Bill Pickett's Blog

Is it economics or politics? Part 3

2011-11-29T13:25:00.001-08:00

It has been more than a month since part 2 and it is difficult for me to pull things together. The truth is, the current machinations in Washington are both economics and politics. I have to work to understand both if I am to have any chance at understanding what is happening. A few things are clear, at least to me.

First, we will all be better off if we spend less money. This applies to the government and to each of us as private citizens. We need to reduce government expenditures and increase the quality and effectiveness of government programs. I know that sounds contradictory but this is the essence of our problem. Spending more money on anything doesn't in and of itself make that something better. Surely our experience with health care is a case in point. We spend a lot more money than other developed countries--both in total and per capita--and yet have no better health system and in many cases less good health outcomes. I favor moving to single payer approach but there are other alternatives. Without question, however, if we cannot figure out how to spend less on health care no amount of tinkering with payment systems will come close to touching our problem.

Both government and individuals need to move away from the use of debt to finance ongoing consumption. Debt is important to families, corporations and government as a way of financing investments, not consumption. Debt financed consumption is what leads to speculative bubbles and the resulting collapses.

So we need to change some of the rules to reduce future spending on Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid as well as the defense industry. That will hurt, no question but there is no alternative. There is a big but. We need to increase investment in fundamental infrastructure: transportation, education, communication, and basic research. If these are reduced when we already are feeling the impact of aging and inadequate infrastructure, what will happen if we reduce these even further? While these investments must increase, we must also increase the quality and effectiveness of these basic systems. It does little good to increase debt to increase college attendance if the resulting student debt is a crushing load that distorts vocational and career choice. We cannot let the cost of education run wild just as we cannot do that in health care.

Second, we must increase tax revenues and adjust the tax code so that it is more equitable. The tax code is not going to increase or decrease job creation. We need to make sure that we have enough common resources and that those most able to contribute do so equitably. Those of us who paid federal incomes taxes from 2000 on have benefited from tax decreases that we did not seek and did not need. We have gotten a free ride for the last ten years or more. Simple equity suggests that we should now contribute more to help put the entire system back in balance.

So it is simple. Spend less and take in more. Sooner than later we will pay down the debt to manageable levels and begin to have a surplus just as we did before the drunken sailor in us got in control. As a nation we took in less money and began to spend more, a lot more. We used debt to finance the deficits. Now we simply have to spend less and contribute more to get back to go.

I have little patience with either the Democrats or the Republicans. Both parties have become so partisan that no one can simply stand up and speak the plain truth and be guided by what the country needs.

Is It Economics or Politics? Part 2

2011-10-06T13:03:00.000-07:00

In The Origins of Political Order, Francis Fukuyama has shown that a successful society requires a coherent and potent central state government. Successful state governments over the logn run are those characterized by potency, accountability, and rule of law. As cultures and societies develop in terms of literacy, successful states must possess all three characteristics. The recent experience of the Arab Spring makes clear that simply being potent, indeed, even an all powerful dictatorship will not be able to maintain itself without accountability to citizens and a strong rule of law. Any dictatorship that thinks it can maintain itself in power while simultaneously educating its population is fooling itself unless it also understands that it must limit its power through accountability to those governed and through the primacy of law over the law giver. It is not reasonable to understand the current Occupy Wall Street phenomenon as a response to clear evidence that Wall Street elites are functionally above the law and have not been called to account for the financial debacle in which they participated and from which they profited. To the extent that politicians and policy makers are seen as complicit with this "lawlessness," they could pay a heavy electoral price.

But this argument, salient as I believe it is, is not particularly relevant to the Tea Party and other libertarian foces--mainly in the Republican party though not exclusively--who desire to continue the dismantling of the federal governing structure that has asserted itself more strongly from 1930's New Deal through roughly the mid seventies. Fukuyama points out that one of the traditional roles of a central governing authority has often been to protect ordinary citizens from powerful forces in a society, forces that if become too powerful can begin to abuse that power to advantage themselves and disadvantage those with less power. Most of us stereotypically think of a king as a person with unlimited power who abuses and enslaves the ordinary folk of his realm. Actually the real picture is different. Typically the King used his authority to counter the power and might of the nobility who often abused the serfs who lives lives of indentured servitude to enrich the nobles.

It is also true that sometimes kings became too powerful and the nobles banded together to counteract that power on their on behalf and consequently on behalf of the serfs. Often these conflict centered on the taxes levied by the crown to strengthen the central government and to defend against external enemies or wage wars of aggression and expansion. The key seems to be a system in which there is a balance of power among the various factions. It appears that inevitably when one faction becomes too powerful vis a vis others, it tends to abuse that power to advantage itself.

Americans can see this same balance of power issues played out in the formation of the United States. The central question was whether this country would be a confederation fo states or a sovereign nation with a strong central government that was not dependent upon the states for agreement with central policies especially including taxes. The early experience with the confederacy approach convinced almost all that a confederacy would not work because it was not working. A loose amalgam of sovereign states would not be able to achieve the potential of the new country and deliver on the promise of the revolution, let alone be able to pay the debts incurred in the War of Independence. All thirteen states eventually approved the proposed Constitution with its strong central government and they did so through popularly elected conventions in each state. The year long debate was often vociferous and at times rancorous but everyone eventually realized the wisdom of the central government approach. This would have been the end of the discussion were it not for the fact of slavery and the inability of the founders and framers to deal with that abomination.

The one area where the federal government was forbidden by the constitution itself from taking action was slavery. There could be no federal action outlawing this practice. As a result the question of constraining federal power was often framed in terms of preventing the central government from constraining state governments. Eventually the growing population in the non-slave states resulted in support for a federal policy of emancipation, i.e., forcing slave states to abandon their peculiar practice. It took a bloody Civil War to settle the issue, actually two issues. First, slavery was diametrically opposed to the principles of freedom and humanity embodied in the constitution. Second, the federal government exercised proper sovereignty over the nation and the several states.

To be continued.

Is It Economics or Politics? Part 1

2011-09-25T04:10:00.000-07:00

What is going on in Washington and in the early stages of the presidential electoral process? Are the core issues economic--deficits, entitlement over commitments, unemployment--or do they have more to do with political theory? At first I thought this was all about the economy and how to recover from the disastrous recession worsened by unbridled speculation. However common sense responses to these economic challenges seemed to gain little traction.

After all the sensible approach--the one endorsed by almost all economists--is that the federal government should continue and probably increase stimulus expenditures in the short term in order to sustain demand in the economy and thus assist in the recovery from the Great Recession. At the same time, long term changes are required in terms of expenditure reduction and revenue increase so that the structural and long term deficit is reduced. Admittedly this is a tricky course of action and one that requires leadership at all levels. Never has it been more true that "everything has to be on the table" than it is right now. But to let a concern with the deficit overcome a proper concern about recovery from the recession will follow the same disastrous path taken by Japan in the 1990's, its "lost decade."

There is a focus on the jobs issue, and rightly so. As long as unemployment is at 9+%--actually probably more in the middle teens since those who have stopped looking are not counted--consumer demand, the mother's milk of the U.S. economy, cannot possibly be strong& enough to support a recovery. It would seem that the problem is how to create jobs by somehow encouraging businesses to invest in new products and services and thus hire the people needed for that investment. The problem is that in general U.S. businesses are sitting on a huge amount of cash but are unwilling to invest because there is not sufficient demand. This is the classic reason for government stimulus to create the demand that then creates the jobs that then further increase demand, but consumer demand this time. So how come we don't agree to do this?

I think the answer is that the agenda of many in Washington has more to do with political philosophy and not economics. I believe they are using the economic woes of the country to justify political actions that will materially weaken the central, that is federal government, in order to implement what they believe to be the fundamental political principles of the American experiment. Flying under the banner of "no new taxes" and "we must reduce the deficit," are a powerful and coherent group of conservative activists whose true agenda was aptly described by Grover Norquist, "I don't want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub."

To be continued...

9/11 Lesson for Politicians...and You and Me

2011-09-07T09:52:00.000-07:00

January 2002

We are about to remember the events of September 11, 2001...as well we should. Personally I have tried not to pay attention to the hype that began a month ago and which will reach a crescendo Sunday September 11. I am especially avoiding the speeches and comments by politicians about that day and its meaning for America.

As I reflect on what happened that day, I keep thinking about the actions of people we have come to call "first responders." These are police, fire, and emergency professionals from numerous governmental agencies and jurisdictions. Their job is to protect, serve and rescue us when we are confronted with crises and danger.

On that fateful day in 2001, thousands of first responders entered the damaged and burning twin towers to find and rescue people. They knew they were placing their lives in jeopardy but just as surely they knew what their calling was and proceeded with profound and unmistakable courage. They placed their lives in jeopardy to serve the citizens they were sworn to protect. Perhaps few of them ever thought it would come to risking their life in such a horrendous fashion but each knew that if it should come to pass their training and character would provide them the strength to fulfill their mission of service.

I am sure that there will be no end of speeches by politicians about all this. Many will praise these first responders without understanding the central message for them. We elect you to serve and protect us and the common good. Your prime objective is service not the saving of your own political lives. We have a right to expect that you will be guided by values of service and courage and not by the need to satisfy special interests, whether on the left or right, whether liberal or conservative, whether business or labor, etc. We have seen enough of politicians who play footsie with special interests of all types, especially those with checkbooks open and pens ready.

It is sometimes said that politicians are motivated by fear and the biggest fear is not being re-elected. Those first responders surely felt fear for their lives and yet they proceeded to carry out their duties to all of us. Politicians need to walk up to the fear of not being elected and proceed to do their duty to all of us without making political compromises to insure their re-election.

The lesson is clear for all of us, not just politicians. We are called to live out our lives in accord with our deepest values not in order to achieve success, high regard from others, or power. The example of those first responders can help us consider our deepest commitments and resolve to live those out in our lives. A message for all of us including politicians.

A Penny a Bit

2011-09-06T16:44:00.000-07:00

Jaron Lanier

I have just finished reading Jaron Lanier's You Are Not A Gadget: A Manifesto. Here is what the book jacket says about him: "Jaron Lanier, a Silicon Valley visionary since the 1980's, was among the first to predict the revolutionary changes the World Wide Web would bring to commerce and culture." The book is relatively short but very heavy going, at least for me.

It is a fascinating critique of the web, especially what he calls web 2.0, and it's call for open and free architecture and content as well as the ultimate wisdom of the hive, the mass of people interacting over the internet. It is interesting to read what an accomplished technologist--and musical artist--thinks of the internet and the web. He see strong positives as well as some important dangers.

One idea that resonated with me is that the vast majority of content on the web is not new and creative but reworking of previously existing content, often "mashed up" to seem new. In the "mash up" process individual contributors are rarely identified and that is a conscious cultural norm. The whole idea is that millions of people interacting on the web are a better path to truth or at least accuracy than experts creating content based on their expertise and research. This is the "hive mind" that represents the best hope of the web 2.0 world. The problem is that it leads to a reduction to the mean. Individual creativity, spontaneity, and idiosyncrasy are worn down by the relentless drive of the "hive mind" to coalesce around a single answer or set of answers. Anonymous postings, 142 character tweets, and unverified Facebook postings are examples of what can go wrong.

This helped explain to me why I typically lose patience with cable news coverage as well as the local newspaper. When news happens, both seem to be flooded with variants of i-reporters who know next to nothing about what happened but are more than willing to share their reactions and feelings. Rather than near from knowledgeable news sources and experts, we get comments from people "like us" because this apparently is the best way to get to the reality of what happened. Wrong. The best way to get there is to listen to and read people who know what they are talking about.

This can happen because all content is free or ought to be according to the web 2.0 advocates. This is a good thing and I applaud it from one point of view. But from another, it means that I have to put up with a lot of uncreative, rehashed content. He has a simple but probably impractical idea. Everybody should pay to view content. This payment would replace current ISP monthly fees and should be calibrated to about equal those fees. The important part of his suggestion, however, is that the payment would be net of payments made by others to view your content. Thus if you view a lot of content but very few people find your content interesting or you don't really post anything other than Facebook postings and tweets, your monthly payments would be higher than someone whose content other found interesting and creative. Such a system would encourage people to create and post content that was creative and interesting. It would value actual websites rather than cookie cutter frameworks like Facebook.

I am not sure I have done Lanier's suggestion credit but I think he is on to something. Pick up the book and give it try.

Wealth gaps rise to record highs between whites, blacks and Hispanics – Global Public Square - CNN.com Blogs

2011-08-01T09:32:00.000-07:00

In the midst of the debt limit debate last week, a report appeared from the Pew Research Center detailing the impact of the Great Recession on American households by race. Although we would probably not be surprised to learn that the impact on household wealth was greater on Hispanic and black households, we might be surprised at the scale of the difference.

The median wealth of white households is 20 times that of black households and 18 times that of Hispanic households, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of newly available government data from 2009. These lopsided wealth ratios are the largest since the government began publishing such data a quarter century ago and roughly twice the size of the ratios that had prevailed between these three groups for the two decades prior to the Great Recession that ended in 2009.

This further disturbing confirmation of the direction our country is heading. While those who have more than enough continue to desire and acquire more as they pursue their own narrow economic self interest, we are becoming a nation of extremes economically. When this is combined with an overlay of race, it presents an ugly and unsettling picture. We seem incapable of accepting the demonstrated fact that when income and wealth are more evenly distributed, life is better, safer, healthier and more fulfilling for all of us.

Wealth gaps rise to record highs between whites, blacks and Hispanics – Global Public Square - CNN.com Blogs

Stop me if you've heard this one...

2011-03-17T05:23:00.000-07:00

A republican administration is in the White House as well as in control of both houses of Congress. The administration is almost solely focused on economic development. It has instituted changes in tax policies which overwhelmingly favor the top sliver of society. It is actively encouraging business corporations to become bigger and more powerful. All of this has resulted in an explosively growing gap between the rich and the rest of the country. The newest economic developments are exploited mercilessly in a wildly speculative real estate bubble. Appointments to federal government leadership posts are based on party loyalty rather than competence and experience resulting in agencies headed up by glad-handing hacks. Anyone who opposes any of these policies is castigated as but a step from treason and this was all done through communication media owned and controlled by the party in power. Finally they institute aggressive changes in voting legislation and political boundaries to ensure the continuation of their power. These policies and operations resulted in an economic depression that began to develop as the succeeding administration which Democrat took office.

This sounds like the eight years of the G. W. Bush administration but, in fact, is a description of the four year administration of Republican Benjamin Harrison from 1888-1892. The Republican party of that period was in close partnership with business especially the trusts that controlled vast areas of the american economy through concerted price fixing and market division. The economic policy that the Cleveland administration was so dedicated to as a solution to all economic problems was not a continuing reduction of taxes, especially those on the rich, as was the Bush administration but rather a comprehensive system of high tariffs that allowed the trusts to operate without any effective competition. This resulted in prices for all consumer goods being higher than would have been the case with competition and in huge profits for those who owned or controlled the trusts. This meant that the income and wealth gap accelerated. The Republicans ignored all demands for tariff reform since they were convinced that increasing wealth at the top would "trickle down" (a term they didn't use but which would emerge in another Republican administration in the 1980's) to everyone else, or at least to those who were motivated to work. This, of course didn't work even for those who were able to work but it especially was a disastrous policy for African Americans in the South, Native Americans in the West, and for most of the newly arriving immigrants who seemed so not very American to the white males in power.

Even though Heather Cox Richardson does not draw these parallels in her recent book, Wounded Knee: Party Politics and the Road to an American Massacre, any reader cannot help but notice that the picture she paints is a recurring one for American politics. "The Harrison administration has wrongly been buried in obscurity, for its effect were far-reaching. Its aggressive use of rhetoric, disseminated by its own media, had frightening repercussions for voting rights. Its rosy promises for the West--and the subsequent need to make those promises come true--spelled disaster for the western landscape. Its focus on economic development doomed the Sioux to poverty, and its manipulation of the electoral map changed the dynamics of politics."

This is a fascinating study of the way in which national politics impacted the lives and caused the deaths of the Sioux people of what is now South Dakota. As one reads of the incompetence and bald political decisions of the Indian agents appointed by the Harrison administration, one can only think of those famous words: "You're doing a heck of a job, Brownie."

If you interested, here is a link to the Amazon listing for the book; I highly recommend it. http://www.amazon.com/Wounded-Knee-Politics-American-Massacre/dp/B004LQ0G6C/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1300368966&sr=1-2

Government is not the solution...but it's not the problem either--Part II

2011-02-24T12:12:00.000-08:00

So much has happened since I post part I that I almost thought about just going directly to the effort to undo decades of state and national legislation securing the right of labor to organize. However, I really want to get down some thoughts about why government is certainly not the problem but unfortunately it is not a sufficient solution to our problems either. I say this is unfortunate because it would be wonderful if the solutions could be found in legislation, regulations, rules, and policies. This would be wonderful because it would mean that the solutions to our problems were "out there" somewhere and not within our own selves. Unfortunately, as Pogo famously observed, "We have met the enemy and he is us." Appropriately Walt Kelly used these words for the first time on a poster for Earth Day 1970.

Sadly we are the enemy or the problem. Americans are caught within a spiral of addictive self indulgence. This is especially true for those of us who have the discretionary resources to feed this addiction but it also ravages the values and ideals of those who do not have enough but are compelled to seek more and more. If we view this in political terms, it can often become a question of who gives up their addictions first? If we could all given them together and at the same time, then no one would gain an advantage. But such concerted, communitarian action seems almost impossible short of some dramatic developments that force us to. Oil at $150 barrel might do the trick. But our experience is that this only works as long as the price of oil is high. Once it moderates, we seem to go back to all our old behaviors. Interest in hybrid cars tracks pretty closely with the price of gasoline.

The only possible answer is a conversion of values that is not dependent on external forces. Religious thought and behavior is typically the seedbed for such developments. Unfortunately most religious thought in contemporary America seems to have been co-opted by the religious right and thus focus on certain litmus tests of personal morals and ethics.

It is interesting to note that while St. Paul uses "sin" more than 45 times in the Epistle to the Romans, he uses "sins" only a handful of times. The challenge for the Christians to whom Paul wrote was not the challenge of personal morals--these, of course, are important--but rather the challenge of living a Christian life in the midst of a social-political-economic structure that he characterized as "sin" also known as the Roman Empire or the Pax Romana if you were a Roman.

If we take that insight out of a religious context, the problem for 21st century Americans becomes distressingly clear. How do we lives a full human life within an enslaving systems of consumption without falling prey to addictive self indulgence and thus perpetuating the very system which enslaves us? Coming to terms with this formulation of the problem and then living our way through it holds the only possible answer to our current mess. It seems unlikely that any politician can help us through this.

Government is not the solution...but it's not the problem either--Part I

2011-01-30T03:00:00.000-08:00

Ronald Reagan famously observed, "Government is not the solution; it is the problem." He then proceeded to preside over the beginning of a bipartisan effort to dismantle the federal role in American life so that we would experience a new "dawn." This disassembling of government focused on domestic policy while the government role, i.e., expenditures, in military defense expanded. While de-regulation--as it became known--was a clear success in the airline industry, it was destructive in other areas, especially the regulation of the financial industry.

There is a long list of examples of the way in which reducing the regulatory role of the federal government has not improved life but has been destructive: the savings and loan crisis, Enron and the Enron-like corporations looted by their managers, credit card debt over expansion, a speculative housing bubble, the economic meltdown of the Great Recession. There is no better example of this than the bipartisan repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act in the closing days of the 2000. This effort to repeal this New Deal regulatory law was supported by Republicans (Phil Gramm) and Democrats (Charles Schumer) and was signed into law by Democrat Bill Clinton. Its passage was little noted by the general population but it became the swamp out of which most of the economic woes of the Great Repression slithered.

Glass-Steagall was originally passed to create an unbreachable firewall between banks and investment firms because it had been the entwining of these two entities that had led to the speculative crash of the 1929. By the late nineties, however, this firewall was preventing some powerful organizations from making even more money. The merger of Citibank and Travelers to form Citigroup in 1998 was a clear violation of this regulation but the repeal changed all that. The rest, as they say, is history.

So government is not the problem in financial regulation. It is not the problem in national defense, in education, in health care, in environmental protection, consumer protection. For example, does anyone seriously think that we would be better off in any way if an unfettered market mechanism allocated health care to our citizens? Even a somewhat regulated system had left 40 million Americans outside any effective health care insurance system.

But government is not the answer either. Regulation and rules are not enough by themselves. Rules often create new opportunities for those who want to game the system to get into new mischief. This came home to me several years ago when my youngest son transferred to a new college and ran afoul of NCAA regulations on athletic eligibility. He was told that he should have read the NCAA rule book and thus should have known that he was violating a recently changed, somewhat obscure, rule. This was the occasion for me to see the NCAA rulebook. That is when it struck me, "If rules were the answer, NCAA Division I athletics would be clean as a whistle." The fact that is is not and seemingly never will be points to deeper issue than just creating more rules and better rules to stay ahead of the outlaws.

Transformation Church

2011-01-17T07:24:00.000-08:00

This weekend I was in Charlotte visiting Liam, Marcie, and the kids. On Sunday we went to church at Transformation Church. When Marilyn and I were down last April, we went there as well. I was impressed then and still am. It has long been known that you plant a new church by focusing on three aspects: music, preaching, and hospitality. Transformation certainly does all three of these very well. Go here to see Transformation Church website.

Transformation Church Overflow Room

What impressed me, however, was the way in which the pastor, Derwen Gray, has articulated the mission of the church as UPWARD, INWARD, and OUTWARD. The UPWARD dimension speaks to our relationship to God who loves us and reaches toward us to change us in fundamental ways. The INWARD dimension speaks to the way in which we make our response to God's offer of love. It focuses on a healthy regard for our true self as loved by God. The OUTWARD dimension extends us out to the world to announce the good news of Jesus Christ and to work with Jesus in the salvation of the world. Theologians could, and do, come up with sophisticated language and structures to say the same thing without adding anything meaningful for the vast majority of us. You won't find those words in scripture but they capture the essence of the message.

While I have had some familiarity with some congregations that focus on music, preaching and hospitality, I was impressed with Transformation's emphasis on the outward dimension, discipleship to the world. Too often this music, preaching, hospitality results in a comfortable Christianity without the cross. Transformation's approach does not make this mistake. I also noted that they have what they call transformation groups, small groups, that meet in people's homes and are led by trained facilitators. These serve to educate and to deepen commitment.

All in all this is an impressive church from which Catholic parishes could learn much.

A Spirituality for Our Times

2011-01-12T04:17:00.000-08:00

I just finished reading Archbishop Oscar Romero: A Disciple Who Revealed the Glory of God by Damian Zynda, a friend of mine in Rochester. This a creative approach that seeks to develop a spirituality of conversion which is apt for our post-modern age. She uses Romero's life, the theology of Irenaeus, and the insights of psychotherapy to explicate this spirituality. Many of us know of Oscar Romero and his heroic stand for the ordinary people of El Salvador but few of us know of his life long struggle to respond to the call to discipleship, particularly within his obsessive compulsive personality disorder.

Again and again she makes the point that we are called to respond to the presence of God in our lives exactly as they really are, with all the enormous possibilities of human existence and with all the wounds that inevitably are part of our lives as well. It is surprising how apt the thoughts of Irenaeus--the second century pastoral theologian--are to our contemporary existence.

The final chapter presents her conclusions about a contemporary spirituality of conversion. It might be tempting to just read that chapter but one needs to work through the biography of Romero, the insights of Irenaeus, an understanding of the impact of his diagnosed OCPD, and Romero's spiritual journey, all contained in the first four chapters. Only after that work does the final summary have its full impact.

Following Irenaeus, Zynda views conversion as a process of growth toward full realization of our humanity and autonomy. It is not a one-time event but an ongoing, life-long process of becoming who we already and really are. It is important to understand that this growth and the response to the call to conversion from God takes place within the actual realities of humanity, warts and all. Thus the traditional view of conversion as a movement from sinfulness to holiness is not a helpful or accurate stance. It is a movement toward wholeness and authenticity.

A spirituality that supports such a conversion would be very different from the spirituality that most of us were taught or have heard of. It is not a spirituality built around formal prayers and religious practices but rather around more interior processes. The final two paragraphs summarize her conclusions:

Because it has relevance to postmodern Christians, a spirituality of conversion is a dynamic path to holiness. Formed through personal contemplative payer and communal worship in the liturgy of the Word and Eucharist, an asceticism that promotes solidarity with those who suffer, and the constant discernment of spirits with and among the loving community disciples, a spirituality of conversion transforms disciples into the likeness of the Son of God. Embracing the struggle to be obedient to the grace of conversion, we are, throughout life, nudged deeper into the vision of God and the fullness of our endowed potentials.

Thus, in the fullness of our humanity and divinity, we too reflect, as did Oscar Romero, the glory of God.

Grandma's "Worst Time"

2010-12-17T12:07:00.000-08:00

My grandma, Nancy Campbell, had a hard life. She was born in 1891 in Kansas City Kansas. Her mother and father split up when she was little. She was raised as a step child in Orr household resulting from her mother's second marriage. She had a number of step brothers and sisters, most of whom she took care of as the "Nannie" of the house in more ways than one. She left school after the fifth grade and eventually continued her work as a housekeeper and nanny in the homes of families wealthier than her working class one.

When she was 18, she married a man 12 years older than she and quickly had two little girls. He left the family within three years and Grandma had to fend for herself with her two little girls. She continued her domestic work, often living in the homes of her clients. Sometimes the girls (one of whom was my other) would be with her but not always.

She remarried eventually and lived a typical life, if a life was typical during the depression and the war. Shortly after the war, her second husband died and she returned to work, again as a housekeeper and mother's helper in the homes of wealthy families in Kansas City Missouri. In her later years, she took care of her younger sister and their mother until their deaths. She died in 1986 at 95 years old. She was a blessing to all of us in so many ways.

This is all by way of background to recount a story my sister Anola told me when I visited Kansas City in early December. Her son, Gerry, had a school assignment to interview someone old; who better than grandma? He interviewed her in what must have been a highly professional fashion--he is now a highly accomplished professional journalist and editor. He asked the obvious question--at least the one I would have asked--and perhaps like me he would have an expectation of what the answer would be.

His question: What was the worst time you ever had? Her answer was quick, short and to the point. "I don't know. I never had a worst time." Oh, how I hope that gene has found its way into me and through me to my children and grandchildren!

Health Care Tax

2010-12-14T11:06:00.000-08:00

I admit that I can be a bit dense about some things but I was shocked when I finally figured out about the health care tax. No, I don't mean the Medicare payments. And I don't mean the federal tax general revenue that goes to pay for other health care. That would be simple. However, alone among the developed countries, we in the United States have decided --well I don't remember deciding but I guess someone did--to make health care a market-based service and to rely on employer provided--assisted, at least-- health insurance to finance it. The result is that virtually every time I buy something made in the United States, a portion of the purchase price is used to pay for employee health benefits. No wonder foreign goods are usually less expensive.

Health care is not like, say an automobile. When I buy a car, I buy the car; the rest of you get yours. When health care is provided and paid for, we all pay for it either directly or indirectly through insurance, either ours or that provided to the people who make everything we buy. The point is that health care like education should not be a private economic good but a public service, one that we all pay for directly through the common resources of federal taxes.

This would have at least four advantages. First of all, it would be less expensive because we would take the profit margins of insurance companies out of the equation. Phased in over a three to five year period, this elimination of insurance would reduce health care costs, everything else being equal. Second, the price of goods and services produced in the United States would become less expensive and thus more competitive globally. Third, given the efficiency and effectiveness of Medicare, employers would pay less in taxes than they currently pay in insurance premiums. Likewise the individual would also pay less in federal taxes than they currently do in insurance premiums. Fourth, the rationing of health care--necessary in either approach, would be more humane and responsive. Government health officials responding to well established professional norms and to standards set by political authorities would treat clients more fairly than corporate officials responding to individuals and corporate financial incentives to increase revenue and reduce health care expenditures in order to maximize profits.

No wonder the rest of the world does not follow our approach. They probably cannot understand why we continue with this broken system that only seems to advantage corporate and financial interests rather than serve people. But then why should they care? They are the also advantaged by our blindness. The rest of the world is keeping its eye out for the next world leader since the United States cannot sustain the flawed economic and health policies that seem to be entrenched.

P.S. Oh, yes and if would eliminate the legislative provision that forbids Medicare from negotiating drug prices as the Veterans Administration does, we could immediately save even more.

The end is near; pay no attention.

2010-11-14T02:48:00.000-08:00

Normally we expect something like "repent and be saved" after we hear "the end is near." But the lectionary readings for this Sunday present a different thought to us, one that is more authentically Christian.

The passage from the Book of Malachi contain a stark and threatening picture of the end of time and final judgment:

See, the day is coming, burning like an oven, when all the arrogant and all evildoers will be stubble; the day that comes shall burn them up so that it will leave them neither root nor branch.

The reading from Luke recounts the words of Jesus about the end times: wars, insurrections, earthquakes, famines, plagues, etc.

We face these realities in our own life. As we contemplate our individual death, we understand more fully the meaning of annihilation; we face the complete destruction of who we are, or at least it seems like that. At the end of the passage from Luke, Jesus gives us a clue about what our faithful stance should be: "By your endurance you will gain your souls."

In other words, as disciples of Christ, we are to live our lives, not in light of what will happen at the end, either of our lives or the end of all existence. Rather we are to live out the reality of who we are as believers: sons and daughters of a loving God. Our lives are to express that reality rather than express our fear of what might happen at our death if we don't.

Amenable Mortality

2010-11-12T13:53:00.000-08:00

Now here is a concept for you! "Amenable mortality" was an health analysis term developed in the 1970's to measure the effectiveness of health care systems in developed, industrialized countries especially. Amenable mortality measures the deaths that occur before age 75 that could have been prevented by timely and appropriate medical care, in other words, conditions that were amenable to health care but went untreated.

A study by the Commonwealth Fund showed the following results:

U.S. Ranks Last

Between 1997–98 and 2002–03, amenable mortality fell by an average of 16 percent in all countries except the U.S., where the decline was only 4 percent. In 1997–98, the U.S. ranked 15th out of the 19 countries on this measure—ahead of only Finland, Portugal, the United Kingdom, and Ireland—with a rate of 114.7 deaths per 100,000 people. By 2002–03, the U.S. fell to last place, with 109.7 per 100,000. In the leading countries, mortality rates per 100,000 people were 64.8 in France, 71.2 in Japan, and 71.3 in Australia.

The largest reductions in amenable mortality were seen in countries with the highest initial levels, including Portugal, Finland, Ireland, and the U.K, but also in some higher-performing countries, like Australia and Italy. In contrast, the U.S. started from a relatively high level of amenable mortality but experienced smaller reductions.

The U.S. ranks last even though we spent more money per capita that the other countries. In fact, we spend about twice as much as the average of the other countries. It is also important to realize that the other countries all have universal health care coverage, unlike the U.S.

The health care reform plan enacted this year does need to be amended but certainly not undone. It needs to be strengthened if we are to achieve any like comparable results as do the other industrialized countries.

I also note, with some dismay, that in just a little over five years, my mortality won't count, whether amenable or not.

The Important Role of Scapegoats

2010-11-08T06:39:00.000-08:00

Scapegoats was a necessary part of any political process that seeks to disenfranchise some segment of society. Here is how it works. First you manipulate the political process, usually in more or less secret ways, to bring about disenfranchisement. Those who are so disenfranchised eventually realize that and get angry about it and want do do something about it. Scapegoating becomes central, not to defuse the anger but to point it in a direction away from those actually responsible.

Here is a current example. For the past thirty years, the middle class in the United States has suffered economic stagnation with almost no growth if any in real income. This is despite more people in the family working and everyone working more hours. The middle class turned to consumer credit and then to home equity, expanded beyond all reason by a speculative bauble. Eventually the bubble burst; the credit markets dried up; consumption and thus economic growth declined; and unemployment skyrocketed.

The anger and frustration of the middle class as a result of these developments seek a target. Who or what is responsible? Who or what can be blamed, punished or reformed? It would not be productive if this anger and frustration would actually end up focused on those who have actually gained income and wealth during these same thirty years. The top five percent of American households have done very well during this period; the top one percent, even better; the top .5 percent, best of all.

Rather than have the middle class come to that little conclusion, it serves someone's purposes a lot better if that anger and frustration can be pointed at other targets. What could be better targets than illegal immigrants and poor people. Under the rallying cry of illegal immigrants taking jobs from American--nothing could be further from the truth in reality--immigration reform has been stopped dead in its tracks.

But the significant outcome is not that but rather that all that justifiable anger and frustration is diverted away from those who actually have a lot more to do with the root causes of the current economic stress of the American middle class.

More Evidence on the Inequality Front

2010-11-01T07:45:00.000-07:00

David stockman was Budget Director for Ronald Reagan. On 60 Minutes last night he took both Republicans and Democrats to task for saying that somehow taxes can be reduced on anybody without disturbing our current pattern of spending. He was particularly on point when he talked about a one-time 15% surtax on the wealthiest Americans. On the surface that sounds a little unfair until you hear the facts about the growth in wealth of the top five percent of American households.

"In 1985, the top five percent of the households, wealthiest five percent, had net worth of $8 trillion, which is a lot. Today, after serial bubble after serial bubble, the top five percent have net worth of $40 trillion," he explained. "The top five percent have gained more wealth than the whole human race had created prior to 1980."

In other words, the taxing and deregulation policies over the last 30 years have generated tremendous wealth for the wealthiest Americans while leaving the rest of the population to struggling with stagnating wages and massive debt. This tremendous wealth was not generated because the top five percent were smarter or harder working that the rest. It was generated because the top five percent convinced the rest of the population to reduce taxes on the rich, treat capital gains differently than earned income, deregulate, i.e., get government regulators out of the way of financial speculation and mismanagement.

Whatever happens in the 2010 elections, the U.S. economy has an inherent inequality that must be dealt with. A return to past policies will only worsen this fundamental problem and continue to build the wealth of the top five percent while the rest of us languish. Eventually that top five percent might come to the realization that they cannot continue to build wealth if the rest of us cannot buy goods and services and thus increase demand. Of course, they could simply ignore that and look to foreign markets for their easy money.

Is there a Zacchaeus in my life?

2010-10-31T03:00:00.000-07:00

The gospel reading for October 31 is the story in Luke about the interaction between Jesus and Zacchaeus, the head tax collector Jericho. For a variety of cultural and political reasons, those who collected taxes for the Romans were considered "sinners" by the Jews and thus Zacchaeus would have been an egregious sinner indeed. Zacchaeus was at least curious about Jesus, this itinerant teacher since he was trying to catch a glimpse of him. Since he was "short in stature," he ran ahead and climbed up into a sycamore tree above the crowds in order to see Jesus. His tactic worked; he saw Jesus and Jesus saw him. What happened next was unexpected and life changing.

When Jesus saw him up in the tree, he asked him to come down and then Jesus invited himself to dinner at Zacchaeus' house. This fraternization with a public sinner was scandalous to the crowd but was life changing for Zacchaeus. This acceptance of him as a person struck him to his core and he immediately responded by committing to give away half of his fortune to those less fortunate and to redress any injustice or fraud he had perpetrated on those with whom he dealt. His life changed, not because his "sins" were condemned as well they might have been, but because he was accepted as a human being.

If we Christians are to be the light of Christ to the world, are we not called to the same interaction? We are not called to condemn but to love others, especially those who are different from us. The challenge for most 21st century Americans is that we live, work, and play within tightly homogeneous groups. In order for us to model that acceptance displayed Jesus, most of us most of the time have to seek experiences outside our normal life spaces. It is there that we will find those, who like Zacchaeus are different perhaps even to the point of being condemned by society. It is these we are called to love with the same life-changing love and acceptance displayed by Jesus in this gospel story.

Redistribution is the name of the game

2010-10-17T03:15:00.000-07:00

We all knew that when Joe the Plumber labeled Obama as a "redistributionist" that he wasn't saying anything that wasn't true of all U.S. politicians. The issue is not whether to redistribute income or not but rather how income should be distributed. Robert Reich in his new book, After-Shock: The Next Economy and America's Future, opens with the single most important statistic for the current political debate: "In the late 1970's, the richest 1 percent of the country took in less than 9 percent of the nation's total income. After that, income concentrated in fewer and fewer hands. By 2007, the richest 1 percent took in 23.5 percent of total national income. It is no mere coincidence that the last time income was this concentrated was in 1928." (page 6)

This "redistribution" of income into the hands of the richest Americans was the work of both political parties but it began with Reaganomics and was accelerated by the Bush tax cuts after a period of some moderation under Clinton. The Tea Party profoundly misunderstands the dynamics of this redistribution in its calls for reduction of government spending and what it calls "confiscatory" taxes. There is an essential problem with rich people getting richer, even a lot richer. The problem is that they got richer by impoverishing the middle class. The middle 60 to 80 percent of Americans whose incomes in real terms have steadily declined since 1980.

This redistribution had two negative effects. First, it concentrated more and more money in the hands of people whose consumption was already at the maximum and thus rather than spend their increased wealth in consumption--the mother's milk of the American economy--they sought to get even richer. If they had actually invested that money in strong fundamental economic activity, we would have all benefited. What they did, however, is what they always do: they speculated. Too much money chasing too few investment opportunities simply drives up prices in a speculative frenzy: think dotcom bubble; think housing bubble. Eventually these bubbles burst and in the last case that almost brought down the entire economy.

The second impact fed into the first. Even though the American middle class had less and less real income, it continued to respond to the essential need to keep consumer demand high. This, for better or for worse, is the fundamental dynamic of the American economy. But if incomes did not keep pace with demand, what would predictably happen? The middle class would use consumer credit to make up for that income loss and when that reached exhaustion, it would use home equity which was ratcheted up by the speculation. Eventually that reached a predictable limit and the middle class was unable to continue to expand demand; the economy slowed and then descended into the Great Recession which was immeasurably worsened by the speculation and the associated abuse.

Government needed to step in and bolster demand lest the Great Recession become another Great Depression. If federal deficits had not become bloated with unneeded war expenditures and unwarranted tax cuts for the rich and if the excesses of the speculation had not required massive bailouts, the central government could have increased demand within acceptable deficit limits since recovery would mean increased federal revenues and the opportunity to pay down the debt. This happened during the Clinton administration but the resulting financial strength was expended on the above tax cuts and the military adventures of the following administration.

The problem now is that a recovery which does not address this maldistribution of income simply will not work. Private demand from the middle class will not develop to take the place of government demand--always meant to be a short response. The 17 percentage point gain in national income held by the rich must be reduced back to its 1980 levels. This redistribution will mean that the middle class will once gain be able to play its role in the American economy. While the richest one percent will have a smaller share of national income, the fundamental economic system will be sound and stable.

In other words, the previous tax cuts for the middle class should be made permanent but the tax cuts for the rich should be allowed to expire. To do otherwise could be disastrous beyond our wildest nightmares.

Health Care Reform...as if I needed any more reasons!

2009-09-21T08:02:00.000-07:00

Here are opening paragraphs describing the Harvard study obn death rates among uninsured Americans.

Nearly 45,000 annual deaths are associated with lack of health insurance, according to a new study published online today by the American Journal of Public Health. That figure is about two and a half times higher than an estimate from the Institute of Medicine (IOM) in 2002.
The study, conducted at Harvard Medical School and Cambridge Health Alliance, found that uninsured, working-age Americans have a 40 percent higher risk of death than their privately insured counterparts, up from a 25 percent excess death rate found in 1993.

“The uninsured have a higher risk of death when compared to the privately insured, even after taking into account socioeconomics, health behaviors, and baseline health,” said lead author Andrew Wilper, M.D., who currently teaches at the University of Washington School of Medicine. “We doctors have many new ways to prevent deaths from hypertension, diabetes, and heart disease — but only if patients can get into our offices and afford their medications.”

This number is roughly equivalent to the number of people killed in automobile accidents in the U.S. each year. Over a ten year period, we are talking about almost 500,000 largely preventable deaths. This fact alone should be enough to demonstrate the failure of our current private enterprise based health care and insurance system.

Health Care Reform

2009-09-14T07:52:00.000-07:00

We are at a historic moment for the financing of the American health care system. In the 44 years since the establishment of Medicaid and Medicare, we have never been closer to fundamental reform that can have systemic impacts on the financing and quality of American health care. In this discussion, it is important to keep certain facts in mind:

Among developed, industrialized countries (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) the United States spends vastly more than any other country.

16% of GDP which is almost double the OECD average.

Highest per capita with $7290 which is two-and-half times the OECD average. (Adjusted for differences in purchasing power)

Despite this large difference in effort, 45 million Americans are not covered by health insurance

Health outcomes (life expectancy and infant mortality) are far from the best.

There are fewer doctors per capita than in most other developed countries.

Most other countries spend substantially less than the U.S. and provide health care with at least equal and in some cases better health outcomes.

As a nation we have been clear that a market mechanism—while obviously superior in terms of the economic production—was not an effective or just method of allocating resources the fields of education, national defense, police and fire protection, and criminal justice. However our free market ideology has led us down a path in which market mechanisms and private ownership have been the determining structures of our health care system. After 40 years, I think we can conclude that this has only added cost without benefit to a health care system. We need to move away from a failed ideology and move toward an approach that every other industrialized country has found both efficient and effective.

However, simply changing the financial and institutional structures of the health care system will not solve the more fundamental problem: the deteriorating health of American citizens. When Medicare was established, 13 percent of adult Americans were obese; today 32 percent are. Fully two-third of all adult Americans are overweight or obese. In 2008 $147 billion in health care costs were spent on health issues related to obesity. This is 9 percent of all expenditures. There is nothing to suggest that these trends will not continue.

It is well established that Americans consume substantially more of the world’s resources than our share of world population. While this over consumption has provided us with a comfortable and easy life style, it is now becoming apparent that this very over consumption—whether of oil or of food—carries costs that we simply cannot afford. Sooner than later we need to reform our health system in ways that effectively incentivize health and wellness rather than treating chronic diseases caused by our life style. If we do not address both issues, it is hard to see how an unhealthy and bankrupt America can provide the political leadership the world desperately needs.

Mt. Irenaeus

2009-05-25T05:28:00.000-07:00

Last weekend I went on retreat with members of the men's spirituality group of which I am a member. We went to Mt. Irenaeus a ministry of the Friars at St. Bonaventure. The following is the final entry in my rpayer journal for that weekend.

Just back from an hour’s walk in the woods. As I walked I kept repeating to myself that I just needed to trust myself. It seems so simple. Why haven’t I done it? I began to think of all the people who saw me as fundamentally good: Grandma, Marilyn, Paula, Fran Blighton, Sr. Therese, Tim, Richard, Tom, Anola. There are so many; why didn’t I hear them? Why did I think I had to be different, had to have some kind of agenda for change? It was because of my attachments, beliefs, fears just as De Mello writes. Where did these come from and why were they and are they so powerful that I distort myself in light of them? De Mello is right in the sense that they come from culture, society, family. Sometimes these are innocent and unavoidable; sometimes they are intentional and diabolical. Why would a five year little boy think that people were trying to poison him except for the fact that he sensed there was something wrong with the way he was.

No matter how deep and how strong, these are lessons that can be unlearned but awareness and understanding. No program of change will accomplish anything other than reinforcing the attachments. Joyce’s description of a retreat in Portrait of an Artist as Young Man struck home to me and my classmates because it was exactly our experience. We were told that we were bad, yes basically bad and that we needed to change. Discipline was the key and it carried within it the seed of destruction. Nothing ever worked, at least not for very long. It could never work but it kept us in an inferior position. Unfortunately the Church has used this approach and continues to use it.

We begin in a blessed condition because of that fundamental existential relationship to the Divine. We are not sullied or wounded with original sin. The world is wounded in that way and it is the world that wounds us, not the other way around. Our struggle is to keep the world from distorting that fundamental relationship and the freedom and life that come with it. That is the human task. That is my task.

I stood before the wooden cross at the end of trail and spoke to Jesus. He knows exactly what I go through; he faced the same human condition. It is not original sin as personal but original sin in the world. He kept himself free from that or understood his circumstance in a way that freed him. It was that world that crucified him, not me and my sins as we were taught. I asked him to help me follow his same path, not by following a set of rules but by freeing myself as he freed himself, by taking up his cross which is really no cross at all but radical existential freedom. Surely this is the meaning of grace, divine life in me. I heard him tell me that he and I were in exactly the same situation. The divine life at the core of his being is the same divine life at the core of mine. I am to become like him. The divine deeply desires that I be so and sends me a superabundance of life through that relationship. All I have to do is be open to that life by freeing myself of attachments, beliefs, and fears. I have gained a deeper appreciation for the meaning of sunder warumbe.

What now? I desire to be more faithful in my prayer and reflection. An hour a day is not too much to ask of myself. I would spend the hour reading scripture and works that feed this understanding: Meister Eckhart, De Mello, Fox and others I am sure. I can do this each morning as soon as Marilyn leaves for work. It is quiet and peaceful.

All this puts the Church in a difficult position for me. It has been and continues to be a source of my problems. How can it be otherwise? It is part of this sinful world that seeks to control me and distort my view of who I really am. Have not most of those who have written in this vein been punished or excluded by the Church? How can this be? It is part of the human condition and must be seen in that light. Salvation does not lie in the Church. My involvement with the Church must be such that it sustains this life in me. Every reform movement in the Church began with similar insights, namely that the relationship with the divine is central and happens outside the structures and institutions of the church.

I must be a Very Unimportant Person

2009-03-15T08:51:00.000-07:00

On March 10 I joined 1,000 Catholics from the eight dioceses in New York State in Albany to lobby our state senators and assembly members on the public policy issues important to Roman Catholics in the state. I had gotten up at 4:00 am in order to board a 5:00 am bus with 50 other people from the Diocese of Rochester. When we arrived at the Albany Convention Center, we went to the registration tables where our name tags were arranged alphabetically. I easily found mine and picked up a packet of materials for the day.

That's when I noticed a table at the end with a large sign that said: "Bishops and VIP's." Although I wasn't sure how a VIP would know he or she was one, I knew immediately that I wasn't one...even though I and the 1,000 other volunteers were there to do the work of lobbying. Frankly, I found it to be offensive and unchristian. Why create classes of people? Surely even Bishops and VIP's were not alphabetically challenged. Surely they could find their name badge just as easily as I did. It can only be that Bishops and VIP's are different from the rest of us, special, and in fact better and thus deserving of special treatment rather than being treated like the rest of us.

This may seem like a small thing but I think it speaks volumes about the problems with a church that creates status levels to no good purpose and in contradiction to the words and actions of Jesus Christ. "You know that those who are recognized as rulers over the Gentiles lord it over them, and these great men make their authority over them felt. But it shall not ge so among you. Rather, whoever wishes to be great among you will be your servant. Whoever wishes to be first among you will be the slave of all. For the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many." (Mark 10:42-45)

Those who have ears to hear, let them hear!

Do Republicans think we are all idiots?

2009-02-09T05:45:00.000-08:00

I know we elected and then re-elected George W. Bush president. (OK, I know we elected Al Gore the first time but the Democrats didn't have the right lawyers in the right state.) But really, do they really think we have any interest in listening to the people who put us in this financial quagmire as they mumble on about the economic stimulus plan. Don't they understand that the American electorate rejected their policies of reckless foreign wars, overt militarism, monumental deficit spending to fund those wars as well as tax breaks for the rich, undermining the Constitution, and general incompetence due to decisions based on political ideology? Apparently not.
The Republican Party happily stood by as the economic disparity in this country reached historic levels. Republicans thought it was just great that the credit system was manipulated to extend an economic expansion in an irresponsible manner. They cooed approvingly as government oversight was emasculated so that even the SEC could find it appropriate to ignore specific warnings about Ponzi schemes, of all thing. They thought it wonderful that political rather than professional qualifications were used to appoint FEMA directors, U.S. attorneys, and God knows how many others. Ordinary Americans--the middle class--benefited not at all from these policies and schemes.

Last fall these ordinary Americans continued the protest that started with the Congressional elections of 2006: Enough is enough. Stop it with giving even more money and advantages to those who are already obscenely wealthy. Start worrying about us...because we are drowning out here beyond the beltway in all those ordinary places that the Republic media masterminds have portrayed in "patriotic" ads.

So when the man we elected to do just that along with his team says this is the direction in which we need to go, get out of the way. Sure make constructive suggestions; I don't agree with everything in the stimulus package. But don't pontificate political ideology. WE NEED HELP AND WE NEED IT NOW even if NOW will take two to three years.

Oaks of justice

2008-12-14T03:56:00.000-08:00

The Hebrew scripture reading for the Third Sunday of Advent is from Isaiah 61. When I read the beginning of that chapter, I was struck by a verse that is not included in the reading although its substance certainly is.

They will be called oaks of justice,
planted by the Lord to show his glory. Is 61:3

Isaiah is telling the people that God will rebuild Jerusalem after its destruction and the removal of Jews to Babylon. He will reestablish his eternal covenant with them and the preeminence of Jerusalem, but this preeminence will be based on justice and mercy rather than worldly domination.

An oak is truly a magnificent tree: slow growing, solid, long lasting, large, and imposing. It stands as a monument to perseverance and strength as well as the peaceful shelter of its shade. What if each of our lives were such a monument, a clear sign of justice for all. This is how God desires to demonstrate God's power and glory. A group of people tried to be those oaks in front of the Border Patrol Office in Rochester. See the story in the Rochester Democrat & Chronicle. View photos.

Bail out of U.S. auto makers is a bad idea

2008-11-14T13:30:00.000-08:00

Don't get me wrong. I want all three (GM, Ford, and Chrysler) to continue and to thrive. They are important to our economy and need to become strong and vibrant once again. But let's be realistic. The problems plaguing the industry did not happen over night. Anyone with eyes to see has been aware for the last thirty years that Detroit just didn't get it. It took them decades to understand that U. S. consumers desired high quality and fuel efficiency. They persisted in making lower quality gas guzzlers even to the point of convincing Congress that SUV's were really trucks and therefore should be exempt from the gas mileage standards. Mean while the Japanese manufacturer took quality management to heart and provided the American consumers with the cars they wanted. Later Korean cars did the same thing.

To give taxpayer money to be spent by the people that drove the American auto companies into the ditch just doesn't make any sense. Our economic system has a way for companies to deal with these problems and it is called bankruptcy, specifically Chapter 11. Just look at the way that major American airlines used bankruptcy to realigned its cost structure so it could return to profitability. Auto companies did to do the same. Frankly without going into bankruptcy, I doubt that they can reduced their structural costs and return to market viability.

The problem is that a company going into Chapter 11 needs to obtain financing and they are few financial institutions which would give the massive loans required. This is where the government can play a role by guaranteeing these reorganization loans. This would enable any of the three to go through the bankruptcy process rather than taking money or even loans from the federal government in the hopes that they would straighten out their affairs. The role of a federal bankruptcy judge is to insure that management does exactly that. Accountability to politicians is a weak and ineffectual substitute for this time tested legal procedure.

A bankruptcy is not an easy process. It will require reworking labor and supplier contracts to bring the cost structure in line with global competition. Honda and Toyota have shown that it is possible to build quality cars in the U.S. American manufacturers are not being asked to do the impossible just the difficult. Everyone needs to give a little, perhaps more than just a little. If American consumers end up paying a bit more for quality cars from American companies, that would be a small price to pay to keep this section viable. But just to have the same bad actors burn through more taxpayer money to end up in the same place is unacceptable.

50th High School Reunion

2008-10-28T06:02:00.001-07:00

I attended my 50th high school reunion this month. Pictured here are three of the guys I spent a lot of time with during high school and college: Pat Miller, myself, Terry Noel, and Jim Steffen. In so many ways, they were exactly the same. I felt that same old connection. No wonder I liked them so much when we were teenagers!

We were members of class of 1958 from Rockhurst High School and of 1962 from Rockhurst College, both run the Jesuits and both all male. We reminisced and got caught up on our lives since then. We missed those who were not there.

Naturally I thought back to what it was like when I was 17 and had an unlimited future ahead of me. Of course, it didn't seem unlimited at the time. I only saw a narrow slice of all that life offered me. As I look back I can see opportunities missed and a life that could have been very different if different choices had been made. But I am pleased and blessed to be where I am now. On balance, I have no regrets other than I haven't kept in touch with most of these wonderful guys. I can remedy that.

The experience also helped me realize that my life now is not some point but rather a continuing process. I face a future that is filled with more opportunities that I might realize. I am not 17 but I am still in the process of becoming the person that God intended me to be.

September Delegation to Migrant Workers

2008-10-08T06:08:00.000-07:00

On September 21, I and three others participated in another Rural & Migrant Ministry visit to migrant workers in in Orleans County. they work on the muck farms planting and harvesting onions, potatoes, cabbage, and other vegetables. We learned a great deal about the life and struggles of these workers. Most disturbing was the story of a mother of ten month baby. She has been fitted with an ankle bracelet while she waits for her adjudication and deportation back to Mexico. Her son was born in the U.S. and thus is a U.S. citizen. When she is deported, she cannot take him with her immediately. Eventually he too will be sent to Mexico but there will be, apparently by law, a period of separation.

On this trip, we also met two married couples who left their children in Mexico and came to work in the fields here. One mother talked about her four children, one of whom was only two when she left three years ago. Her story and others point up the desperate conditions they face at home. How bad would things have to be for me to choose to leave my young children as the better of terrible options I would face. it is inconceivable to me and most Americans. Our country needs to do whatever we can to assist Mexico in improving living and working conditions for these rural workers. To the extent that NAFTA has made conditions more difficult for farm workers in Mexico, it has created conditions that drive immigration to the U.S. Building a wall and increasing "border security" is no match for underlying economic conditions that causes parents to make such awful choices.

In a very small building that has housed as many as 25 workers in some seasons, we found some remarkable art in one of the bedrooms. The workers living there this season had left that morning to journey to Florida as the season here comes to an end. The three female figures are actually angels. You can see wings. Although hard to see in the photo, each figure had a halo as well. At some point, all the walls in the room were covered with drawings and poetry.

The drawing of Jesus is particularly interesting because it includes the well known Serenity prayer in Spanish. Even in the midst of this barely tolerable living condition, artistic expression provides a sense of hope and beauty.

View more pictures of this delegation.

The smartest guys in several rooms!

2008-09-18T06:15:00.000-07:00

I believe that anyone who would understand the latest developments on Wall Street stemming from the sub prime housing debacle should watch the documentary: The Enron Story: The Smartest Guys in the Room. This documentary can be understood on several levels but the message to me was simple: The desire to bend the rules in order to amass huge amounts of money and power cannot be kept in check by professional canons or by regulations that are not kept up to date with the latest sophisticated financial innovations.

The boys and girls at Enron concocted a financial house of cards that seemingly generated unheard of profits. Anyone whose judgment was not clouded by the opportunity to personally and corporately profit would have seen it as something that was too good to be true. Almost no one on whom the rest of us rely for information was able to see it for what it was. Law firms, accounting firms, financial institutions, investment bankers, Security and Exchange Commission, and the corporate officers themselves, all of them went along. Some even actively participated by providing opinions (financial and legal) that were perhaps narrowly correct but substantially inaccurate. They went along, it seems to me, because each of them had its percentage piece of the pie. When billions of dollars are involved, it doesn't take much of a percentage share to amount to real money.

One could simply lay the blame on the greed of those involved. The housing crisis, however, helps us see that there is a systemic problem with greed that requires some type of systemic solution. While the Enron manipulation affected millions of people, it involved a relatively small number of people in the actual manipulation. In the housing crisis, the financial institutions found a way of implicating those millions in the manipulation itself. Not only were business organizations involved (real estate developers, home builders, real estate sales) but this time millions of individual citizens. This last feature insured that if (or when) the house of cards came crashing down, the government could be counted on to bail out the system. The fact that main line financial investment institutions took the bait of exotic investment instruments based on the sub prime mortgages only sweeten the deal and made government back up all the more inevitable.

This arose not just from the greed of individual actors but from the sense of entitlement to ever increasing wealth among the wealthiest Americans. Over the alst eight years, the gap between the wealthiest five percent of Americans and the rest of us has been widening. Those top five percent have seen their incomes and wealth appreciate markedly while the rest of us have been barely able to keep up with inflation. It has gotten to the point where the wealtheist feel that they not only ahve a right but a responsibility to become a wealthy as possible regardless of what happens to the rest of us. How else can one explain the making of millions of loans to people who did not qualify? This could only happen because of a real estate bubble; in fact, it continued and accelerated that bubble. All bubbles burst! What the weathiest know and knew was that they are relatively immune to those busts. They play with wealth money not income money, the money the rest of use to pay our living expenses: mortgages, transporation, education, health care, food expenses. They could make money by stimulating the desire of those less wealthy to live as though they were wealthy. Once the bubble burst, the wealthy walk away with their earnings and outsized bonus payments while the rest of us sink back into the reality that we are not and probably never will be wealthy and we do this in rental housing.

This culture of entitlement wasn't created by government action but it has been given steroids by the Bush tax cuts, the gutting of oveersight regulation, increasing tax favored treatment for corporations, and blathering about the "ownership society." Clearly this is time for a change.

New York State Fiscal Mess

2008-09-12T10:24:00.000-07:00

With all the attention given to the presidential campaign, I have only recently focused on the New York State races. There is no gubernatorial race but our assembly persons and senators are running. In the vast majority of cases, incumbents are re-elected. Surprise, surprise. Each year both incumbents and challengers rail against the broken New York government and promise the voters that they will lead the effort to "clean up Albany." Nothing much happens except finger pointing a variety of scapegoats. In my twenty plus years in New York, I have distinct impression that our elected representatives are powerless even if motivated to change things.

Now, however, the situation has become so desperate that those running for office must come up with workable solutions to a worsening fiscal problem. Here is an outline of the situation:

New York routinely ranks first or second among the states in the percent of personal income paid in state and local taxes: income, property, sales, and others.
New York ranks far from second in the basic social indicators of a healthy state: poverty, health, and education.
This year the governor called the legislature into special session to deal with projected deficits in the billions of dollars. When an agreement was finally reached, the governor and the leaders of the legislature proudly announced that they had made progress without raising taxes. They made that progress by drastically reducing state funding for health care, child care, education along with most other social services. The governor has indicated that more cuts will be needed and clearly these same areas will be hit the hardest.
New York's total tax burden is highly regressive. The lowest twenty percent of families int terms of income pay 12 percent of their income in state and local taxes while the highest twenty percent pay 6.5 percent. The tax cuts of the late nineties massively benefited the highest income families while providing almost no relief to low income families and marginal benefits to middle income families. This is consistent with national tax policy that provided massive decreases to the wealthiest. As is true at the national level, New Yorkers in the low and middle income levels have seen very little growth income while costs continue to rise. Over the past year, this situation has worsened appreciably. The situation is even worse if state sponsored gambling is included. Given the demographics of participation, the state lottery is simply another regressive tax on lower income families.
In fiscal 2007 the budget included $200,000,000 in what are called "member items." This is the New York terms for "pork barrel" or "earmarks." In New York, this has been raised to a high level. The budget includes a single comprehensive item. $80 million goes to the head of the Assembly and $80 million to the head of the Senate. These funds are allocated in some mysterious fashion to individual members and are major factors in party leaders maintaining control over members in each body. The governor received another $40 million to allocate in some equally mysterious fashion. There is no publicly available list of projects. When information is sought under public information laws, only individual grants are disclosed, not the name of the legislator responsible. These funds are used for very specific organizations/projects. This allows them to tell constituents that they have delivered funds back to their home district. There are no guidelines, no priorities, and no accountability. In fact, I have heard that some legislators have had their names placed on structures as though they had contributed their own money. My own state senator lists his member items on his web site. This is a step in the right direction. However a reform is needed so that this $200 million can be allocated in some rational way to address major state priorities rather than multitudinous local projects.

My concern in this state election is not how much money someone delivers back home but what will he or she do to right this precarious fiscal ship. We must elect people who have the courage to think anew about the way in which New York government and governments are funded. To continue tinkering and cutting will only make matters worse. I have not yet heard any one address the above issues in a realistic way.

If we think we need change in Washington, we clearly need change in Albany.

McCain showed me a lot and not so much

2008-09-05T07:06:00.000-07:00

I watched John McCain's acceptance speech last night and was impressed with his story which I had never really heard before. I knew about the war record, the prisoner of war experience, and his public service but I was not aware of his conversion experience during his imprisonment. He told that story in a convincing and touching way. In the Christian tradition, it was a story of death and resurrection. He was forced to confront his radical individualism by being placed in a position of weaknesses and utter helplessness. His fellow prisoners kept him alive since he could not even feed himself. He learned that going it alone was not the path to a full human life, a life of meaning. Even when his captors broke him, he found through another prisoner the strength to continue on with the full knowledge that he was human and thus breakable. Out of those horrid experiences, he came to a realization that his life had meaning only in service to others. His life since then has certainly been consistent with that realization. He is a true hero, not because he served his country so courageously but because he faced his own humanity in a way that resulted in commitment to service, compassion, and honesty. This is a story that speaks to all of us and the ways in which each of us must likewise confront our humanity and grow because of it.

If, as McCain's campaign manager had said, this election were not about issues, the choice between Obama and McCain would a difficult one for me. But this campaign and election is about issues and policies. Both men are deeply devoted to America and the promise it holds for us and the world community. Both men place "country first." To suggest that only McCain does is frankly an insult to Obama, to his supporters, and to me. Let us differ about policy and direction but not about our commitment to our country.

When both candidates are such exemplary human beings, it is even more essential to be guided by the political parties of each. The Twentieth Century brought us Social Security, Medicare, federally funded health research, space exploration, rebuilding of Europe and Japan, federal aid in so many ways to education, the end of segregation, expansion of civil rights, etc. because democrat presidents led the way. Harry Truman's 1948 acceptance speech reads as if it could be given today in terms of the issues he saw as important to our country. The democrats have remained largely faithful to that heritage. The republicans have typically been the opposition in those fights. They continue today to argue for a lessening of the government's role in these programs and the impact they have on ordinary people. The result has been a definitive increase in income inequality during the Bush years; the rich have gotten even richer and the lower and the middle classes have fallen behind.

Regardless of the enthusiasm of party loyalists on both sides, it is incumbent on us to be clear headed about the policies and issues. This is too important an election to be ourselves be swayed by personal stories, clever slogans, and appeals to our fears.

Vice Presidential Choice of Palin Will Backfire

2008-09-01T06:44:00.000-07:00

McCain has made a serious miscalculation in his choice for vice president.

There is very little that qualifies her to become a potential president; given McCain's age and health history this is much more serious that bush's selection of Dan Quail who was also unqualified. Palin has no foreign policy experience and to date has demonstrated very little foreign policy knowledge. She has served as mayor of a small town. For two years she has served as governor of a small state and one that faces almost no fiscal issues. Any state that has enough money to pay people to live there does not have the kind of fiscal issues that plague larger states and the federal government. She is largely unknown to the leadership of the national Republican party and thus has little ability to be a player in governance. Even trying to envision her as president of the Senate is a stretch.

Politically this gamble will not pay off. I cannot imagine a female supporter of Hilary Clinton rushing to support an inexperienced woman with retro position on women's right to choose. Her actual gun-toting membership in the NRA may energize the far right but will be a huge negative with women in general. Several female members of my own family--Republican and Democrats alike-- find it disconcerting that a mother of five, including a special needs infant, would presume to devote her time and attention to politics, especially national politics. She is young and has time to put her family first and then engage in the demanding challenges of national politics.

By choosing her McCain will actually alienate most women who will see this as an affront to the role of women pioneered by Hilary and others. Hilary gained support from women not just because she was a woman but because she was a QUALIFIED woman! This is clear evidence that McCain just doesn't get this issue as he fails to get so many others. With so many qualified and experienced Republican women to choose from, why would he select someone with no experience? Her only plus seems to be ideological. Haven't we had enough of that from the current administration?

This choice is just one more piece of evidence that McCain does not have considered judgment and is subject to impetuousness based on his view that he alone knows best. How else to explain the fact that she did not go through a careful vetting process?

Of course, a cynical view would be that the Republicans don't want to waste a competitive candidate in a race they are doomed to lose.

Obama, Mybama

2008-08-31T04:22:00.000-07:00

Throughout the primary campaign, I supported Hilary Clinton because I believed that she would be the strongest candidate against John McCain. Were it not for his inexplicable choice for vice president, I would still believe that. More on that is a subsequent blog.

As a result perhaps of my support for Clinton, I had not paid a lot of attention to Obama. Of course, I would vote for him and support his campaign but perhaps with a bit less enthusiasm than I would a Clinton campaign. Thus it was with great interest that I watched Thursday night. I must say that I was tremendously impressed, not with the style of his speech, but with its content. More than anything I learned more about the person, his history and commitments. Despite the obvious differences of race and color, I found that Barack Obama and I have much in common. Because of his background I believe that he has an emotional as well intellectual grasp of the major issues of the economy and the war. He can connect with the experience and struggles of ordinary citizens and in that connection finds his energy and commitment. Joe Biden re-enforces that dynamic.

The week before the DNC convention I listened to a portion of Harry Truman's 1948 acceptance speech. he spoke of the issues of education, jobs, Social Security, minimum wage, civil rights, and health care and the failure of the Republican congress to act in these areas. For more than six decades the democrats have focused on these issues that matter to ordinary people. Obama continues this tradition with a newly energized electorate.

It has been a busy summer

2008-08-11T19:55:00.000-07:00

I have been away from this blog for some months. Life has been busy with trips to visit family and especially with grandchildren. We have 18 with number 19 on the way. Two from Cincinnati visited us for a week and three from North Carolina have been in the Rochester area for almost two weeks. In addition we traveled to Kansas City to celebrate Mom's 96th birthday. Summer is almost over and I will be posting to this blog more often.

"Do you ever think of us?"

2008-03-30T05:10:00.000-07:00

This was the haunting, resonating question put to a group of white, educated, affluent Americans by a 19-year-old migrant worker in Orleans County New York on a cold day in late March. He walked over the U.S. Mexican border two years ago and traveled somehow to Rochester New York area to work in agriculture. He came because there is little work in his home state and what work there is does not pay enough to support a family. He could work a 12 hour day and earn 100 pesos--about $10. But he then pointed to a two liter soft drink bottle and told us that it would cost 20 pesos at home, 20 percent of his daily wage.

And so he came to the U.S. to work those same 12 hour days or more but to make at least U.S. minimum wage, the bulk of which he sends back to his family. His living and working conditions are abysmal by any standard. During the growing season from April through November, he can work 12 or more hours a day, seven days a week. There is no such thing as over time pay or regular breaks. Sunday is not a day of rest if work needs to be done. If he is sick or cannot work, he does not get paid. New York State and federal taxes are withheld from his pay check and because he fears the immigration implications of filing an income tax return, he does not receive the refund to which he is entitled. He pays Social Security and Medicare payroll taxes but there no possibility that he will ever receive any benefits. In fact, the money he pays into social security helps support the payments that I and others on social security receive!

He lives in constant fear that he will be apprehended by immigration and deported back to Mexico. As a result he tends to spend his time in the camps even when there is no work. He truly feels like "an alien in a strange land" and thus asks me the question: Do you ever think of us? The sad truth is that mostly I do not think of them, whose cheap labor puts food on my table. To think of them makes me uncomfortable...and guilty. Most of the workers we met were in their late teens or early twenties. (View a photo album of our day.) A few were older and had left their wives and children behind in order to have a chance to provide for them. As a father myself it was difficult t imagine how desperate their situations must have been to lead them to leave.

None of those we spoke with wanted to stay here more than one or two years. They missed their families and their homes. They lead lives on the margin, out of sight, and all too often out of mind. They are the victims of a dysfunctional economic system at home and a misguided political and legal system here. It is difficult and often dangerous for them to raise their voices to demand the human rights that we all should have. Some of them have traveled to Albany with groups advocating for migrant worker rights. I doubt that I would have the courage to do the same were I in their situation.

Imagine how wonderful it would be if they could enter our country legally to do the work on which we rely for food. They could live among us as the proud and talented people they are instead of hiding from us who too often seem to them to be at worst enemies and at best unaware beneficiaries of their work. They could return home freely and just as freely return for the work that awaits them. They could earn reasonable wages and have the same protections that the rest of us enjoy.

Shortly before 9/11 there was pending legislation that would have provided just such an arrangement. But the hysteria generated by that attack wrecked the political coalition among both democrats and republicans that could have passed that legislation. Creating a border that pretends to be impregnable is no solution to this problem. There is no border in the world that divides such poverty on one side and such affluence on the other. We would all benefit from the free movement of such workers. We certainly need to control our borders but our current system forces honest and decent people to become criminals to provide the basic necessities to their families.

I will be doing more research to understand the changes that can be made to normalize this situation. It is clear to me that this should be an issue separate from the status of undocumented immigrant who are living permanently in the U.S.

If we have to have an enemy, can we admit it is us?

2008-03-27T10:34:00.000-07:00

Retired General Anthony Zinni and retired Admiral Leighton Smith have penned an important op ed piece in today's USAToday: A Smarter Weapon. They call for an expansion of and greater reliance on non-military means to address international problems and issues. They note that they, like most of us, came to age and developed careers during the Cold War. By definition, the United States faced an enemy, the USSR. With collapse of the USSR and thus the end of the Cold War, we were left with no enemy to face...until 9/11.

Since that event, Al Quaeda specifically or extreme jihadists have come to assume that role. Eventually perhaps we could have developed a world view that did not need an enemy to make sense, but if that process was underway it was short circuited by Osama bin Laden and his followers. While this "enemy" has been used to structure our view of the view and to justify national actions that are clearly not in our best interests, the real danger has been a failure to recognize, as the General and the Admiral say, that "today, our 'enemies' are often conditions--poverty, infectious disease, political instability and corruption, global warming--which generate the biggest threats. By addressing them in meaningful way, we can forestall crises."

As I have commented before, the role of the United States in the political and economic sphere often creates or makes those problems worse. Our failure to be part of the Kyoto Treaty, our continued gross overconsumption of energy and food, our failure to act or to lead action to address horrendous human devastation, all these contribute to conditions that breed the anger and resentment that can generate enemies. Does it not make more sense to address the root causes, rather than symptoms fo social and economic stress?

The Acid Test of Discipleship

2008-03-15T05:55:00.000-07:00

"Acid test" is an interesting term. It originated in the 19th century and referred to a test to determine if what appeared to be gold was, in fact, gold. A drop of nitric acid would leave real gold untouched but would turn blue on "fool's gold" which contains some element of copper. By the 20th century, it had entered general usage referring to whatever kind of test would distinguish the real from merely the apparent.

As I was praying with Sacred Space this morning, I reflected on what would be the acid test for a Christian. Would an objective observer conclude from the way I live my life that God exists? Or would such an observer conclude that my "espoused values" were Christian but that my "values in action" reflected the prevailing values and attitudes of my culture? Am I a thoroughly acculturated 21st century American who espouses Christian values or am I a faithful disciple of Jesus Christ who lives a life "in but not of" this 21st century world? This is a constant question for anyone, regardless of religious belief or engagement. The terms--"espoused values" and "values in action"--are from the work of Chris Argyris, noted organizational behaviorist. He uses these concepts to analyze the very human trait of saying one thing (usually what we think people want or need to hear) and then doing another (usually what we want or need.) We have all heard the same thoughts expressed in different ways:

Values are not taught; they're taught.
"If I had ever met a Christian, I might be one." Ghandi
"Children pay more attention to what parents do, not what they say." Most any parent.
"The good that I will, I do not. The evil that I do not will, that is what I do." St. Paul

While Christianity is inherently counter-cultural, I know that it is impossible for me to act outside the culture of which I am a part. But I know that I can live in tension with that culture or in a barely conscious complicity with it. Setting aside overt religious observance, could an observer look at my behavior this past week and at least get a glimmer that there is something at work in my life other than the prevailing values of my culture? If so, what would those be exactly? Such an examination is an uncomfortable exercise but one that I want to make part of my life.

What's wrong with this picture?

2008-02-28T05:47:00.001-08:00

Apart from being a little fuzzy, this presents Americans with a dose of reality. Among the 26 developed, industrialized countries of the world, the United States is roughly average on a set of socio-economic indicators that measure quality of life. To see more detailed information, go to OECD Factbook. The above chart is taken from a presentation on the short and long fiscal crisis facing the federal government prepared and presented by Controller General David Walker. Click here to see this and other avaialble presentations.

What a mess we have made of health care!

2008-02-18T12:59:00.000-08:00

Why can't we just face the truth? For a variety of reasons, we have wrecked our health care system under the guise of a free enterprise, market-driven approach. Somehow we believed that using the market would result in better health care, that is, better care to more people. After close to 30 years, the results are shameful:

We spend more money on health care per capita and a higher percentage of gross domestic product than any other developed country and yet on several key measures such as infant mortality and life expectancy we rank embarrassingly low.
40 million Americans have no health insurance and thus basically no way to cover the expenses of maintenance health care let alone of serious illness.
Lack of access to preventive and ordinary care means that more routine illnesses present in more advanced and often chronic form by the time the health care system is accessed.
Those of us who have health insurance live with an illusion of security since HMO's achieve their business success by restricting access to care.
Increasingly the ability to pay determines the amount and quality of health care one can receive. Those in the top two percent of U.S. incomes can afford whatever health care they desire. The rest of us must often forgo needed treatment because we cannot afford it.
What was once a totally not for profit sector has become dominated largely by for profit companies, both health care and insurance companies. Profit companies legitimately seek a reasonable profit. Unfortunately in health care, profits are resources that are not spent on providing health care.
While a large proportion of drugs are based on research funded by our tax dollars through the National Institutes of Health, drugs prices in the U.S. are higher than in other countries. We are the source of subsidies at the research and the retail level.

We have taken health care out of the realm of a social goods (similar to fire and policy protection, education, highway construction and maintenance, air traffic control to name a few) and moved into the realm of market goods. This has clearly resulted in a fundamentally flawed health care system. Even attempts to use the insurance model to cover everyone will continue complicity with the profit market model and thus perpetuate the problem.

Why cannot we just do what common sense tells us: Just as public education through the 12th grade, health care should be available to everyone regardless of health history, ability to pay, legal status, etc. As with education, those who desire a different alternative and can afford it would be able to access health care through a market model but no one would be denied quality care because of ability to pay.

I am lucky to live in Rochester NY. New York requires that hospitals be not for profit corporations. While many ancillary services--imaging is a good example--have moved out of hospitals into profit making corporations, the fundamental structure of care remains a not for profit one. In Rochester, the largest health insurer and HMO is a Blue Cross entity that did not transform itself from a not for profit to a profit seeking organization. Now named Excellus, the leadership and board of this non profit insurer did not think it wise for the long term health of their clients to become a profit seeking company. While there are clearly health care issues in Rochester, we have not experienced the horror stories so typical in the operation of hospitals and HMO's in other parts of the country where health care has become a business.

If it is too extreme and perhaps impossible to return to health care system that is not viewed as a business, what can we do to at least begin to get our money's worth out of our private and public expenditures. Here are three possible suggestions:

Change the current law that prevents Medicare from negotiating prices with drug companies. The Veterans Administration is allowed to do this as well as the HMO that covers federal employees. Doesn't it make sense to permit this for those on Medicare who opt for the drug coverage?
Simplify the Medicare drug coverage by eliminating the confusing insurance middlemen. If Medicare can pay health care providers directly, it can easily pay drug providers directly. This would eliminate the money diverted to insurance company profits.
Require that everyone have health insurance coverage and then create incentives for people to use the health care system as often as needed. This will, over time, result in more preventive care which will reduce expenditures in the long run.

These are steps that we can take to move away from the disastrous experiment of converting health care into a market-driven business. Markets are effective at allocating resources for many activities but health care is not one of them. Our experiment has made a few people very wealthy and left the rest of us paying more for health care and getting less.

Things Are So Complicated

2008-02-12T05:54:00.000-08:00

"Global demand lifts grain prices, gobbles supplies" is the cover story in the Money Section of USAToday for February 12. It is a good example of the way in which our global interdependence can lead to unintended or at least unanticipated consequences. Most would think that the economic development of third World countries is a good thing..and it clearly is. Most of us would think that turning to alternative fuels is also a good thing...and it is. Many think that using corn based ethanol is a good thing...and it might be. However, all these developments are leading to increased demand for food relative to supplies and thus higher prices for food commodities: corn, wheat, soybeans, etc. This is clearly a good thing for farmers both here in the U.S. and in developing countries. It means that especially in developing countries, more people can sustain themselves with agriculture and thus are less likely to migrate to urban areas with there concentrations of people and poverty.

At the same time, however, as prices for food increase, those who are poor and less able to afford food will get less food. Just to take one example cited in the article, the World Food Programme "will need $520 million more to provide the amount of good they had budgeted for this summer." This story is duplicated in other organizations providing food assistance like Oxfam.

As societies develop economically, they tend spend more on food although at a lower percentage of total income. There is an underlying dynamic, however, in that as people develop economically they tend to prefer increase animal protein over plant. Since it take eight times the grain to produce a calorie of animal protein as opposed to a grain protein, the demand for grain accelerates exponentially.

A gas station in Rochester has just started selling ethanol. It seems to be the case that every time a gallon of ethanol is consumed, the bread that I buy will cost more. That is merely an inconvenience for me but could threaten the health of those less well off than I.

It is hard to tell what to do. Switch grass seems a better source of ethanol than corn. The overall carbon foot print of ethanol--regardless of the source--may not be much better than petroleum. Reducing use of and thus demand for energy in the U.S. seems a more responsible way to be a good citizen in this global interconnected world. Increasing personal contributions to food assistance organizations is also a reasonable response for those of us who are so well off relative to our global sisters and brothers.

Isaiah and the Problem of Religious Practices

2008-02-08T04:11:00.000-08:00

The lectionary for February 8 contains a reading from Isaiah 58:1-9a that is relevant to much in our lives today, especially as we begin the season of Lent. The people to whom Isaiah speaks were observant. They fasted; they afflicted themselves; they prayed. And yet, they felt that God had abandoned them. "Why do we fast, and you do not see it? afflict ourselves, you take no note of it?" They were following all the rules and did not receive the benefits of their special relationship with God.

They, as I often do, missed the point. Careful observance of religious practices does not somehow earn the favor of God. The loving concern of God is there for the asking, not the earning. In fact, all we need do is accept God's love in a way that changes us in a much more fundamental way than any prayer or practice can possibly do. As Psalm 51 tell us in today Responsorial Psalm, acceptance of God's love results in a "heart contrite and humbled." It is this changed heart that expresses itself in the kind of fasting pleasing to God.

"This, rather, is the fasting that I wish:
releasing those bound unjustly,
untying the thongs of the yoke;
Setting free the oppressed,
breaking every yoke;
Sharing your bread with the hungry,
sheltering the oppressed and the homeless;
Clothing the naked when you see them,
and not turning your back on your own."

As far as I can tell, all the major religions focus on a change of heart that is the source of both religious practices and acting in the world with justice and mercy. It is not that prayers or even acts of justice earn the favor of God but rather that an acceptance of God's life and love in each of us that naturally overflows into prayer and justice. When Jesus spoke of faith without love being as empty as a clanging cymbal, he was recalling this ancient insight. When Ghandi said that he would become a Christian if he had every met one, he was referring to the same thing.

As a Christian entering the season of Lent, I am called to refocus on this fundamental dynamic. Prayer, fasting, and justice are the fruits of faith. The Ten Commandments and other moral precepts are not so much rules to live by as they are descriptions of the life of those who have entered into the life of God. Lent is a time to rededicate myself to this faith and to the ways in which I express this in my daily life. My goal is that this new life "shall break forth life the dawn."

Clinton or Obama: Final Answer

2008-02-03T20:22:00.000-08:00

The Giants won the Super Bowl. Is that an omen?

It is now Sunday night and I have determined to make my decision before I go to bed.

I will vote for Hillary Clinton. This has been a difficult decision. I could vote for either and will strongly support either as the Democrat nominee. I know Clinton better since she has been my senator for eight years. On almost all important issues their positions are essentially the same. I wish that Clinton had voted against the Iraq resolution. Twenty-four senators did. However, all of the senators who subsequently became candidates for the nomination voted for the resolution. Edwards subsequently recanted. Obama was not in the Senate at the time although he gave a speech against the resolution and the war it led to. His position at the time mirrored my own. I am not sure what he would have done if he had been in the Senate and thus his position would have had an impact on the actual policy. It is one thing to give a speech; another to vote on legislation that will impact policy.

Clinton is a strong, assertive, intelligent and savvy woman. That she comes across to some as calculating and self-interested seems to me to reflect more our difficulty in finding categories to judge such a woman rather than the character of her words or actions. As a woman, she also has special difficulties with her spouse. Male candidates typically have spouses who have subjugated their careers or ambition to those of their husbands. This means that the spouses of male candidates are largely attractive appendages. The spouses of female candidates typically have careers and public visibility which can often be problematic. The Ferraro candidacy is an example. Hillary's is another and is probably an extreme example. I can judge her candidacy apart from Bill's record and I believe that others can and should.

Charisma is just not enough for me any more. I want someone as president who begins with policies and proposed programs that will deliver on the ideals we all share. I have not heard or seen many of Obama's television ads but the ones I have seen focus on his personal history and the great ideals of America. I think that Clinton is committed to similar ideals but relies more on her experience in working out the political agreements and often compromises that are necessary to deliver on those ideals.

In the end, I believe that those who share the ideas and ideals of the Democrat party will join a new administration. There might be differences in those who join a Clinton administration and those who would join an Obama administration but I do not think the differences would be in quality.

I am more comfortable with and have more confidence in an approach that relies on persistent and patient work to achieve essential policies than I do in an approach that seems so characterized by enthusiasm. The change that either candidate proposes will take years to achieve and these changes will face opposition and unknown challenges. Success will require the capacity to persist in the face of defeat and difficulties, things which can too easily deflate enthusiasm and popularity. I believe that Clinton is in the political process for the long term, regardless of the outcome of this campaign. That commitment is important to the achievement of the ideals and policies at the heart of this campaign.

I am putting this topic to rest for a while. My next posting will take up something else.

Clinton or Obama: More

2008-02-03T04:32:00.000-08:00

It is early Sunday morning in California. I have had discussions with family members from Missouri, Colorado and California. All of them are supporting Obama. Their reasons have nothing to do with policies or positions on issues. Their concerns about Clinton run more to history and her style, variables over which she has little control. Her past experience (Senate) and experiences (spouse of Bill Clinton) are part of who she is today and who she will be tomorrow. Her work in the Senate has been impressive; she has served New York and the country well. She works hard and has been effective working across the aisle. All this would serve her and us well. However, she is also Bill Clinton's spouse. The more active he is in her campaign, the more important that fact becomes. I do not believe that she would be controlled or even unduly influenced by him. She is quite strong and able to make her own way, as she clearly has in the Senate.

The problem, I think, is that his presence recalls his history and people's reaction, especially Democrats' reactions. First, as my sister pointed out, she is angry at Bill Clinton for having wasted an opportunity to make significant changes in our country because of his personal moral choices and the ensuing debacle. That alone would make anyone angry. Hilary cannot change that association or history. She is caught in a situation, not of her own making. Further there is nothing she can do about it. Dumping Bill in any way would not actually change anything.

Second, as my daughter in law in California, pointed out. Clinton would not be able to attract thebest and brightest in the Democrat constituency because of anger about Bill. They still smart from how they were misled, how they believed and supported Bill even as he was lying and manipulating them. This breach of trust has not been healed and seems likely not be healed. The quality of a presidency is due in large part of the quality of those the president can attract to serve in the administration. We have been ill served by the ideological litmus tests of the current administration. We would be further ill served by the failure to attract the very best talent possible. I think this anger and resentment lies behind the endorsements by Ted Kennedy and John Kerry. Obama, on the other hand, would be more likely to attract the brightest and the best in a campaign to change the government and its relationship to its people.

I believe the above is true. Perhaps that is why I began by leaning toward Richardson and then a bit to Edwards. I had a sense that Clinton might not be the strongest candidate. For some reason, however, I never moved toward Obama even after it became clear that Richardson and Edwards were non-factors. The truth is I have a hard time trusting Obama. For me, he is not charismatic. Perhaps I distrust charisma as a basis for choice. But without any clear policy differences, it is reasonable, albeit uncomfortable, for me to make a choice based on style, history, charisma, and the ever slippery political calculation about who would win against likely Republican candidates. It is ironic that in a race where many say we should have politics as usual the final choice becomes essentially a political choice rather than one about policies and positions.

My brother and sister are convinced that Clinton would lose to McCain who they believe will be the Republican nominee. I do not share their certainty but do share their concern.

So with my decision due by the end of the day, I am now leaning toward Obama. I am not ecstatic about it and find a troubling lack of enthusiasm for his candidacy. Perhaps that is a function of my frustration of finally having to apply political considerations to arrive at my final decision.

More later.

Clinton or Obama?

2008-01-31T10:23:00.000-08:00

For the first time in a long time, primaries will make a real difference in who becomes the Democrat nominee for president. As a registered Democrat in New York, I will have the opportunity and the responsibility to vote in next Tuesday's primary. Since I will be out of town, however, I will be casting an absentee ballot. I will be taking it along with me for an out of town trip for a family wedding in Denver and then a visit in San Francisco. Perhaps travel will help me become clearer about my choice.

I have just spent time on both websites and on FactCheck.org. It is clear that there is very little policy difference between the two. in the two years they have overlapped in the Senate, they have voted together about 95% of the time. Given her six additional year's of Senate service, Clinton has a substantially greater lists of accomplishments.

They have both made erroneous claims about the other. On matters of importance to me (tax policy, Iraq, health care, education) they hold similar positions. If forced, I would probably give the edge to Clinton but not by much, certainly not enough to make my decision easy. Both are highly intelligent and well motivated. No basis there for a choice.

Clinton would bring more experience and I think that is important. Obama excites people with his eloquence and seems able to reach across many of the divisions that so plague us today. Clinton does seem to generate an almost visceral negative reaction from those already disposed to oppose her and the Democrat policies she espouses. I am not sure there would be more opposition than would be the case with Obama but she certainly would "stir up the Republican base."

In short, I still lean toward Clinton perhaps because she is much more of a known quantity to me given her service here in New York. Obama remains a bit of a mystery--albeit an intriguing one--to me. I am put off by his demeanor and body language when he listens to his opponents. Surely that cannot become the basis for my choice!

I have not finally decided and will watch the debate tonight and ponder all this as I travel this weekend. At some point, I will mark my ballot and put it in the mail. More later.

Welcome

2008-01-30T10:29:00.000-08:00

As part of my newly re-designed web site, I wanted to include a blog...and here it is. I intend to post as regularly as possible ideas, observations, and concerns as they strike me. I have been retired for two years from an active career in higher education and church administration. I am working on a Masters in Theological Studies at St. Bernard's School of Theology & Ministry in Rochester NY. Many of my reflections these days have to do with the challenge of leading a Christian life here in 21st Century America.