Tag Archive for: economy

Sweeping Without a Broom

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“Let everyone sweep in front of his own door, and the whole world will be clean.” Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“It is easy to dodge our responsibilities, but we cannot dodge the consequences of dodging our responsibilities.” Josiah Charles Stamp

Ahh, personal responsibility. We are a nation enamored with the concept. We are also enamored with the notion of individuality; individual freedoms (to a certain extent), individual rights, individual responsibility. We expect people to clean up their messes if, for some reason they haven’t managed to avoid making them in the first place. Unfortunately, we don’t always provide them with the tools they need to do either of these things. And therein lies the rub.

We are a nation that loves instant gratification and thrives on the ability to “keep up with the Joneses.” Hallelujah for credit! Visa and MasterCard give us the opportunity to spend money we don’t have on things we want now. Sub-prime mortgages and “zero down” financing offer us chances to spend money we won’t likely ever have. Our children and grandchildren see the economy collapsing under the weight of such ridiculousness, and hear every day on the news that the economy would rebound more quickly if we just went out and spent more money. Huh? Is it any wonder they’re confused? And how many of them will learn about money management in school? How many of their classes will educate them about saving money and contingency planning? If these classes aren’t available, how many of their parents will be able to talk to them about these things? I remember two of the “life skills” classes I took in high school: Personal Finance and home economics. We talked about calculating interest rates and were taught the proper way to write a personal check in Personal Finance class. In Home Ec, we did a little sewing, a little meal preparation, and one very memorable day, a cosmetics expert came in to teach us the proper way to apply our makeup without creating wrinkles around our eyes. I didn’t feel precisely qualified to manage the finances of a household upon graduation. I’m certain I’m not qualified to teach my kids money management skills based on those two “practical life” classes.

Yesterday, the House of Representatives passed yet another bill that is aimed at blocking access to reproductive healthcare for millions of American women. They claim that their intent is to reduce the number of abortions (hopefully to zero) in our nation. If this is an attempt to force women to live up to the consequences of their mistakes (ie. premarital or unprotected sexual activity?), I fear that they are asking women to sweep up a mess without providing them a broom or proper instruction on its use. Defunding Planned Parenthood and making access to other facilities where women can get objective, non-biased information about their own bodies is worse than that. It is actively denying them access to the broom and the class on sweeping. How can we expect people to avoid mistakes or learn from them when we don’t offer them information? If we fight against sexual education classes in our schools and rail against birth control, we are expecting people to gain this vital education by what, osmosis? If we don’t teach each other what we know about the more difficult things in life, we can’t expect any change. You can’t hold someone responsible for making a mistake they had no way of preventing.

Individuality is important. Differences are often what creates color and vibrancy in life. But not enough can be made of the power of tapping into a collective base of information. There will always be people who learn best by making mistakes over and over again, but for those who could benefit from the wisdom of others, isn’t it our responsibility to pass that information on?

Albert Einstein once characterized insanity as “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” This applies to entire cultures as much as it does to individuals. We can’t keep telling generation after generation that we expect them to clean up their own messes if we don’t provide them with the tools to either do so, or avoid those messes in the first place. Rebuilding our economy by asking people to spend more money only props it up for the next generation to overspend again. We will find ourselves right back in the same position, just as we have so many times before. And telling women and girls that they ought not to get pregnant without giving them ways to prevent pregnancy won’t affect the rate of unwanted pregnancy in our country. Personal responsibility is a good thing, but it is impossible to sustain without knowledge.

“Today, more than ever before, life must be characterized by a sense of Universal responsibility, not only nation to nation and human to human, but also human to other forms of life.” Dalai Lama

Concentric Bubbles

I am regularly reminded of the bubble(s) in which I live.  The mostly-liberal-Democrat bubble of my town and neighborhood (and daughters’ school). The I-can-pay-my-bills-and-have-money-left-to-eat bubble. The our-family-has-health-insurance bubble.  I could go on, but you get the gist.  We are blessed, privileged, incredibly lucky.  I drive and walk past homeless people almost daily. I live in a country where running water and electricity are the norm.  I am aware of how comfortable my life is and am grateful for it every day, all the while doing what I can to make the lives of others more comfortable as well.

But every now and then I am really struck by the possibility that there are other bubbles out there smaller than mine.  I tend to ignore the news of mega-millionaires (I couldn’t pick a Kardashian out of a line-up and most Hollywood insiders could stroll right past me without prompting a glance) and actively discard news reports of egregiously selfish behavior on the part of filthy rich corporations because they turn my stomach.  And then there are stories like this one on NPR that make me feel not that I live in a bubble, but in some alternate universe.

The abbreviated version is this:  Major pharmaceutical companies have apparently devised new methods to hold the exclusive patents on their drugs just a little longer than the law allows.  You see, when the original patent expires and other drug manufacturers are allowed to begin making generic forms of medication they often charge up to 85% less than the original price of the drug. Nobody in their right mind (especially the incredibly bottom-line-concerned insurance industry) would pay for the original drug at that point, so the profits for a single drug can go down significantly in one year.  That obviously gives these enormously rich pharmaceutical companies incentives to disallow generics.

Enter the “reverse settlement” or “pay to delay” tactic.  These companies often apply for new patents, changing perhaps the source of an ingredient or some other minor tweak by way of reason, and when the generic-manufacturers sue, they are offered a gross amount of money to go away for several more years, thus enabling the original company to continue to rake in piles and piles of money.

From whom? The insurance companies and hospitals.  Which means, ultimately, consumers. Those who are paying the hospital and insurance bills.

In one case, the settlement for a single drug was $42 million per year for 15 years. If it was worth that much to the pharmaceutical company, how much do you think they are profiting from that one drug in a year?  On the backs of the American public?

I understand that these companies have to pay for their R&D and that they deserve to be making more money for discovering these drugs, but there has to be a better way. And there also has to be a middle ground somewhere.  Is there such a thing as a company making too much profit?  Call me an evil anti-Capitalist, but I say yes. Especially when it is the American public who is forced to give these companies their hard-earned money, in many cases, far beyond what the drug is actually worth, because they need the medication to survive.  Especially after most of these companies have already utilized taxpayers’ money to create these drugs in the form of tax breaks.

Other countries (Canada, European Union countries) have figured out how to pluck these pharmaceutical companies out of their pockets and put them in their place and the world hasn’t stopped spinning yet. Here’s hoping the US Supreme Court will follow suit.

Little Known Facts of the Leaf-Blower Economic Model


I figured out today that leaf-blowers are responsible for a great deal of commerce in the United States. I know that seems absurd, but think about it.

Everywhere I go there are people with enormous backpacks full of fuel strapped to their backs and gigantic vacuum-pipes in their hands, blowing dust and leaves and grass clippings around. Their co-workers are raking, mowing, edging, pruning, generally creating more stuff to be displaced by these loud, intrusive machines.

Let’s first consider the gear that goes along with the leaf blower itself.
$$- The person running the damn thing has to wear some sort of ear-protection so as not to lose their eardrums while they are working.
$$ They must also purchase gloves to wear lest they burn their hands on the hot machine
$$ They must buy gasoline to power the obnoxious machine.

Then let’s consider what happens to the stuff that gets blown around. An awful lot of it lands on the cars nearby – whether they are parked in lots around the area or simply stopped at a red light or driving past the work crew.
$$ – frequent car washes needed to get the pollen and dust removed from one’s car
$$ – allergy medication for those of us whose bodies wholeheartedly reject the crap being blown all around us – eye drops, seasonal allergy relief, acupuncture, allergy shots, you name it, we’re buying it.

Next, please consider what happens when they remove the leaves from the places where the trees dropped them.
$$ – the natural mulch and weed suppression that is provided by the leaves is gone. Necessitating hiring more workers to come by periodically and pull the weeds or spray toxic pesticides on them.
$$ – medications to combat the negative effects of the toxic pesticides
$$ – protective gear for the workers applying the toxic pesticides
$$ – the nutrients that would be provided to the soil if the leaves were allowed to break down there are no longer available, necessitating the purchase of fertilizers and the hiring of workers to apply said fertilizers.

These workers are all working longer hours than they would if the leaves were left to do their jobs, so they contribute further to the local economy by purchasing lunch in area restaurants and supermarkets.
These workers are doing less manual labor than they would if they simply raked the leaves from the sidewalks onto the beds where they could decompose. This could lead to one of two outcomes
$$ – higher insurance premiums to care for workers that are affected by pesticides and exposure to the exorbitant decibel level of the leaf-blower while not staying physically in-shape, or
$$ – the purchase of gym memberships or sports equipment by said workers in an effort to keep them healthy in other ways.

I am certain that this rudimentary musing has overlooked many other aspects of the leaf-blower economy, but in the ten minutes I contemplated the notion, the fact that I was able to come up with this list of things is mind-boggling.

So, even though it will probably get me labeled as a Communist and might possibly cause the further collapse of the entire Western economical model, I am advocating that these damn leaf-blowers be eradicated from the face of the planet.

Yours, quietly,
Kario