It doesn’t get any plainer that this:

There will be a lot of political talk coming up about “changes” in healthcare…to deal with the cost, with the un-insured…about the mandate the election provided for change. I talked about the investment the healthcare industry has in maintaining the status quo here.

No matter what they say do not be fooled that some incremental change will make a difference.  US Healthcare costs are so far out of whack that only structural change will make a difference.

Also, understand what the chart is saying and think about what the end result of healthcare is supposed to be:  A longer life.  You can argue that quality is also important; however, quantity is a good surrogate, as all healthcare improvements should conceivably lengthen life some bit.  Obviously we fail.

The chart is saying:  We pay twice as much as everyone else, and are pretty much LAST in lifespan among developed first-world countries.  We pay the most and get the least.

The opponents of a change in healthcare will make two main points:

1)  The quality of care will be worse under nationalized healthcare:  Really?  Then how do all the countries ahead of us live longer and spend less?  They will say you will have less choice and wait in long lines to get care.  Maybe or maybe not, but that obviously isn’t affecting the life span in those countries ahead of us.  They may (or may not) stand in a line….but it isn’t shortening their life any.

2)  Nationalized care (or basically any change proposed) will cost too much:  Hard to argue with the chart….we are already paying too much.  I will make a comment on that, and it relates to income inequality:  Although I have no data to back this up, I bet the rich in the United States DO have the best healthcare in the world.  The issue is that so few can afford that kind of care.

What do I propose as far as a change (its easy to poke holes in the current system)?  Don’t know.  There is so much mis-information out there about WHY our current system costs so much that I’ve had trouble sorting that out.  I know alot is administation, but not all of it.  I know some of it is too few doctors/health care professionals.  I know some of it is litigation and using emergency room as last resort care.

I do know though that it can be done, because all the countries ahead of us are generally similar to the US in macro-economic conditions.  There is nothing unique about the US that is driving costs so high.

Many of you….actually some (perhaps few) of you, know that I had a blog at chasingeden.com for about 5 years; then I “archived” those entries for various reasons.  I’ve put the old entries back up here.

On another note, I never really ride the wave of great new websites, since they come and go.  This followed by that, followed by whatever.  Some great new site/service becomes popular and then it goes away.  Those kind of things follow an exponential growth curve, like multi-level marketing or bacteria growth.  It takes a while to ramp up, then everyone is doing it, then it tails off…then trends down.  However, Facebook is pretty cool.  I never thought I would hear from most of those people again and its been nice reminiscing for the most part.

Posted a bunch of old pictures I scanned on Facebook.

I had this great idea that I would get a bulletin board for Xmas and put a bunch of old travel stuff on it to put in my office.  Maybe it would diffuse some of the emotion?  Maybe it would serve as a nice conversation piece?  It is more like shuffling around the skeletons in the closet.  Everything buried is not treasure.  But they are fun to look at!

Anyway, I went home for Xmas.  I drank so much at Jason’s I blacked-out and threw up on his couch.  I saw Rick Gibson and Marty Price, and felt bad the next day because I probably didn’t make a fool of myself since I’m generally well-behaved when I get drunk….but when you black-out, who knows?

I’ll write a New Years Resolutions post later, but now I want to mention that New Years is the most overrated holiday.  I pay too much money to get an all-inclusive deal at some swanky restaurant for a 5 course meal I don’t really want to eat so that I can get  “free” champagne toast at mid-night.  Drinks are rarely included in the “all-inclusive” price, which is a good thing since I do not need extra incentive to get trashed.  I tend to do that anyway.  Then there is the whole “What are you doing for New Years?”conversation.  Everyone calls everyone in an endless circle trying to figure out which venue we want to waste our last bit of money on in 2008.  The coordination required is almost worse than planning a vacation.  Reservations are a nightmare because no one will commit.  I told Jeanette I would prefer to stay home and watch Dick Clark/Ryan Seacrest on TV.  At least then I could get drunk w/o having to drive anywhere….which makes the final point about New Years:  No holiday is more focused on drinking and going out than New Years.  There will be cops out and they will stop you/me.  I guess the only thing worse than wasting your money getting wasted on New Years is to be the designated driver.  It will be fun trying to find a taxi at 12:30 though if you don’t have a DD.  I bet no one else will need a taxi.  They’ll be plentiful.

Happy New Year!!

I usually don’t remember much before High School.  I have a notoriously bad memory for stuff unless something specific triggers it….such as music.

I remember getting a tape copy of The Great Radio Controversy, maybe from Eric Venable, maybe Jeff McKinley, maybe Christopher Brotherton, maybe from Scott Langnecker…don’t remember, but until that point I had really just listened to the radio…which meant I didn’t get any hard-rockin’ music.  Back then to listen to something different was a big deal.  Ozzy Ozbourne was the devil.  Kiss was evil.  AC/DC stood for Anti-Christ/Devil-Child.

Anyway, I listened to that tape (I loved tapes) over and over, and it was great.  Jeff Keith had this great, raspy, screech and the songs…well….rocked.  The Great Radio Controversy was and still is a terrific album.

I made Marty and Marc listen to it one day in the car (Marc was the only one that could drive I think), and they were like “What is this crap?”.  Tesla taught me it is ok to be different.  Well….not really, but I do remember thinking “Why don’t they like this as much as I do?”

Anyway, I don’t get to remember childhood that much, but Jeff Keith’s classic rock rasp takes me back:

“Hey! yeah, yeah. Uh huh.

Bustin’ ass all day
Just to put food on the table.
And I always will for as long as I am able.
Done all I could,
Ev’rything that a man should do.
Still they refuse to call me,
Call me what I am. Hey!

Do you know what it takes to be a man?
Don’t take a whole lots of money,
Diamond rings upon your hand, no.
That ain’t what it takes to be a man.
Do right by the ones you love,
Always give a helpin’ hand. Yes, I do.

Now I’ve been through it all
Seen the good, the bad, the ugly.
Always take care of my share of responsibilities.
Now, just because I grow my hair
And play in a rockin’ band,
Old folks are always telling me,
“Boy, why don’t you grow up
And be a man.” Hey!

I know what it takes to be a man.
It ain’t the way you look
Or the clothes that you wear.
That ain’t what it takes to be a man.
Do right by the ones you love,
Always lend a helpin’ hand.”

Thanks Jeff.

Due to a change in vacation policy at work, I’ve had to take a large amount of vacation here at the end of the year.  I planned alot of projects around the house and I’m taking a short trip for my Mom’s bday, and will have Xmas stuff as well…so in the end, even though I have about two weeks off….it isn’t much “vacation” really.

I guess that’s how it works when you get older:  Vacation is just a time when you catch up on other things, or you take a really expensive trip somewhere and actually look forward to going back to work afterwards because those vacations are sometimes more stressful than your normal routine.

I think I’ll go grab a cup of coffee and go to Home Depot.

Damn….that is funny.  I know she’s an actress, but it almost seems like she means it.

Not all “stuff” is created equal….or is even useful at all.

I’m not talking about diamond studded toothbrushes for your toy poodle.  That’s fine with me.  If you want to waste money on your dog’s oral hygiene, so be it.

I’m talking about entire industries/sectors of the economy that don’t provide anything useful or are unduly bloated.  Their existence is a distortion; a fluke of a particular set of conditions at the marcro level (govt, laws, etc).

Here is an example often given:  Income inequality creates crime because the really poor want what the really rich have….so some portion of them steal it.  If there are more poor and more rich (the income distribution widens)….there is more theft.  To combat this situation the really rich simply move into gated communities, install security systems, etc. 

Some portion of the home/personal security market is a distortion due to income inequality.  In my opinion, although it adds to GDP, it should subtract from it.  It is a negative value service/product.

Though the US has a 12 trillion dollar GDP….I think much of it is a fantasy.  I don’t know what percentage might fall into this “useless” or “distortion” category…but it does make me wonder how “rich” our country really is.  What is rich?  Is it having enough money to buy stuff that will insulate you from the poor?

Anyway, these arguments have been made before, but the reason I’m bringing it up again is that there is another sector of the economy much larger than personal security that I think is of debatable usefulness…and whose size is certainly a distortion:  FINANCE.

Finance will of course always exist (as will Accounting, Financial Advisors, Insurance, Lawyers, etc); however, there are so many laws and obscurity in finance, that sometimes I wonder if much of the industry is a fiction….just pushing around numbers on balance sheets, or “trading” assets that aren’t backed by anything REAL. 

I’ll give two examples:

1)  Hedging:  In managing hedges, if someone makes a negative bet on company A, in theory it allows someone else to make a positive bet on company A and maintain the overall hedge.  In my example it is easy to see that there is no real value created, just two opposing bets in a zero sum game. 

But if you manage thousands or millions of those bets, and roll them up into a balance sheet and play some accounting tricks….it may look like you have real assets, which of course someone else could then potentially hedge against.  The fact remains it is a zero sum game, an accounting fiction adding no real value….just pushing paper. 

2)  Derivatives:  If hedging seems complicated, derivatives are even more mind blowing.  Let’s take the “assets” created in the previous example, and decide that we don’t want to invest/hedge on Company A anymore…..we want to invest in part of company A and part of company B.  Of course that entity doesn’t actually exist, but through derivatives you can create it on paper. 

Do you have a new asset?  If you combine a bunch of things based on a bunch of other things in a cascade of derivatives, you eventually get so far from reality that you don’t understand the assets backing the paper.  Are there any?  Is your derivative simply backed by another package of derivatives that folds back on itself or ends in a dead end?

It is easy to see that if enough people play the game outlined above, you’ve created something from nothing.  Its a distortion too complex to get your head around, so you assume its real because really smart people are using big formulas at the top of tall buildings to work it all out.

In the end, I think much of the “cloud” of finance exists as a distortion.  In a world where people eat, sleep, talk, and move on things that EXIST in the real world……if all those fancy financial instruments didn’t exist would we be any worse off?

I don’t think so.  At least not materially (since of course there isn’t much material about finance).

What about all those jobs?  Legions of very, very smart people are employing their time in industries (Accounting, Finance, etc) that shouldn’t be as large as they are….which means they are NOT doing something else, which could be more useful:  Medicine, Science, Construction, Engineering, Teaching, etc.

Imagine how much better off we’d be if the brainpower of finance were focused on advancing clean energy technology?

Some may say, “Finance is enabling clean energy technology…by allowing money to flow into it.”

I say, “Yes.  Finance can be useful, parts of it are useful.  However, the bloat and complexity of the current system is not.  It is just dangerous paper pushing….created by distortions, enabling further distortions…..creating assets that don’t really exist and diverting brainpower from other industries where it could be better employed.”

I remember when Enron went bust I said, “Through fancy accounting tricks, one day a company is going to make a profit selling to itself.”  Well….its already happened.  The entire industry of Finance is making a profit selling to itself….forever pushing pieces of paper back and forth amongst itself….thinking that somehow it is creating value.

I went home for the weekend and saw some old friends.  Jason had a party at his new house.  I hadn’t seen most of those people since college or a little after.  Everyone is always the same mostly, except a little heavier, a little more wrinkled, a little less willing to get piss drunk (myself included).  I talked a lot about people’s kids and their marriage.  I liked it for the most part.

I wore a Halloween costume I last wore in graduate school in 2001 I think.  Its a pimp outfit with leather pants, a white fedora, and a really tight shiny shirt.  Its ridiculous but fun.  I was still able to get into the pants, but I couldn’t button the shirt anymore…not even close.  In fact, I wonder how I ever got into it.

Jason seemed good.  Its strange that so many of my friends are divorced now.  Actually, I guess its just two of them that are…but hey, how many close friends can someone have?  Two is actually a large percentage.

The next night I went to see Josh after shopping all day with my mom.  I bought this really cool piece of furniture that I don’t really need.

I’m going to use it as a TV stand because I can’t figure out any other place to put it.

Anyway, Josh was good.  His kids are super cute.  He was really drunk by the time I got there at 7 having watched the Clemson game.  You know he’s drunk when he starts talking about how good we were at basketball.  I admit its a fun conversation, since we were pretty good…but let’s face it:  I couldn’t throw a basketball in the ocean now…and if I could I’d probably hurt my back doing it.

I used to swear up and down I’d never have the “used to be” conversation, but now that I’m older I see why people have it.  Its like a fish story…it gets better every time you tell it.  You can forget the defeats and remember the victories…embellish here and there.  No one remembers the score anyway, right?  I did dunk on someone in a game one time though.  That’s true: Wes Jackson, I remember.  (Ok, the goal was about 2 inches short of 10 feet, but that’s just a detail to forget next time I tell the story).

Anyway, its weird to go home sometimes and think about all that stuff.  Honestly it seems like it all happened to another person.  Traveling sort of cut my life in half, and the first half is pretty distant sometimes….especially 10 beers in.

I guess I’m thinking about all this today because I went home for the weekend and got a message from some folks on Facebook today that made me think about some things I haven’t thought about in years.