The Greatest Happiness Principle

60 Minutes: Happiness


We could learn a lot from the Danes (and all Scandinavians for that matter). A new study shows that they are the happiest people in the world.

I consider myself a Utilitarian in this sense: we should strive to create the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people. I am not a purist, mind you. There obviously are values that would more important (where it would conflict with Justice, for instance), but in a broad sense I find this principle to be the correct one.

Nice New Ad By John Edwards

Sunday Music: My Grown Up Christmas List

My Grown Up Christmas List

The Cost of War

This video will just make you shake your head in disgust or make you angry at the stupidity of unnecessary armed conflict.

Toy Soldiers

I originally entitled this post "Outrage of the Decade." I have since thought that the current title is more appropriate for the story.

Wounded Soldier: Military Wants Part Of Bonus Back:

PITTSBURGH (KDKA) ―

The U.S. Military is demanding that thousands of wounded service personnel give back signing bonuses because they are unable to serve out their commitments.

To get people to sign up, the military gives enlistment bonuses up to $30,000 in some cases.

Now men and women who have lost arms, legs, eyesight, hearing and can no longer serve are being ordered to pay some of that money back.

One of them is Jordan Fox, a young soldier from the South Hills.

He finds solace in the hundreds of boxes he loads onto a truck in Carnegie. In each box is a care package that will be sent to a man or woman serving in Iraq. It was in his name Operation Pittsburgh Pride was started.

Fox was seriously injured when a roadside bomb blew up his vehicle. He was knocked unconscious. His back was injured and lost all vision in his right eye.

A few months later Fox was sent home. His injuries prohibited him from fulfilling three months of his commitment. A few days ago, he received a letter from the military demanding nearly $3,000 of his signing bonus back.

"I tried to do my best and serve my country. I was unfortunately hurt in the process. Now they're telling me they want their money back," he explained.

It's a slap for Fox's mother, Susan Wardezak, who met with President Bush in Pittsburgh last May. He thanked her for starting Operation Pittsburgh Pride which has sent approximately 4,000 care packages.

He then sent her a letter expressing his concern over her son's injuries, so she cannot understand the U.S. Government's apparent lack of concern over injuries to countless U.S. Soldiers and demands that they return their bonuses.

If the Pentagon wants their money back, then give the soldiers their original limbs back. And their mental health back. And the time they lost with their families back.

I guess this is how the Bush Administration interprets "Supporting the Troops."

eMusic Spotlights Mark Heard

Taken from Mark Heard: Orphan of God:

Mark Heard: Orphan of God

by Michael James McGonigal

When one of my editors asked me to write a column on the talented singer, producer and songwriter Mark Heard, I was elated to learn that so much of his discography had recently been added to eMusic’s catalogue. Frequently compared to the likes of Townes Van Zandt, Tom Petty, Leonard Cohen and Bob Dylan, Heard’s stature has increased steadily since he passed away from heart complications fifteen years ago.

Bruce Cockburn called Heard “America’s best songwriter,” while the alternative adult contemporary music magazine Paste argued in a lengthy 2003 feature that “no artist has crafted three consecutive albums with both the lyrical radiance and the musical vibrancy to rival Dry Bones Dance, Second Hand and Satellite Sky.” I wouldn't go quite that far myself, but those three records really are exceptional — poetic, slice-of-life stuff by any standard. Heard is an original, an iconoclastic figure who presaged the work of artists like Chris Rice and Jeremy Enigk. In a two-sentence biography on All Music Guide he is casually called “brilliant.” Heard’s 1982 long-player Victims of the Age album was ranked in the top third of CCM magazine’s list of the all-time greatest Christian albums. And yet Mark Heard remains something of a cult figure.

Heard came of age in contemporary Christian music’s infancy — the late ‘70s and early ‘80s. CCM had yet to become a multi-million dollar industry, and in many ways was still a holdover from the so-called Jesus Rock movement of the ‘60s. Rear-guard CCM artists often questioned the nature of faith, but newer singers like Amy Grant had begun to proffer a simpler, more saccharine approach to mixing faith and music. Heard must have known that, in this context, his work had power and deserved to be heard by as wide an audience as possible — certainly by as many people who purchased Bob Dylan’s 1980 album Saved. “I'm not looking for votes, and my music isn't only for Christians,” Heard told New Christian Music in 1984.

The fact that Heard had songs with titles like “Everybody Loves a Holy War” might clue you in to his approach. In a series of amazing advertisements for his 1979 album Appalachian Melody, Heard wrote that “most Christians would say that the music should in some way glorify God… [however] one assortment of notes on the scale can't glorify God more than another. Neither can certain assortments of words... If you are an up and coming Christian singer and you have to sing for a Christian audience, you'd better throw as many words like "saved" or "hallelujah" or "sweet Jesus" as you can, otherwise your spirituality will be discussed behind your back. But anybody can [simply] say the words. Like Groucho says, 'Say the secret woid, the duck comes down, you win a hunnid dollas.'”

Heard’s early work is in the folky vein; he was often compared to James Taylor, and not always favorably. In his later recordings, he veers towards flat-out rock in a country-tinged Tom Petty-ish style that also encompassed Appalachian folk, Tex Mex and zydeco on that great Dry-Hand-Sky trilogy. Even his best albums feature the gated drum sound, reverb-saturated vocals, U2-ish guitar leads and other elements of mainstream ‘80s rock production. His voice is strong, though, especially on his sadder ballads. But what really propels his work is his way with words. Take “Fire” from Dry Bones Dance: “Oh, to find love's hiding place/ We are beggars and bootleggers/ Fading embers caught out in the rain/ Wondering what's it take to burst into flames/ And meanwhile hammers fall on anvils of grief/ Molten souls in madmen's cauldrons.”

Heard was struck down during his creative peak, and his spirit and wit are as much missing from contemporary Christian music as his exceptional songcraft. In that series of ads for Appalachian Melody, Heard said he liked “to write songs about things which cause me to glimpse the worth of God. Sometimes that might be the ocean, sometimes it is love for my wife, sometimes it can be absurdly simple things… We shouldn't search for a spiritually symbolic rationalization for [every] activity we enter into. It is not evil to enjoy a good laugh or a hike in the Sierras for what they are.” Having suffered the banalities of one too many well meaning but excruciatingly boring CCM acts (not to mention anemic praise and worship performances), these words still ring loud and true for me, nearly thirty years after the fact.

I am going to add a few words to the bolded quotes above. I have had (and even still have) the same complaint about Christian music played on the radio. Almost all of it comes down to variations of: "Jesus loves me this I know; for the Bible tells me so." Before getting an e-mail notifying me of this review of Mark Heard's work, I had been thinking about this very issue this week and had been thinking about writing about it anyway.

I realize there is a time and place for simplistic Christian songs; and America is increasingly moving toward a business model of exploiting niche markets (of which Christian music is one). There was a time when a Christian artist couldn't make a decent living producing strictly Christian music. But, on the other hand, the drive for a Christian artist to become monetarily successful requires that they conform to certain social norms within that Christian audience they are trying to convince to buy their music. That means -- all too often -- that they must water down any lyrics that might challenge the Christian audience of long-held orthodoxies. True artists move society forward by challenging their prejudices. Religions, by nature, are conservative -- or even reactionary -- forces on society. Contrarily, art almost always is a progressive force that changes and shapes perceptions toward societal evolution by showing injustices because of conservative ideas.

Back when I was in high school, there were Christian musicians like Randy Stonehill who challenged us about being susceptible to the American culture with its fixation on Fast Food and cosmetic appearances. Where are all the Christian artists today that challenge us to move toward changing our culture? Almost all of them are giving us the message to conform to the culture around us (at least the dominant Christian culture with all of its trappings combined with economic orthodoxies). Sometimes I wonder how Jesus himself would react to a McDonald's inside of a church? (Thoughts of Jesus whipping the moneychangers come to mind.)

(By the way, I would like to point out that the one time I got to see Mark Heard perform live, it was as an opening act for Randy Stonehill. I got to meet Mark after the show and talk to him for a few minutes.)

Anyway, I guess one of the reasons I liked Mark Heard's music so much was that I am the kind of person who likes to be challenged mentally. Even St. Paul wrote: "When I was a child, I used to speak like a child, think like a child, reason like a child; when I became a man, I did away with childish things." 1 Corinthians 13:11. But I feel like too many Christians today in their emphasis on conformity also create an insulated culture that resembles child-like reasoning in areas of science, politics, economics and law. . .even when that means serving mammon rather than God.

Rising Inequality

I found a statement made by Alan Greenspan recently quite disturbing. Greenspan Book Criticizes Bush And Republicans:

Greenspan worries that rising income inequality could undo “the cultural ties that bind our society” and even lead to “large-scale violence.”

His solution to remedy this situation is “not higher taxes on the rich but improved education”, which, he claims, “can be helped by paying math teachers more.”

It might help, though, if rich people paid at least comparable rates as working class people do.

A Christian Argument Against Racism

You would think that in our day and age that such a statement would not have to be made.

The simplest explanation to understanding the Brotherhood of Mankind as a seminal Christian concept would be found in the most quoted verse in the Gospels:

John 3:16

For God loved the world so much that He gave his only Son so that anyone who believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

The Living Bible translation.

There are two words I want to focus on: world (kosmos) and anyone. These words indicated that the message presented by Jesus was meant to be universal. The fact that the effect of these words were not incorporated into Christian practice for much of its history does not vitiate the plain original meaning of what he said.

The Conversion of the Ethiopian Eunuch (Acts 8:26-40)

The fact that an Ethiopian Eunuch was one of the first to be converted tells me that people of an African heritage were never supposed to be treated as a lesser group. The concept of the Love of God was pointedly universal in its application. As Christians, the followers of Christ's teaching were to be an example for the whole world of this simple message.

I am sure there are many more examples that could be used, but these two stuck out at me as glaring examples of how Christians should never support any kind of discrimination or bigotry based on race, ethnicity or nationality (as well as other forms of discrimination and prejudice which can be found in the broader message of love and obedience to Christ's message).

In a day and age when certain political figures and groups try to divide us based on our racial, ethnic or national heritages, it is important for Christians in particular to reject any such attempts and to work against such divisive actions.

British Health Care and Other Health Issues: A Response to Redstater

Fellow Okie Blogger Redstater posted a comment to my post from February 1st Robin Meyers: He just doesn't get it.

In it, I agreed with Robin Meyers' statement:

We must remember, he said, "that the best health-care decisions are made not by government and insurance companies, but by patients and their doctors." The only trouble with this standard applause line is that the only way to get insurance companies and HMOs out of the picture is to make the payer a nonprofit entity, like the government, so that health-care "providers" don't make more money by being health-care "deniers."

To which Redstater posted a comment:

Have ANY of you known of ANYONE, ANYWHERE in the US that has been denied treatment for anything serious?

Illegal aliens with no job, no insurance and no money get free emergency room treatment... and beyond. Those that cannot afford to go can go anyway... what world are liberals living in?

Have you seen socialized healthcare in Canada or England?

Have YOU ever BEEN to the Department of motor vehicle?

If so, you wouldn't want the same people running your doctors office.

Robin Meyers is a shill for the democrat party from the pulpit "pulpit pundit" and the perfect spokesman for the so-called "New Christian Left" (Woody Guthrie-ism)

I am going to take the questions out of order because I want to draw upon my own personal experience first:

Have you seen socialized healthcare in Canada or England?

1) Yes, I have been to England (Queen's College, Oxford University, Oxford, England) and have been treated there for both an injury and an illness. I can tell you from personal experience that the treatment was prompt and adequate. Because I was an uninsured American, I had to pay for my treatment, but even as a starving college student, I was able to afford the cost (the doctor's visit was about $25 then, still less than half what my own doctor would have cost here: at the time, about $60), the prescription drugs cost $5 then.

I still remember the doctor's shock at 1) my concern that I wouldn't be able to afford the cost; and 2) that I would not get adequate treatment; and 3) how expensive a doctor's visit cost in the U.S. She could not understand how Americans would allow people to go without care. Even then the number of Americans without health insurance was staggeringly high.

I have never had the fortune to visit Canada. But let me just say that I have yet to meet a single Canadian who wants to abolish their Medicare system. Not one. And I ask every Canadian I come into contact with if they favor abolishing their national healthcare system. You should hear their responses. They say things like: "Not on your life!" or "Are you crazy?" I think that by itself speaks volumes about how "bad" the Canadian healthcare system is compared to the U.S. They are (so far) uniformly flabbergasted that Americans believe they want to abolish their healthcare system in favor of ours.

Have YOU ever BEEN to the Department of motor vehicle?

Yes. What's the problem? I have been there several times regarding some issue or another and left within 30 minutes almost every time.

Have ANY of you known of ANYONE, ANYWHERE in the US that has been denied treatment for anything serious?

Yes. I heard stories all the time while doing bankruptcy cases. People were denied treatment due to lack of insurance or inability to pay. You can also watch Michael Moore's movie SiCKO if you want to see several examples.

Illegal aliens with no job, no insurance and no money get free emergency room treatment... and beyond. Those that cannot afford to go can go anyway... what world are liberals living in?

Well, actually, they probably get billed for the services but just don't pay (especially due to the inability to pay). The cost then gets passed on to everyone else. But that isn't just an "illegal alien" problem; there are many Americans in the same boat. In my opinion it is better to have everyone pay up front for everyone's care. I think it is right thing to do.

I don't think anyone should ever be denied access to best feasible health care because of the inability to pay. I think that it should be guaranteed as a human right. We have the technology and ability to provide everyone in the U.S. with adequate care. Therefore we should do it because it is the right thing to do.

And do you really want people to go to the emergency room for the common cold? That's supposed to be for emergencies. But because we restrict medical care based on the ability to pay, those are the crazy kinds of situations we get.

And how about if they were to come down with smallpox? Would you rather they forego treatment and spread it everywhere? How about a more realistic example: tuberculosis? Highly infectious and sometimes very difficult to treat. Would you rather they infect others by turning them away from the doctor's office or emergency room? The real reason they are treated is that medical professionals know that by not treating them others can be harmed, things can become worse for the patient and there is that whole Hippocratic Oath issue.

There are real people out there who are suffering. Human beings just like you. They need help. They need our help. I think the best way to help them is by creating a complete medical care system that provides needed care to everyone...whenever they need it.

Favoritism for the Wealthy

From Jonathan Chait at the TPM Book Club:

Class War and the Big Con

Some of the debate in the blogs last week focused on whether, or to what degree, leading Republicans actually believe the arguments they make on behalf of tax cuts, such as the common claim (made by leading Republicans everywhere, starting with President Bush) that tax cuts have caused revenues to grow. I think many of them do believe it. But the extent to which they believe it is fairly beside the point. The wealthy interests who favor tax cuts, and other pro-rich items, aren’t motivated by supply-side ideology. While they may believe that tax cuts help the economy, their deeper belief is that every dollar they have, including the dollars they inherited, is a reflection of their success and a measure of their virtue. So, in this sense, supply-side ideology simply plays the same role that Social Darwinism did a century ago and that economic orthodoxy did seventy years ago.

Or maybe they are just different justifications for the same mindset. I have argued before that we are starting to see a return of Social Darwinism as an accepted idea. I'm not convinced it has died out. I suspect it is more that Social Darwinism is being downplayed to some extent in favor of a new repackaged argument that rich=moral. Social Darwinism has at its core a belief that those who have attained wealth and status have done so due to their moral or genetic superiority.

It has even taken root in Christianity. If you look at the "Gospel of Wealth" being preached in conservative churches, you can see what I mean. I have seen people in conservative churches told that they are just not rich because they are not right with God.

I don't want to get too far off of the main subject, but certainly wealth does not equate in any way with moral superiority. "All great wealth starts with a crime" as we lawyers would say. In the Christian context, there is this from the Epistle of James:

2:1 My brethren, do not hold your faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, with partiality.
2:2 For if there comes into your assembly a man with a gold ring, in fine apparel, and there also comes in a poor man in shabby clothing,
2:3 And you pay special attention to him who wears the fine clothing, and say to him, Sit here in a good place; and say to the poor man, Stand there, or sit here beside my footstool:
2:4 Have you not then discriminated among yourselves, and become judges with evil thoughts?
2:5 Listen, my beloved brethren, Has not God chosen the poor of this world to be rich in faith, and heirs of the kingdom which he has promised to those who love him?
2:6 But you have despised the poor. Is it not the rich who oppress you, and drag you into court?
2:7 Is it not they who blaspheme the noble name by which you have been called?
2:8 If you fulfill the royal law, according to the scripture, You shall love your neighbour as yourself, you do well,
2:9 But if you show partiality, you commit sin, and are convicted by the law as transgressors.
2:10 For whoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble at one point, is guilty of breaking it all.

I think too many Christian leaders are skipping over these type of texts in both the Gospels and the other writings in the New Testament.

Anyway, back to the main subject: I found this quote at The New Republic's excerpt from Chait's book.

From 1947 to 1973, the U.S. economy grew at a rate of nearly 4 percent a year--a massive boom, fueling rapid growth in living standards across the board. During most of that period, from 1947 until 1964, the highest tax rate hovered around 91 percent. For the rest of the time, it was still a hefty 70 percent. Yet the economy flourished anyway. None of this is to say that those high tax rates caused the postwar boom. On the contrary, the economy probably expanded despite, rather than because of, those high rates. Almost no contemporary economist would endorse jacking up rates that high again. But the point is that, whatever negative effect such high tax rates have, it's relatively minor.

First, what needs to pointed out was that this referred, I think, to income tax rates. But the super-rich make much of their income from investments (i.e. passive income). Even if these were tax rates on capital gains, this would be taxation 1) only on the highest earners; and 2) on income not drawn from labor. The principle that we once had is that we want to encourage people to produce and contribute to the betterment of society and the economy. We don't want "trust fund babies" who don't have to work because their talents and abilities will have a tendency to go wasted. And as successive generations are born into wealth, they will have less appreciation for the benefits that their ancestor's labors brought to the betterment of their community.

Kids that come from wealthy homes already have lots of assets to draw from. Taking from the wealthy to help provide an equal access in the areas of health care and education -- just to name two services -- is only fair...especially given how beneficial those services are for the advancement of the economy and social well-being. There is a certain point where having too much wealth has a detrimental effect on productivity and social progress (political conservatives certainly never talk about this aspect of the acquisition of wealth). Proper use of the tax code can encourage talented and capable people to keep producing and innovating precisely because they want more.

Now, I'll grant -- for the sake of argument -- Arthur Laffer's central argument that there is a point where tax rates become so confiscatory that tax revenues will start to drop due to the negative effects it has on investment and labor; but we're certainly not there now. Furthermore, deficit spending (read: national government credit card) will crimp investment just as much; as the national debt (and its concomitant interest payments) is simply deferred taxation. Having the federal government file bankruptcy is just unthinkable. And lack of access to health care will lead to less productivity due to untreated illnesses or injuries (and, specifically, illnesses can sometimes spread due to their non-treatment -- leading to further drops in productivity). So exactly how do we benefit from denying access to health care based on ability to pay again?

To sum up, higher tax rates (than what we have currently) and implemented in the right places, can actually have a beneficial effect for society.

What's Wrong With America and What Will You Do About It?

I like the question asked and the answer given. We must answer this question to determine who we are as a people. It is central to our value system as a country.

YouTube Debate: Health Care

Regular readers of my blog know that I express the same outrage that John Edwards did and express the same need for a "national commitment that universal healthcare is an American value" that Hillary Clinton communicated in her speech regarding national healthcare.

I agree with John Edwards the most here. I think we have to have a mandate to get anything done. I also very much liked his relaying the personal story of the man born with a cleft palate and not being able to get it fixed. We have doctors here in America who fly all over the world to fix children's cleft palates and yet we can't find one to fix one poor American's condition until he is 50 years old.

This is not to disparage the work of Médecins Sans Frontières ("Doctors Without Borders"); Lord knows we need medical professionals to travel to destitute parts of the planet to provide medical attention to people who otherwise wouldn't get it. But this story illustrates how we need some of those same doctors right here in America.

Are College Tuition Costs That Bad?

Teen Accused of Robbing Bank for Tuition
From Associated Press
July 20, 2007 1:47 PM EDT

CINCINNATI - A college student accused of robbing a bank had been worried for months about his mounting tuition bills, his mother said.

"He just really was struggling, working two jobs here, you know, temp jobs, two jobs and trying to get the money," said Franki Butler, whose son Andrew was charged this week with robbery. Andrew Butler, 19, and another man were arrested Tuesday after a Valley Central Savings Bank in suburban Reading was robbed, police said. Police recovered an undisclosed amount of cash.

A judge set bond Wednesday at $50,000 for Andrew Butler and Christopher Avery, 21, also of Cincinnati. Both are charged with aggravated robbery.

Avery, a student at the University of Cincinnati, posted bond and was released. Butler, a University of Toledo student, remained in custody Friday at the Hamilton County jail.

The sad part about this is that the college student will probably get a minimum sentence of 25 years if convicted. The real travesty of this is that -- while this is an aberration, if true -- no one should have to imagine such a choice in an attempt to get an education.

The End of the Innocence

These are becoming turbulent times. We are constantly at war. And it's a war financed not by shared sacrifice, but by a massive debt that will be heaped upon an American populace already burdened by personal and consumer debt (at outrageous interest rates and fees). Americans feel like they are running faster but falling farther behind because of all their debt.

Things that used to be staples of the American dream are becoming out of reach. The college degree -- even a graduate degree -- no longer guarantees financial success. Schooling that used to be paid through tax dollars and scholarships have been replaced by student loans that are not dischargeable in bankruptcy if things go horribly wrong. The student loan payments become a house -- or at least a car -- payment. Such debt payments starting out in life increase the risk of failure. As I have said before, it creates a barrier to entry to American college graduates. Pensions that were part of the benefits promised by businesses to the workers can be paid to executives in bankruptcy proceedings. Health insurance that used to have some semblance of protection is now a sieve that helps almost no one, as Michael Moore's new movie SiCKO has shown.

There is a general feeling of malaise in the country. Everything is just out of whack. Our leaders, who have held themselves out to be paragons of virtue are turning out to be boors of vice. They often talk about "values," but they live lives that are the antithesis of those values. They oppose taxation to support programs to help their fellow man at their weakest, in favor of "private charities" which they do not support with their own wealth.

Frankly, I am tired of the hypocrisy. It is the very message that Jesus tried to convey in the Good Samaritan story. The Samaritans were considered a heretical group by other Jews, so by using a Samaritan for the parable, Jesus conveyed the idea that the most ungodly people could be more righteous than those who proclaimed themselves pious. Do you ever get the idea that God is trying to teach us this very same lesson all over again?

It makes me think of a song from the 1980s: Don Henley's The End of the Innocence. Some of the lines -- which I have bolded below -- have particular significance for us today. The song, originally written during the Reagan Administration, has come full circle -- although under somewhat different circumstances.

Don Henley - The End of the Innocence


Lyrics:

Remember when the days were long
And rolled beneath a deep blue sky
Didn't have a care in the world
With mommy and daddy standin' by
But "happily ever after" fails
And we've been poisoned by these fairy tales
The lawyers dwell on small details
Since daddy had to fly

But I know a place where we can go
That's still untouched by men
We'll sit and watch the clouds roll by
And the tall grass wave in the wind
You can lay your head back on the ground
And let your hair fall all around me
Offer up your best defense
But this is the end
This is the end of the innocence

O' beautiful, for spacious skies
But now those skies are threatening
They're beating plowshares into swords
For this tired old man that we elected king
Armchair warriors often fail
And we've been poisoned by these fairy tales
The lawyers clean up all details
Since daddy had to lie

But I know a place where we can go
And wash away this sin
We'll sit and watch the clouds roll by
And the tall grass wave in the wind
Just lay your head back on the ground
And let your hair spill all around me
Offer up your best defense
But this is the end
This is the end of the innocence

Who knows how long this will last
Now we've come so far, so fast
But, somewhere back there in the dust
That same small town in each of us
I need to remember this
So baby give me just one kiss
And let me take a long last look
Before we say goodbye

Just lay your head back on the ground
And let your hair fall all around me
Offer up your best defense
But this is the end
This is the end of the innocence

Intergenerational Poverty

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development recently conducted a study on the causes of intergenerational poverty. The study found that socioeconomic mobility (i.e. the ability to move up from the lower classes to the middle or even upper classes) is lower in the United States than many other Western Democratic countries including Denmark, Austria, Norway, Finland, Canada, Sweden, Germany, Spain and France.

I mentioned a similar report in a blog entry about this before.

Here are a couple of the conclusions from the report:

The level of wealth and education of parents are two crucial determinants of children’s future life-chances. For example, the evidence suggests that parental characteristics are reflected in educational outcomes, and that greater public intervention in the accumulation of human capital might reduce intergenerational transmission of advantage and disadvantage. Moreover, parents who are capital constrained – facing tighter liquidity constrains – cannot invest as much as rich parents in education although these constraints seem less important than other family background characteristics. The effects of such liquidity constraints are also likely to vary considerably accordingly to the ability of the child: they are likely to be tighter for low-income parents of high-ability children.

Growing up in low-income households seems to affect heavily children's future life-chances. In fact, parental poverty is related to lower levels of good health, nutrition and housing, all of which affect child development and future incomes. Furthermore, the home and social environment is where beliefs, attitudes and values are shaped (for example welfare dependency of parents is correlated with future
welfare receipt of children, even after adjusting for income, in part reflecting the role-model that parents provide). High parental income is correlated with a better quality of education because good schools are generally in good neighbourhoods, where in addition, networks useful in later life may be more present, and crime is less prevalent. It is further correlated with transmission of verbal ability, and non-cognitive skills, including self-discipline, which improve life chances (Heckman and Carneiro, 2003). Reducing poverty, and especially childhood poverty, might therefore contribute to reduce intergenerational inequality.

The language is highly technical; but basically it is saying that where a child starts out in life based on his parent's income and educational status has a great correlation to where they will end up. If governments would tax the wealthy more, it would go a long way to alleviating the problem of poor parents who don't have the spending power to get their children the best possible education.

The second paragraph says that children who live in better, lower-crime neighborhoods not only benefit from a better quality education, but also benefit from the social and business contacts who will be able to give them better job and entrepreneurial opportunities. Furthermore, going to those better schools improves language skills, interpersonal relationship skills (among them dispute resolution skills) and the principles of delayed gratification and other self-control skills that will help them avoid trouble. Therefore reducing poverty can lead to greater opportunities because it would alleviate the problems associated with stress brought on by fear of crime, which impedes learning.

There. Clear as mud?

I remember many years ago attending a short seminar put on by a local non-profit group that rated a child's chances of success based on some 30+ factors called "assets." The more assets a child had, the greater their chance of success in life. I can't remember if poverty was one of the factors. However, this study indicates that until we alleviate the problems associated with inequality in society, it needs to be a factor in evaluating a child's opportunity.

Fear and Debt

From a SiCKO movie review in the Twin Cities Daily Planet

All of the pieces I've read about “Sicko,” have what I find to be a glaring omission.

Not one mentions the comments by Tony Benn, a former member of Britain's Parliament. Yet Benn's statements probably are the most profound element of the film.

He notes, as other good people often do, that “if we have the money to kill (in war), we've got the money to help people.”

But, more importantly, Benn tells Moore, that all of Europe and many other places have good health care systems while the United States lacks such a basic service because in Europe and elsewhere, “the politicians are afraid of the people” when the people get angry and demand some action. In the United States, he observes, “the people are afraid of those in power” because they fear losing their jobs, fear being cut off from health care or other services if they speak up and make demands.

“How do you control people?” Benn asks, and he answers: “Through fear and debt.”

His point is that in the United States we have a great overabundance of both.

Yeah, I know. I have written about it quite a lot. But James Fuller makes another point in his movie review that I think is worth mentioning:

[I]f the gutless Democrats went out and explained, clearly and often, how a government run single payer system actually works, and what it really costs, and what the people of Canada, France, Britain, Germany and other countries really think of their health care systems, the ignorance-rooted suspicion could be reversed in a matter of months. And I believe that is true even assuming the inevitable all-out ad and PR campaign by the insurance and pharmaceutical industries to protect their enormous profits.

(Does it occur to anyone that the profits they suck from our system, while we struggle for and often are refused decent health care, are truly enormous if the industries are willing and able to spend hundreds of millions of dollars a year to protect those profits?)

Every American I know is fed up with our present health care mess, and more and more are deeply angry.

I would use the term "taxpayer-funded" (not "government run") single payer health care program. The government doesn't need to "run" it, it just needs to be the payment mechanism. There is no doubt that SiCKO is raising the level of conversation on the issue of national health care. I just hope that it can lead to a policy change.

The American Prosperity Façade

Charles Hugh Smith over at Of Two Minds blog today has written a great piece on the fake American prosperity built on debt. (You might say: like a house built on sand.) He contrasts it with a crumbling building of moral decay brought on by an over-medicated and drugged populace.

He adds useful charts such as this one:



And this one:



And this one:



Charles says:

So who are these people flying to Europe, driving brand-new $30,000+ trucks and blowing $200 for dinner? Yes, they're middle-class Americans--the ones with negative savings, tapped-out equity and medicine cabinets full of medications.

As we ponder the meaning of that enormous spike in re-financings--sure, people re-financed to get lower interest rates, but how many took out some cash at the same time?--let's consider another trend which we can see with our own eyes: a culture of individual identity based solely on the external markers of fame, prestige and wealth.

Combine this with an America where people medicate themselves trying to cope:

Hmm, if times are so darn good, why are personal savings plummeting and debt skyrocketing? Does everyone borrow more when their wealth is supposedly rising like a balloon? (Some charts are a bit outdated but the trend remains unchanged.)

And speaking of heady stuff, let's consider why so many Americans are on drugs. On the face of it, shouldn't such prosperous people be happy and secure? If you step back, you have to wonder: why are tens of millions of Americans taking anti-depressants and anti-anxiety medications, and tens of millions more addicted to cocaine, heroin, marijuana, alcohol and nicotine?

Like everything else in our Potemkin Village society, it's all just beneath the surface. People don't like to admit that they're not Superman or Superwoman, so it's only your close friends who will tell you. But check out who's a pothead, who's on anti-depressants, and whose underage kids are drunk--ho-hum, just another normal day in sedated, medicated, drugged America.

You think I'm exaggerating? Then ask your friend who's gone through an addiction or drug rehab program (yes, it may surprise you who you know who has), and ask them about the nurses who are coke-heads, or the software engineers on smack, or the folks who have to have OxyContin, that favorite "relaxer" of right-wing radio demogogues. If you're in law enforcement--well, I'm not telling you anything new. You've seen even worse, the guys doped up on ice (crystal meth), and boy, are they a piece of work.

...

What does this say about their culture and society? That it's "normal" and "healthy"? No objective observer could possibly conclude that unless they were in massive denial (and smashed to boot).

No, you have to conclude that this is a society under extreme duress, a culture in which individuals are feeling tremendous stress as a result of the double-bind they live in: you are only worthy if you go to a prestigious university, make tons of money, drive a luxury vehicle, are famous /recognized as wonderful somewhere, are slim, athletic, good-looking, talented, and a perfect parent with perfect kids--and yet most of us are average-looking, with average intelligence and drive (I raise my hand here) and average everything else, too (my hand is still up).

...

Bottom line: in an era of supposedly unparalleled, widespread prosperity and wealth creation, the financial and inner reserves of many Americans appears vulnerably thin. Somebody profited from originating all this debt, but nobody forced anyone at gunpoint to borrow it, either.

The disease lies deeper than predatory lenders; they are the pushers, but who's the customer? And why?

Good questions, Charles.

Health Care's Moral Argument, Part 2

Paul Krugman in his column in today's New York Times responds to the argument put forward by Fox News and followed by other conservative news organizations in the days afterward:

“National healthcare: Breeding ground for terror?” read the on-screen headline, as the Fox News host Neil Cavuto and the commentator Jerry Bowyer solemnly discussed how universal health care promotes terrorism.

While this was crass even by the standards of Bush-era political discourse, Fox was following in a long tradition. For more than 60 years, the medical-industrial complex and its political allies have used scare tactics to prevent America from following its conscience and making access to health care a right for all its citizens.

Then he makes the point that I made in one of my first posts on my blog: Health Care's Moral Argument, Part 1. Paul Krugman continues:

I say conscience, because the health care issue is, most of all, about morality.

That’s what we learn from the overwhelming response to Michael Moore’s “Sicko.” Health care reformers should, by all means, address the anxieties of middle-class Americans, their growing and justified fear of finding themselves uninsured or having their insurers deny coverage when they need it most. But reformers shouldn’t focus only on self-interest. They should also appeal to Americans’ sense of decency and humanity.

What outrages people who see “Sicko” is the sheer cruelty and injustice of the American health care system — sick people who can’t pay their hospital bills literally dumped on the sidewalk, a child who dies because an emergency room that isn’t a participant in her mother’s health plan won’t treat her, hard-working Americans driven into humiliating poverty by medical bills.

He concludes:

All of which raises the question Mr. Moore asks at the beginning of “Sicko”: who are we?

“We have always known that heedless self-interest was bad morals; we know now that it is bad economics.” So declared F.D.R. in 1937, in words that apply perfectly to health care today. This isn’t one of those cases where we face painful tradeoffs — here, doing the right thing is also cost-efficient. Universal health care would save thousands of American lives each year, while actually saving money.

So this is a test. The only things standing in the way of universal health care are the fear-mongering and influence-buying of interest groups. If we can’t overcome those forces here, there’s not much hope for America’s future.

I agree. I said myself when I posted about the meme saying that health care=terrorism that I thought that the argument was absurd. It still is.

While my first post argued from a more strictly Christian perspective, Paul Krugman has argued it on more general humanitarian principles. For Christians, my first post on Health Care's Moral Argument, Part 1 should suffice. For Humanists and people of other faiths, Krugman's argument today should show that moral arguments for a national health care system are universal.

Losing the American Dream

Go and watch the clips from Boston Legal over at Independent Christian Voice and then think about what it means to be an American.

A Political Conspiracy

From the Volokh Conspiracy:

As I understand it, Bush political appointee James Comey named Bush political appointee and career prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald to investigate the Plame leak. Bush political appointee and career prosecutor Fitzgerald filed an indictment and went to trial before Bush political appointee Reggie Walton. A jury convicted Libby, and Bush political appointee Walton sentenced him. At sentencing, Bush political appointee Judge Walton described the evidence against Libby as "overwhelming" and concluded that a 30-month sentence was appropriate. And yet the claim, as I understand it, is that the Libby prosecution was the work of political enemies who were just trying to hurt the Bush Administration.

But, the conservatives say, there was no underlying crime. Besides, President Bush says, the sentence was too harsh.

Let's not kid ourselves: President Bush is going to pardon Scooter Libby on his way out the door. Whatever happened to respect for the Rule of Law?