for education or “earned income.”  Taxes would take minutes to compute.  The top earners would see their marginal tax rates decline from about 36% down to 30%, but the 30% will be with no deductions other than the standard.

This change in the tax code would generate approximately $300 billion a year or $3 trillion over ten years

Self employed and corporate tax codes would also be streamlined and simplified producing more revenue with fewer deductions.

All told there would be $9 trillion in savings over the ten year period.  It would leave us with only a $16 trillion deficit (not a $25 trillion one) which would be eliminated in another 10 years with more people back to work by then and therefore paying instead of costing taxes.

And who would be hurt by all these changes?

The rich would be paying more than they are now.  Every dollar over one million would be taxed exactly 30% and every kind of income would be treated equally - no more 15% for capital gains. They would have less money to invest and less to spend lavishly, which while decadent,  pays the workers well which then passes through the economy.  They might be less generous in their donations to charities since they will not be deductible.
Institutions that relied on tax deductible donations might suffer, at least at first.  Soon people will find that they give because they want to help, they want to give back.  That is their motivation and not getting 15 or 25% of it off their taxes.

Will people stop buying homes because they can’t write them off?  Most home owners do not itemize more than $30,000 on their joint returns.  They would get a standard deduction of $30,000 under this new plan.  Again, soon people will realize that saving a little on taxes is not a big or good reason to buy a home.

The people at the bottom of the economic scale will also suffer some.  Half of all wage earners not only pay no federal income taxes, they actually receive money in the form of Earned Income Credit and Making Work Pay Credit - about $115 billion a year.  This would end.  And everyone earning more than the standard deduction ($15,000/$30,00) would pay some tax whereas now they would be getting money.

Tax preparers, who usually are seasonal, would lose because anyone who can add and subtract could do their own taxes in minutes. In fact in a few years the system could do it for the taxpayer.  It would know every income source tied to the social security number and since there are no itemized deductions, IRS would know exactly what your tax was. Tax preparers would still be needed for self employment and other business tax returns which would also be streamlined but would have to have deductions like payroll costs and rent.

Our reduction in foreign aid will mainly hurt the corrupt government officials who build palaces, secret weapon systems or large Swiss bank accounts with our aid money.  It would hurt Israel, the one country that uses the aid wisely.

Withdrawing our forces from around the globe might actually make the world a safer place and create a better image especially in the Arab world.  Getting out of Iraq and Afghanistan might mean that they will eventually fail.  It will be their failure as it will their success if all goes well.  We must let countries succeed and fail on their own.  It builds their national pride and self esteem so that they can appreciate us as friends and not as overlords.

Many of our troops fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan are in the reserves and would love to come home to their regular lives.  Others, stationed overseas would like to come home and return to civilian life.  They would be happy about these proposed changes.  The question will be how many are left and where can they be assigned here in the States or in select strategic positions and what kind of forces do we need. The support personnel at the foreign bases would lose their jobs.  The base teachers, nurses, custodians etc., many from the host country would suffer in this change.

After all these changes, America would be stronger economically and even militarily.  America and the world would be safer. We will no longer be the 911 of the world.

All these recommended changes do not address the creation of more jobs, keeping Medicare and Medicaid solvent and protecting the future of the Social Security system.  These issues will be addressed in a separate column.

 

Are We All Created Equal?

In 1776, Thomas Jefferson wrote what has become one of the most quoted American principles, that in this country we believe that “all men are created equal with certain unalienable rights that among these are of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

What did it really mean?

When it was written it surely referred only to white men since women were not free to vote and people brought to our shores as slaves were certainly given only a very limited freedom with which to pursue happiness. Until the middle of the 19th century, slaves were still considered to be property. And surely American Indians were not considered equal nor were Chinese Coolies who were brought in to work on the rail system.

Well, now even though there is still discrimination based on race, gender or national origin, most Americans would say that they believe that all Americans and perhaps even all people are equally human and should receive equal opportunity to excel (as long as it does not interfere with our own ambitions and those of our loved ones). 

But are we all created equal?

Do we all have equal parents, equal genes, equal intelligence, equal attractiveness, equal health, equal education, equal experiences, equal financial security, equal integrity, equal talent, equal perseverance or equal faith?  Are all doctors, or athletes, or lawyers, or teachers, or parents equal?  Are all of our sub-cultures equal at least relatively?  Do we all have equal opportunity to succeed in whatever we attempt? Do we all enjoy life to the same degree or even close to the same degree?

Is the illegitimate child of a junkie living in the projects really equal in any of these respects to the child of a loving, well educated and well-to-do family that can send their child to the best schools and share the most enriching environments? Do children raised around the worst possible role models really have an equal chance at the future?

And when the children born of advantage manage to succeed, is that success and all that goes with it really theirs alone?  Should they feel free to look down at those who were much less fortunate for not turning their lives around?  Should the financially well-compensated resent having to give significant percentages of their generous incomes to help those who have not fared as well?  Should they cite survival of the fittest as their battle cry against sharing the wealth?

I think that these questions are relevant because we are now forced to consider raising taxes very significantly on the rich in order to help those who have inadequate education, health insurance, housing, nutrition and/or opportunity.  We must do it not only because it is the decent thing to do but because even if we do not really believe that each American citizen has an equal right to succeed, we each believe deep down that we are just as human as the next person.

We all have thoughts and feelings, we all have bodies that are mortal and vulnerable. We all need food, water and air to live, we all must sleep and eliminate our waste products and we all bleed when cut. We all feel pleasure and pain. We all want to survive and to live in relative comfort and security. We all want to love and be loved in return. We are all trying to maintain or improve our self-esteem - our reputation with ourselves.  

I think that this is the cause of most crime. The inherent feeling in the criminal that he is somehow equal to those he preys upon even though their lives seem otherwise. The car thief may be thinking that he deserves that nice car just as much as its rightful owner does. The businessman who cheats his clients may believe deep down that they don’t really deserve to have their money as much as he does. The suicide bomber, so common now in the Middle East, may figure that if he can’t be equal in this lifetime, maybe he can get a leg up on the hereafter.

Not that this is any excuse for improper behavior, but it is an explanation.

Is it then our society’s responsibility to level the playing field so that people in our country can have some real hope for success in this land of presumed equality?

To this end, should those fortunate enough to be able to earn and control tremendous amounts of money be obliged to share more of their wealth with the less fortunate to make up for disadvantages in health care coverage, education, housing and nutrition access? Would this discourage hard work, creativity and risk-taking among the advantaged while only making the unfortunates more dependent and less likely to succeed on their own in the future? Should we let nature work its evolutionary magic on the future of our people? Or should we institute a caste system allowing a certain segment of our society to remain above the rest and another that will forever be at the bottom of the socio-economic pyramid?

We could then say that we are all equal but that some are more so than others as they did in Animal Farm.

I think that I have an answer for these questions.

Today, in America, its 300 million citizens, be they male or female, young or old, black, white, yellow, brown or red, rich or poor should be able to pursue life, liberty and happiness to their maximum potential and no American should be homeless, hungry, ignorant or without medical attention when needed.  Every American is at least equally deserving of these basic rights.

While each individual is responsible for his or her actions, it falls on society to seek concurrence about what the society should be like and what each member is expected to do toward that end.  While parents must teach their children, the parents must have a guide, a lesson plan.  That plan should come from the consensus and it should be taught in our schools and reinforced in the workplace and offices of government.

Without taking a nationwide poll, it is possible to come up with certain values that members of our society can agree on. We can agree that while business has the right to make a profit, it does not have a right to become greedy or gluttonous.  The profit a business makes must be a result of completely honest business practices.  Companies and individuals should be held accountable for maintaining high standards of integrity.

While we all can agree that some people deserve greater compensation for their work than others, the degree of difference must be within reason.  One person’s work product may be worth ten or twenty times that of another, it should not be thousands of times greater as it is now for movie stars, super athletes, financiers, CEO’s and opinionators (like Glenn, Sean, Rush, Bill O. and Savage).

Could we realize that while we each are different, excelling in some areas but not in others, we each are here for a reason and we are necessary parts of an infinite whole?  Just as the nose is better at smelling, the foot is better for walking and our eyes are better for seeing. Each part of the human body is different but necessary for the functioning of the entire body.  Every part deserves to get blood and oxygen even though some parts seem to be bigger consumers than others.

In our human drama, it seems that even the people with the least to offer have an important role to play.  If we were equal physically, there would be no cause for compassion. If we were all equally gifted, there would be no cause for kindness.  If we all acted equally there would be no cause for tolerance.

Let us strive to ensure that all Americans receive at least the basic ingredients for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Surely we are all equal to that much human dignity.

Ridding The World of Bad Words

Lately, certain words usually only referred to by using their first letter, have been identified for elimination.  What these words represent and the effect they have on people have made these forbidden words unworthy of human utterance.

There is the “N” word that is used extensively in America’s most famous novel, “Huckleberry Finn.”  Since this word appears more than 200 times in Mark Twain’s book, many schools refused to let their students read it.  Recently, a new edition was published substituting the “n” word with the word “slave,” considered a much more tolerable label for human beings.

During a recent governor’s race, someone in the background used the “w” word about a candidate during a telephone call made by his opponent.  The word was meant to highlight this female candidate’s willingness to do anything for money.  The woman feigned great offense to her new title in such a way that the name seemed too good to describe her. She claimed that the word was an affront to every woman in the state. But was it a sexist slur? Should it no longer be used?

Now there is a movement to get people to stop using the “r” word out of consideration for people with learning challenges.  Using this word with any reference should be stopped, immediately, advocates urge.

And then there is the word so bad that I don’t even use its letter.  It is the one between “e” and “g.” While it describes what most people seem to greatly enjoy, it is considered unspeakable.  There is now a record using the full word in its title and throughout the song.  Is this pushing artistic freedom too far? Can this word followed by the second person singular be used at least when listening to a terribly dishonest politician lie on T.V.? (I must admit that at times I get so upset at disingenuous congressmen that I sometimes yell out “letter between “e” and “g” to your second person singular” while watching them on T.V.  I can only hope that nobody has heard me.)

What other words should be limited to just their first initial if mentioned at all?

Surely all words that can be deemed racial or ethnic slurs could be banned or limited to their first initial.  We could have the “J” word, the “k” word (the worse, though lower case, version of the prior letter’s word), the “C” word (or the Ch if allowed two letters), the “P” word (all the jokes would be “P” jokes) and so on.

Then there are the words that denigrate character, like the “w” word that was so politicized recently.  There could be the initialization of the “l” word for people who don’t speak the truth, the “p” word for those who appear too gluttonous, and the “g” word for those of us who like airing the laundry of our friends and acquaintances. 

But then we come to words like the “r” word.  These words add insult to injury.  They help us point out and ridicule the physical or mental shortcomings of others.  Words like “stupid,” “ugly,” “moron,” “dumb,” “homely,” “short,” “stubby,” “coward,” “dimwit,” and “slug,” could be forever banned because of the hurt they cause those given these labels which are frontal assaults on their self-esteem and feelings of adequacy.

There is another solution, one that would save countless adjectives that could be reconditioned and used for peaceful purposes.  Rather than limiting the kind of words available for use, why not work on creating and nurturing a culture that has such understanding and compassion that such words lose their negative meaning?  Not only would we be beyond even considering expressing vulgarity or insensitivity, the victims of even the then very occasional use of these terms would see them only as sad reflections of the speakers, and have compassion for their ignorance and apparent feelings of inadequacy.

But can a culture change? This question has risen in the minds of many watching the events in the Middle East and Northern Africa.  Can these cultures change what seems to be their collective DNA?  Can tribal nations come together as one people?  Can education and exposure to the civilized world help them radically change their brutal attitudes, beliefs and behaviors?

The same could be asked about ours.  Can we wean ourselves away from the violence and greed that drives some of our worst behavior?  Can the elite learn to take less and give more? Can we spread intelligence and consideration to all corners and all aspects of our culture?  Can we come together to end poverty and its resultant crime in our land?  Can we come to learn that bigger is not always better and that more is sometimes less?  Can our politicians stop their petty squabbling and partisan rhetoric and try their best to solve our country’s pressing problems?

I think that the answer is “yes” for us and an almost “maybe” for some of the other cultures mentioned. Germany and Japan changed dramatically after World War II.  I think that we are seeing that happening in China and India.  Even in the Middle East there is the beginning of a recognition that their way doesn’t work anymore and probably never did.  It will take them a while to realize that first they must stop subjugating women even if that makes the men feel even more inadequate. Men there will not be free of their tyrants until they stop being tyrants to their women.

We will never to ban enough bad words to make all our people feel that their self esteem is not under assault.  But we can work harder to ban ignorance and perhaps, to give all our people reason to have high self esteem making using negative terms against others unimaginable.

Cherchez Les Femmes

Lately, we have heard much about men behaving badly, especially with women.  After we were starting to process the notion of celibate Catholic priests having sex with young boys, we became bombarded with tales of prominent people disgracing themselves with women.

Yes, many years ago there was the contender for the Presidential nomination of his party when he was caught on a yacht with a very attractive young woman on his lap. We got over that thinking that the woman could have done a lot better.  But while that was tame, it ended the man’s political career.

But then we were forced to hear all about our former and, for many, favorite President having sex with a young intern in the Oval Office.  And we had to watch and hear him lie about it again and again.  Why did he do it?  He said that he did it because he could.

During the prosecution of this President for impeachment, we learned that his accusers and his consolers were also involved in extra marital liaisons at that very time.  There was the Speaker who had an affair while his wife was dying of cancer, divorced his wife, married his mistress, then had an affair, divorced his second wife and married his second mistress.  Another major opposition leader was forced to resign because of his activities in someone else’s bedroom.  And the President’s spiritual consoler was at the time advocating repentance, while fathering an illegitimate child, much to his wife’s surprise.

But most recently we have had several governors caught having affairs while married and in office.  The Carolinian who claimed to be out hiking the trails while he was in fact in South America with the new love of his life. There was the New York governor who got caught paying a fortune for a high class prostitute but, the press was slow to note, he had been doing this for many years, not just once, and was doing this while at the same time prosecuting every other house of prostitution in his state.  There was the New Jersey governor who was forced out of office because of his infidelity to his wife with another man.  And now we have the former governor of the largest state admitting to an affair with his maid for an extended period of time and resulting in the birth of an illegitimate child. And, of course, there is the popular, populist candidate for President and Vice President denying reports that he too had cheated on his faithful wife who was dying of cancer.  He then admitted the affair but denied paternity of the resulting offspring.  He has since acknowledged his parental role in the child’s life and has been indicted on several felonies. The wife he betrayed is no longer alive to witness his complete fall from grace.

Recently we were informed of a sexual assault by a man of great importance in the world of finance, a possible candidate for the Presidency of France.  He is accused of attacking a hotel maid.  Not to be outdone, a high ranking Egyptian executive, ten years the Frenchman’s senior, raped another maid at another fancy hotel in the same town.

And then this:  A dynamic New York congressman has admitted sending strange but sexual pictures to six women who had contacted him because of his political appeal.  He was trying to turn it into another kind of appeal.  And all this from a newly and happily married man, soon to be a father and, perhaps, a bachelor. 

What does it all mean?

I think that it means that somehow the mechanism hard-wired into most males of the species to want sex to produce offspring, has gone out of control.  The male members must be  attracted to the female members for the the species to survive, but it’s going too far.

It seems that the more the stress of modern life has threatened this natural urge to merge, the more we have done to stimulate it. But as we have seen in other parts of the world, it doesn’t need stimulation and seems even greatest when repressed.  Besides the thousands of examples of this in the behavior of Catholic priests, we see this throughout the Middle East and Northern Africa.  There, the respective cultures tried to rein in this strong urge in their men by covering up the women.  The reason women there must sometimes be covered from head to toe even in hot weather is to keep the men from being so tempted by their feminine charms that they will try to have sex with them or at least try for some unwelcome physical contact.  As we have learned from women in Northern Africa that even when fully covered, women are repeatedly subjected to unwanted touching and feeling.

A group of radical religious followers is fighting our troops in Afghanistan.  People might ask themselves, what they are fighting for.  It is not land or power nor for money, glory or freedom - it is for the right to continue to treat their women like possessions - objects with no personal consciousness or rights.  The Taliban fighters fear that their women will become educated and learn about life in other places and no longer put up with the way they are treated.  The women will learn that they have alternatives.

And now while Arab men are rising up and demanding freedom from tyranny, they are unwilling to grant the same right to their women - their mothers, sisters, wives and daughters.

We see the Western cultures also mistreating their women, albeit in much gentler, more subtle ways. While Western  men would never sanction the vicious forms of abuse reported in the Middle East and Africa, they think nothing much about looking at women as sex objects rather than as the subjects of admiration they actually are. Now the French are rethinking their attitudes toward and treatment of their own women.

Lately, we have heard about American men sending revealing photographs of themselves or, at least, of specific parts of themselves, in the vain hopes of capturing a woman’s heart or at least her body. These men don’t realize that women are not like men.  They are not into porn pictures of men.  If being one of the greatest quarterbacks in history is not enough to get you a cheerleader, a picture of part of your anatomy won’t make a difference.  And pictures of men naked above the waist are not even appealing to men who are into men. 

So what are we men to do? How can many of us help ourselves from thinking of doing things that we know we shouldn’t for the love of or, rather,  lust for women?

Perhaps, it would help to realize that what we are responding to is a vestigial impulse that is no longer necessary.  We do not have to impregnate many women in order to preserve the species. There are six billion of us humans now, we can slow down and each have, at most, one offspring.  Our desire to have our way with every woman who appeals to us no longer has a proper function.  We can remember what this column repeats frequently - that we can treat each person and activity as ends in themselves and not only as means to other ends.  We are all subjects as well as objects and should be treated accordingly.

And, we must always remember that women are the very flower of creation, G-d saved the best for last.

Punctuation Marks in the Grammar of Life

A long running cosmological theory is that the Creator spoke the physical world using the Hebrew alphabet.  The old Testament does begin with the Lord saying “Let there be light” in Hebrew. The proponents of this idea also believe that each moment still depends on His speech to exist. This cosmology introduces the idea of life being linked to language. The basic structure of language is grammar.  The primary component of grammar is the sentence consisting of a subject, object and verb as in “I love you” or “I eat food” or “I lost my gloves.” 

If you look at grammar and religion, the similarity comes more into focus.  The essence of Christianity is the Holy Trinity: The Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost. Eastern religions believe that life’s duality is an illusion (maya) and that all is one. Judaism is also based on this premise: “Adenoi echad” - G-d is one.

So Christianity believes in the subject, object and verb. The Father, the Creator, is the subject and his creation - his son - is the object and the Holy Ghost is the verb, the act or process of creating.

Some of the Eastern religions believe that while there appears to be a subject and object, an I and Thou, there is just the one. Zen, however,  suggests that while  there is only one there are also two, hence the Koan “If a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it, does it make a sound?” or “What is the sound of one hand clapping?” There is the subject who has consciousness and the object that cannot be said to exist without an awareness of its presence. A clap cannot occur without both hands - a subject and an object.

So when asked “Which came first the chicken or the egg?” the answer is “consciousness.”

We insert our own punctuation marks in the grammar of our lives.

 If we work Monday through Friday, then the weekend provides our period (.) after the end of our Friday work-day sentence.  If we work days, evenings supply us with commas and occasional semi-colons to get us through the week.
If we are students, our semester breaks are like new paragraphs, our year-end final exams mark the end of one chapter and the predictable beginning of the next.

Then there are vacations, holidays, illness, and daily lunch hours to break up our living sentences.  We also have our other meal times, rest periods and favorite T.V. shows to further divide up our daily labors (the way parentheses and “quotation marks” do in sentences).

If nights and weekends are commas, semi colons and periods, holidays might be highlighting, italics or underlining.  So when we celebrate a birthday, we are highlighting the importance that person is to us. We appreciate the person every day, but on this one day a year we want to emphasize that inclination.  Legal holidays are the macro version of birthdays. 

While we are, or should be, grateful for our lives every day, this feeling is put in italics on the fourth Thursday in November.  While we love one another as the reflections of ourselves at almost every moment of our waking hours, we feel it especially underlined on the 25th of December. The same goes for our daily  patriotism on July 4, May 31st, June 14th and best of all on the 11th day of the 11th month; our daily renewal on the first day of the first month of the year ( Jewish Chinese Americans can celebrate the new year three times a year); our unquestionable respect and adoration for our parents on the days set aside to honor them and our perpetual respect for our founding fathers on President’s Day and Columbus Day (now known as something else to some) and on Martin Luther King Day, commemorating the founding father of civil rights..

For those of us born on a holiday, that day is highlighted, italicized and underlined.

When we retire we find that we have and need fewer punctuation marks in our daily lives. What are evenings, week-ends and holidays off when you have nothing to be off from?  (Though we still have mealtimes, our T.V shows [for those of us who admittedly watch it], daily walks, bathing and eliminating waste products to break up our daily sentences.)

Our retirement should give us much more time to insert commas, semi colons, exclamation points, question marks and periods whenever we want to and to highlight, italicize and underline all of our celebrated feelings every day and then, at every moment of every day, so that each single sentence that we experience will be pregnant with our constant awareness and appreciation.   

The Israel Issue

Once again the U.S. is trying to get a peace settlement between Israel and Palestine.  Israel was granted statehood by the League of Nations (which became the U.N.) after World War II which saw the death of more than half the Jewish population of the world.  The general region referred to as the Palestine was under British rule at the time.  The Palestine has been under many rules, but never has had self rule.  Israel had been the home of the Jewish people since the time of Abraham, the father of Judaism, Christianity and of Islam, more than 4,000 years ago.  The word Israel is in almost every Jewish prayer. The Jews believe that the land was given to their people by G-d.

The 1948 agreement gave statehood to Israel with the boundaries limiting it to about 8,000 square miles.  Israel is surrounded by Arab countries which have approximately 8.6 million square miles (1000 times the size of Israel) in 21 countries with a current population of more than 360 million Arabs.  Israel has a current Jewish population of 5.3 million about the same number as those who reside in the U.S. The number of countries with majority Muslim populations including non-Arab countries like Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran and Indonesia, is 47.

When Israel was recognized as a state so were several other countries in the world and in the region.  Lebanon, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Libya and Iraq were some of the newly formed and recognized countries created during that time as were Pakistan, Bangladesh, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, to name a few.  Boundary lines were also moved after World War I in other countries like Hungary, Poland, Germany and Romania and for the entire Middle East after the defeat of the Ottoman Empire.

Now, in 2011, the world has watched the "Arab Spring."  Arabs in Northern African countries are revolting against their dictators who have ruled them almost since many of the nations were first created.  The Arabs claim that after all these years they want democracy and freedom from oppression.  But these same young, brave freedom fighters do not want the same for their own women nor for the Jewish people.

It isn’t enough that this ancient people who have done so much for the world in science, philosophy, art, and literature should be restricted to a mere 8,000 square miles of what had been arid waste land, the reborn Arabs do not want Israel to exist, at all.

And yet, seeing all this some in America side with the Arabs.  These people consider the Arabs the underdogs because 63 years ago some Arabs living in Israel were displaced.  At the same time Jews living in what became Jordan were also displaced.  But they cannot see Israel as the underdog even though it has one 68th the number of people and one 1000th the land mass that the Arabs do.


Some people feel that the Jews should not have a homeland because no country should be religion-oriented. They must concede that Muslims have 47 countries.  They say that is wrong too.  They must be reminded that the Jews are not only a religion, they are also a people, a nationality like Arabs or Italians or Mexicans.  And like all the other nationalities, they deserve a homeland, Israel.  The Arab people have 21 homelands, why can’t the Israelites have one the size of New Jersey?

So what is the solution to their situation?  Our President and their Prime Minister said it differently, but clearly.  Israel must go back to its pre 1967 borders plus swaps to ensure Israeli security.  The swaps would be that Israel keeps East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights, which they took in 1967 after all the surrounding Arab nations attacked Israel and were soundly defeated by this small struggling nation.  In exchange the Israelis would return the West Bank and all the Israeli settlements there which now accommodate 300,000 Israelis. (They have already returned the Sinai to Egypt and the Gaza to Palestine as prior peace gestures.)   Under this plan, Israel with its 6.5 million people (including 1.2 million Arabs) would have 8000 square miles while 4 million Palestinians in the West Bank and the Gaza would have 10,000 square miles or twice as much space per person than Israel would have. 

The land in the West bank and homes for 300,000 would be given to the Palestinians who could house the descendants of those Arabs displaced from Israel in the late 1940s. These “refugees” have been mostly kept in refugee camps in neighboring Arab countries for the past 63 years.  Refugees, not welcomed and integrated into their new home’s society, for 63 years!

This agreement would end the problem.  Everyone involved knows that this is the deal.  But the Palestinians are a divided camp.  The residents of Gaza given their independence by Israel voted in Hamas to lead them.  Hamas is a terrorist organization whose goal is the elimination of the Israeli state.  They have now formed a coalition with Fatah, the governing power of the West Bank.  Even if Fatah wants to accept this deal, their partner can’t and at the same time say that Israel cannot exist.

I think that it’s high time that we realize who the true underdog is in this drama.  It is Israel, the little country,  one tenth of one percent the size of its hostile neighbors.

If the Arab states said that they would not longer use any weapons to attack others or even to defend themselves, there would be peace in the Middle East.  If Israel said that it would disarm completely and not fight even to defend itself, it would be destroyed in days.

Now who’s the underdog?

A Simple Income Tax

There is much discussion now about reducing the $14 trillion accumulated federal budget deficit and to begin by attacking the $1.5 trillion annual deficit.  There has been much huffing and puffing, with the Republicans trying to make it seem that they are forcing the President and his party to cut our debt by threatening to not increase the nation’s debt ceiling which would cause financial markets to collapse and probably lead to a worldwide recession.  The Republicans claim that they must do this now because it has been kicked down the road for too many years.

The deficit issue was dealt with by President Clinton in the 90s.  We were on track to have a $2 trillion surplus by now.  The deficit was caused by Bush II who got us into two costly and unnecessary wars while drastically cutting taxes, especially for the rich, his base.  The result was an economic disaster of epic or even biblical proportions.  His tax cuts did not add jobs to the economy but did make our richest much richer.

The tax cuts that Bush put in place were scheduled to expire this year but were extended for two years in a deal the President made with Congress.  These cuts cost us hundreds of billions a year in lost revenue.  Our two wars add another $200 billion a year and our more than 700 military bases around the world, cost us another $600 billion.  When all defense related costs are added in such as CIA military operations, VA benefits, State Department related costs, the total defense cost is more than One trillion dollars each year. While Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid  account for 40% of our budget, the cost of these safety net programs is paid from special trust funds that come from payroll taxes paid by past and current employees and their employers.  Their cost, therefore, does not affect our budget deficit, at all.

It is clear that the major budget cuts must come from defense spending which has been supplemented by vastly increased expenditures in our intelligence community since 9/11.  Fraud and waste in government programs as well as foreign aid, farm subsidies and tax breaks for large oil companies must be dramatically reduced.  But spending cuts are not enough.  The tax code must be changed to not only generate more revenue, but to also be simpler, fairer and less cumbersome.

I propose a very simple federal income tax for individuals.  It would be designed for one purpose - to collect revenue for needed government functions.  It would no longer be used to encourage or discourage behavior.  It would be as Senator John McCain described it - the redistribution of wealth.  That is what taxes are supposed to be.

Under my plan all income would be counted and combined for a single total.  So the salary, interest, dividends, capital gains, Social Security benefit payments, pensions and luxury voluntary fringe benefits (like optional Cadillac health plans or take home cars) would all be added together for each individual or family return.  There would be only a standard deduction, around $15,000 for an individual, $30,000 for a family.  There would be no other deductions.  The total net income, which would not include mandatory payroll deductions for Social Security and Medicare, would then be taxed using only four or five tax brackets.

 As an example imagine that there is a couple that earned $50,000 in net salary, $20,000 in Social Security benefit payments, $10,000 in interest and $5,000 in capital gains.  The total is $85,000.  The couple would deduct $30,000 in a standard deduction, leaving them a net income of $55,000.  The first $50,000 could be at a 10%  tax rate or, in this case, $5,000.  The remaining $5,000 of net income would be taxed at 15% or, in this case, $750.  The total tax would be $5,750 or 6.7% of their gross income.

As another example, imagine there is a couple who earned $200,000 in salary and $300,000 in capital gains and received a free executive car for their personal use worth $10,000 in gas and depreciation.  Their total would be $510,000 (unless they opted out of the free car).  Using the standard deduction, they would net $480,000.  The first $50,000 would be at 10%.  The second $50,000 (from $50,001-$100,000) would be taxed at 15%.  The next $150,000 would be taxed at 20% and the remaining $230,000 (net income over $250,000) would be taxed 25%.  (Incomes over $1 million could be taxed at 30%.)  So in this case, the couple would owe $5,000+$7,500+$30,000+$57,500 = $100,000 in taxes. That equals a 20.8% tax on their gross income. 

The taxes owed could be figured and reported in a matter of minutes.  There would be no loopholes and there would be no attempt to use the code to encourage larger families by giving deductions for each child; to get renters to buy homes; to reimburse some of the cost of college tuition; to deduct some excess medical costs; to support the use of green energy; to provide earned income credit or making-work-pay credits.  It would be simple, easy, clear, fair and would raise our revenues by more than $200 billion a year by getting the very rich to pay more than their current average of about 15% and would tax more people who now don't  pay any tax at all. 

The only real loser in this plan is the income tax preparer.  People in this profession would have to focus on corporate taxes including for the self-employed who would still have business-related deductions and a tax code which is very complex and should also be streamlined.

There you have it.  My answer to the budget crisis.  Stay tuned for my plan to save Social Security and Medicare.

    

Numbers Count, Size Matters

One effect of our de-emphasis on math in this country is that we have stopped thinking with numbers, preferring descriptive adjectives that are more forgiving and less intimidating.  Instead of saying that it is 3,280 feet high, we say that it was very tall.  Instead of saying that the car was 183 inches long, we say that it is a compact. Instead of being told that our cholesterol is 150 or 205, we are told that it is normal and we accept that.

We now see this happening in the media.  San Francisco’s major daily has been moving away from numbers on every front.  First it was the stock market results.  All stocks traded on the New York or American stock exchange had always been listed daily showing their most recent prices as well as past highs and lows.  This was then abbreviated to showing only the major stocks. And now there are just a few highlights.  They then contracted out their entire business section to gain further distance from the tyranny of numbers.  They still use numbers to describe the weather but that also has been contracted out to a national service that seems to think that the San Francisco airport is in downtown San Francisco, especially for rainfall totals.

It turns out that somehow rainfall totals for San Francisco have always been contentious not to mention inaccurate.  There always seems to be a bias toward understating rainfall totals in order to prolong the illusion of a drought. In the mid 90s, as we were drowning in heavy rainfall, the media kept insisting that the drought was still with us.  (It ended the career of a respected investigative reporter when a she persisted to report the drought even as record high totals were being witnessed.)  This year, it took the State until the beginning of May to announce an end to the drought even though our totals for this year are as high as 150% of normal and our reservoirs are overflowing.  This year San Francisco is on track to have had a record rainfall year, but you don’t hear much talk about it. Some people, apparently, have something to gain by keeping the “D” word constantly in play.

Our same daily paper also has told its very small band of news reporters to refrain from using numbers in their reports.  (Sports reporters are exempt from this so far, but who knows?  They might have to start reporting just who won and who lost without using the actual scores.) Perhaps they want to avoid making factual errors or maybe they want to soften the effect hard numbers might have on their readers. 

But numbers have their place, especially when describing finite objects. Numbers help us make more precise evaluations so that we can make the best choices.  Sometimes a bigger number is better, but I find that, more often than not, size matters and smaller could very well be better.

We have seen this repeatedly with American fashion:  Remember when women’s shoulder pads that made them look like linebackers in uniform? Until recently men wore jackets that were several sizes too large. We are still designing and producing men’s shorts and bathing suits that are so long that they appear to be attempting to conceal as much as possible while making the wearer look as unappealing as he can be.  They cannot be described as “shorts” and should be referred to as “mediums” or “knee-lows.” There were times when men’s ties were clearly much too wide and suit jackets had lapels that were grossly oversized.  Now we have a craze among some to wear pants many sizes too large so that they settle much too low and leave the wearers looking clown-like in their baggy length.

And as mentioned in an earlier column, watches have gotten too big since Rolex underwater watches got popular in the 60s.

And, of course, there is the debate about our national budget crisis with no one providing the actual numbers to make the choices clearer.  No one mentions that though Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid take up a sizable part of our $3.5 trillion annual budget, all the money comes from separate trust funds and their costs do not add to our budget deficit and won’t for at least 15-25 years.  No one mentions that the biggest item is defense at more than $800 billion a year funding two unnecessary wars and staffing more than 700 bases oversees to protect the citizens of other countries from possible attack from a Soviet Union that no longer exists and a North Korea, which can barely feed its own people.

But what most concerns me at this moment is the size of American family cars and the public’s unawareness of the vast variations.  What American car companies call a compact car is what I consider a large car, but I use actual numbers to describe their differences. 

Family cars sold in America range in size from about 147 inches for the Mini Cooper to about 223 for the Cadillac Escalante.  That’s a 76 inch or 6.3 foot difference.  And like Goldilocks, I think that some are too small but many are too large and some are just right.  I believe that a small car should be around 165 inches long - about the size of a VW beetle, VW Golf, Honda Fit, Mini Coachman (the new four-door), the Audi A3, etc.  The next size still acceptable and roomier is around 175-180 inches long and is found in cars like the BMW 1 and 3 series, the Audi A4, the VW Jetta, Mercedes C class, Volvo 50, etc.

I think that the largest size should be no more than 190 inches.  There are many examples of this size as well.

The only problem is that America car companies are not producing quality small cars.  American buyers and car makers seem to not really see the problem. The large cars and SUVs many of us are driving are not only gas guzzlers and a danger to more reasonably sized vehicles, they are also much more difficult and less fun to drive than smaller cars.  And they are easier to park.

Yes, Chevy and Ford do have some smaller cars, but who wants them?  Who even knows what they are?  The Chevy has the Aveo and the Cruze. The former is 170 inches and the latter is 180.  Ford has the Fiesta at 174 inches and the Focus at 178. How do they compare with the smaller European cars named above?  

I strongly believe that the American car producers should begin the process, as they did in the early 60’s, of building high quality, attractive, and exciting, cars that also have great fuel economy and are small but roomy.  After the great VW Beetle invasion of the early 60’s, American car companies began making small and appealing cars.  There was the Pontiac Tempest/Lemans, the Chevy Corvair, the Oldsmobile Cutlass, the Buick Skylark, the Rambler Metropolitan, the Ford Falcon, Plymouth Valient, and the Dodge Lancer, to name a few.

But each one of these models either grew significantly in size or disappeared.  The Tempest/Lemans grew in every way to become the mighty G.T.O by 1964.  The Corvair was killed single-handedly by a young upstart named Nader. The Skylark, Valient, Lancer, and Falcon grew a little and then disappeared. The Metropolitan, which started in the 50s and was as cute as cute can be, just disappeared.

The American car industry decided to go the other way.  Instead of making excellent small cars, they decided that they would make high-powered, large cars.  Then they realized they could take cheap pick-up trucks, doll them up with more seats and a covered truck bed, call them S.U.V.s and people would be willing to spend big bucks for them choosing comfort, imagined safety and size over small and economic cars.

The Japanese and Europeans jumped in to fill our small-car gap.

I would like to see a small, elegant, attractive and economical model for each of the six car lines:  a 165 inch Chevrolet, Buick, Cadillac, Chrysler, Ford and Lincoln as well as a 175-180 inch model in each line and maybe one top-of-the-line model of no more than 190 inches for the premium lines using their old premium names: Cadillac Eldorado or Fleetwood , Buick Roadmaster,  Chrysler Imperial and Lincoln Continental. The small Chevy could be called the Monza.

I have not included Dodge in this list because I think that it should and will be discontinued as a car line and become, like Jeep and GMC, a truck line.

I think in order for this reduced-size car plan to succeed, Americans must become more number conscious. 

But if we as a people are to become more number conscious, we must become more attentive to our everyday events and much more accurate in our descriptions.  This is not a bad thing.  It is nice to pay attention and to be able to clearly and precisely describe objects or events.

Numbers really do count and size really does matter, even if we are not aware of it.