What are we here for?

So starting with a quote that just came by me this morning, as follows, by Cornel West:

We've forgotten that a rich life consists fundamentally of serving others, trying to leave the world a little better than you found it.  We need the courage to question the powers that be, the courage to be impatient with evil and patient with people, the courage to fight for social justice. In many instances we will be stepping out on nothing, and just hoping to land on something.  But that's the struggle. To live is to wrestle with despair, yet never allow despair to have the last word.


In my humble opinion, a rich life does not consist of material wealth and possessions, although that is what our society and many others in the world today seem to value and seek.  And it appears that their seeking is at the expense of many disadvantaged folks in these societies.  There is no acknowledgment that people on this earth are entitled to equal access to food, shelter, education, jobs, and respect.


A rich life consists, first, of warm loving relationships and care between folks.  Close relationships, casual relationships, and respect for all.  A loving understanding of yourself and self-respect for who you are.  A close relationship with your God.  We can not be of service for others unless we are at peace with who we are; unless we work to be the best person we can; and can look at ourselves in the mirror and not be ashamed of how we have acted and how we have used the resources that we do have.


We have to discover what we can do to serve others, and start doing it.  This action is very important by all of us regular folks, as it seems that those in political positions only act when it is in their self-interest or that of those who provide large sums of campaign donations.


Education is at the ground floor.  An good education for all, no matter what their economic background is.  This is right, and it is the only way people, and our country, can survive.  Education for little ones and continuing education for all.  The world is changing and so should the skills and knowledge of everyone in the workforce.  This is a basis in providing jobs for folks.  And these have to be family supporting jobs.


Funding for education must be increased and School Boards and teachers unions must be held accountable.  They must be encouraged to work together for the well being of the children.  Folks can volunteer to help out at the local community schools, but the keys are in the hands of professional administrators and teachers.  


That's enough for now.  Do you have any comments?  Ideas?


I will write more later as this topic is huge.


Take care.

A thought for Thursday

Here is a thought from one of my favorite individuals - Unknown.  He or she has come up with many keen insights over the years.


The most lovable quality any human being can possess is tolerance....  It is the vision that enables one to see things from another's viewpoint....  It is the generosity that concedes to others the right to their own opinions and their own peculiarities....  It is the bigness that enables us to let people be happy in their own way instead of our way.  


This is extremely hard for us to do, in the debating society in which we live.  Also, people today want to be right.  There seems to be some kind of honor in that.  Knowledge is power and if one is not right, then they don't have power, do they?


The world has shrunk so in the last twenty years, it is common to become exposed to many divergent viewpoints.  We need to tolerate, not be defensive.  But people are mostly alike in their needs, feelings, and so on.  It is only that our differences are more subject to standing out than our similarities.  They are easier to pick on and to mystify - easy to use as an excuse to push people away.


If we are tolerant, and get to know folks, we will learn that our differences should not cause fear and keep us apart.   


What do you think?


Take care.

A thought for the day

I haven't had time to write lately, but here is a thought for the day from Pearl S. Buck, Nobel Prize Laureate.  Take heart dear ones.

We have every reason to look forward into the future with hope and excitement.  Fear nothing and no one.  Work honestly.  Be good, be happy.  And remember that each of you is unique, your soul your own, irreplaceable, and individual in the miracle of your mortal frame.   


When we are down often we don't remember these wise words and our own uniqueness.  We don't remember that we are each a miracle.  Be strong, my friends, and live your life to the fullest.


Take care.  

Health Care

I have included an article from a recent Economist for your information - I added the italics for emphasis.  

Health disparities

Improving America’s health will take more than universal insurance






March brought frenzied attention to Barack Obama’s health law.  The Supreme Court heard arguments over its constitutionality.  Outside the court, supporters waved their neatly printed posters and tea-partiers waved their scrawled, angry ones.  The ruckus centered on Mr. Obama’s mandate to buy insurance.  America is the rare Western country without a universal insurance scheme.  But, as a new study points out, a lack of insurance is only part of America’s health problem.

On April 3rd the University of Wisconsin and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, a philanthropic outfit, released a new report on health in America’s counties.  The report is part of a string of efforts to sort through the mounds of data on health and the factors that affect it.  The jumble of information does not reveal a perfectly clear picture.  But it begins to illuminate the particular nature of America’s health and why it is so dismal.

America, it is often noted, spends more on health care yet has worse results than other rich countries.  Its infant-mortality rate, for example, is double that of Sweden, Germany and France (to name only a few).  A closer look reveals conflicting trends within America itself.  A recent ranking of states’ health, sponsored by the foundation of UnitedHealth, America’s biggest insurer, was filled with contradictions.  America is making good progress to reduce smoking and the toll of infectious disease, yet diabetes rates are climbing and tens of millions remain uninsured.  The northeast is a picture of health compared with the South.  Vermont, New Hampshire and Massachusetts are among the five healthiest states; Mississippi, Alabama and Louisiana are the lowest.  Resources vary wildly from one state to another.  Massachusetts has 192 primary-care doctors for every 100,000 people; Idaho has just 78.  Behavior is similarly spotty. In Florida whites are 30% more likely to smoke than blacks. In Minnesota the reverse is true.

The new report takes an even closer look, inspecting data for more than 3,000 counties.  The authors, led by Bridget Booske Catlin of the University of Wisconsin, rank each state’s counties according to health outcomes: premature death, poor mental and physical health and low birth weights for babies.  Separately, they examine the factors that influence health, such as clinical care, income and behavior.

Wide gaps existed within each state.  The five least healthy counties generally had more than twice the teenage birth rate of the five healthiest counties, and more than twice the share of poor children.  Within counties, factors seem to contradict one another.  In Putnam, New York’s healthiest county, 29% of adults are obese, compared with 28% in the Bronx, New York’s least-healthy county.  Putnam also has higher rates of binge drinking—21% compared with 14% in the Bronx.  Yet the Bronx has lower education rates, eight times the rate of teen pregnancies and New York’s highest concentration of fast-food restaurants.  Lack of insurance, therefore, is only part of the puzzle.

So what do we learn from this article written by someone from outside of our system?  

We are one of the few industrialized nations of the world without universal health insurance.  We have a dismal system in which tens of millions of our citizens are without coverage and the results of our system is poor, especially when we spend much more on health care than other countries.  Levels of spending and care vary widely through out the country.

This is a complex issue, as ours usually are, and it requires a variety of responses.  Universal health insurance is an important step, but not the only one needed.  We need to insure that the insurance and pharmaceutical companies perform responsibly and do not make unreasonable profits; We need to make the system as transparent as possible; and we need to make sure that equivalent care is available.

This is just a short list of the priorities, but it is a start.  And it is important that during the upcoming election season, we hold all of the candidates to concrete answers on their positions on health care.  Platitudes don't cut it.  Simple answers do not solve the problem.

Health care is one of the three major domestic issues along with education and family supporting jobs.  It is important that real progress is made in all three areas.  

Take care.

A thought for Friday the 13th

The thought is not tied to the date, but it is something that we should in mind everyday.




There is a form of laughter that springs from the heart, heard every day in the merry voice of childhood, the expression of a laughter - loving spirit that defies analysis by the philosopher, which has nothing rigid or mechanical in it, and totally without social significance.  Bubbling spontaneously from the heart of child or adult.  Without egotism and full of feeling, laughter is the music of life.   Sir William Osler




Laugh every day from your heart.  Laugh at yourself.  Laugh with others.  Be silly.  It may not add years to your life (although there are some studies....) but it will add life to your years.


Take care.

A poem by Mary Oliver

“Why I Wake Early "


Hello, sun in my face. 

Hello, you who made the morning 

and spread it over the fields 

and into the faces of the tulips 

and the nodding morning glories, 

and into the windows of, even, the 

miserable and the crotchety – 



best preacher that ever was, 

dear star, that just happens 

to be where you are in the universe 

to keep us from ever-darkness, 

to ease us with warm touching, 

to hold us in the great hands of light – 

good morning, good morning, good morning. 



Watch, now, how I start the day 

in happiness, in kindness.” 



 Mary Oliver




A beautiful poem by Ms. Oliver.  Do you know her?  What do you think?


Take care.

Thought for the Day

“The moon looks wonderful in this warm evening light, just as a candle flame looks beautiful in the light of morning. Light within light...It seems to me to be a metaphor for the human soul, the singular light within that great general light of existence.”

 Marilynne Robinson, from Gilead

An uplifting thought today instead of a comment on our political process or the culture of our community.

When we get down to basics, all folks have a light within them that can brighten their own lives and also of those around them.  It is soft and warm and kind.  It can perform miracles between people and can provide comfort in times of need.  I believe that it is innate to our species and is what is called following God's word and way in many religions.

That is why I always have hope for the future.  We as individuals can impact our own destiny in a positive way.  We can be happy.  We can help those around us.  We can do this intellectually and emotionally; culturally and artistically; physically and spiritually; in whatever way we are talented and motivated.  It does happen everyday. 

And this exists in the light of our community, whether that be our family, our friends, our neighborhood, our religious organization, city, country, or the world - any or all of these communities.  There is a force there that works for good and the well-being of all, and it is something that we must seek out and join.  Communities do make a difference and can overcome great obstacles.  Communities can make a bigger impact than an individual, and that is why we need to come together in love. 

All communities have strengths and weaknesses, and help is there - it does happen everyday.

What do you think?  How are you part of the light?

Take care.

Gross inequality between the Top 1% and the rest of us

The following is a copy of an article from The Economist from about two weeks ago.  The italics are mine, and I have a comment at the end of the article.

In the search for the villain behind the global financial crisis, some have pointed to inequality as a culprit. In his 2010 book “Fault Lines”, Raghuram Rajan of the University of Chicago argued that inequality was a cause of the crisis, and that the American government served as a willing accomplice. From the early 1980s the wages of working Americans with little or no university education fell ever farther behind those with university qualifications, he pointed out. Under pressure to respond to the problem of stagnating incomes, successive presidents and Congresses opened a flood of mortgage credit.

In 1992 the government reduced capital requirements at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, two huge sources of housing finance. In the 1990s the Federal Housing Administration expanded its loan guarantees to cover bigger mortgages with smaller down-payments. And in the 2000s Fannie and Freddie were encouraged to buy more subprime mortgage-backed securities. Inequality, Mr Rajan argued, prepared the ground for disaster.

• 
  
• 
  
• 
  
• 
  
• 
  
• 
  
• 
  
• 
  

---

• 
  
• 
  
• 
  
• 
  
• 
  

Mr Rajan’s story was intended as a narrative of the subprime crisis in America, not as a general theory of financial dislocation. But others have noted that inequality also soared in the years before the Depression of the 1930s. In 2007 23.5% of all American income flowed to the top 1% of earners—their highest share since 1929. In a 2010 paper Michael Kumhof and Romain Rancière, two economists at the International Monetary Fund, built a model to show how inequality can systematically lead to crisis. An investor class may become better at capturing the returns to production, slowing wage growth and raising inequality. Workers then borrow to prop up their consumption. Leverage grows until crisis results. Their model absolves politicians of responsibility; inequality works its mischief without the help of government.

New research hints at other ways inequality could spur crisis. In a new paper Marianne Bertrand and Adair Morse, both of the University of Chicago, study patterns of spending across American states between 1980 and 2008. In particular, they focus on how changes in the behaviour of the richest 20% of households affect the spending choices of the bottom 80%. They find that a rise in the level of consumption of rich households leads to more spending by the non-rich. This “trickle-down consumption” appears to result from a desire to keep up with the Joneses. Non-rich households spend more on luxury goods and services supplied to their more affluent neighbours—domestic services, say, or health clubs. Had the incomes of America’s top 20% of earners grown at the same, more leisurely pace as the median income, they reckon that the bottom 80% might have saved more over the past three decades—$500 per household per year for the entire period between 1980 and 2008, or $800 per year just before the crisis. In states where the highest earners were wealthiest, non-rich households were more likely to report “financial duress”.

The paper also reveals how responsive government is to rising income inequality. The authors analyse votes on the credit-expansion measures cited in Mr Rajan’s book. When support for a bill varies, the authors find that legislators representing more unequal districts were significantly more likely to back a loosening of mortgage rules.

Inequality may drive instability in other ways. Although sovereign borrowing was not a direct contributor to the crisis of 2008, it has since become the principal danger to the financial system. In another recent paper Marina Azzimonti of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, Eva de Francisco of Towson University and Vincenzo Quadrini of the University of Southern California argue that income inequality may have had a troubling effect in this area of finance, too.

The authors’ models suggest that a less equitable distribution of wealth can boost demand for government borrowing to provide for the lagging average worker. In the recent past this demand would have coincided with a period of financial globalisation that allowed many governments to rack up debt cheaply. Across a sample of 22 OECD countries from 1973 to 2005, they find support for the notion that inequality, financial globalisation and rising government debt do indeed march together. The idea that inequality might create pressure for more redistribution through public borrowing also occurred to Mr Rajan, who acknowledges that stronger safety nets are a more common response to inequality than credit subsidies. Liberalised global finance and rising inequality may thus have led to surging public debts.

Reasonable doubt

Other economists wonder whether income inequality is not wrongly accused. Michael Bordo of Rutgers University and Christopher Meissner of the University of California at Davis recently studied 14 advanced countries from 1920 to 2008 to test the inequality-causes-busts hypothesis. They turn up a strong relationship between credit booms and financial crises—a result confirmed by many other economic studies. There is no consistent link between income concentration and credit booms, however.

Inequality occasionally rises with credit creation, as in America in the late 1920s and during the years before the 2008 crisis. This need not mean that the one causes the other, they note. In other cases, such as in Australia and Sweden in the 1980s, credit booms seem to drive inequality rather than the other way around. Elsewhere, as in 1990s Japan, rapid growth in the share of income going to the highest earners coincided with a slump in credit. Rising real incomes and low interest rates reliably lead to credit booms, they reckon, but inequality does not. Mr Rajan’s story may work for America’s 2008 crisis. It is not an iron law.

While Mr. Rajan's research may not result in an economic principle, it certainly illustrates how the increasing inequality between the very rich and the rest of us is a cause of our current problems.

Take care.

Who can be part of the solution?

I haven’t written for a long time.  Perhaps a little of my cynical side took control for a while.  A person can argue politics all day but rarely change anyone’s opinion.  Our political culture is not of rhyme and/or reason, but what affects our own pocket book the most - not in my back yard, and the like.  There is little sense of community in our country anymore.

There is a way to handle our economic situation, which others can see much better than we can.  It is not to cut, cut, cut without regard to the consequences to a large percentage of our population that are not working, are not making much money, have no health insurance, and do not have adequate housing.  Or cuts to our seniors who have extremely limited resources.

It is also not to just tax the top 1% and not to touch any social programs.

It is a balanced set of actions that are starting to work a little now.  Jobs are slowly coming back, and so are some other parts of the economy.  We do need to increase taxes on the top 1% and others.  The tax system was designed to be a progressive method of bringing in revenue.  Those who can afford to pay a little more because all of their money is not gone before all the bills are paid each month, including the grocery bill, should pay more.  However, they should not be exorbitantly taxed.

We need to make modest cuts to all parts of the budget, including the Defense Department.  Recent wars, started by our former president, Mr. Bush, have taken too much of our resources, including too many of our young men and women.

Who are to make these decisions?  Who can actually negotiate and discussion a variety of actions that will move our country in a positive direction?  There are no miraculous ways to drop gas down to $2.50 per gallon again.  There are no absolute right plans of action.  No one has the corner on the market of good ideas.  We need good governance, which is extremely scarce today.

The basic problem is that, while we have many very intelligent folks in government and in positions of power and influence in the private sector, we are sorely lacking people who have wisdom and follow ethical behavior in any of these positions.  If they do exist, they are cowed by society into abandoning their beliefs. 

A speaker that I heard recently said that the last recognized wise people were Martin Luther King, Gandhi, and Mother Teresa.  And of course all are dead now.  True wisdom works for the betterment of society, not of one’s own pocketbook.  These three people did not die wealthy, did not arrange form themselves to receive $1 billion stock options or bonuses, and did not die millionaires.  Members of our Congress are millionaires when they leave office, even if they were not when first elected.

Besides caring about the greater good, wise people see others’ points of view, engage in dialogical learning with folks of different backgrounds, cultures, and ideas, and understand that good solutions may change over time and circumstances.  They listen to others.  They serve others.

Who can we find today to be wise for the good of the country and the world?

Take care.