Problem #22: Literacy

Problem #22: Literacy

My Mum’s a reading teacher, so here’s a problem near and dear to her heart. SImply put, the US has achieved a dubious distinction: a near-universal level of negligible literacy. My solution: turn off the blasted TV. In the 1930s and 1940s, before the near-universal presence of TVs, the US was arguably the most literate nation in the developed world. If people read more, and watched less TV, the US could achieve this again.

Ah, but who am I kidding. I’m sure there’s a great episode of “America’s Next Top Survivor” on in 20 minutes that you’ve just got to watch. Good idea. Maybe it can distract you from the fact that kids in other countries are studying calculus while you’re voting for who won a karaoke contest.

Problem #21: Hunger in the US

Problem #21: Hunger in the US

The entire concept of hunger in the United States- one of the world's most fertile areas- is, on its face, absurd. But, yet, hunger persists. It's accompanied, ironically, by obesity. Simply put, many people find themselves in food deserts: areas where they can't find affordable, healthy food. So, rather than going to the corner convenience store and overpaying for wilted produce, people go to a fast food restaurant and but cheap, but unhealthy, food.

This is, pardon the pun, a weighty problem, and not one that I have the capacity to answer in a brief post. I will, however, make one suggestion: change food stamp regulations so that food stamps only pay for healthy food. This could be as simple (relatively speaking) as forbidding the purchase of soft drinks with food stamps. Or, it could be as involved as subsidizing farmers' markets in poor neighbourhoods. In any case, if you want people to eat healthy diets, the best way to do it is to make eating healthy the least-expensive way to eat. If people find it more expensive to buy crap then healthy food, then simple economics will steer them towards the healthy food.

4 days left, 10 posts to go

Yhere are only 29 days in Elul this year, so I could get away with saying only 29 posts. But, dammit, I said 30 problems, so 30 problems there will be! They may not be long posts, but I'll make 'em!!!

Problem #20: Foreign Entanglements

Problem #20: Foreign Entanglements

This essay relates to the last one, in that I’m discussing “foreign entanglements” in the context of military adventures. President George Washington was quite clear about his position on such, as he stated in his farewell address:

"Tis our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world." - George Washington”

"The great rule of conduct for us in regard to foreign nations is, in extending our commercial relations to have with them as little political connection as possible.”1

While I would not endorse a complete withdrawal from the world, such as could be implied by Washington’s quotes, a sort of modified isolationism might be in order. In short: let’s fix our own problems, before we decide to fix those of the rest of the world.

The US spent $682 billion dollars on defence in 2010. That amounts fo nearly 40% of the total world’s defense spending, and is greater than that of the next 13 countries combined2. If the US were to reduce its defence spending literally in half, it would still spend more than twice that China (the country that spends the second most on defence). This would necessarily force the US to reduce its foreign military entanglements- President Washington would definitely approve- and allow for much of that national wealth to be spent on building up our country again. We could rebuild our failing infrastructure, invest in education, provide health care for every American, at the same time as we’d come closer to balancing the budget.

At the same time, reducing our military posture would likely result in less resentment of the US anointing itself as the world’s policeman. We shouldn’t be the world’s policeman- again, President Washington would approve.

Endnotes:

1. http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Washington%27s_Farewell_Address#1

2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_expenditures

Problem #18: War! Huh! What Is It Good For?

Problem #18: War! Huh! What Is It Good For?

The answer to that question is famous enough: absolutely nothing. But it’s a sad commentary on life in the US these days that Americans seem incapable of going 20 years without at least one major armed conflict. \

• There were less than 5 years from the end of WWII and the Korean War
• Less than 10 between the end of Korea and the start of Vietnam
• No wars per se in the 1980s, but several military engagements, including Grenada and Panama, as well as troop deployment to Lebanon
• The first Iraq War began in 1991, and was followed barely more than 10 years later by our invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq again.
• Finally, some are beating the war drums today for an invasion of Syria or Iran.

While some of these conflicts, such as Korea and Vietnam, were a direct outgrowth of the Cold War- you could call each of them proxy wars, in effect- the later ones smacked more of imperial ambitions. And I’d mention one very major change in US policy that happened in 1973: the end of the military draft, and the beginning of an all volunteer force (AVF)1.

While the AVF has arguably improved the quality of the armed forces2, an argument has been made that the result is to desensitise civilians from the real costs of war3. During WWII, Americans were asked for shared sacrifice, as people from all over society were drafted. After the Afghanistan + Iraq wars began, President George W. Bush told people to go shopping.

Oddly, despite fears that the poor would be overrepresented in the AVF as compared to a conscript force, findings have been “members of the military tended to come from backgrounds that were somewhat lower in socioeconomic status than the U.S. average, but that the differences between the military and the comparison groups were relatively modest4.” In addition, today’s AVF has a higher level of education and skill than its civilian counterparts.

But there’s a big difference between wars like WWII- where there is a clear goal- and wars with vague, difficult-do-define goals such as “promote democracy” or “domino theory.” With the notable exception of the small-scale skirmishes in Grenada and Panama, and the quick allied victory in the first Iraq War, all of the US’ post-WWII military engagements have been, shall we say, less clear in their results. The main product of the Vietnam War was a generation of scarred veterans in the US and southeast Asia. The Afghanistan War seems likely to result in a failed state similar to that which was eventually governed by the Taliban and that sheltered Osama bin Laden after the Soviet Union withdrew in 1989. And the 2nd Iraq War has had the primary effect of enhancing Iran’s importance and power in the middle east.

The post-WWII wars have another thing in common: none of them were “wars” in the sense of US constitutional law, as at no time did Congress issue a declaration of war. All of them represent a dramatic expansion of Presidential power at the expense of Congressional authority- authority which Congress has, for the most part, gladly abandoned.

Perhaps the lesson from this should be that the US should try to win hearts and minds with its ideals- as expressed in the US Constitution and Declaration of Independence- rather than at the point of a gun. Or, as Barack Obama once said (ironically, given his Presidency), we should try to influence countries with the power of our ideas, rather than the idea of our power.

Endnotes:

1. http://usmilitary.about.com/od/deploymentsconflicts/l/bldrafthistory.htm#

2. http://www.rand.org/pubs/research_briefs/RB9195/index1.html#

3. http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2012/12/31/178702/all-volunteer-military-may-desensitize.html#

4. http://prhome.defense.gov/rfm/MPP/ACCESSION%20POLICY/poprep97/html/chapter_7.html#

Problem #18: A General Observation about the Economy

Problem #18: A General Observation about the Economy

First off, as I’ve tried to make clear, I’m an engineer, meaning that I don’t go for ideologies that don’t have some facts to support them. Economics is perhaps the least engineer-friendly field in the world, given that the chief achivement of most economics is to predict the past, and usually not at all well.

But I’m also interested in history, and history has much to say about how a good economy should work. A few general principles can be derived by looking at US history over the 20th century:

• The most broadly-prosperous period of US history during the 20th century- indeed, the most broadly-prosperous period of human history, all told- was in the first few decades following World War II. It should be noted that, of course, much of the US’ dominant position was due to most of the rest of the established world economies rebuilding themselves after the war, while the US was, largely, sheltered by 2 enormous moats called the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. However, at the same time as the US economy was enormously productive, it was investing significant sums of US funds into rebuilding Europe and Japan.
• The US tax structure of the 1950s was sharply progressive, with the top marginal rate never dropping below 90%. To be clear, marginal taxation means that only income above a specified rate is taxed at the higher level; income below the specfied rate in the 1950s would not have been taxed at 90%.
• The 1950s were marked by high rates of union membership in the public and private sectors.
• The 1950s and 1960s were times of significant investment in infrastructure, including the Interstate system.
• The two greatest economic downturns since the beginning of the 20th century- the Great Depression and Great Recession- followed periods much flatter taxation than during the 1950s, of low union membership, and of less investment in public infrastructure.

The conclusion should be clear: following the policies of the 1950s and 1960s results in a much stronger economy than following those of the 1920s and 2000s. But, again, that’s just an engineer using pesky facts.

Problem #17: Guns

Problem #17: Guns

First things first: I describe myself as a pro-2nd Amendment liberal. I'm also an NRA-medalled Sharpshooter, 2nd Bar. All of this is to say, the right to bear arms is right there in the US Constitution, and any “fixes” for a gun problem have to accept that. You can’t say “ban guns,” because that would be prima facie unconstitutional.

But, at the same time, look at the text of the 2nd Amendment from a grammatical perspective. It reads:

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

Note, there are two parts to the 2nd Amendment: the right to bear arms, and the reason for said right. Had the 2nd Amendment simply said “The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed,” then there would be no question whatsoever: the right to bear arms would be clearly and unambiguously defined as an individual right.

However, that’s not how the 2nd Amendment is written. Its structure wraps the right to bear arms within the reason for the right. The right to bear arms shall not be infringed because a well-regulated militia is defined as necessary for the security of a free state. The Supreme Court’s ruling in Heller v. District of Columbia (2008), in its finding of an individual right to bear arms1, actually goes against nearly 200 years of US jurisprudence, as it literally ignores the reason explicitly given by the Founding Fathers for the right to bear arms. While “Constitutional Conservatives” are fond of saying that they read the Constitution as it was written, and read nothing else into it, in this case they clearly do not follow their own advice.

I’m not saying ban all guns: as I said, that would be as indefensible as the ruling in Heller. But, some minor form of regulation is clearly both appropriate and explicitly called for by the literal text of the 2nd Amendment.

Endnotes:

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/District_of_Columbia_v._Heller

Problem #16: The Best of US Culture

Problem #16: The Best of US Culture

It’s tough so speak of a single “US culture.” As Colin Woodward suggests in his book American Nations, there are more like 11 different nations in the US (read the summary at http://www.colinwoodard.com/americannations.html for more details). But, for the sake of this brief essay, let’s consider “American culture” as that which has been distributed throughout the US, and the world, by media.

I’ve said for a long time that the two greatest contributions of the US to world culture are jazz and baseball. Jazz can be seen as the ultimate musical development of the blues, which have their origin in African rhythmic storytelling traditions brought here by slaves. Baseball is a collective memory of the rural, agricultural- even Jeffersonian- ideal that is a prominent part of US history. As George Carlin put it, “Baseball is a nineteenth-century pastoral game. Football is a twentieth-century technological struggle”1. Or, as I put it, baseball is poetry; football is more like instant messaging. Baseball is a perfect radio sport, not so much focused on the visual as the drama and overall plot. Football is a perfect television sport: everything fits neatly into a single frame, and at least a single horizontal plane. Baseball features long-developing plotlines. Football is ultraviolence alternating with boredom. Or, as George Will described it, ““Football combines two of the worst things in American life. It is violence punctuated by committee meetings”2.

I’m not sure that there’s a musical contrast to jazz to compare to football as a contrast to baseball. But, the more that the US can be jazz and baseball, the better we’ll be as a nation.

Endnotes

1. http://www.baseball-almanac.com/humor7.shtml

2. http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/147745-football-combines-two-of-the-worst-things-in-american-life

Problem #15: Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

Problem #15: Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

No, this essay won’t be about the near-epidemic of PTSD among returning veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. It’s a rather more personal story.

In 1994, after leaving a night class in genetics at the University of Pennsylvania, I was hit by two cars and killed. Well, not killed- at least, well, not permanently. As a friend of mine put it, I may have been dead, but it didn’t take. The two cars ran a red light at 33rd + Walnut Sts. in West Philadelphia- one was apparently trying to pass the other at the intersection- and hit me as I crossed the street to catch a bus to 30th St. Station. I suffered significant traumatic brain injury, was in a coma for about two weeks, and was hospitalised at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania and Bryn Mawr Rehab for about two months, all told.

The medical professionals involved in my care weren’t certain if, after recovery, I’d be myself, or a near-vegetable. It took ten years of hard work, but I’m myself again. Almost twenty years later, I’m a married father of two, a recently-minted Master of Science in Information Systems, a successful information technologies professional, and a member of Mensa. I have also come to accept that, whether I like it or not, I also suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). This is hardly a shock, given what happened. But I’d resisted accepting the diagnosis until very recently. I’ve been seeing a counsellor about my PTSD, and one of the things she suggested was that I write a letter- that I won’t send- to the people who hit me. I know who they are- I could easily find them. But I won’t, largely because I can see very little good coming out of said meeting. I am, however, writing this letter as if it were addressed to them.

Dear XX + XY (one driver was a man, and one a woman),

You may not recognise my name, but I hope you remember how we met. On December 7th, 1994, you both hit me with your cars at 33rd & Walnut Sts. in West Philadelphia and killed me. Fortunately- for me, at least- I didn’t stay dead. When you hit me, I was a post-baccalaureate pre-medical student at Penn- that means that I had a bachelor’s degree in something non-scientific, but wanted to attend medical school, so I was taking a concentrated year of science coursework to prepare me for the Medical College Acceptance Test. And I was doing exceedingly well- in A in all three courses, plus the two labs. Your mutual decision to run a red light and kill yourselves a Penn kid pretty much cut off the possibility of medical school for me.

It took me about ten years of hard work to get back to a point where I felt intellectually ready to go back into a pre-med course again and, by that point, it was too late. I was married, and wanted to start a family. I couldn’t, in good conscience, tell my wife that I wasn’t going to make any money for 10 more years, and that once I did make any, she’d never see me again. But, then again, I’m not sure if either of you are acquainted with your consciences.

Did it really help you to run the light? It seems from the evidence- admittedly sketchy, since I don’t recall anything from between noon on December 7th 1994 until somewhere between January 8th and 15th of 1995- that one of you- probably Mr. XY, since he was driving a Porsche- was passing the other in the intersection when you both hit me (something which is illegal under the Pennsylvania motor code, not that that’s ever enforced unless you’re drunk). Did that help? Were you late! late! for a very important date? Did you really want to kill someone- if so, congrats, but you didn’t finish the blasted job, did you?

I could go on into a revenge rant now, but I won’t. That wouldn’t solve anything, except to perhaps motivate one or both of you to put a restraining order on me (which would be fairly ironic, come to think of it). They say that the best revenge is living well, and I think I’ve done as much as I can do live well. I wasn’t able to get back into the pre-medical route and finish that, but I channeled my longtime interest in computers into a rewarding and lucrative career working with them. I also received my Master’s degree in information systems. Most importantly, I’ve been married for eleven years, and have two beautiful children. So, I’ve done fairly well for myself, all things considered.

But don’t think for a second that “no harm, no foul.” You killed me- and I do not forgive you for that. Maybe, just maybe, if you apologised to me and asked for my forgiveness, I’d grant it. But neither of you even did me the courtesy of calling the hospital after hitting me and asking how I was. Were you afraid of what you’d hear? Were you afraid that I was dead? Were you afraid that I wasn’t dead?

I hope- really hope- that neither of you ever suffers like you made me suffer. I hope that you feel some kind of remorse for what you did to me. But, somehow, I suspect that reading this letter will be the first time you’ve thought about that night since then. I’ve thought about it virtually every hour of every day since then. Nice job. But remember this: there is a G-d, and G-d is Just.

Problem #14: Our Broken Politics

Problem #14: Our Broken Politics

It hardly takes a close observation of US politics today to see that things are badly, badly broken. I’m not even talking about the corrupting influence of money on things- although that surely plays a part. The more pervasive, insidious part is deeper still. First, some background.

The US Constitutional system, with its checks and balances, and small state-big state arrangement, was explicitly designed to require all sides to work together. The Founding Fathers, especially, hated political parties, as best expressed by Madison’s warnings about “faction” in his Federalist #10. The goal should be for all parties to work together for the benefit of the republic. The minority- especially in the Senate, with its very anti-majoritarian design- almost always has a say on legislation. This is in marked contrast with parliamentary systems, where the majority party- except in a coalition government- can effectively tell the minority party to get bent, and frequently does. In the US, effective government requires the majority to work with the minority, and also for the minority to accept defeat and work with the majority.

There’s the idea of the “loyal opposition.” This means that, while you may not agree with the other side, they’re not evil. Democrat or Republican, we all love our country, and want to work for its betterment. So, we work together towards this common goal. The second you determine that the other side doesn’t consist of people who also love our country, but who are actually evil, then you can’t possibly work with then- you don’t compromise with evil, you destroy it. Anyone who questions that this is the current way of things in US politics should pay better attention.

We need a new birth of, if not love, at least respect and common decency in our politics. Or else, we can’t help but fail to fix them and move forward.

Falling behind, I know...

Yes, I know, it's the 17th of Elul, & I haven't even posted a 14th problem yet. Life continues to be very busy - I was at work until after midnight this past Tuesday, and will put in quite a few more hours than usual this week. But I am bound and determined to make 1 post per day for the month, even if they don't appear on a quite daily basis. As I told a friend, I will do this, even if it means that some of the essays are rather shorter than others.

Coming later today: a post on our broken politics, and what the a Founding Fathers might have to see about it.

Problem #13: Popular Music

Problem #13: Popular Music

OK, I’m not trying to say that pop music is a problem. Or, really, that I even have a problem with today’s pop music. I get it: I’m not a kid, and pop music has always been made by adults performing for teenagers. And, unlike Baby Boomers, I don’t consider myself to be an postdated teenager. Speaking of the Boomers, note that even their favourite musicians were typically not, themselves, Boomers- most were actually War Babies (born between roughly 1939 and 1945). That number includes all 4 Beatles, Bob Dylan, every Rolling Stone save Ronnie Wood, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin… the ends are listless, so to say.

But the mention of the Rolling Stones leads me to a good point: they’re on their 50th anniversary tour. That means that, 50 years after they debuted as 20-something kids in England, they’re still acquiring new fans. Yes, lots of the fans shelling out mega dollars to see them are as old as they are- but not all of them. And that raises a simple point: almost 60 years after blues and jazz mutated into rhythm & blues and then rock and roll, rock’s still around, and popular. From a perspective of popular music, that’s a ridiculously long run. To put it in context, the idea that, today, rock music is popular among teenagers is comparable to people in the 1950s queueing up to buy the latest Scott Joplin rag. Or, in the context of classical music, 50 years takes you from the symphonies of Haydn to Berlioz’ Symphonie Fantastique, or from Brahms’ 1st Symphony to Schoenberg’s Transfigured Night.

I attribute rock’s popularity, not so much to the music itself, as to the fact that, unlike the musical forms I mention above, rock came of age when sound recording and broadcasting was already established, and being improved. Again, for context, compare a recording from the early 20th century to one from the 1950s, then compare one from the 1950s to one from today. The difference between the early 20th century and the 1950s will be shocking, but you’ll no doubt find the one from the 1950s to be perfectly acceptable. And, if you seek out a remastered classical recording from the 1950s, you may find its sound comparable to a recording made this year. Look, especially, for a digital remastering of a Mercury “Living Presence” CD- they are astoundingly good.

Owing to the presence of recording, and rebroadcasting, peoples’ musical tastes have stabilised in a way that they clearly never did before. You can go to a bar in Europe, and hear much the same kind of music you hear in the US- the language will be different, but the music will strike you as being very similar. Had music not been broadcast internationally, there’s little chance of such consistency across space and time.

What could be done to restore musical diversity? It’s simple, really: get an instrument, and start playing. If enough people do that, eventually, someone will come up with something different from 4:4 time, 3 chords, and a cloud of dust. Of course, I write this as a guitarist whose skill level doesn’t really allow me to play much more than that...

Madness takes its toll, please have exact change

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, my life continues to be insanely busy. No chance to post any problems today: as a matter of fact, it's almost 9 PM, and I'm still at work. I'll try to post an essay or two tomorrow, provided it's not as bonkers as today.

Problem #12: US Health Insurance Reform

Problem #12: US Health Insurance Reform

Lest anyone think that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act- aka ObamaCare- is the final answer to health care reform in the US, I would strongly beg to differ. There's a central problem to the US health care system: it's a for-profit system.

This should not be interpreted as meaning that all for-profit systems are wrong; far from it. To paraphrase Winston Churchill, capitalism is the worst economic system... except for all the other ones. From a very, very cynical perspective, here's how capitalism works for society:

• Mr. X decides that he wants to make money (and, yes, this could be Mrs. X or Ms. X, etc.).
• Mr. X decides that a good way to make money is by making and selling widgets. Popular things, widgets, even if nobody actually knows that they are.
• While Mr. X can make a little money by making and selling his own widgets, he decides that he could make still more money by getting other people to make them for him. Therefore, he hires employees to make more widgets. He also invests in a factory in which to make the widgets.
• In order to attract good widget makers, Mr. X has to pay them decently. He also decides to give his widget makers fringe benefits, such as health insurance coverage.
• In the end, society as a whole benefits from high-quality widgets, whatever they are, plus you have people who are paid to make them. 
  
  

All good, right? Unfortunately, this whole system boils down to one motivation: Mr. X wants to make money. If he decided that it would be more profitable to burn down the factory and collect insurance money, well, he'd have a strong financial motive to do so. That's the main problem with the profit motive: profit drives out all other motivations. In this case- and in most cases- the side effects of the creation of profit are good for society. Unfortunately, when you apply this to health care, you wind up with a health care system in which healthy people are a side effect. You may be braver than I, but the idea of a health care system where health people aren't the intended goal scares me. To take it to an extreme, if a for-profit health insurance company were to decide that it could make more money by simply allowing all of its customers to die- or even to kill them- then it would have a fiduciary duty to do so. Not good.

Leaving all this aside, there's a more practical problem with a for-profit health care system: it doesn't work. Ever since the mid 1960s, the US has actually had 3 parallel health care systems running at once: single-payer (Medicare), socialised (the Veterans' Administration, where all providers are paid by the VA), and for-profit. And the results are in: the for-profit system is far and away the worst of the three. It's the most expensive, and provides the worst results (15.7% of Americans uninsured1, despite spending 17.6% of our GDP on health care).

The PPACA chooses to bend the cost curve by forcing all Americans to either receive coverage through their employer or on their own (the Individual Mandate). Despite the round condemnation of this plan coming from the Republican Party, the PPACA strongly resembles one promoted by the arch-conservative Heritage Foundation as an alternative to the Clinton health plan in the early 1990s3, as well as the MassCare plan passed by former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney4.

Unfortunately, this was the result of President Obama, whatever his personal motivations, being a miserable negotiator. The second he proposed as his opening bid RomneyCare + a public option- effectively Medicare into which you could buy5- that guaranteed that it wouldn’t be the end result of negotiations. As anyone who’s ever bought a house, or car, will agree, your opening offer isn’t what you expect to pay- it’s what you’d dream of paying. You offer 75% of what the seller wants- then you negotiate, and meet in the middle.

In this case, President Obama should have opened bidding with Medicare for All. This would have had 3 main effects: it would have thrilled his liberal supporters, it would have been the most economically defensible solution (Medicare’s overhead is as low as 5%, compared to private insurers, who often have 25%+ administrative costs- due in part to profit-taking6), and it would have guaranteed that the final result of negotiations would be a lot more progressive than RomneyCare without a public option.

Fortunately, the current state of the PPACA is no more the final state of health care reform than Social Security was a finished product in 19357. Just as Social Security was expanded to include cost of living increases, with changes in retirement age, it can be expected that changes to the US health insurance system haven’t finished either.

Endnotes:

1. "Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2009." U.S. Census Bureau. p. 22. Issued September 2010.

2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_total_health_expenditure_%28PPP%29_per_capita

3. http://www.forbes.com/sites/theapothecary/2011/10/20/how-a-conservative-think-tank-invented-the-individual-mandate/

4. http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/fieldclinic/Obamacare-vs-Romneycare-Is-there-a-difference.html

5. http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505123_162-51364824/health-care-reforms-public-option-everything-you-need-to-know/

6. http://voices.washingtonpost.com/ezra-klein/2009/07/administrative_costs_in_health.html

7. http://www.nysscpa.org/cpajournal/2006/506/infocus/p15.htm