What Could Be Goals for the Second Term -

Our President will be given four more years to reshape our country, what will or, rather, should he do?  He has already saved the U.S. economy, passed a sweeping financial reform, saved the American auto industry from ruin, ended “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” crafted the Affordable Care Act, almost as sweeping as well Medicare when introduced, gotten us out of Iraq and has begun an effort to improve our public education system.

What should he do in his next term?  Here’s what I would like to see:

Reduce the annual and accumulated national budget deficit by changing the tax code; reducing our foreign military presence; eliminating waste and fraud in government programs; eliminating, combining and reducing government agencies; changing our immigration criteria; and discouraging the outsourcing of American jobs while encouraging the creation of millions of new American employment opportunities and creating a broader tax base.

 Changing our federal income tax code for individuals by eliminating all itemized deductions (not including the self employed) and credits with only a standard deduction; considering all sources of income equally including capital gains, dividends, Social Security benefit payments, net earned income (subtracting only the FICA), food stamps, unemployment insurance payments etc.; and with only five tax brackets ranging from 10% to 35%.

 Reducing our foreign military presence by closing many of our more than 700 foreign military bases especially in Europe and the Middle East. Remove all troops from Afghanistan as quickly as possible and give up on trying to create a new country there.  We should also reevaluate our foreign aid and give it only to the most deserving on a very short term basis.

 Eliminating, combining and /or reducing government agencies after determining what functions are now being done and which are either duplications of other efforts or have no impact on goals and objectives.  Could the Dept. of Education by recombined with Health and Human Services, formerly know as Health, Education and Welfare?  Could the Dept. of Energy be part of Interior?  Could the many Homeland Security agencies be combined and eliminated?  How many federally-funded think tanks do we really need? And we can eliminate most travel for training or conferences by government officials and workers.  Should we still produce pennies and nickels when they are not even worth the cost of making them? Should any law enforcement resources be wasted on marijuana when it is more beneficial and less harmful than alcohol or cigarettes, which are considered legal?

 Changing our immigration criteria by accepting applicants who have something to offer in terms of talent or skills and not inviting the poorest and neediest to our shores or people who are related to someone already here. We have tens of millions of Americans who are poor and needy, let us help them before adding to the problem.  Those here illegally should be encouraged to return to their beloved homeland.  All employers should check all their employees‘ status by running an EVerify on them. 

 Discouraging outsourcing by eliminating all incentives for it and by creating disincentives making hiring Americans more cost effective.
  
Secure the future of Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security benefits for the aged and disabled by raising the salary ceiling for payroll tax deductions and making Americans healthier through improved education, nutrition and exercise, thus preventing the onset of serious and costly illnesses like heart failure, cancer, diabetes and kidney failure. Currently, ten percent of our people account for 67% of all medical costs (five percent account for half of all medical costs).  Let us focus on that 10% while keeping the other 90% from joining them. Reduce or eliminate waste and fraud which costs hundreds of billions of dollars each year.

Dramatically improve public education to ensure that every child can have an excellent elementary and high school experience which will produce an adult who can read, write and speak our language correctly; who can do math at least up to algebra - able to easily add, subtract, multiply and divide numbers; who understands how our government works as well as the world’s geography; who can relate to science and its methodology; and who can think critically by analyzing available information and coming to rational conclusions. Make junior colleges free reducing the cost of education and letting those who want a bachelor's degree only need two more yesrs at a four year college.

Reform politics by ending campaign contributions making all local, state and federal elections shorter, issue oriented and consisting mainly of public debates and interviews for the candidates. This will end the influence peddling that currently goes on and will keep the rich from buying elections.  It will also end bribery disguised as lobbying.  Lobbying would consist only of presenting the special interests’ positions on pending legislation - positions based on actual facts and figures organized in a logical argument.

If President Obama can accomplish these changes in his second term,  I think he will be known as one of our country’s greatest presidents and we will begin a neutopia.

A Simple and Fair Federal Income Tax

America is in the midst of an economic crisis. We have a federal debt in excess of $20 trillion dollars, we are running annual deficits of more than a half 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 much as $100 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 $20,000 for an individual or $40,000 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 35% 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 $40,000 in a standard deduction, leaving them a net income of $60,000.  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 $470,000.  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 $40,000 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. 
                            

Surely, Their 15 Minutes Are Up

I always liked Andy Worhol’s idea that everyone wanted and eventually got their 15 minutes of fame.  One of the current news shows now has a segment called “Your 15 Minutes Are Up.” I think that this good idea should be applied more broadly.  The media should stop quoting certain people who have long since been irrelevant.  Here are some suggestions:

In the field loosely called “entertainment” we have already seen some famous quotables disappear from the public eye and ear.  Remember Paris?  Remember Nicole?  Remember Brittany?  No?  See how it works?  So how about no more stories about Lindsay, Charlie, Ted, the Donald,  Jessica, Kim or Khloe? Aren’t their 15 minutes way more than up? Who are they and what do their lives have anything to do with us?  Why should we care what they were or weren’t wearing?  Why need we know what they did wrong lately?  Why are they getting paid for being celebrities? Last year while 13 million Americans were unemployed, Kim made more than $10 million.  For What?  For whom?  Let us live without major news stories about these celebrities in name only. If we want to hear about them, we can tune in to our favorite celebrity gossip show, but let’s keep them off the Nightly News, please. They are narcissists and coverage only encourages them.

But what about politics?  We have forgotten Spiro, most former House speakers, many former mayors, almost every unsuccessful candidate for Vice President and even some villains from the previous administration like Rummy, Wolfowitz, Perl, Gonzales and Ashcroft.  Can we start forgetting to mention people like Karl Rove, Dick Cheney, Sarah P., Michele B., Newt, Herman, Glenn, Sean, Rush, Rick P., Rick S. and most of the Fox News cluster of political hacks?  Must we continue to hear hatred and disinformation from a group that claims to represent a part of our country that should not be encouraged? Do we think that they will someday say or do something that seems honest or intelligent?  Really? Let’s try to name one thing that any of them ever said that reflected intellect, education, wisdom, insight, decency, kindness, goodness or compassion.  Give up? Let’s try to remember why these political prostitutes ever got our attention. Can we? So let’s not quote them anymore.  Their views will always be welcome on their party’s official propaganda network of fixed news.  Let that be the quarantine of their hypocritical negativity.

They too are narcissists and coverage only encourages them.

What would our daily news be without stories and opinions involving the above mentioned who are well past their 15 minute time limit?  The news could be about important issues of the day.  The news could avoid hyperbole and easy fixes by not interviewing the brave souls who survive some of the natural disasters that are occurring almost weekly now. “It was a miracle that even though we lost everything, no one was killed and that’s all that matters.”  We know and appreciate your faith and courage, but we have heard it a million times. We can live without reporting on tragedies night after night until we no longer care.  We could live without interviews of people on the street to get their views.  We don’t care.

So what could the mainstream news be like?  It could be like the PBS Newshour which briefly covers the day’s events but then focuses on three or four stories to get an in-depth analysis of each issue and its context. There should be a minimum of speculation which almost always turns out to be completely wrong - more about the speculator than the speculation.  Many reporters are timid and they propose timid concerns rather than facts and figures.

We could be given more facts and figures rather than a lot of adjectives and adverbs.  If we hear a report about a labor dispute, give us the numbers.  How much do they make now and how much do they want?  If we are talking about unemployment tell us who the unemployed are: what is the percentage of the 12.5 million by age group, educational status and type of work.  That way we can start focusing on the solution instead of thinking it is happening everywhere, to everyone.

When inviting experts to represent each side of an issue, let it be respected experts with no political axe to grind.  It makes no sense to ask lobbyists or politicians who have a clear bias to tell us the way it is when we know that these people have lost their integrity years ago.  Do we believe Paul Ryan, John Boehner, Eric Cantor or Mitch McConnell?  Really? Do we respect Paul’s grasp of macroeconomics or John’s emotional facial expressions and his imitation of penguins walking or Eric’s denial that he was adopted or Mitch’s impression of Huckleberry Hound or of Tommy the Turtle that he offers up daily to distract us from his real intent?  Clearly the Speaker should never play poker because he has no poker face - it reacts badly every time he lies and the cameras seem to always catch it because of its frequency. And must we be subjected to John McCain insisting that we go to war - with everyone: Libya, Egypt, Syria, Iran, Russia and soon maybe North Korea, China and all of Africa? When grapes turn sour and bitter must we be expected to swallow them? When will their 15 minutes be up?

When interviewing political figures, reporters can start not only quoting their sometimes absurd comments or answers, but also challenging them.  When the Republicans in the House were trying to blackmail the President into concessions in exchange for raising the debt ceiling, their leaders said that it was a balanced approach and was needed to force cuts in our bloated budget.  They said that we have kicked the growing deficit down the road too long.  The press should have asked if they remembered that at the end of the Clinton administration in early 2001, we were running surpluses and planned to eliminate the accumulated deficit by 2003.  They could have asked him if he remembered what happened to derail that prospect and drive us into $15 trillion in debt.  They could have asked him how it was balanced when the debt had to be raised as it had eight times under the previous administration as it had been without debate dozens of times in the recent past.

When the very unsuccessful candidate for President in 2008 said that we could not deport people here illegally because they were G-d’s children, why didn’t every reporter, or at least one, ask him that with that logic aren’t all creatures G-d’s children and if so how can we go to war with them or put them in prison when they commit crimes?  When this same candidate accused Barack Obama of wanting to use taxes to redistribute wealth, why didn’t the media point out that that was the very function of government and always has been.  When the press is given a photo of a crime victim to show on T.V. and realize that instead of being of a 17 year old football player who is over six feet tall, it is of a small 12 year old, they could demand a more up-to-date picture.

This November, we will be given an opportunity to tell many members of Congress that their 15 minutes are up.  My hope is that the majority of freshmen members of the House are encouraged to rush back to their lives of obscurity and let us hear from intelligent, responsible representatives whose integrity is still intact.   But an informed electorate is dependent upon accurate information.  The mainstream media could take it upon themselves to change their ways and begin focusing on serious reporting.  If a candidate being interviewed is saying something that doesn’t make sense, the reporter must pursue it.  “What does that mean?” or “Could you be more specific?” or “Can you give me an example?” or “Do you want to listen to the tape yourself to hear what you said ten minutes ago?” or even “Are you kidding?” or finally, “Are you crazy or something?”

I could say so much more about this, but I’m afraid that my 15 minutes are now up.

What Would Jesus Do and Say?

Several of the Republican candidates trying to be their party’s nominee in November’s presidential election have made G-d, religion and its teachings at the forefront of their campaigns.  It started with Sarah, who after consultation with Him and public opinion surveys decided not to run.  Then it was her surrogate, Michele, who thought that her Lord or her husband wanted her to be President.  She was terribly wrong.  Then there was Rick, who was in love with America and G-d. Neither reciprocated. Now there is Rick II or the Saint.  He is preaching Catholic gospel that even the Catholics no longer ascribe to but that the Christian evangelicals just can’t get enough of. These people love Jesus and follow his teachings.  They think that his teachings include having sex only for procreation, not recreation, and therefore not using birth control, not having prenatal screenings to check for predictable future medical problems and never having an abortion even in cases of rape, incest or congenital irregularities.  They believe that Jesus hated gays and so they do too.  Many are not crazy about minorities or Jews either.  They love their guns and are willing to fight to the death to protect their right to use them.

These evangelicals are very conservative and believe that government is interfering too much in their lives and businesses.  They fear that their hard earned money will be squandered on helping the poor by providing them with health coverage, education and food subsidies.  They are for the rich who they feel pay too many taxes to help the neediest instead of going where it should - to build a larger and more powerful armed force to keep our country number one in the world.

These people say that they love Jesus and want to live the life he recommended.  They love him so much that they want this to be a Christian country, preferably a white, Christian country filled with people just like them.

What would Jesus say?  What would Jesus do?

Jesus is said to have preached for less than three years.  He perhaps realized that he wouldn’t have much time since he no doubt knew his fate, so he kept his teaching very simple.  The Jewish tradition from which he and many of his followers came had 613 laws governing all forms of activity.  There were laws about what animals could be eaten and how they should be slaughtered, laws governing commerce including the treatment of servants and slaves and laws about relationships and inheritance. While many Jews even back then were able to read and write, few probably knew all 613 laws and did not carry them around on note cards or on their iPads.

When asked which of the 613 to focus on, Jesus is quoted as replying “Love thy neighbor as thyself” taken to mean “do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” but probably actually meaning “treat each person as an end as well as a means to an end.”  I think that he believed that if that one law could be followed, every other law would be obvious.  If you treat everyone as though it were you, the ultimate end,  you would not kill, steal, lie, commit adultery,  envy your neighbor, cheat, keep slaves etc. He apparently was not that concerned about keeping kosher or making sacrifices at the temple.

When a crowd was stoning an accused prostitute, incorrectly identified later as Mary Magdalene, Jesus said “Let he who has not sinned, throw the first stone.”

When confronted with severe income inequality, he said:  “A rich man has as much chance of going to heaven as does a camel of going through the eye of a needle” and “the way you treat the poorest among you, is the way you treat me” and Jesus could have added “and the way I will treat you,” but that went without saying. So what would Jesus say to the new Republican Party which seems more and more like the New White Man's Christian Party.  What might he say to these “good Christians” who live to win G-d's love and salvation?

Should they hate homosexuals? Should they want a stronger armed force to crush our many enemies?  Should people be allowed to be as rich as they can possibly get?  Should the poor be left to their own devices to teach them some self-reliance? Should people be punished for having sex for non-reproductive purposes? Should we all have as many weapons as we have room for to protect us from our neighbors?

What is Aramaic for “Hell no!”?

But What Can We Do?

This column has questioned the truth or wisdom of some of our most famous and revered national and religious quotations.  But there are some that even this column will not challenge.  One is JFK’s famous “ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.”  It seems more valid today than it was 50 years ago. How many of us remember it or think about its meaning?

Today we are facing many serious challenges to our well being.  America has been digging out of a severe recession for three years now.  More than 13  million Americans are out of work.  Millions of homeowners are losing their homes owing much more for them than they are now worth.  We seem held captive by OPEC, which sets oil prices affected by supply and demand as well as speculation and forces us to pay more when filling our cars. Some of us feel that we are not getting enough information from our mainstream media.  Many of us feel that we are not getting the same advantages as others take for granted.

We want the government to help us.

If we are unemployed, we want the government to give us unemployment benefits for as much and as long as possible.  We want our elected officials to fix our economy, which is affected by various global factors.  If we have borrowed more than our homes are worth, we want the government to help us get the principal and interest rate reduced.  If we have large cars and trucks and are being forced to pay a fortune to fill up, we want the government to do something to lower gas prices. If some, like the rich, are getting advantages that we aren’t, we want the government to fix the system so that we all get a fair deal.  Many of us have lost faith in our elected officials to fix our country the way we want. Our government, like our very nation, appears fractured and moving in different directions.  We fear that our representatives cannot be counted on to make the needed changes to make sure that our lives only get better.

What are we to do?

We could ask “what can we do for ourselves as well as our country?”

If we are unemployed, sending out resumes to get back into our former careers, we might consider other employment options.  What else can we do that needs be done?  We could get a specialized education doing a different kind of work.  We could do work that people have said Americans won’t do like gardening, housecleaning, child care, manual labor, farming, building maintenance, dog walking and handy-person jobs. We could offer our services to our neighborhood as well as to the larger community.

But most of us are not unemployed.  What can we do about the unemployment problem?  If we run a company, we can refuse to outsource work to other countries.  We could comply with federal law and hire only legal residents and citizens even for yard work or child care.  We could go out of our way to buy products made in America, even if they cost a little more. When making calls to large corporations that outsource their customer service, we can ask to speak with someone working in America.

If we borrowed more than our home is currently worth, should we stop making payments and move out only when forced regardless of its effect on the neighborhood or our economy, not to mention our credit rating?  When our homes were worth much more than we paid for them, should we have offered to pay the bank more? Do we have any personal responsibility for borrowing too much or too often to have something we could not afford?  We could realize that the home is worth to us exactly what it was before the crash.  It is not just an investment, it is a place to live in comfort and security. We could try to remember that homes were not always seen as profitable investments.  Their value used to decline with age, like cars, refrigerators and washing machines.  When we buy a new car or appliance on credit, as most of us do, we are immediately underwater.  Not only are they worth less than we owe for years, when we sell them, if we do, we get much less than we paid.  Should we immediately walk away from all these purchases?

We recently got a reduction in our payroll taxes.  It amounts to, on average, about $2 a day per worker more in our pockets.  We were excited to get this small amount because it would help us and the economy recover.  Now gas prices are up by almost $.50 a gallon.  We are in shock.  It threatens to destroy our personal and national economic recovery, the media tells us. We hear that the increase is due in large part to speculations driven by media hyperbole.  We watch interviews of our fellow Americans in the back of their large trucks and SUVs saying that this is outrageous.  They say that the government should do something to lower prices at the pump.  Is drilling the answer, even though the effects would take many years to realize? 

It has been only a few weeks since the payroll tax cut extension was signed into effect meaning that the average worker will save $14 a week, but we have already forgotten.   This additional amount per week would pay the additional $.50 per gallon for 28 gallons of gas per week.  If we drive 60 miles a day (most of us don’t) and get 15 miles a gallon for the same seven days we would come out even.  But there’s more.  Are we driving a truck or SUV? Why? Is it just for work?  If yes, can the additional cost be written off or passed on to the consumer of the services?  If the truck is not needed for work, why have it?  We could sell the SUV or pickup and buy a more practical family car.  They get much better gas mileage and are easier and more fun to drive.  Or can we reduce our driving by the percent of increase in the price per gallon? So a $.50 increase is about a 14% change from a $3.50 a gallon base.  Can we cut our driving by 14%?  We could do our errands more efficiently.  We could carpool, take public transportation or even walk when possible? Could we cut waste in other areas, like spending four dollars a day on coffee at our favorite cafe?

Could we stop whining and do something?

And if we no longer trust our elected officials, we should work to replace them with people we trust more, if not completely. When we see what the conservatives in the Congress have been up to these last few years, many of us are starting to realize that more must be done.  We must change the way we pay for elections, and should restrict lobbying to clear presentations of positions without the exchange of any money or favors so that our legislators are not tempted to prostitute themselves to special interests.  We must also encourage our best and brightest to go into government service.  In order to have enough best and brightest, we must significantly improve our education system.  This would involve not only hiring, training and encouraging more great teachers, it would also mean changing our high school curriculum to better prepare our students for college and life. A better educated population should produce better voters as well as improved candidates. These are changes that we must know enough to care enough to fight for.

And if we believe that some are getting more advantages than the rest of us, we should insist on better coverage by the media and organize for changes in our tax code which is usually at the heart of economic and political inequity. ( This column has proposed a new, simple and fair tax code with no itemized deductions, just a standard one; treating all sources of income as equal; and with only five tax brackets ranging from 10% to a maximum of 30%. Please see this previous column online).

So maybe we, as a strong, self-reliant people, can stop complaining about our difficulties blaming the government for not doing more to help us, and instead can ask ourselves what can we do for ourselves and our nation?

Taking positive action to effect change is the best way to get over our depression about life’s cruelty and our own shortcomings.

So let us not ask what our government can do for us but rather discover, declare and demonstrate what we can do for ourselves and our country.

Numbers Count But Only If We Can

In a previous column entitled : “Numbers Count and Size Matters,” I lamented our culture’s movement away from using math and numbers and toward our dependence on gut feelings and descriptive adjectives.  That column focused more on the size of American family cars recommending reductions to specific car lengths instead of generalizing adjectives like “mid size” or “compact.”  I also took the opportunity to decry the excessive size of men’s bathing suits and shorts as well as most of the watches available to these gender-specific consumers.

But now I want to address our culture’s inability to do simple math on a routine basis.  Here are some recent examples:

There much ado about extending the 2% reduction in payroll taxes deducted from workers’ paychecks.  Everyone has agreed how vital this was for the working people and for our economy.  Their payroll tax payment will continue to be reduced from 7.65% of their earnings ( 6.2% for Social Security plus 1.45% for Medicare contributions) for earned incomes of up to about $106,800 to only 5.65% for another 10 months if approved by Congress.  Workers will continue to keep 2% more of their gross earned income as they did last year.

The man on the street was interviewed and in each case declared his joy for the much-needed extra money. The news media couldn’t seem to figure out how much of a real difference this $120 billion program would make.  It is $750 a year in average savings, not $1,000, for 160 million workers.  While the media not only incorrectly said that the average savings was $1,000 a year when it is more like $750, the media also couldn’t figure that this was less the $14.50 a week or about $2 a day.  Not one report that I saw, and I watch most of them, ever mentioned this measly amount. Instead of having $721 a week, the average worker will have $735. The $2 a day difference won’t even pay for a cup of Starbuck’s coffee.

And in order to give 160 million workers an average of $2 a day more, we should lose $120 billion in revenue ($10 billion a month) when we are trying to reduce our annual one trillion dollar deficit.

Has anyone done the math?

Also in the news lately we have heard about mandatory cuts of $45 to $55 billion a year from our defense budget.  Is that a lot or is that a small matter?  How much do we spend on defense and what does it include?  While the budget for the Defense Department is about $650 billion, that is not the total cost of our defense.  We also have the Veteran’s Administration which pays the pensions and provides medical services to active and retired vets.  There are costs for defense related programs in the CIA, the Energy Department, NASA and the State Department.  The actual total cost of defense is a little over $1 trillion or about one third of the federal budget.

And what does that money buy and what can be lived without?  No one has given us the numbers.  How many military bases do we run around the world?  We never hear. Estimates vary from more than 700 to as many as 1,000.  The other 195 sovereign nations combined have a total of less than 200 foreign military bases.  How many more war ships, fighter jets, atomic bombs, etc., do we have than the whole world combined, ten times as many, 20 times as many?

We have not been given any of these numbers without which we cannot measure or judge the significance of our cuts.

Then there is the multi-millionaire running to be his party’s unsuccessful opponent to our incumbent leader.  We have learned that in 25 years of working for a private equity company he was able to amass more than $200 million.  When he reluctantly released his tax return for 2010, we learned that he invested some of his fortune in Swiss banks and in companies on the Cayman Islands, not helping our struggling economy.  We also learned that he paid less than 14% of his $21 million annual unearned income on taxes.  But what no one mentioned is that he made over 10% interest on his $200 million.  Who else gets that kind of return?   If you put your money in a regular account at a major bank, as most of us do, you get .1%, if you are lucky. If you put one million dollars into CDs or a maximum savings account, you might get 1%.  If you invest in stock and do real well, you might get 3% return.  How does he get 10% every year now that Madoff is in prison and Milken is out but has reformed? This is the real outrage. He makes more in a day in interest ($57,500) than the average American worker earns in a year (about $33,000).

And lastly, there is the Occupy Wall Street movement.  The occupiers have echoed the concern of many Americans that Wall Street has become too powerful, too greedy and too corrupt. They sense that the bonus system has encouraged otherwise decent, well-educated people to take outrageous risks with other people’s money for their own personal gain with some ruinous results.

But some people in the movement came up with this 1% versus 99% theme.  They said that our country’s problems are caused by the richest 1% of our population subjugating the unfortunate, defenseless 99%.

In all this time, I have heard no one say who these 1% are.  The top one percent of households in the United States, accounting for just under 1.5 million households, earn at least $386,000 a year. This top 1%, therefore includes every professional athlete and coach, every person we watch regularly on T.V., most surgeons and all the professional couples who each earn $200,000 a year. They are what most would call the high end of upper-middle class.  Surely, they are not the problem.

The top .1%, representing the top-earning 150,000 households, earned at least $1 million a year.  This includes many top professional athletes, news anchors, T.V. stars, movie stars as well as CEOs of large companies, Wall Street investment bankers, lawyers, hedge fund managers, and private investors. Many of these people give generously to charity and non profits like schools, hospitals and public projects. But some of these high earners pay lobbyists to coerce legislators to relax regulations and reduce personal and corporate taxes.  It is these people and their lobbyists who are in part to blame for our country’s economic and political woes.

Then there is the top .01%, the billionaires like Warren Buffet, Steven Jobs and Bill Gates who are the most generous in their donations and have lobbied for the rich to pay more taxes.

So then who is the problem, now that we know the numbers?  It is Wall Street money managers and the influence they bring to bear on our legislators, on our country.  It is the system driven by greed for ever bigger bonuses to own ever a bigger slice of the American pie without any real concern for their fellow citizens.  The problem includes an electoral system that always requires more money in donations to win continued reelection which becomes more important than the reason for which our politicians were elected - to help the people. It is lobbying, using hundreds of millions of dollars to seduce legislators into doing the special interest’s bidding.  Also, it has been the conservative wing of the Republican party who has taken advantage of its constituents’ failure to understand what is in their own best interests convincing blue collar party faithful that they too will be rich someday.  Something that will probably never happen, but hope springs eternal, especially when we don’t know the facts.

Our problems can not be properly addressed by an inadequate free press and a public unwilling to ask to see the numbers so that decisions can be based on fully-disclosed facts and not by gut feeling or senseless adjective-filled slogans.

Numbers count but only if we know what they are and what they mean.

Why Do Bad Things Happen?

Since the beginning of time, bad things have happened.  They happened in nature, then Man came along and invented many more.  There are hurricanes, tornadoes, earthquakes, floods, droughts, volcanoes, lightening caused fires and predators hunting, frightening and killing their prey.  There is also illness, aging, terrible physical pain and death.  All these natural forces cause suffering and pain.

With human acts there are so many more varieties of bad things.  There are all of our favorite “sins” like murder, rape, theft, dishonesty, envy, jealousy, laziness, and arrogance and there are all the specific kinds ranging from individual to group to culture.  There are the people cheating on their spouse, there are the businessmen deceiving their customers, there are the adults abusing children, there are the politicians lying openly to further their limited cause and there are those who live off the work of others while contributing nothing themselves.  There are the groups and organizations which condone acts of cruelty like hazing, discriminating and  causing physical and emotional damage to others.  Then there are the cultural cruelties like bull fighting, capturing rare animals to use parts of their bodies for aphrodisiacs, boxing, tyranny, fascism, mistreatment of women, wars, corruption and injustice.

The eternal question is why?  Why is there so much suffering and loss?  If there is a G-d and if He is infinite, omniscient, omnipotent and benevolent, why does He allow this to go on?

Our Judeo-Christian teachings explain it as caused by original sin committed by Adam and Eve, our first family.  The thesis is that an angel, almost as powerful as G-d, revolted against Him and formed his own kingdom based on evil and sin.  This fallen angel convinced Eve to partake of the forbidden fruit.  She did and convinced Adam to do the same. The forbidden fruit has been assumed to be a real fruit, like an apple or orange.  It was most likely Eve herself who was the edible.  G-d had warned that if they partake, they will die.  Since they didn’t die immediately, they thought it was a false threat.  What G-d meant was that they would die, eventually, instead of being eternal.  Adam was given one of G-d’s day to live.  That equals 1,000 years in human terms.  Adam gave up 60 of these years so that the future Abraham could live longer.  Or, at least, that’s how the story goes.

So because Adam and Eve partake in their forbidden fruit, they created original sin and the mortality that came with it.  The question arises “why did they disobey G-d, their creator and provider?"  If anyone ever had free will, you would think that they had.  They were not influenced by the media (this was before T.V., radio, the Internet or even newspapers), it wasn’t peer pressure from some outside group, because there were none, it wasn’t financial considerations because there was no money and no place to spend it, it wasn’t the result of a poor upbringing because they weren’t brought up and their only father figure was G-d himself. 

And if they hadn’t disobeyed and became immortal, they would have had no offspring and there would be no you reading this and no me writing it. But there would also be no children, no culture or civilization. When Adam “chose” to create new life, he chose to have life not only begin, but also to end.


So if it wasn’t due to original sin, then why do bad things happen?  Could there be a single cause, a simple explanation?  Yes, I think so.

Entropy.

Entropy is a basic law of physics.  It is the disorganization of energy.  It is the agent of change.  Einstein realized what mystics knew for thousands of years - that all matter is energy and that it cannot be lost in the universe.  If nothing can be lost then it must be changed into different forms otherwise life would be static.  The mystics realized further that all energy is consciousness. Physics is slowly coming to this realization.

Most physicists would agree with this description of entropy but few realize its wide implications.  I asked the wife of a famous American physicist if he ever talked about the impact of entropy in everyday life. She said that he says it every time he sees his son’s messy room.  Yes, messy rooms are a perfect example of entropy - a clean and neat room can quickly become disorganized and messy.  Physicists see it in sand castles when the tide rolls in and disorganizes the structures returning them to lumps of wet sand.  But entropy is much more pervasive and ubiquitous.

I see entropy as a constant force, much like gravity, pulling at every finite thing or activity. It is the reason we age, get ill, die as well as the cause of mental disorders including Alzheimer’s and schizophrenia,and is the primary cause for machines breaking down, errors being made and everything that we think of as sin like lying, killing, stealing and even adultery.

Does this mean that humans have no free will but act only because of the effects of entropy?  I think that the answer is both yes and no.  No matter what our will is, we will grow old and die.  No matter what we do, our cells will die and be replaced by others.  No matter how hard we try, we will make mistakes and we will never be perfect.  It is because of entropy that Man has created cultures and civilizations with laws and mores reinforced by peer pressure be it social, economic, political or physical. Each culture is a different approach to dealing with the entropy that surrounds and penetrates our being, with some cultures being much more successful than others, cultural relativists notwithstanding.

Entropy causes humans and other animals to get sick and so each culture has its own system of cures and remedies. People and other creatures can harm other so each culture develops laws and enforcement policies to minimize this tendency. Societies set up systems to protect private property and personal well being from infringement.  Cars break down because of entropy so we have organizations to repair them and others to replace them with newer models.  Entropy makes us grow tired of the same thing so we produce new varieties and models.  Entropy makes one culture want to dominate or destroy another and so each country sets up defenses again being disorganized by their enemies.  Entropy causes the mind to be disorganized leading to various mental conditions.  We create different strategies for dealing with this from psychotherapy to meditation to organized religion to medications to tribal dances. Entropy causes us to die so we seek different ways of extending life and cheating death with surgery, medicine, acupuncture, homeopathy and group prayer. 

So entropy can be seen as a necessary evil that destroys in order to create. It is the cause of all our virtue as well.  If there were no entropy, there would be nothing to fear and so courage would be unnecessary; there would be no poverty and so there would be no need for compassion or charity or crime.  We could not get sick and so there would be no need for medicine, healing or even healthy food and exercise. If there were no entropy we wouldn’t age and die so there would be no need for children, sex or even physical attraction.  If there were no entropy, we would have little of use to do or be.  If there were no entropy it would be hard for us to remember anything because there would be no cause to have memories.

It’s some consolation to know that although we cannot rid the world of entropy, we must continue to battle it in all of its painful forms knowing it won’t disappear, (unless there is a messiah, savior or final Buddha to usher in the Golden Age which will be without entropy) but that our efforts will help develop us as individuals, groups and cultures.

But it is little consolation to those of us witnessing the brutality of entropy in our personal lives.  It does not relieve the parent whose grown child has been maimed or killed in some unnecessary war.  It does not comfort those of us who see an elder loved one losing his ability to hear or see or walk or think or remember.  It is of little solace to a person whose 15, almost 16, year old dog drags his hind legs as he walks now and collapses unexpectedly.  Knowing that it is entropy, life’s planned obsolescence, that will force his lifelong companion to his final rest does not diminish the heartbreaking pain.

Life is brutal because of entropy without which there would be no life at all.