Character Counts – A Lesson From Tim Tebow

Laugh if you want - but then ask yourself how that reflects upon your character

I will be honest – I am a recent convert to liking, believing, and rooting for Tim Tebow; not because of his current surprising success as the new QB for the Broncos, but because I have learned more about who he is and what Tebow believes in…and understanding where that success comes from.  I want to share that understanding.

This goes beyond the fact that he is a devout Christian (but that fact certainly helps since J.C. is a pretty good role model), beyond the fact that he is inspiring his team to win because of his leadership and example, even beyond the fact that he is the shiny example of all things right.

Even better, many claim he isn’t even good enough to be a professional quarterback in the NFL.

What most people do not get is that Tim Tebow is a man of deep, deep character – and that is THE foundation for himself and hence, his success.  Everything else comes from it.  In part, this comes from his faith, but it comes from other things like values instilled by his upbringing and his life experiences as well.  He lives the Boy Scout Law – trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent.  Everything stems from this foundation of character. 

He is the guy you want your daughters to marry and your sons to be.  You may publicly mock him and snicker at my line, but deep down you know I’m right.   He is not bothered about you mocking him or his faith through ‘tebowing’.  He speaks through his actions and determines himself based upon his own personal character, not others’ opinions of himself.  That is a core tenant of why he is successful and determines his own destiny.  For example – he is not a victim of his own hubris.  Look at his counterparts who have shot  themselves in the leg, commited vehicular manslaughter, chased after Pittsburgh jail-bait, funded dog fighting rings, and got off of murder raps because the ‘glove didn’t fit’.  Guilty or not, putting yourself and the decisions that led to those situations speak of a failing of character.  Even worse,  those men were role-models so their perils are that much worse as their example is magnified.  People of character understand the unsaid social contract of being a role-model and responsibility therein.  I am sure that Tebow does not take that responsibility lightly.

This is normally a political blog, so here is the angle:  Our country is in such dire straights BECAUSE our politicians generally do not make the same ‘for the good of the country’ type of choices that I know Tim Tebow would make because they lack character.  They simply can’t make the tough decisions and then they externalize and make excuses as to why.  This transcends party, personal politics, ideology, or constituency.  Just look at the ’front-runner’ crop of Republican presidential candidates – one of whom I will unfortunately have to vote for (as it will be the choice between a lesser of two evils).  All these candidates have problems in electability because at their core, they have character issues that lead to flip-flopping, sexual affairs, influence pedaling, and a general sense of the sleazy politician who we can’t exactly pin down.   Transversely, Chris Christie has far more character – and hence why so many wanted him to run even if they didn’t know that was the core to their reasoning.  This is also why I like Ron Paul more than any of the other candidates even though I know he will never get to front runner status and be a real contender.  In part, his character threatens the corrupt establishment.  I believe what he is saying even if I do not agree with everything he says.  I also know he would be able to make the difficult choices that only a person of character can make. 

Our politicians, media, and society in general lacks the necessary character for America to live up to the values our Founding Fathers and previous generations instilled into the fabric of this nation.  By going astray,we now find ourselves in dire straights as a nation.  We reap what we sow due to malignant values that many in our society follow:  get-rich-quick, keeping-up-with-the-jonses, hollywood celebrity, etc; they all reflect a lack of good personal character that then leads to a lack of societal character.

To John Elway’s chagrin, Tim Tebow can lead ‘real’ NFL players not because he is the best at his position but because there are 10 other guys on the field who make the team larger than its individual parts.  It is leadership creating synergy.  This is the reason why the Colts are a completely different team without Peyton Manning.  Yes, his hall-of-fame quarterbacking is key, but his leadership is just as important.    Each man WILLINGLY follows Tebow’s (or Manning’s) outstanding example and gives their fullest because his character inspires them to be better and have more character themselves by working harder and focusing on the team rather than themselves.  That then leads to personal success – so it creates a positive cycle and reinforces itself.  They do better, are better men for it, and then they want to be even better.  Tebow is a proactive, hard-working guy who believes in himself and those around him.  Through that, the Broncos have manufactured wins AS A TEAM where they should have lost; and in the process, have done far more than they each could individually.  Independence is not the extreme virtue, interdependence is.  Republicans and Democrats should take note of that fact.

The winning streak will end as they always do, but it does not change the fundamental character of the person driving the change.  Tebow said it best when he gave the pep talk before the Bronco’s last win:

As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another – Proverbs 27:17

And The Fallout Begins…

This week in American econo-political history was significant for 3 reasons.

1)  The bailout deal actually coalesced.  The US did NOT default on any of its loans as Congress actually compromised and raised the debt ceiling.
2)  The Dow saw a 513 point drop as a general reaction to weeks of crappy economic news being ignored (see #1) and everyone realizing that the contagion has spread to Europe and its in Spain AND Italy.

3)  S&P downgraded US debt to AA+ status.  For the first time in history, one of the major ratings agencies has downgraded US debt.

With all that said, it all boils down to this.  #1 shows that politics and brinksmanship is more important than actually doing what is best for the country.  Everyone knows that the amount cut wasn’t nearly large enough and that you’re going to have to raise taxes to get the fiscal house in order – the whole is just too big.  Congress kicked the can down the road to buy time for the ‘super-Congress’ to try its hand.  Don’t hold your breath.  They didn’t address the underlying problems in entitlements now….they probably won’t do it then.  I applaud House Republicans for sticking to their guns, however pledges to Grover Norquist should not take priority of the oath you took to the country and your constituents.  Please realize that major corporations do not pay their fair share in taxes and that it is a fallacy to say that increasing taxes is a defacto job killer – the primary decision to hire employees is not based upon taxes you pay but ability to expand business and make more money in the market.

#2 Shows that we are not out of the woods.  This isn’t a muddle-through economy.  I believe this is an economy in recession that got a reprieve due to gov’t stimulus.  that stimulus has about run out at this point, so we will slip back into recession  The underlying problems in housing, banking, and the false economic expansion of the 2000′s due to those industries are still with us.  Until we address them and continue the deleveraging process, the economy will not recover.   Taking your eye off of the ball for months because of a distracting debt debate gives you a 513 single day decline because of these continuing underlying problems.

#3  The only AAA this country has left are surface to air missiles and the road-side assistance people.  We spend more than we make, we owe huge amounts of money to others, and we have no real plan of fixing things.  Pile a generally pathetic exercise in leadership from the politicians in DC and you get the crisis we’re in.

I recognize that its tough.  I see the merit in specific types of stimulus to help jump-start the economy.  The problem is, we didn’t do the right ones, everyone knew it, and now, there is rightly no appetite because the public doesn’t trust the federal government to spend that kind of money wisely.  They had their chance to enact good stimulus - i.e. really rebuild America’s infrastructure, or develop next generation energy sources.  Both would be long-term investments where your return was larger than the investment and created real jobs here at home.  Instead, they propped up failing institutions, bailed out banks and let them get bigger when they should have been broken up, and tried to stabilize housing prices when market forces are still telling us years after the peak that prices need to fall further.

Individually, the politicians in DC are palatable.  I really like my representative in Congress and I can accept my two Senators.  Collectively though, something very bad happens.  It’s a combination of group think, a culture that embraces gridlock as standard rather than compromise, and leaders who I do think are lousy (on both sides of the aisle) because they worry more about politics and the next election rather than doing what is right long-term for the country.  Toss in an entitled yet apathetic electorate that does not take their democracy seriously,  super PACs and special interests who do, a Federal Reserve that has been worrisome in policy for the past 20 to 30 years, and fraud waste and abuse from the red-tape that is known as the federal government and you have what we’ve got today.

I wish there was a reset button.

- G.S.

Tourniquets and Feces

The debt ceiling debate – a false choice fostered by Republicans

He’s Going To Turn Green Next!

 I have opined at length in the previous article and I felt it was way too scattered and didn’t drill down to the point, so I crafted this post to refine it.

 The bottom line is that the Republicans are wrong on this one.  I philosophically agree with their stance on containing big government, but this is not the way you go about it AND they are showing the part of the problem in Washington by being more concerned with politics than what is best for our country.  This is due to:

 1)      Raising the debt ceiling is not a question.  It must be done, it is a foregone conclusion.  To state that raising the debt ceiling itself is a compromise is a false premise.  The consequences of not raising the ceiling are catastrophic and is not an option, hence what they are offering is not a compromise and understandably something the Democrats can not agrree to.  If you disagree with me about what a default would mean, just read a couple of articles from the Washington Post, New York Times, or the Wall Street Journal.  It is very, very bad and unnecessary.

 2)      Which leads us to point #2.  The definition of compromise is that both sides give up things they want to meet in the middle.  You aren’t 100% happy with the end result, but you can live with it and the deal moves forward.  The Democrats offered up their sacred cow of entitlement cuts, the Republicans must offer up their sacred cow of raising taxes. 

3)      Raising those taxes isn’t on middle class or the poor.  It’s on the wealthy and on corporations, both in explicit raises and loophole closures.  Those guys have been getting breaks for years, it is only fair that they pay their fair share.

 4)      It is a false statement to then claim that the Democrats are raising taxes on ‘job creators’.  That is BS because if these ‘job creators’ really needed or wanted to create more jobs, they could.  Small business entrepreneurs are who are getting crunched – and those are the guy who DO hire employees and shouldn’t have their taxes raised.  I’m not saying raise taxes on them.  Large companies have been making record profits of late – they are FLUSH with cash.  They have plenty of money to reinvest in their companies, expand business, and hence hire more employees.  They don’t not because they can’t but because they won’t due to ‘uncertainty in the market’.  If they put their money where their mouth was and expanded their business, they would put more people to work, stabilize local economies, and add more money to government coffers via additional taxes; helping government revenue figures as well. It would create a virtuous cycle instead of a downward spiral, but it is an exercise in the chicken or the egg that no one can force big business to make. 

 5)      Transversely, we should also help small business out any way we reasonably can, even if it means spending money because the return will be far greater than the investment.

 6)       The exercise is as simple as only raising taxes on wealthy individuals and on medium and large companies, but exempt small business (places with 50 employees or less).  Also, redefine wealthy.  The current tax system classifies my father in law as wealthy, but he is simply well-to-do, upper middle class.  However, he has a neighbor who while is not filthy rich, he is wealthy and can afford more taxes because in part, his expenditures have less bang for the buck by having large sums of dollars go into the hands of a certain expensive enterprises.   The neighbor pisses away hundreds of thousands of dollars on unneeded prize llamas and wings to an already huge house in addition to already having two other homes.  The money doesn’t trickle as far or into as many places in the economy.  I am not saying he doesn’t have a right to do this; what I am saying is that he can afford to be taxed more because raising his taxes is not going to negatively impact the economy.  On the other hand, I see my father-in-law spending money in the real economy, just like the rest of us.  He has a budget, retirement, and real financial concerns.  The only difference between him and the average American is that he makes more money, but not to the point where his spending is luxurious, profligate, or wasteful.  He isn’t the one you tax; instead it is his neighbor, Lady Gaga, and the Wall Street bankers are they who you raise taxes on.  Besides, letting my father-in-law keep some of his money instead of going to the tax collector is more efficient.  It is more efficiently spent back into the economy by him directly rather than wasteful, more centralized government control.  Thus the line of proposed taxes on ‘the rich’ is not $250K.  I don’t know if its $350K or $500K or $1MM, but it is somewhere between what my father-in-law earns and what his neighbor makes.

 7)      Given dedicated time on the issue, the size and scope of government could be cut way back while also finding the common-sense and fair places where taxes can be raised.  There are so many loopholes and people and institutions that take advantage of the tax code that it needs reform to reduce the overall tax rate while actually raising revenue.  Savers should be rewarded and not punished for their long-term outlook

 8)       On the other side of the house, the government is so large and has so much fraud, waste, and abuse in it, that there are plenty of ways to cut government across the board, save hundreds of billions of dollars, and get the same result because government becomes more efficient.  ABUSE:  How many times have you heard of overpaid, lazy government workers who do not fear for their jobs?  Fire those people, pay their replacement a fair wage, and expect more out of them.  If not, fire them too.  Real unemployment is somewhere around 16.5%.  WASTE:  How many times have you heard people in government spend money because it’s there to spend?  If they don’t use it, they lose it.  It is that mentality of ‘other people’s money’ that leads to the waste.  Break that cycle through alternative incentives – possibly shared monetary compensation for efficiency.  FRAUD:  How many people scam the federal government on rigging their welfare, healthcare, and other forms of government assistance to both the states and individuals?  Root those people out, stop the bleeding of money, and throw those people into jail to show the rest of the cheats a lesson.

 9)      If anyone is serious about reigning in government AND getting the country’s fiscal house in order, they know that a 4 trillion figure in deficit spending cuts is just the beginning.  Anything less that is proposed is an insult when $4 trillion in cuts is on the table.  I believe the President because of the mantle that he has assumed in trying to solve this problem.  I do not believe the Republicans.  The Republicans don’t want to give the President the political advantage of having a solution to make real inroads into solving this problem.  Like they say, he owns the economy.  Republicans are more worried about politics than what is right for the country, thus they wouldn’t want the President to get the credit since he owns the economy for good just like he would for the bad. 

 10)    Lastly, a grand bargain of $4 trillion dollars in cuts over 10 years is a great start to getting the country’s debt problem in order, but it is just the beginning.  That still means deficit spending, just slowing the growth of it.  To get to a budget that actually has money left over at the end to pay down the national debt means you have to have cuts to spending programs AND you will have to raise taxes.  THERE. IS. NO. OTHER. WAY.  We have already gone too far down the path of fiscal irresponsibility to only have cuts.  We need both.  Anyone who tells you either is not looking at the long term trend nor are being honest with you.  As we have seen, taxes can be cut, but not until the books are back in the black.  There is nothing saying taxes increases have to be for perpetuity.

  I am a true libertarian, I am told in the auspices of Jeffersonian Liberalism.  I am a conservative, but not a Republican, and certainly not a partisan fool.  It is better to ‘tear the band-aid off and eat your peas’ now, then do it later when the country is in a true survival situation (because this is an optional crisis) and the analogy shifts to applying a tourniquet and eating your own feces…

- G.S.

A Game of Chicken

EAT YOUR PEAS DAMMIT!!!!

I will take a break from my ‘solutions’ series and interject an article about the current politics of the nation and the game of Chicken that quite frankly, my Republican friends are playing.  Yes, you heard me right, I am siding with the Democrats on this one, but just in political substance, not policy.

You see my fellow citizens, the Republicans are giving a false choice to you.  They say that their ‘compromise’ is the raising of the debt ceiling at all.    They will raise the debt ceiling and the Democrats have to enact entitlement program cuts.  Taxes per Grover Norquist are OFF THE TABLE for the Republicans.  That is a red-herring fallacy.

Not raising the debt ceiling is not an option.  It has to be done because there isn’t any time left to make a problem that would truly stem the tide of rising costs.  They haven’t done the legwork to truly figure out how to pare the federal government down without ripping the country apart since its presence is felt everywhere.  I agree it needs to be done, but you don’t cut out cancer with a broadsword, you use a laser scalpel.  Since the Republicans have frittered away the MONTHS of time that they had where they could have made such a plan, they now posit the untenable position of simply targeting entitlement programs and not the huge amount of fraud, waste, abuse, cronyism, and special interests that actually make government so large, expensive, and inefficient.

Not raising the debt ceiling is also not an option because of the  completely unnecessary financial and economic crisis that would descend upon this country.  We saw it before in 2008 – the markets are all a confidence game.  You lose confidence and the bond-holders go running.  Even if it is voluntary, the costs to further debts in the future due to rising interest rates would be long-term and real.  It would cost more to borrow money.  It will even sit worse with the electorate if the US pays its debt holders first (China) and doesn’t send Grandma her Social Security check.  For political reasons of voter wrath, there is no way that a politician thinks that is a good way to get re-elected.

Scarily, it is the President that is actually showing leadership on this one.  He recognizes what compromise is and if people are serious about curbing national debt, then they’ll take the current opportunity to take a real chunk out of future spending.  he honestly proposed touching liberal third rail issues and give on them and expected the Republicans to do the same.  I believe he is generally misguided in what he thinks is best for the country, but he looks like a centrist who appeals to centrist nature of the country more than the Republicans who truly believe are posturing at this point.  I honestly do not believe the Republicans are sincere on wanting to really make the best effort possible of curbing debt because we have dug a hole that is way too deep for ourselves as a nation to not have tax increases and even reasonably expect us to get out of this mess.  It is a combination of loyalty to Grover Norquist and his pledge for fear of what a negative endorsement will do, and it is also due to the fact that a failure on the President’s part is good for them.  Maybe so, but it’s certainly not good for the country – just like a default scare or wasting a bunch of time on a scare good for the country.  There are plenty of problems to solve – unemployment, energy, trade deficits, etc and this is basically all Washington has done for months.  Absolutely pathetic.

Also, don’t tell me that raising taxes and closing loopholes on the riches of Americans and corporations will hinder growth.  Major companies are reaping record profits and are sitting on the cash.  They are not expanding their businesses or re-investing it.  They claim uncertainty and weakness in the markets…but what comes first, the chicken or the egg?  People won’t feel good about the economy or spend money if they continue to see layoffs.  BUT, if a company took some of the those record profits and reinvested into a local economy and opened up a new division…  The same argument can be said for the richest of Americans as well.   They as a percentage of income pay less than the average American.  There is a point where their wealth doesn’t efficiently go back into the economy.  For every yacht that a fortune 500 company CEO owns, how much could the livable wage be raised for the rank and file hourly workers making $10 an hour whose empire is based upon their work.  You know that $10 an hour is not a livable wage, so those people have to get a second (or third job) sometimes.  Undue taxation for wealth-creators is un-American, but also is not paying your fair share back to a system that you have greatly benefited from while also semi-victimizing the same people who enable your empire.  I’m the furthest from a socialist that you’ll find, but this is a country based upon freedom and having to work 80+ hours a week just to scrape by at $10 an hour is just a form of economic bondage and is also un-American.  There has to be a balance and asking the most vulnerable in our society to have cuts to the programs that help support them while not asking the richest of institutions and individuals to give up a dime is simply wrong on top of bad policy and economic fantasy.

Thus, I propose finding that line where a business is no longer small and an individual ‘has more money than they know what to do with’.  At that point and higher, that is where you raise taxes.  You are getting the most economic bang for the buck as you are not hindering the real engines of economic growth – small business, but you are also not taking bread out of the mouths of people who actually put the money back into the economy versus just pissing it away of opulent, foreign-made luxury items.

So, with all that said, you can see that I am yet again proud of my libertarian stance.  Its shit like this that makes me glad I am not a Republican.  I disagree with Democrats philosophically in most ways, but they make the sound and correct argument in this case. 

Lets just say the US does default and the government has to pick and choose what obligations it pays.  How will it look to the voters (especially the most active block – seniors) when we dutifully make our interest payments to the Chinese, but Grandma’s social security check doesn’t go out in time?  The Republicans would get blamed and they’d get washed out in the tide of the 2012 election, Obama would get re-elected, and then the country would be set up for even worse things to come with an emboldened and empowered Democratic legislative and executive branch.

I weep for my country and the lack of leadership that we have.  I’d be kicking somebody’s ass if I was the President.  It would be time to pull out the weapons-grade, Ross Perot style charts and insultingly lucid Jon Stewart interviews that show all the holes and fallacies in the opponent’s argument.

-  G.S.

Solution 1B) Entitlement Reform – Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid

"Well now your back's going to hurt!"

So here is where the hard part begins when I specifically start talking about entitlements.  Before I begin on how to actually fix them, I must point out two oxymoronic aspects of entitlements in general.  The first is that everybody is generally for a getting the nation’s fiscal house in order by fixing the budget and the deficit.  Everyone generally knows that the government spends too much, even if it admittedly does a poor job at collecting taxes from entities that should be paying them.  Secondly, everyone generally also knows that it is the big three entitlement programs (Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid) are really what imperils our nation fiscally.  The liabilities in the future for the same level of care and money provided to more and more aging baby boomers is completely unsustainable.  Why then, does everyone know these two facts but just continue to stick their head in the sand?  The longer you wait, the worse the problem will get!

With that set of observations out of the way, I am prepared to tell you the hard, ugly truth about entitlements.  It is not meant to be offensive, critical, or an attack.  This is simply the blatant truth.

Entitlements create the false choice of promising something this nation, as great as it is, cannot deliver.  Every year, we spend more and more money that we do not actually have on an elderly population that has a disproportionate sway on government (because they actually vote unlike other demographic groups – but good for them!) and that money/healthcare is seen as a something the elderly population is entitled to collect.  That money goes to a generally unproductive strata of society that was over-promised a system of support in their waning years and underpaid into it due to bad government programs and policies of the past.  It hurts to say it but its true.  Its also highly unpopular and not fair to just pull the plug on Grandma.  Meanwhile, that same money that is keeping her alive but giving her years of sub-standard quality of life standards at a retirement home could have been reinvested in education, energy development, infrastructure, or co-opting domestic business development; all things that yield a return on the money spent.  Outside the fact that some of the money is spent outright on consumption in this consumption-drive economy, money spent on entitlements just goes up in smoke .  This is not to say that we leave the elderly on the streets, but it is a painful amount of federal and state monies being spent on the past, not the future.

The problem and difficulty with entitlements is that it is really, really easy to promise something that was cheap 40 years ago, but really hard to pay for it today or claw it back when the expenses have greatly gone up.  The rules have changed.  People are living longer, more complex medical procedures cost more and then they keep people alive longer as a form of double whammy.   A great example of how things have gone awry is the Social Security retirement age.  Social Security benefit ages have not risen as fast as life-expectancy in this country.  FDR’s administration originally designed it with an age bracket in mind that most Americans never lived to see.  Many paid into the system, but didn’t collect from it.  That is how it was sustainable.   Society today is also far more likely to ship parents and grandparents off to the expense of a home rather than have the ‘burden’ of them living with family once they get too old to take care of themselves.  Hence, the tax-payers pay for the greater cost of care than the cheaper alternative of the elderly staying with family…even if further subsistence payments were available for family-based care.

The same general principle can be applied to health-care for the poor.  “It’s not my money, it’s the governments so why do I care?”  Well it is your money in a very direct sense every April 15th.   Indigent care, unneeded ER visits, and other forms of ”disinvested” spending are ways that great sums of money are wasted.  And that is a problem my friends – we spend way too much money to get substandard results of an impoverished elderly class, expensive health-care, and a culture of dependency in welfare.

My statements do not mean that the poor should die in the streets, that the elderly should just hurry up or die, or that you have to pass a ‘contributing to society test’ in order to get help should you fall on hard times.  My statements are aimed at how we strive for noble social goals to take care of our most vulnerable citizens and we yer fail both them and our future citizenry grandly by continuing to contribute to the fraud, waste, and abuse of the current system.  Good enough just won’t cut it much longer.

The Solution(s) -They are actually very hard, but amazingly simple.

1) The first and the greatest is the solution I proposed to make medical care cheaper and more effective from the previous article.  By following that program, you lower everyone’s costs and it makes it a lot cheaper to care for the elderly, the poor, and everyone in between.  That right there has a direct effect on how wealthy a person actually is from the social security check when only a fraction (instead of 2/3rds) goes to prescription, co-pays, and medical charges.  And obviously, cheaper healthcare means cheaper Medicare and Medicaid costs.

Such reforms only get us treading water however.  There are still too many promises and IOUs in the accounts of these programs.  Instead of making a patch that will last for 25 – 30 years, like the US did in  1983 for Social Security before it needs to get fixed again, lets put the problems to bed once and for all.

2) Social Security:  Raise the retirement age.  Early retirement 64-66.  Standard retirement 66-70.  Delayed retirement 72-74.  Something like that.  I purposefully put a range in as this is nt supposed to be hard and fast, but give you an idea of what I’m thinking.  You see, there is some misconception in this country that you work for X years and then you don’t have to anymore.  THE WORLD DOESN’T WORK THAT WAY IF YOU DON’T PROACTIVELY SAVE FOR THAT DAY.  Solely depending upon social security is what keeps over 40% of our elderly citizens out of poverty…and even then it’s not like they have a lot of money to work with.  This country needs to get off the mindset that someone will be there to take care of you, so you don’t have to make financial sacrifices now in the form of an IRA or a 401(k) to ensure your financial security in the future.  Too few people save and its the savers who get punished by low interest rates (like today’s environment) or possibly later.  All it will take is Congress’s writ and things like ROTH IRAs could be taxed despite already being taxed as regular income when the money was deposited.  Platitudes like ‘shared responsibility’ and ’helping your fellow American’ are all to easily thrown out when times are depression level tough and money has to be raised.  While this is mere conjecture, look at the current batch of charlatans in Congress, look yourself in the mirror, and try to lie to yourself and say they wouldn’t do it today if push comes to shove.

Lastly, if you’re one of the lucky few who have a retirement program, good for you…but you are in a dwindling minority.

3)  Social Security:  After a certain lifetime income, benefits decrease until they are gone altogether.  Call it a ‘success tax’ if you will.  This program doesn’t affect the middle class or even the well-to-do, but the actual truly wealthy people in this nation who have millions in brokerage accounts, have yachts, a home in the Hamptons, and in retirement, could maintain a middle class existence on the interest payments from their assets alone.  These guys don’t need the help of the American tax-payer.  Yes, they paid into a system they never get to benefit from…but they did benefit – from ree market, American style capitalism.  Their success, their profits, come from the people whose hard work made them money and their wages bought their products.  They directly and indirectly benefitted from people who were monetarily less successful than them but buoyed their success.

4)  Medicare:  Make the free market the cost standard – not the other way around.  Today everything is based upon what Medicare bills.  In my solution from the previous article, it is the market…and that is what medicare pays.  It is just another way to dampen bubbles and pay fairly for services as Medicare would still be a large buying block of patients in any market.  The rest of solution 1 addresses the directly reduction of Medicare costs.

5) Medicaid as a subset of the welfare system:  It’s the carrot or the stick.  The truly poor, helpless, underaged, and defenseless sectors of society need to be protected no matter what, no strings attached.  Solution 1 at least makes it cheaper.  However, there is a portion of the populace that abuses the system, to include their health care.  They choose to be ‘poor’ because it actually enriches them.  Why work at a crappy job, make $400 a week and have to pay food, rent, day-care, and health insurance costs and not have ends meet because you are lazy and have no other opportunities for employment other than working at a McDonalds when instead you can be on welfare, do nothing, and get food stamps, WIC, child-based welfare checks, and a Medicaid card?  Then you may only get a check for $300 a week, but its all discretionary as the government pays the rest of your bills?  A self-interested person would of course choose the second option, especially if they have no qualms of not contributing to society.  The welfare state for the unworthy and the willingness to take advantage of it are both un-American and I take a very dim view.  We need both the carrot and the stick.  Those who can’t pass drug tests, keep jobs, and generally be contributing members of society despite being able-bodied need to be cut off.  It is not government’s responsibility to subsidize their sloth.  However, if we are to take such a hard approach, we must have a carrot as well.  Workers must be given a living wage.  This is a combination in  a raise in minimum wage, a reduction in costs of life’s necessities where possible (food, energy, etc – I’ll cover in another segment), and more investment in social services that teach job skills, place jobs, and dust people off and get them back on their feet.  If they are willing to work hard and contribute, then the welfare system is working how it should.  This section was much larger than just Medicaid, but that program is a subset of a much larger issue that is hard to separate Medicaid from, so I covered the major points while admittedly going off topic.

Finally, I don’t admit to having all the answers.  I probably have more in my head and there are more out there.  This article was designed to give you some specific solutions, but also take 3 steps back and evaluate entitlements and how they are viewed in general.  If you can come at them from a fiscally sustainable obligation that is fair while not stealing from the future of the next generation of Americans, then you’ve arrived at the same conclusions I have.

- G.S.

Solutions 1A) – National Debt via Healthcare

did you know - that snakes were an ancient sign of healing? Hence why they're in this symbol.

Tell me if I’m wrong, but as broken as government is, it is because of men, not because of the problems being insurmountable.  Yes, hard choices have to be made, but wasting months and months of time arguing over a debt ceiling that we all know is going to get raised is simply irresponsible.

Thus I am making a new segment for a while and offering you a battery of solutions (in brief – I could go much further into depth for each).  I always say, don’t give my problems, give me solutions.  Well here they are.  They would work if the charlatans would get out of the way.

National Debt

To tackle such a huge issue, you must have multiple prongs of attack.  I will address by its various parts that in total, add up to addressing the problem…which is turn also address other issues that need to be solved on a national level.

A - The Health Care Industry

Completely gut the program in a voluntary 4 state test ‘opt-in’ experimental program for 5 years.  Start it in Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, and Missouri or another block of a couple of contiguous states.

Take away all but the most basic framework regulations at a federal level while also making it so the states cannot interfere with the program to foul it up either.  The bottom line is to make as free a market as possible for all aspects of the industry so that true capitalism, not crony-capitalism rules.  Good business decisions and ethical behavior gets rewarded, and greed and graft fail as customers and the industry goes somewhere else.

Let all current healthcare providers sign up.  Existing insurance companies cannot participate unless they make fully transparent and separate entity spin-off businesses for this experimental market.  Entrepreneurial endeavors are welcomed as well and incentives will be provided to encourage their creation.

Loser pays, common-sense tort reform is enacted to decimate the lawsuit rate in healthcare in this experimental area for all but the most blatant offenses where the case is justified.  Force actuaries to adjust risk premiums for such a new environment for hospitals and doctors so that their malpractice insurance plummets.

Drug companies are allowed to go through an ultra-streamlined FDA approval process for the introduction of new drugs in this market at much quicker and reduced cost, with risks fully disclosed to the patients and the drug-maker being held fully accountable should patients get bad medicine.  At the same time, imports from Canada, generics, and other ways to lessen the cost of medicine is allowed.  The market decides what is best.

Indigent care that is non-emergency can be refused at the Emergency room upon quick, initial professional assessment by a registered nurse or doctor.  Repeat offenders can be fined.  A TV advertising campaign in the test area is conducted during the most popular TV shows – American Idol, Glee, NCIS, etc to advertise the program and the restrictions, like the emergency room refusal policy.  Public clinics should have lower costs with these programs, but they can get extra help in a streamlined fashion from the government when shown that the policy is working and they are seeing more patients.

Finally, any angle that I didn’t cover could be addressed with your input.  The bottom line is that there is enough need and money to go around for government to help be a part of the solution, not part of the problem.  A young doctor, just finished with their residency should want to open their own community practice back home because their small town needs a doctor.  This also would include things like changing how doctors are compensated…whatever works for both the doctor and the insurer.  Heck, if costs were low enough, doctors could charge customers directly without health insurance just like most other transactions.

The best legislation we can make is legislation that gets the legislation out of the way and lets the free market truly be free and let capitalism work.  We still need basic FDA protections and anti-trust protections, but give this program a try for 2 – 5 years.  I believe that it would be wildly successful and the healthcare industry in other states would CLAMOR to have this system adopted.

This system would give better care, be more profitable, and save tons and tons of money for all involved.  Government would spend less on red tape, make more money on taxation of businesses, and the care would be so much cheaper that not only could everyone now afford healthcare, they would have multiple options to choose from, people would WANT to opt-in without being forced to, and the cost of government providing healthcare via Medicare and Medicaid would plummet.

That greatly reduces the ballooning costs of the social contract our government has with its citizenry, especially the elderly.  However, the specifics of Medicare is my next segment.  Most costs associated with health-care come at the end of life, and there are ways to curb those expenditures as well within the system I just outlined here.

Thoughts, improvement, criticism?  I want it all because I know there is a solution but I surely haven’t covered all the angles.

- G.S.

Kicking the Can Down the Road

Let it burn. No really, let it burn. You'll save the Germans a lot of money.

Did you hear the wonderful news that sent stock markets around the world higher?  The Greek ruling party in parlaiment narrowly passed a confidence vote – so their prime minister, (Papindreau or something like that) can stay in power and have his party cram more austerity down the throats of their lazy constituents.  Obviously people who aren’t used to paying taxes, working, or doing anything to stimulate their economy aren’t going to be happy about the goodies being taken away.  I make a grandiose generalization but I think you catch my drift.

Here is the crux of the problem…they are basically taking money from German taxpayers, pissing it away down the rat-hole known as Greece, and this controversy and subsequent raise in the stock market is all about getting a traunch of money promised last year.  Its not about new money.  Its about stuff they’ve already agreed to.  Greece’s economy is so bad, that everyone is worried the citizenry is going to pull the place apart as the government bean-counters force more cuts (which drive their economy in the ditch even further – but rightly and fairly so).  Thus, the controversy isn’t even addressing the fact that the bailouts didn’t hold things up as long as they planned or that they haven’t actually voted for the austerity measures that they still need to get the money, OR that the Greeks are going to need a nother $140 billion dollars to forestall things another year.

The Greeks are broke.  Any money thrown their way is only keeping counterparty banks in Germany and France whole.  Its not helping the Greeks…its just keeping the all-powerful European banks in the money so that they don’t have to take a haircut…and to let Spain get its fiscal house in order before Greece finally does have some kind of default.  You see, Greece isn’t too big to fail, but Spain is.

That my friends, is the real truth about the Greece economic situation.  Its all a shell game and its not a matter of if, but when the Greks will deafult.  Default isn’t really even that big a deal – obviously they can’t hold up their end of the E

Congress = Off Kilter Moral Compass

Being a pugilistic dick has its consequences when you get caught with your hand in the cookie jar - no one else gives you any quarter either

I could rant and rave about good ‘ol dis-Honorable Representative Anthony Weiner (you couldn’t make this up folks!) went from lies to cries, but I won’t.  It pleases me to see a liberal blow-hard fall, and fall hard all for lame choices that didn’t even get him laid…but that is a partisan angle and not what I’m trying to get at, as juicily scrumptious as it is.

There are two types of corruption – one more moral and the other more ethical.  Ethically, you have the Charles Rangels, Barney Franks, and the Tom Delays of the world who bend then break rules for their own financial gain…be it outright money laundering or cut-rate deals for their gay partner.  That’s bad stuff, and could evoke its own article from me, but I’m interested in the guys who are thinking with the wrong head.

Those would be:  Anthony Weiner, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Elliot Spitzer, Bill Clinton, Newt Gingrich, John Edwards,  Mark Sanford, JFK, and many, many others who are just a list of recent or infamous names of politicians who thought they could get away with it and so they strayed despite the possible consequences to the body of work they’ve worked hard for their whole lives to establish.  Even a paragon like Martin Luther King Jr. couldn’t resist having multiple affairs with multiple women.

Why is this?  Two reasons.

I call the first the ‘second rule of modern politics – power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

(the first rule by the way is that job #1 for the modern politician is to get re-elected rather than actually govern).

The other reason generally has to do with attractive young ladies who lack the self-respect they should have.

When you mix the two, you have a politician who thinks he is above the rules everyone else has to play by….  i can hear the thought process now:

“Have occasional sex with the ONE woman I’m married to who doesn’t put out anymore because she knows she’s got me?   Pffaah!  Why do that when I have all these hot twenty-something interns fawning over me?  They don’t call it sleeping your way to the top for a reason…its good to be on ‘top’!  Mwahahahahah”

You’d think this analogy would especially apply to Ah-nuld, but somewhere he confused what was ‘hot’.

In any case, these guys are not used to someone telling them ‘no’.  When the one person in their life who can say ‘no’ does because she is your wife and knows you better than anyone else; and possibly knew you before you were ‘powerful’…she is now immune from your prowess..she knows the man, not the myth.  Well, when she has a headache, Mr. powerful eventually can’t take it any more and the slippery slope starts.  At first it’s just flirting over cocktail drinks…but then the dopamine gets kicking in that male head of theirs and they get swept up, making one poor decision after another.  It may take a while, but its the classic story.  Cheat a little.  Cheat a lot.  Get caught.  Deny and Lie.  Come clean…and most likely with your political career in tatters.

What’s the most interesting part about this is the current story is the fact that Mr. Weiner only had virtual relationships.  Given time, it is not unreasonable to believe he’d  have gone further, but that is just speculation…you think the guy would be cut some slack..but the fact that he’s such a dick to people he doesn’t like doesn’t help him.

Bottom line:  these guys aren’t sorry.  They’re just sorry they got caught.  They have a brain, they must be somewhat capable if they were elected to office (no comment), and they have logic, reason, and the fear of hungry divorce lawyers carving them up all on their side…but they. just. can’t. do. it….  The supple young body  who is interested is just too irresistible.

Oh yeah – and she doesn’t want you for good looks or charm.  She wants you for your money (think Anna Nicole) or because she is a woman and she has her own inexplicably illogical biological reason to get in bed with an old dude twice her age.  In part, it is instinct that attracts her to the alpha male of the pack…the one in power… and who evinces more power than a U.S. Congressman, the leader of the Civil Rights Movement, or the President of the United States?

In the end, its just one more example of how broken our government is.  I’ve already washed my hands of most all of them.  How many more have their eyes on a pair of boobs rather than the sad state of this country and just haven’t been caught?  There are always more.  This is just another reason to ‘drain the swamp’ on both sides of the aisle.

An elite political class forgets how to lead just like its constituency forgets to hold it accountable.

- G.S.

Been Away For A While – Well, Its Starting to Heat Back Up!

Just ask yourself, WWCD? (What Would Caesar Do)

I’m not sure if I actually have any of what you would call ‘regular readers’…but if you are, you will see that I’ve been away for a while.  That is fine…in all honesty, I hadn’t been focusing my attention here and it was in part because the news wasn’t that remarkable save us whacking Bin Laden.  As a way to swing back into things, I wanted to make an omnibus posting of what is going on in the world that is wrong – what I call ‘taking stock of the sinking ship’.  I plan on getting back to more frequent and shorter posts.

First let me reiterate that I believe this country and generally the world, has passed the Rubicon on getting its financial house in order before a  depression level crisis happens way back in January when Congress and the President agreed to extend the Bush Era Tax cuts while also extending the unemployment benefits…both of which they shouldn’t have done and goes against their rhetoric of fiscal responsibility.

With that said, lets take stock of the world today and see if its past the tipping point of sanity:

Libya – Its a stalemate.  The resistance fighters don’t have the means, training, or power to uproot Khadafi.  The international community isn’t sending in ground troops.  So, they do airstrikes, but never in the history of Air Power have you won a war with it alone.  YOU ALWAYS HAVE TO HAVE BOOTS ON THE GROUND – and the boots on the ground in this case sucks.

Arab Spring – This is actually of nice historical significance.  All the down-trodden people in N. Africa and the Middle East are tired of getting screwed.  The discontent has now spread to Yemen and Syria and even Saudi Arabia some.  These places recognize that they either don’t care about the international community because it’s not on friendly terms (Syria), they have us where they want us (Saudi with all the oil we need from them), or they are the best bet to help us keep the worst terrorists at bay (Yemen).  Idealism meets realism in these places and its a shame that these are the results.

Israel-Palestinian Peace Talks -  1967 borders?  Are you kidding me?  How many times have the Israelis offered some concrete concessions for emphemeral promises.  The leaders of the Palestinians don’t want peace, they want to erradicate Israel.  That is their stance.  1967 borders doesn’t solve any problems while only actually making things worse.  The political impasse is not about a stateless nation of Palestinians, its about a fundamental belief among Palestinian leadership that Israel does not have a right to exist…and the common Palestinian suffers because of it.  Obama was a fool for that one.  He only strengthened the hard-liners in Israel while also weakening our ability to influence them.  Just like Syria, the Palestinians won’t listen to us…so all we have is soft power via Israel.  That’s it. 

Osama Bin Laden – He’s Dead.  I should have written a piece about this.  This was a good move on the President’s part, so don’t politicize it.  Bad for Clinton letting him get away and turn Afghanistan into a terrorist haven.  Good on Bush for the ground work his team laid.  Without it, Obama wouldn’t have been able to get the bastard.  This is a team effort and kudos to everyone for getting the son of a bitch.  I personally belive they made the right call to do the quick burial at sea for all the reasons they posited, but I do  think that they should have  released the pictures of his dead body however…that and I believe that the Pakistani government is just incompetent, not complicit.  Osama was disciplined, connected, and a master-mind.  It makes sense for him to hide in plain sight in relative luxury in the last place that anyone would look, especially when everyone thought he was hiding in some caves.  Bravo to him…but bravo that he is dead.  May he have ‘fun’ hanging out with Hitler, Stalin, and Pol Pot in Hell.

Europe – Just like I’ve said, the EuroZone and the IMF did NOT solve Greece’s problems.  Throwing money at the problem won’t do it.  The country is still insolvent and will only require more money to go down the rat-hole until they finally give up on it.  The only reason these international economic and finance people are doing what they are doing is to give Spain enough time to prop itself up and get out from under the shadow of the PIIG (Portugal, Iceland, Ireland, Greece).  If Greece defaults now, the German banks take it in the shorts, and Greece leaves the EuroZone, it drags Spain down with it, which drags down Europe, which eventually drags down the U.S.  THAT my friends is why they haven’t stopped the insanity in Greece.  Great, huh?

United States

- Tornadoes.  They suck and I think there is something to climate change involved here…but what?   That is the question that no one can definitively answer.  Should we shut down our coal factories because of it?  No.  Should we actually put public monies towards developing cleaner technology (like Fusion – see previous articles) yes. 

- Debt Ceiling/National Debt/Political Theatre.  Where was all this talk of debt when Congress piled it on when it passed the Rubicon (see above).  It didn’t exist.  Why?  Because it wasn’t politically expedient and not the hot topic.  So, it takes literally multiple acts of Congress to fund the government until the end of the year, with the political theatre and last minute antics…and we don’t think its going to be the same for this?  You’re kidding me.  While I am sympathetic to the Republicans and laud what they are trying to do, both them and the Democrats know that they will cave in the end (even if it’s no concessions I believe) to raise the debt ceiling.  To do otherwise would be disastrous for the Global Economy, put us into recession (if we’re not there already) and possibly put us into Depression.  That is a bad thing…but it would finally force the chickens to come home and roost and make the folks in Washington address some of this country’s problems.  But for that exact reason that they would be blamed for cutting people’s social security, medicare, Medicaid, and raising taxes, the politicians won’t let things get that bad – they want to get back into office because their personal power is more important than what is good for this nation.  Few are willing to fall on a sword for this nation, much less the majority needed to actually affect painful change.

And that is the crux of the matter.  Notice I didn’t talk about the Healthcare debate…there isn’t one.  It all goes back to the same problem of we as a nation want all the goodies the politicians hand out, but we collectively put our head in the sand and don’t want to pay for it.  Hence the debt.  Hence not wanting to raise taxes.  Hence being implicitly okay with passing the debt burden to the young and the unborn.

  We as a society have abdicated the governance of our country and it should be a ‘shame on us’ moment.  Instead, these guys are controlled by their own ambitions and fueled by special interests and their money.  If we keep voting the same people in, why are we continually disappointed in the same poor results?   The politicians won’t tell you the hard truth because they know they can tap dance around the issues because you are too busy casting votes for American Idol and not enough at the ballot box.  They have no need to tell you the real truth that they know and piss you off because they know you’re asleep at the wheel.  While you borrow to keep your standard of living the same, they live their lives as the political elite and go to a cushy lobbyist job once they get out of the public lime-light.  Why would they want to rock the boat?  Well, I will.  You guys need to wake up.  ALL OF YOU.  Even the tea partiers who I loosely affiliate myself with.  Even you have to rise above the hypocrisy.  The same elderly tea partiers who hate big government don’t want to see their social security or medicare get reduced. 

 You can’t throw these kind of stones if you live in a glass house.  If I actually thought that government could fix itself, I would welcome a raise in my taxes.  I would welcome a raise in age for my Social Security.  I would welcome changes to Medicare.  The thing is, I know it’ll just be another form of generational theft…and that is why while I don’t want a crash, I somewhat support it because it is better to have it happen sooner rather later.  Despite all the ideas I’ve thrown out here before, from revolutionizing the health care industry to energy security and true investments in America I think it is too late. 

 The signs are in the tea leaves.  My ducks are in a row for the coming economic collapse, are yours?

- G.S.

Your House Is On Fire – And Mine Is Catching…Thanks – Part 2

tell me...how is this fair?

 

Not even a year ago, I wrote this article among others.  It was about the Greek Debt Crisis and how Europe wasn’t solving its problems but just kicking the economic can down the road.  It took just over 10 months for all the money spent over Greece to burn up confidence in the EuroZone.  Now its Ireland and Portugal whose leadership is in flux and their economies and banks in turmoil.  They’re called PIIGS for a reason.  Portugal, Ireland, Iceland, Greece, Spain.  Mark my words, Spain is the one to REALLY worry about.

   You won’t see this stuff at the top of the news…and that is my point.    Too many other juicy stories drown out the very significant problems of the European Debt Crisis.  The synical and conspiracy theory part of me thinks its convenient that way…but that gives people too much credit.  They’re more worried about Dancing with the Stars and American Idol….and if they are in tuned, they see the kubuki theatre of  ’fiscal debate’ going on in DC right now.  Congress is arguing over about $30 billion in spending cuts when we have an annual deficit of something to the effect of $1.5 trillion on our $3.8 trillion budget.  Congress is arguing over the change in the couch while the house around them is burning down.

  The next to last thing we need is Europe’s serious economic problems.  The last thing we need is to ignore them and get caught with our pants down when it spreads.

That is the problem with socialism, eventually you run out of other people’s money (thanks Margaret).  It’s that socialism that is sinking Europe and what we’re ignoring here at home.   What will that mean for your pension, your 401(k), your children’s future?  What are you willing to do about it. 

I can tell you that the same tired players who have money and power from the status quo aren’t the answer.  We need to elect new leaders, pure and simple.