Republicans, Democrats and Sailboats

Contemplate the sailboat. It's a very ungainly looking apparatus out of the water. Big sail sticking up in the air, big keel makes it hard to put down on land.

Contemplate designing sailboats. You have a trade off between the keel that sticks down in the water to stabalize the boat, and the sail which sticks up to catch the wind and drive the boat forward. If the keel is to big it slows the boat down. If the sail is to big you will probably capsize and end up dead in the water.

Economies seem very similar to sailboats. Government is the keel - it provides stability. The private sector is the sail. It provides the driving force to move the economy forward.

Democrats always tend to want to put a bigger keel on the ship of state. So when Democrats are in charge we end up with a big keel that the sail has a hard time pushing it through the water.

Republicans always want to put bigger sail on the ship of state and reduce the size of the keel. So when Republicans are in charge we go like hell for awhile then capsize and end up dead in the water.

The conservative approach would tend to err on the side of too much keel rather than too much sail.

Government Subsidies

Congress loves subsidies because they buy lots of votes. We pour enormous amounts of taxpayer money into agriculture, we bail out banks when they get in trouble, we dump big chunks of money into energy schemes. The federal budget is riddled with subsidies, big and small. Deserved and undeserved.

How can we as taxpayers protect ourselves from excessive subsidies? How do we subsidize industries that will help our economy while preventing abuse? Here are some ideas:

Basic rule - no one should be gettting rich off of government subsidies.

We cannot rely on Congress to wean industries of unwarranted subsidies. We should use the power of the IRS to control subsidies.

We shouldn't give subsidies to any business entity. It is too easy to build a link of related entities to abuse the subsidy process. The individuals who ultimately benefit from the subsidies hide behind walls of legal entities while they get wealthy at taxpayer expense.

If we deem an industry or business needs government subsidies, the subsidies should be given to individuals who then invest in the business enttities.

The individuals will be required to maintain subsidy accounts for tax purposes. To the extent they recieve any moneys back in from the subsidy money that return on investment should be taxed as any other income would be taxed each year up to the point the income received in that year exceeds by a factor of 2 the average per capita income of the average full time worker. Any income above the cut off point would be taxed at steeply graduated rates that reach near 100% as the total income exceeds by a factor of 4 the average full time workers income.

This format will allow the use of subsidies to establish businesses, or tide them over through rough patchs, but will motivate the principals in the business (who want to get rich) to wean themselves of subsidies (by repaying the subsidy) as the business becomes more profitable.

A hidden cost of our Health Care system

I attended a continuing education event today presented by a couple of attorneys who have bankruptcy practices. As an aside late in the presentation one of the attorneys stated that 25% of the bankruptcy cases they filed were a direct result of people trying to get out from under debts from unreimbursed health care expenses. The other attorney agreed his experience was similar.

Makes me wonder if this fact was included in the calculation by the World Health Organization that we in the US spend twice as much money per person on health care than people spend in any other country in the world. I doubt it. It seems more likely we spend twice as much without even factoring in the losses to everyone that are incurred in bankruptcy proceedings.

Emotion in Politics - why its often a bad idea

Emotion can be a wonderful thing or a terrible thing.

When it expresses as love it can link us wonderfully to other people, bringing harmony and happiness to our lives.

When it expresses itself as certainty that some idea is right or wrong, it can bring disaster.

WW II was brought about by an emotional certainty in Germany that Aryans were a superior race, coupled with the equally delusional belief in Japan that the Japanese were a superior race.

The people of Germany and Japan in WW II were operating with the same brains and emotions we have today. How could they be so misguided? Were they just bad people? Or were they just indulging bad thinking habits?

The stockmarket crashes in 1929 and 2001 were brought on by a delusion based in the emotional belief the stock market could only go up and everyone was going to be rich. Were people in the 1920's and the 1990's stupider than in other years? Or were they indulging bad thinking habits?

Virtually every war, economic collapse or act of slavery or genocide in history can be traced back to people using their logic to justify an emotional belief.

Good decision making uses logic based in facts to test emotional belief. Bad decision making uses logic to support an emotional belief, and selectively gathers facts to support the logic.

Most politicians seek our votes by trying to find sound bites and facts that allow us to justify our emotional beliefs, rather than truly examine whether our emotional beliefs make sense.

Politicians that try to get us to examine our emotional beliefs usually don't get elected.

If we want better government we as voters need to become better thinkers and respect candidates that are willing to make us challenge our beliefs.

Emotion in Politics - the biology

This discussion distills a lot of very complex data and theory's into a simple overview. If you disagree with any of the assertions in this discussion I invite your challenge to the ideas or data.

We are born with basic inclinations - avoid pain, seek pleasure. As we learn how to do things as children we develop automatic responses that are tied to feeling good emotionally. After that we just go with the automatic responses. This system works great for deciding whats for dinner, what color shirt to buy - because it really doesn't matter most of the time what we chose.

As adults we end up with two distinct ways to make decisions. The first works best for for fast decision making. We turn to automatic responses we develop as children. Specific input triggers an automatic preprogrammed response. This decision making mode allows us to react quickly. It works well where reacting quickly is more important than taking the time to analyze data and react appropriately.

When a predetor came out of the bush after our ancestors it was more important that they do something - either fight or run, than that they take the time to figure out the perfect response. If they took the time to think they would be lunch.

The brain systems we use for this fast decision making are deep in our brain and linked directly to our emotions and are hard wired in the same way in humans, cats, rats - basically all animals. The canned responses are triggered by our emotions - perceptions create fear, or anger, and we can react instantly and decisively. For this discussion we will call this part of our brain the animal brain.

The second system for making decisions is collecting facts, analyzing the facts and figuring out the best thing to do. This is a slow process, sometimes we can take years to collect the facts and analyze them to reach a new conclusion. This capabiity is physically located in our cortex. The cortex is what we see when we look at the brain. It is the wrinkled walnut looking body that comes out of the top of our old animal brain and spills over and hides the animal brain. This part of our brain is largely what seperates us from animals. For this discussion we will call this system the deliberative brain.

When we are young the animal brain response will ordinarily trump the deliberative brain. It is efficient and fast and as long as its decisions don't cause a major problem the animal brain will make decisions largely ignoring the deliberative brain.

Generally the only way "thoughtful deliberation" gets kicked into gear is if one of our automatic responses produces a really unpleasant result. If a mate dumps us our emotional devastation may trigger thoughtful deliberation. If we get hit by a truck because we were to absorbed in our ipod thoughtful deliberation will kick in. So we get wiser as we proceed through life. Any moment where a automatic response has resulted in a really emotionally unpleasant experience is a moment where the opportunity to begin developing wisdom occurs.

But in many areas of life we never have that moment where the door is opened to rethink our automatic responses. And politics is one of those areas. Someone we respect tells us Republicans are good and Democrats are bad (or vice versa) when we are 13 and that becomes our default response. We adopt our chosen idelogy and it becomes part of our default responses. We don't get the kind of feedback that would cause us to rethink our default response. If our candidate doesn't win an election it is not a personal failing on our part, its because other voters are misguided. When something like the credit freeze in 2008 happens, it may hit us hard, but it will often not be immediatly clear whose fault it was so we may have no emotional sense that the way we were voting was part of the problem.

Compounding the difficulty politicians are masters at stirring up our emotions. If they can keep us emotionally in an uproar, blaming the other side and picking fights over policies, they keep the voters deliberative brain stifled under emotional responses and thereby protect their power and influence.

If we want better government we as voters need to be aware of the way our brains work. We need to learn to recognize our default responses and conciously gather facts and deliberate about whether our political beliefs actually result in effective polices. We also need to learn to reject politicians who attempt to manipulate our emotions to build their power and influence.

Government Health Care

Food for thought. Of the people ranting about not wanting to let Government get involved in their health care, how many have any experience with Government Health Care? I don't know, but as I started thinking about how many different programs there are,I suspect many Americans have experienced "socialized" medicine without really thinking about it. Here are the major health care systems I can think of that are Government run.

1. The Veterans administration. According to a 2007 ABC news report the VA health care system, which serves some 5 million veterans and their families, has become one of the best health care systems in America at providing economical quality health care. Being a veteran myself I must admit to having a pretty negative image of the VA, but as I reflect on recent personal experience taking my Dad to VA appointments, the quality of care did seem pretty good, despite the Wal-Mart'ish ambiance.

2. The Military. It has been many decades since my stint in the Army. My recollections of my experiences with Army doctors and hospitals were they lacked in frills and you didn't get much TLC, but you got what you needed, and I am pretty sure the Army was doing it pretty cheaply.

3. Medi-care. A huge system, from what I understand virtually every person over age 65 is required to subscribe by private health insurers. So effectively, at that point in life where almost everyone starts needing lots of health care, private insurers start passing the cost of health care on to Government.

So, I guess the way our system works is the Government does all the dirty work, takes care of Veterans, Military folks and old folks, while private insurers cherry pick the people that need the least health care. Sound about right?

Motivation in Health Care

How can the US be such an economic dynamo, but be so bad at providing effective and economical health care. Perhaps the US problem lies in the motivation of the people that run health care in the US.

We all know that people are different. We all like money, but for some people it is a lot more important than others. Some people find happiness in money - or the power and security money provides. As the go through life at each decision point they chose the path that leads toward personal power and security - building businesses and accumulating wealth.

Some people find happiness in helping people. When they reach decision points in life where a money motivated person would perhaps chose business school, they chose to be a teacher. Instead of law school perhaps they become a nurse.

In the US Corporations pay for health insurance for their workers. Corporations own hospitals and other health care facilities. Corporations own Insurance companies that provide the Health insurance. All Corporations are run by people motivated by money. They have devoted their lives to climbing the corporate ladder. They know money and how to wield power, but they don't necessarily know how to take care of people.

Perhaps the US needs to find some way to put more people motivated primarily by quality health care in charge.