Bleeding Edge Technology

Tempted as I am to join the masses that have forked over their hard earned money to acquire the latest tablets or smart-phones, I think I will stay on the sidelines for the upcoming holidays.  I’ve learned enough lessons from past experiences not to fall prey again to the never-ending quest to be “cool” or to appear so. 

The increasingly shorter cycle of upgrades means that the cool factor lasts only so long and then you are left with yesterday’s hip - a ‘faded rose from days gone by’.  It is not the software upgrades that bothers me; it is the obligatory hardware ‘upgrade’ or, to be more exact, ‘wholesale replacement’ that is most worrisome.  What we pay for the shiny and new gadgets upfront belies the fact that there is a huge hidden cost when obsolescence is a mere 12 months away.

Don’t get me wrong, I am not a Luddite. To the contrary, I’m quite in tune and at ease with all things digital. I’m not anti consumption either – if you don’t have a cell phone and you need one, go and buy one that you can afford but make sure it will serve your needs (not your vanity) for a good three years at the minimum.  And don’t forget to look for one that comes with an easily replaceable battery.  The “smarter” they are, the more you’ll drain down the charge, and the more often you have to recharge, the sooner the battery will exhaust its useful life.

Bleeding edge technology carries with it a huge social cost. To keep us on the upgrade path, companies that design the cool gadgets have to increasingly move more and more of their production to low cost countries with weak labor and environmental regulations where more can be extracted at a lower cost.  They know that if each new generation of their product were to cost more, the rate of adoption of the new gadgets would be much lower.  With a mobile phone market nearing saturation (i.e. nearly everyone who needs a cell phone has one), the phenomenal number of iPhone 4S sold on the first day it was released was heavily influenced by the unchanged price and the continuing subsidies by the carriers.  As consumers, we all like the lower prices or more features for the same old price and what we don’t see, such as the loss of blue collar jobs, we can easily ignore.  We want decent paying jobs but we also want our toys cheap. 

It is easy to turn and point a finger at China for our economic woes but the social ills resulting from our demand for bleeding edge technology do not just stop at our doors.  The lower costs extracted by the manufacturers (or their masters here in the US) has forced suppliers in China to keep wages low and they can only do that by making their workers turn in longer hours and demand more output for the same pay.  It took multiple suicide attempts at Foxconn in Shenzhen, China, ending with twelve deaths to bring the plight of those Chinese workers to the world’s attention.  Yet, if the Chinese were to refuse to continue production under such poor conditions, the manufacturers could easily turn to another country where labor is still plentiful and life is cheap. 

The Earth’s population passed the 7 billion figure very recently and, abstract as that number may seem, it points us to the fact that we are ever closer to the possibility of exhausting the natural resources we’ve been endowed with.  Apart from the fossil fuels that are used to generate power for the production plants, bleeding edge technology gadgets often require the use of ‘rare earth’ minerals to produce.  The mining, refining and recycling of rare earth minerals have serious environmental consequences if not properly managed – toxic acids are required during the refining process and radioactive tailings are the by-products of the processing of certain rare earth ores.

As strange as it may sound, each new iteration of a bleeding edge technology product is proof that the prior model was imperfect and incomplete.  Our readiness to gobble them up despite the short lived sense of satisfaction demonstrates a new form of addiction – a need for speed, a need for yet another toy, another app, another cheap thrill, another bragging right.  We don’t buy a new TV or a new home stereo every year so why do we need to buy a new smart-phone every year? 

We are not more productive as a result of our new toys but we have clearly become more self-absorbed and more remote from one another.  Despite the prevalence of more and cheaper means of communicating with one another, we communicate less.  We’ve lost the art of being social and connecting with others.  We’ve turned to social media as a cheap substitute to meeting with our friends in person or spending the time necessary to get to know another person’s point of view.  We plaster our one sentence views on Facebook and we don’t care if others might disagree – we can always delete unfavorable comments.  We no longer seek to honestly discuss or debate the issues we face with the objective of finding common ground solutions.  We’re given to sound bites and we don’t take the time to fact check claims and wild accusations before we mindlessly pass it on to our friends. 

Unfortunately, there are no magic bullets to put an end to the problems that have been slowly building up through decades of a consumption focused economic model.  

The introduction of the concept of a Carbon Tax (which is different from Cap and Trade) is possibly a step in the right direction. At a minimum, it will help make the true cost of any product more evident.  However, adoption and implementation of such a concept will take more than a herculean effort to bring about.

Some countries have consumption based tax systems known as either VAT [Value Added Tax] or GST [Goods and Services Tax] which are or can be made into progressive tax systems to help account for and offset the hidden social costs of products and level the playing field.  Progressive taxes work if it is put to good use.  Singapore is an example that comes to mind.  It levies multiple layers and forms of taxes on car ownership (see insert) but that has allowed the country to put into place one of the best road network and public transportation systems in the world.

It is great to have the most up-to-date technology but we must not let ourselves be seduced by it and let it turn into an addiction that will bleed away our future or, more accurately put, our children’s future.  It is time to press the pause button on upgrades and reflect on the destructive side of our consumption behavior and our addictions.

Dare to Dream Again

Like millions of Americans, I sat in front of my TV and watched transfixed as NASA’s space shuttle Atlantis lifted off from Cape Canaveral, FL. on its final mission on July 9, 2011.

In the 30 years since the shuttle program began, the frequency with which NASA has been sending shuttles into space has, not surprisingly, dulled the sense of expectation and excitement around each take-off. Success, after all, when repeated often enough becomes the norm.

The success of NASA’s shuttle missions is probably its biggest thorn-in-the-side as well. Space is no longer as big a mystery as it once was. We’ve landed man on the moon multiple times and we’ve sent unmanned space-crafts to Mars and beyond. We’ve captured images of a billion stars and celestial bodies millions of light years away. We’ve learned enough to demote Pluto and reclassified it as a dwarf-planet, smaller than Earth’s moon. As a consequence of the regularity of our successes and discoveries, we have lost the sense of wonderment and the desire to conquer new boundaries in space. The fantasies of Star Trek like space voyagers and adventures no longer speaks to new generation in the same way as it did to ours. Space adventures, like old playthings and story books, will fade into the past.

Over time, our quest to win the space race (with the Russians) evolved into more than just putting a man into space or landing on the moon. The space program gave our mathematicians, scientist and researchers purpose and opportunity to test new theories, new designs, new materials, and new medical research, and as a result, it allowed America to develop technologies that have given it the leadership position in science and engineering.

No other nation that has sent a man into space has launched a reusable spacecraft as beautifully designed and as versatile as NASA’s space shuttles, and, given the economic uncertainties around the globe, it is quite unlikely that any nation will in any time soon. Sadly, with the US national debt about to hit the $14.29 trillion debt ceiling by August 2, 2011, it is also unlikely that we will come up with a replacement to the shuttle craft anytime soon either. Our political leaders can’t even agree on investing in infrastructures on the ground so it is hard to imagine them getting their minds around something as abstract as space.

When we are told on a daily basis that social programs that have been put into place to benefit the elderly or the poor have to be cut, and raising taxes are out of the question, how can we imagine our political leaders finding the funding to save the space program?

If there is no space program, where will our next generation of new, cutting-edge technologies evolve from? What will happen to America’s leadership in the field of science and technology?

People around the globe send their children to study in US schools in the hope that they will be able to gain some of that scientific knowledge and know-how. They want their kids to be immersed in culture of diversity in America and to soak in the intangibles that make America great – the ability to think outside the box, to come up with unconventional solutions, to push the boundaries of what is possible, and to find success out of failures. More than just the educational credentials, they want their kids to acquire the American daring and belief – the relentless pursuit of faster, higher and better.

The American sense of national pride and shared sacrifice once propelled the nation forward at break-neck speeds but it is quickly being overtaken by a number of developing Asian countries. It is not surprising that they are the ones currently with a strong sense of national pride. With determination, investment and sacrifice, they have put into place superfast trains, ultra-modern airports, and broadband Internet capabilities that far exceeds what we have in the US.

America’s lead position in science and technological advances will continue to ebb unless we dare to dream big again and the American sense of individuality is matched by a sense of unity and strength. Our desire to do well individually should not and must not diminish our sense of need for doing well as a nation, a collection of people with a common purpose.

Great leaders lead the way by setting goals and by being able to inspire the nation into imagining the future and investing in that future. America’s leaders cannot afford to be short-sighted, focusing only on the near term. America’s leaders must dare to dream again. They must be bold enough to imagine what future looks like and they must be able to explain the investment and sacrifice needed for the nation to arrive at that future.

The Best Thing A Teacher Ever Taught Me

Recently, one of my sisters forwarded me an email with an interesting story about a dinner conversation between a CEO and a teacher.  The CEO, trying to make his point that the problem with education is that students are taught by people whose highest aspiration is to end up with such lowly paid jobs, turned to the teacher at the table and asked her what she made.  Instead of giving the CEO a dollar figure, she turned the tables on him by listing the things she would ‘make’ her students learn – hard work, sacrifice, responsibility, determination, to have a questioning mind, etc. - and concluded that in doing so, she would ‘make’ a difference in the world when they turned out to be doctors and engineers and even CEOs.

It is a heartwarming story for those who have (or had) a teaching role in schools, at home, or elsewhere, that what they do has a significant impact on the society we live in and in the world of tomorrow.

The story caused me to reflect on my own education, particularly the teachers who made a difference in my life.  Teachers who had not only imparted knowledge but also the love of learning as well as an approach to learning that would be useful even after I was done with school. 

In high school, I struggled with two subjects: advanced mathematics and the Malay language.  I dreaded attending the classes because I could not relate to what the teachers were trying to get across.  It seemed to me that my math teacher was talking to the blackboard every time because, if he was talking to me, I had no clue what he was saying.  The Malay language teacher would bring up one ancient Malay poem after anther, reveling in the beauty, structure, and rhythm of each when it should have been evident that the class, which was entirely made up of Chinese kids, did not have a sufficient grasp of the language itself.  I dutifully took notes of what I did not comprehend, doubting that I would ever get close to understanding the subjects.  The following year, I had new teachers for the subjects and suddenly everything that had been seemingly incomprehensible the year before made sense.  How did that happen?  What changed?  The magic of their teaching methods cleared the fog in my brains and I was able to grasp the logic of advanced mathematics and the complexity of prefixes and suffixes in Malay. 

When I was in college, one particular lecturer stood out.  She told the class that she didn’t want us just to study hard but she wanted us to study smart.  She started by teaching us to look for the underlying logic and reasoning behind each topic.  She helped us relate what we’ve learned to real world examples so that the lesson wasn’t just purely academic.  She taught us to analyze exam questions before attempting to answer them.  She taught us to look for the different parts to a question, the total score possible for each part of a question so we didn’t spend too much time on a part that fetched only a few marks.  She gave us a feel of the kind of answers examiners would look for and what gets us points and what won’t.  More than just the tactics to learning and passing exams, she taught us see the big picture and not be always stuck in the details or waste valuable resources in trying to be perfect.  She knew that most of her students were not from rich family backgrounds and we had to be smart about getting through our coursework and exams. She understood that the end goal for us was not just to pass exams but to get a good job that would hopefully help us realize our goals in life.

Once I started working, I quickly learned that whatever I had learned in school and in college was but a tiny dot at tip of the iceberg.  I had to learn the business that the company was engaged in.  I had to spend long hours pouring through numbers and contracts and processes.  It was an exciting time and it was rewarding when I was finally able to apply my knowledge to my work, using it to improve processes, organization and, ultimately, profitability.  For all those wonderful experiences, I will forever be grateful to those teachers in my life that taught me everything I know and instilled in me the love of learning new things.

There’s an old Chinese proverb that goes, “Give a man a fish and he will have food for a day.  Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.”  Keeping that analogy in mind, the best thing that a teacher ever taught me was how to fish.

It is unfortunate that teaching and class sizes will be impacted once the Federal and State budget cuts come into effect.  We can all try to pass the buck and push the cuts onto someone or somewhere else but there is no denying that we can’t have what we can’t afford.  My hope is that the cuts will help spur us towards more intelligent ways of teaching, helping our kids learn how to fish rather than just giving our kids a fish.  After all, education does not stop at the school doors.

Budget Battles

Let’s face it – even if the US is not faced with a looming deficit and at risk of defaulting on its debts if the debt-ceiling is not raised, Congress should still be debating what the nation is spending its revenues and resources on and how to extract the most out of every dollar spent.  Congress should never be complacent, as they have been during the years of economic growth and prosperity, about the inefficiencies and bad policies we see at every level of Government. 

The results of the 2010 mid-term elections carry with it a clear message: the voters are tired of the same-old, same-old.  The Independents, tired of having to choose between two sides that have become so similar that it is hard to tell them apart, voted in a whole new bunch that ran on the message that they want to change Government.  Indeed, some of them ran on pretty extreme messages but it seemed that the risk was worth it, if only to stir things up and get the fat cats out of their seats to start doing something to right the ship.   

If we could rise above all the rhetoric about the numbers and who would be to blame if the government was shut down because no agreement on the spending cuts, we would realize that the real issue lies in complexities of our laws, layered on year after year, creating bloat and inefficiencies everywhere, sucking up precious national resources.  As the saying goes, “a dollar is a dollar”.  We want to be spending it in smart ways that generate more economic activity which in turn lead to job growth and revenue, and not in paying for duplicative or unproductive processes and administrative structures.

The National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform conducted a study and came up with a report in December 2010 which we should all examine and build on if we are truly serious about what needs to be done.  It is not a perfect document and dissenting views are clearly enunciated but it is a good start.  The report proposes various changes encompassing:

• Discretionary Spending Cuts
• Tax Reform
• Health Policies
• Other Mandatory Policies
• Social Security
• Process Reform

It is a must read for anyone serious about the debate on our nation’s fiscal health.  You can access it at http://www.fiscalcommission.gov/

In every area listed by the Commission, we need a ‘Reset’ button to push for rationalization and simplification.  Complexities lead to loopholes, creating an unfair advantage for those who cleverly exploit the loopholes and a gross disadvantage for others.

We need a Reset button for our tax laws to account for the shift in economic and political dynamics we are witnessing around the world.  Asia is fast becoming the biggest consumer bloc and our survival and success will depend on how adept we are at meeting the challenges ahead.  To that end, our tax laws must be redesigned to incentivize job creation, especially in the export of goods and services.  We need incentives that will help make the US more competitive in the global market.  We already have some of the best institutions of higher learning, a well-trained workforce, excellent design and marketing skills, and fertile entrepreneurial breeding grounds especially in new-age technology.  Yet, our existing laws favor the off-shoring of millions of technology jobs to other countries.  We need our lawmakers to help bring about the re-creation of those jobs in the U.S.   

We need a Reset button for our defense strategy and our national security.  We can no longer afford the price of being the world’s sole policeman.  Recent events in Africa and the Middle-East have shown us that any change towards a more democratic world must come from within.  We need to be smarter about how we screen passengers at security checkpoints across the country.  We cannot afford to layer on more and more scanners, personnel, and checks each time that Al Qaeda threatens another attack on the US.  The Department of Defense spending has more than doubled between 2000 and 2010, ballooning from $300 Billion to just under $700 billion, and that number excludes Homeland Security and Veterans Affairs costs.   

We need a Reset button on healthcare and medical tort reform.  Healthcare providers today do not want to risk potential lawsuits and higher malpractice insurance and consequently they will often (especially if asked) prescribe all recommended tests and treatments regardless of whether or not they will be beneficial to the patient.  We need a rational quality of care that is determined by a panel of experts, not lawyers.  We need programs that encourage people to adopt a healthy lifestyle. We cannot afford a growing population of expanding waistlines and higher incidences of obesity, including cases in the very young.  Beneficiaries of government assisted programs such as Medicare and Medicaid should be subjected to annual “performance tests”, monitoring their weight and waist measurements. If their deductibles and co-pays for medication increase along with their expanding waistlines, they would quickly join the pound-for-pound challenge on the Biggest Loser.

We need a Reset button on end-of-life care.  We cannot afford to confuse compassionate care for the dying with extending life artificially. Trying to postpone the inevitable outcome for the very sick and the very old while denying care to young children which will allow them to grow into healthy, productive lives makes no sense. The notion that we will be ‘killing grandma’ by rationing care is ridiculous when the alternative is to have grandma hooked up to a host of machines and tubes for feeding, breathing, medicating, urinating, etc., because we can’t let go. We’re adults and we must think and act as adults.  Advocating the notion that a logical plan for end-of-life care means ‘killing grandma’ is infantile.

We need a Reset button on our energy policies.  We need to end our addiction to oil.  Our dependence on foreign oil hurts us, making us subservient to oil producing nations and lender countries that have autocratic governments.  We need to raise taxes on gas-guzzling vehicles while encouraging more eco-friendly cars.  We need to revisit subsidies to big oil corporations.  We need to invest in new infrastructure that will help move our energy consumption towards sources that are renewable.  We need to expand our electricity grid so that we can bring solar and wind energy from solar and wind farms to the cities and towns across the country.  We need to invest in support systems for car-pooling and use of mass transportation.  The arrival of hybrid and electric cars are great but they alone will not make a significant enough dent in our total oil consumption.

We need a Reset button on government jobs, civil and military services.  We need to flatten organizational structures and end promotion and pay increases based on seniority.  We need to eliminate unnecessary paperwork, pencil pushers that add no value to a process, increase productivity through greater automation and move towards a self-service model through modern technology.  We need to consolidate departments that overlap in function and we need to eliminate outdated regulations that discourage businesses from setting up shop or expanding their operations in the US.  We need enforcement officers that are more attuned to the problems businesses face and who will help them meet regulatory requirements rather than act simply as a deterrent to lapses and failure to comply.

We need a Reset button on our policies on granting visas to bona-fide visitors to encourage in-bound tourism.  We have amazingly beautiful cities, national parks, and exciting man-made attractions.  We have museums and art collections that are the envy of many.  Tourism is a highly labor intensive industry and it will create jobs that will always remain in the US.  We need to end the levying of hefty visa fees and, more importantly, we need to end the discrimination against young, single women.  The trend, seen first in Japan and now around the world is for more and more single female workers with a disposable income for whom travel and shopping are high on their priority list.

There are many more Reset buttons that can be added to the list.  However not a single one will be in place if our politicians continue in their game of ‘chicken’ and care only about their ego and political ideologies rather than the nation’s needs.

We are living in a fast changing world and systems and processes that worked well in the past may not be sufficiently adept in meeting the needs of today. Lengthy budget battles year after year distracts us from looking at what we need to be doing to positively influence America’s economic future and its role in a freer, more global and more democratic world.

A Race To The Bottom

There is a new paradigm in the halls of power and the best description for it is “austerity”. 

In the aftermath of the housing bubble and a near complete meltdown of the global financial system, Federal, State and City governments are faced with a sudden and sharp decline in tax revenues juxtaposed against a surge in prolonged unemployment and an increasing demand for government assistance.  

With a sustained recovery still uncertain and debt loads at unprecedented levels, it is not surprising that lawmakers, governors and mayors are clamoring to reduce spending in government programs at every level, especially those categorized as ‘discretionary’.  There is no denying it, the prize is bigger than just a balanced budget.

There is no easy answer to what ought to be cut or trimmed and slashing across the board blindly is not a sensible thing to do either.  We have to bear in mind that the intent or objective of most government assistance programs are to help those who are most in need.  Cutting funding for those programs would deprive the most needy of a lifeline.  Whatever we do and however we do it, we must be extremely careful that it does not turn into a race to the bottom where the cuts will affect our country's competitiveness and future. 

One target currently in focus is Education spending.  While increasing class sizes in public schools will deliver savings in total teachers’ salaries paid, the possible long term impact cannot and must not be ignored.  Public schools are where most of the country’s middle income and poorer half send their kids for an education.  The cuts would further disadvantage the very ones who need a greater degree of attention to help them climb out of the reaches of poverty and to do better than the generation before them.  The gap between these kids and those from well-to-do families who attend private schools will widen, increasing the wealth gap and social class distinction. 

We cannot afford a race to the bottom where Education is concerned.  Already, Americans kids lag in many areas when compared to test scores of students in other countries. 

If we were to be honest about balancing the budget, we need to face the reality that we will be spending over a trillion dollars on defense in 2011.  By choice or by default, we’ve become the world’s policemen and we are faced with the hefty costs as a consequence.

The war in Afghanistan is still on-going after nearly a decade and, although the bulk of our troops are out of Iraq, the costs there are continuing to mount.  In 2007, the Congressional Budget Office issued an estimate that the total cost of the two wars will reach $2.4 trillion by 2017.  Yet, there is and has been no “War Tax” to pay for those costs and that fact is conveniently swept under the carpet in the nation’s budget balancing exercise.

Returning to the topic of “austerity”, a New York times columnist wrote that any cut should ‘make everybody hurt’.  I’m not sure how his mind works on that one – the rich do not depend on government help so any proposed cut won’t affect them negatively.  If the rich is to share in the pain, they would have to contribute to the revenue side of the equation, i.e., pay more taxes.

Businesses have benefitted from lower wages and interest rates; executives and CEOs of banks have benefitted from the government bailout and low interest rates and are once again reaping six and seven digit bonuses.  The value of their stocks and stock options have soared in the last two years.  If we have to balance the budget, they should be the first in line to participate in the pain of getting the nation’s finances in order, and be proud of the fact that they did.

Sadly, the opportunity to let the Bush-era tax cuts lapse at the end of 2010 or to roll back cuts that benefitted the rich was swiftly put away for political expediency.  As the 2010 mid-term elections have shown, politics is an expensive business and it takes a lot of money to get elected or re-elected.  If you think that the amounts spent on political campaigns were indecent then, brace yourself for worse.  The Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission has, for all practical purposes, removed restrictions on how much corporations (or individuals using the cover of a corporate entity) may spend in advertising to back candidates who are favorable to their causes. 

Here again is another potential race to the bottom that is most vile and undesirable.  We are at the edge of a pit of cronyism, bribery and corruption.  Take a deeper look at the social unrest sweeping across Egypt, Africa and the Arab nations and you will realize that the cause of the uprising is not Facebook or Twitter but the pent up frustrations of a people denied a dream.  Ignoring the needs of the underclass while pampering to the rich does not bode well for the type of Democracy we claim to represent or are trying to promote in other parts of the world.

Any program of cut should be targeted at weeding out inefficiencies, mismanagement and waste.  There are many systemic inefficiencies in almost all governmental departments.  Archaic organizational structures, systems and procedures must be reexamined, eliminated or replaced and resources freed for more productive use.  Paperwork, forms, files, processes, etc., must be streamlined and automated.  Taxpayers should be encouraged to make suggestions on how the services they need may be delivered more efficiently or to file complaints regarding poor public employee attitudes. Unions should, by law, not be permitted to retaliate against management for taking disciplinary actions against employees for cause.  Government departments should be made to bid for the work that they do against independent outside contractors to ensure that they remain competitive and cost efficient.  If you have any doubts about how much can be saved, you’ll be reassured to know that the Congressional Budget Office report in 2007 estimated that the cost of mismanagement and waste in the Iraq war alone was some $10 billion.

“Austerity” is a nice word, as are the phrases “balancing the budget” or “living within our means” but they should not mean austerity for some and a ‘get-out-of-jail-free’ card for others. 

Blood Money

I finished the year 2010 feeling a little better about things in general. 

The mid-term elections were over and the economy, although still struggling, were showing some signs of picking up.  I had done my part by shopping for Christmas presents on-line and at the stores and I had even picked up some ‘savings’ in the process.  When the year end retail and on-line sales statistics came out, hope was again in the air that the country was seeing an uptick in consumer confidence and that would lead to increased corporate hiring and spending.

The Congress, in a lame-duck session, was surprisingly able to pass some new laws that led many to believe that the Republicans and Democrats were finally on a new course that would enable them to move the business of the nation forward. 

Most encouragingly, the media had returned their focus mundane things such as the weather, a clear indication that nothing seriously bad was happening apart from the acts of nature that were disrupting travel and everyday life in various parts of the country.

Unfortunately, that period of bliss ended quite abruptly last Saturday.  One week and one day into the New Year, a lone gunman in Tucson, Arizona, fired into a crowd gathered outside a supermarket, seriously injuring an elected member of the Congress, killing a Federal judge and a number of other innocent victims, including a nine year-old girl who, as fate would have it, was born on 9/11/2001. 

It immediately brought to mind my blog last September titled “Dear World – a letter from America” and caused me to re-read it and ponder if there were salient points that I had missed or if I had been mistaken in my take on the vitriolic rhetoric by the various factions that had so troubled the people in the United States as well as in countries around the world as to the level of intolerance and hate that we were showing, in words and in actions that were repeatedly aired on Television, on radio talk-shows and in Blogs on the Internet. 

Sadly, “reality TV” has become too real for the families of those victims in Arizona who were injured or killed in this incident.  No amount of “could have”, “would have” or “should have” will ever mitigate their loss or bring back their loved ones.

Those who have been employing the language of hate, spurring their followers into a state of frenzy and those who are unstable enough in their minds into acts of violence, are now denying responsibility and quickly removing evidence of their hateful remarks from their web-pages, blogs and Twitter postings.

This latest manifestation of the destructiveness of spiteful words require an immediate re-imposition of civility in our discourse and a civilized approach to reconciling our differences.  We must eschew (shun, avoid, turn away from, have nothing to do with) those who employ barbaric words designed to incite others into acting out their anger.  We must deny them the reach and effect they desire from planting those words and seeds of hatred in the minds of their listeners. 

The Media has a duty to reject and not give air-time or printed space to people who capitalize on their fame and say anything that comes to mind with total disregard of the safety and well being of other.  Just as they would refuse to show graphic images of death and destruction, the Media must refuse to give voice to those whose spew hatred and whose words would clearly spur others into acts of violence.  It would not be a denial of the right to free speech – instead it would be the Media’s exercising of its duty to prevent the exploitation of free speech by those who clearly intend to cause harm.  What the Media carry as “news” must be worthy to be called as such and must pass the test of balanced reporting, and not be a verbatim report of unsubstantiated claims or wild accusations by some attention seeker.  If they report on the declarations of a person in the news, they must have a duty to investigate decry the lies and fabrications at the same time.

Clearly, gun laws around the country need to be improved – over the objections of the gun lobbyists and the NRA.  Those desiring to buy and carry a gun must be made to undergo psychiatric tests to ensure that they are not unstable in their heads and they are not and will not be a threat to community, both prior to being sold a gun and regularly afterwards.  It is no different than drivers having to pass eye-exams to renew their driving licenses.  Additionally, they should be required to purchase insurance coverage for victims of their actions, intended or otherwise, so that there is a recurring cost and reminder of the importance of safely handing the weapon they have in their hands.  States that permit the carrying of concealed weapons must immediately revoke those laws so that law enforcement and security officers can more easily carry out their tasks with impunity.

Profits that come from the destruction of innocent lives is Blood Money – not much different from the thirteen pieces of silver that bought the betrayal of Jesus.

We All Want To Live The American Dream

Just when I thought I had read up enough to understand what caused of the financial crisis that led to the actual or near collapse of some the major financial institutions, the Foreclosure Flap reared its ugly head, telling me that the underlying problems could be deeper than we’d realized.  We may have put out the fire caused by all the mortgage backed securities (a.k.a. toxic assets) but hot ambers are still smoldering and could break out anytime and burn us again.

What has been most shocking is that the problems are occurring in the United States of America which pride itself as being a nation of laws.  A look at the train wreck of the mortgage mess reveals a chain of dishonesty and a disregard of the laws that send shivers up and down the spine. The image of reliability, trustworthiness and enforceability of deals and investments in the US has been severely damaged as a result. 

Having laws but not the desire or the means to enforce them renders the laws simply useless.  As the former Chairman of the Fed has discovered, expecting the financial industry to self-regulate was a mistake.  It is akin to asking a drug addict to take charge of a warehouse filled with drugs.  Sadly, the people elected to positions of power AND responsibility took the first and forgot the latter.  They eliminated regulations that were designed to protect the average man on the street and they denied funding to those agencies that were set up to ensure adherence to the laws and regulations.  By demonizing “government” they chipped away at the rules that had been been carefully crafted to protect the innocent.  Corporate profits became their sole obsession and expanding that their only mantra.  In essence, they sold out the very people that had elected them into positions of power and opted for corporate welfare instead of helping the average American get closer to achieving their American dream. 

For most Americans, the “Pursuit of Happiness” entrenched in the Declaration of Independence translates to ‘living the American Dream’.  In the majority of instances, it simply means a decent job, a house, a spouse, two kids (and maybe a dog) and a car.  That simple dream is now more remote than ever before.  The so called ‘middle class’ is fast shrinking as decent paying jobs and industries have migrated overseas.  Graduates with higher degrees (and big student loans to go with them) often find themselves fighting for jobs that barely pay their living costs.  Their employers have higher productivity expectations and the longer hours at work often translates into less quality time with family and friends.  The wealth gap in America is rapidly increasing and the pendulum must start swinging the other way or something will break very soon. 

To turn the tide, our elected and appointed officials cannot continue doling out cash (remember the bailouts?), concessions and tax breaks to the big corporations and banks unconditionally.  Yes, we want them here and we want to help them succeed but we want them to be good citizens as well, providing decent jobs and paying their fair share of taxes.  Their focus cannot be on the short term profits alone – the longer term well being of the US consumers must be part of their priority too.  The US consumers cannot consume unless they have the ability to do so and fundamentally that means a steady job with a decent pay.  Flipping burgers and temporary jobs don’t make the cut.

We need to figure out what the appropriate criteria of a good Corporate Citizen should be and start enacting rules to bring that about.  Corporations that do not meet those expectations should be taxed at a higher rate or not be allowed access to the same incentives that Corporations that do. 

As a start, Companies that do not pass an American Content test (US employment and product component percentages) should be made to pay a penalty in the form of a surtax.  All companies closely monitor their employment numbers and their product content makeup so introducing a requirement that they disclose those numbers in their quarterly and annual reports should not result in any additional cost to the corporations.  Such a rule should not impact the small and medium sized businesses that have all or the bulk of their production and employment in the US.

Those who are in bed with the big corporations would decry this proposal as being protectionist.  We must peel away the rhetoric about protectionism and see that not all such rules are necessarily bad – lawyers, doctors and accountants from other countries can’t legally practice their profession in the US unless they have the necessary US training and certification.  Take away those protections and their jobs would quickly be outsourced to lower cost countries as well.

We’ve tried the carrot without the stick approach and we know that it does not work.  Corporations took full advantage of the system and did all they could to make their profits private and their losses public. 

However the winners or the losers of the mid-term elections choose to frame it, the exit polls point out that the real anger at Washington is about bailing out the big corporations at the expense of the American people.  We’ve saved the mega banks, the insurance companies, and the auto-manufacturers and we’ve pumped cheap cash at them but where are the jobs?  US Corporations are reporting higher sales and bigger profits but where are US based jobs?  Retirees who depend on income from their savings have seen interest rates plummet to near zero and they have had to rethink their retirement but where are the jobs for their grandchildren who are entering the workforce?

The late Ted Sorensen, who helped compose JFK’s inaugural address and the exhortation “Ask not what your country can do for you”, once wrote: “Government must give priority to the needs of ordinary citizens, workers, consumers, students, children, the elderly, and the ill, the vulnerable and the underdog, and not to the needs of those already sufficiently powerful and affluent to afford their own lobbyists.”

We all want to live the American Dream.  It should not be an impossible dream or one that is reserved for only the elite and the rich.  Take away the American Dream and you take away the hope of a nation.