My day-mare

As I was laying half awake, this series of scenes played themselves out in my head.  I’d call it a day dream, except it wasn’t all peaceful and happy.

It resolved around my current health struggles, and the impact they are having on my career.  The drama in my head ended with me out of work, on disabality or unemployment or something.  The feeling of being that way was really tough.  I had this sensation that to be that way, to get money that way, would be a terrible place to be.

Please hear me out.  I’m doing quite the opposite of judging somebody who is not able to enjoy gainful employment, for whatever reason.

I had this feeling that if I ended up that way, it would be my illness, my brokeness that is providing for my family.  I had this sense that to mantain that way of being I’d have to almost nurture my sickness, that it would become the center of who I am.   It would be like I’d be a professional patient: my way of providing for the family.

(I hope it doesn’t feel this way to people who are recieving disabality.  Again, this is a system we all pay in to and are all entitled to.  I’m thankful that it is there.  But none of this makes it any fun.)

On the heels of this was the realization that it’s an awesome thing to be able to provide for my family through the better parts of me, through my skills and through my hard work.  It’s a pretty awesome system, for all it’s problems, that allows us to make the world a better place and care for our families at the same time.

If you’re somebody who is working hard, making the world a better place, and taking care of your family, I hope you’ll share with me a sense of how blessed it is to be able to do this.

Profits and prophets

The recent health care speech and debate has turned our attention to the idea of a profit motive.    Despite scare-mongering to the contrary, the plan on the table does not socialize medical care.  But President Obama makes no bones about the idea that the profit motive in this case needs to be kept in check.

I think he’s right.  And I think that’s these special ways that this plays out for Christians.

Many people believe that the more unregulated the profit motive is, the more efficient we, as a society become.  Self interest, they say, is the only trait we can really expect from people.  We end up saying if a person behaves in their own self interest this is a morally good thing for them to do.

But are we prepared to deal with the fall out when we apply this logic to providers of health care?  Some of the following are theoretic problems.  Some are actual, every-day, real world problems.  But all of them are examples of health care providers acting to maximize profits:

* Whenever it is cheaper to let a person die than treat a person, it is in the best interest of the provider to allow the person to die, if treatment will be more expensive than the premiums that the person will pay for the rest of their life.

* Whenever amputation is cheaper than rehabilitation or treating an ailment, we should expect the provider to amputate, provided that the amputation won’t interfere with the patient’s ability to pay premiums.

* The cheapest treatment will be preferred.  Even if this treatment is painful, inefficient, carries side effects, etc, this is the one that a rational health care provider will go with.

Their is a public relations aspect to all this.  It can be argued that companies might be willing to lose some profit because the negative PR will cost them more.  And sometimes this helps.  But the PR thing, it’s just another expense.  It’s just a further piece for the executives to figure into the equation.  Somewhere, right now, there is a guy in a suit.  And he is saying “If we do X, we will save Y dollars.   However, the negative PR will cost us an extra ___ dollars.  Which decision leads to a larger profit?  Is there a way we can spend a few dollars to undo that negative PR?”

I’m not meaning to demonize the executives.  They are between a rock and a hard place.  The problem is with the system itself.

For Christians, there is a further complication in all this.

If it’s true that self-interested decisions are the only reliable motivations, then this is a result of man’s fall.  Are we really foolish enough to want to court this?  Are we arrogant enough to think we can harness this?  Do we realize that this really is a deal with The Devil himself, in quite a literal way?

In so many things we are faced with a very difficult balancing act.  On the one side, we must accept that the world is a certain way.  On the other side, we should try to hope, work, and fight for a world that is better.  On the whole, an economy which is capitalistically oriented is a wise recognition of the way that a world is.  But to suggest that industries such as health care ought to be driven by capitalism is to go to far in this direction.

Apoptosis

“Cell suicide, or apoptosis, is a normal part of the development of tissue.  More cells are produced than required, and the redundant cells are instructed to kill themselves by chemical messengers.  After their death, their remains, which contain valuable cellular material, are digested by other cells.”

The concept was illustrated in a matter of fact way.

In the biology text book.

The first thing that strikes me

is how very ghastly this is.

The second thing that strikes me

is how very universal this is.

“Species suicide, or extinction, is a normal part of the development of life. More species are produced than required, and the redundant species are instructed to kill themselves by an excess of predators and a lack of prey. After the death, the niche, which was required to be filled by something in the system, is taken over.”

That description does not occur later in the same book.

in the section on speciation and population dynamics.

Once the scale becomes recognizable,

I suppose,

it becomes a bit more hearless to progress in this manner.

“Company suicide, or going out of business, is a normal part of the development of a free market economy. More businesses are produced than required, and the redundant businesses are instructed to kill themselves by the utter lack of profit. After their death, their remains, which contain valuable business materials, are purchased at going-out-of business sales.”

I am sure that no text

on free market economics

has ever put the concept in just this way.

But

it wouldn’t be far from the truth.

 

“Relationship suicide, or growing apart, is a normal part of the development of a life. More relationships are entered into than are required, and the redundant relationships are instructed to kill themselves off by dear-John letters and by “let’s just be friends” talks. After their death, the remains, which contain valueable experiences, are picked over for nuggets that might be used in the next relationship..”

You’d have to dive

between the lines.

To find that meaning

in a self-help book.

“Individual suicide is a normal part of the development of societies. More lives are produced than required. Redundant people are instructed to kill themselves by their utter lack of success.   Occasioanlly the suicide is a literal one.  More often the body keeps going after the souls has been give up on.   After the deaths, when the hollow shells of men and women keep going on, the valuable fruits of their lives are harvested by those who keep going.”

 

 

 

Species suicide, or extinction, is a normal part of the development of life. More species are produced than required, and the redundant species are instructed to kill themselves by an excess of predators and a lack of prey. After the death, the niche, which was required to be filled by something in the system, is taken over.

 

Company suicide, or going out of business, is a normal part of the development of a free market economy. More businesses are produced than required, and the redundant businesses are instructed to kill themselves by the utter lack of profit. After their death, their remains, which contain valuable business materials, are purchased at going-out-of business sales.

 

Relationship suicide, or growing apart, is a normal part of the development of a life. More relationships are entered into than are required, and the redundant relationships are instructed to kill themselves off by dear-John letters and by “let’s just be friends” talks. After their death, the remains, which contain valueable experiences, are picked over for nuggets that might be used in the next relationship.

 

Individual suicide is a normal part of the development of life. More lives are produced than required. Redundant people are instructed to kill themselves by their utter lack of success. After their deaths the remains are incenerators or left to rot in cemetaries.

Revelations and materialism

I finished reading through Revelations yesterday. 

I share these observations with a bit of hesitation.  It was recently pointed out to me that Revelations contains the instruction to neither add nor take away from itself.  It also contains the promise that we benefit simply be reading the book.

Clearly, the conclusion is that we add to read more and interpret less.  In a way, our interpretations can become a sort-of adding to the text. 

So please take my suggestions with a grain of salt.  It’d be better to read scripture than read my blog.  But seriously?  You already new that.

The thing that struck me is that you don’t have to work very hard or look very deeply for distrubution of wealth and capitalist greed to become a central theme of Revelations.

So much has been made of the number of the beast.  Above all else, it seems to me a license to participate in the world’s economy.    Chapter 13 says: 

“He also forced everyone, small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on his right hand or on his forehead, 17so that no one could buy or sell unless he had the mark, which is the name of the beast or the number of his name. “

When things are ugliest, Babylon falls.  Babylon seems to be a superpower.  But it’s not about military might, really:

For all the nations have drunk
      the maddening wine of her adulteries.
   The kings of the earth committed adultery with her,
      and the merchants of the earth grew rich from her excessive luxuries.”

Later, in Revelations, we get a list of these excessive luxuries: 

“When the kings of the earth who committed adultery with her and shared her luxury see the smoke of her burning, they will weep and mourn over her. 10Terrified at her torment, they will stand far off and cry:
   ” ‘Woe! Woe, O great city,
      O Babylon, city of power!
   In one hour your doom has come!’

 11″The merchants of the earth will weep and mourn over her because no one buys their cargoes any more— 12cargoes of gold, silver, precious stones and pearls; fine linen, purple, silk and scarlet cloth; every sort of citron wood, and articles of every kind made of ivory, costly wood, bronze, iron and marble; 13cargoes of cinnamon and spice, of incense, myrrh and frankincense, of wine and olive oil, of fine flour and wheat; cattle and sheep; horses and carriages; and bodies and souls of men. “

Not a single thing provided by Babylon was necessary for life.  It was all over-the-top.  Decadence.  As I look at the last few words, I wonder if the bodies and souls of men means slavery in the strict and obvious sense or if this might be a reference to the ways we get addicted to being pampered, the ways we, in our comfort, can forget looking after the widow and the orphan.

It seems a pretty astounding understanding of globalization.  There are even references to the mourning of those who shipped Babylons goods, and to the businessmen who made it all happen. 

I’m not here to say “Babylon is really _____” or “The world is happening at _____.”  Really, what I’m trying to say is that materialism is identified as an evil in scripture.  Having a surplus when others do not have enough is seen as a wrong.  We will weep when Babylon falls, but Babylon must fall before God’s kingdom can come.

 

 

Bail outs?

I continue to find it necessary to take a bit of a sabattical from politics.

It is therefore in a spirit of open — not loaded– questions that I ask this.

What’s the idealogical justification for the massive bail outs going on of all these ailing companies?

I’m not debating the pragmatic effectiveness of it all. 

I’m wondering how somebody explains a belief in the power of the unfettered markets, on the one hand, and on the necessity of such massive government intervention, on the other.  How did Adam Smith’s invisible hands let this happen?

A mostly unrelated question I have around all this stuff is based on something I read in the last few days.  The claim being made was that with out the bail out, the economy will grind to a halt because borrowing and speculation will cease to exist… and so the question here I have:

Is an economy built on borrowing and speculation a well-built economy?  Shouldn’t the foundation of our economy be something stronger than speculation and work we haven’t yet done?

Open Sourcing: Good, Bad, or inevitable

There’s an outstanding discussion about open sourcing here.

And it got me thinking:

Is the future collaborative or competetive?

More specifically: Will we continue to view our creations as just another form of capital?  Does the open sourcing mentality feed into the good things about capitalism?  Or does it cut these ideas off at the knees?

I probably don’t understand enough about the paradigm shifts that are currently going on to be able to answer these questions with any authority.  But here’s my initial thoughts:

Traditionally, we have looked at creations in a certain manner.  We’ve lumped together a wide variety of creations together in terms of how we treat them.

Roughly speaking, an inventor gets a several year head start.  A creation isn’t allowed to be co-opted by others for varying numbers of years.

If I write a novel I own it.  It’s my property.  If it’s been written any time recently and you try to publish it and make money off it with out my permission than I get to sue you and get most of the money you made off of it.

At some point, this product enters the public domain.  I don’t own it anymore.  Then anybody can publish it.  (Consider, for example, a Stephen King novel.  If I photocopied his latest novel and tried to sell it I would be in big trouble.  Shakespeare or the King James translation of the Bible are public domain and can be published by anybody.)

To the best of my understanding, medicines are pretty similiar.  The time scale is shrunk considerably.  But it’s the same idea: the company that invents a new drug gets exclusive rights to it for the first several years.  At some point, the generics are allowed to step in and compete.

There are problems with this system.  (For example, the fact that some life-saving drugs are not available quickly and cheaply to the third world is nothing short of evil.)  But over all, it seems to be pretty effective.  The two things that we need to balance are consumer’s rights and inentor’s rights.  If it becomes too easy to mass produce something a person worked hard for, then we have just killed the impetus to innovate.  If it became too hard to mass produce new ideas, then we have just killed the possibility of competetion.

In other words, as much as I might wish that a certain medication was cheaper for my family, or for a family in the third world, if companies were required to sell drugs just above the actual physical cost of making the medication, then they would not be able to fund the support network required to make modern pharmecology happen.   If a company can’t tack on extra money to the medications, then how do we pay the salaries of the reps. that sell the meds, or the researchers who developed them in the first place?

There seems to be no way around the fact that the more skilled a person is the more he will command in terms of a salary.  (Perhaps it’s a bit more elaborate than that: the skills need to be in an area where there is a demand, of course.)  Therefore, the organizations that figure out how to make the most profit will be able to attract the most talent.  (All other things being equal, of course.)

Perhaps the revolution of open source is in the realization that the most profit doesn’t necessarily come from the best corporate warrior.  In addition to squashing the competetion, a company might mantain an edge by fostering cooperation.

Nonetheless, so long as we operate under a capitalist system, it’s hard to imagine how the corporations won’t syphon off the best and the brightest.  And it’s further reasonable for these corporations to see a profit in doing so.

As individuals create, it seems like they have a right to reap the benefits of their creations.  Is their a way to balance the innovations that benefit all of us that might result from improvements on these creations with the right of the creator to benefit?

If I create an original song, computer program, or head ache remedy, I deserve to be rewarded for this.  My creation should certainly be protected from out-and-out piracy.  But where is the line between piracy and improvement?  Did Vanilla Ice improve that amazing “Under Pressure” Riff or did he pirate it in “Ice-Ice Baby?”  If you make my medication or computer program a little bit more effective, do you have the right to do so and then market your improvements right after my creation?  If so, how do we stop corporate juggernauts from making cosmetic changes to mom-and-pop operations and then driving them out of business through superior experience and financial clout?

Perhaps the morality is irrelevant.  Perhaps this train won’t stop whether it’s a good thing, a bad thing, or an indifferent thing.  Perhaps all we can do is just try to do is handle these events as best we can. 

I suppose there is a good side to this.  It’s not hard to envision large groups of non-incorporated people both serving as a check on the power of the corporations but also working supportively to those corporations and professionals which take care of them.   Perhaps it’ll be a bit like the relationship between amateur and professional astronomers over the last couple hundred years, where the amateurs supplemented the professionals’ data and observations.

This stuff is all in it’s infancy.  And I’m a bit out of my element in these assumptions.  What do you think?

Hypocrisies

I’m working on transforming myself from a left-wing Christian into a… no-wing Christian.   (We shouldn’t need wings to fly, ha-ha.)

There’s been this tension I’ve been experiencing recently.  It’s been around politics, really.  I am so far from having it worked out.  I’ll probably continue to slip into old patterns when I don’t mean to.  But I’m going to shoot for being a no-wing Christian.

Conversations (both online and real-world) with many of you, and books like Shane Clairborne’s excellent Jesus for President have been some of the external factors that have shaped and driven some of the internal considerations that bring me to this place.

I’m probably going to be mining this territory in my brain/mind/heart/soul for some time, but today I’m going to start with some realizations that maybe laid the groundwork for where I’m at now.

These realizations are the hypocrisy of the right… and the left.

(If hypocrisy is too strong a word, at the bare minimum let’s call these inconsistencies.)

Inconsistency #1

The right says that the government shouldn’t police anything material, physical.  They say down with the EPA, down the FDA, down with consumer protections, because the market will keep us all safe… and then the right goes on to affirm that the government should police everything moral.

Inconsistency #2

The left says that we need tons of government regulation of material things.  But this regulation stops with anything we can put our fingers on.  Many folks on the left want the government to be a-moral, which seems to me do be a virtual impossibility.

Inconsistency #3

The right claims that a free market capitalist system is so powerful because greed is such a profound and universal characteristic.  Yet the claim seems to be that if we weren’t taxed so heavily the extra wealth that we’d all have would be used for so many charitable causes that we wouldn’t need government welfare programs.  This leads to the question: which is it, are people basically good or are people basically selfish?

Inconsistency #4

Many people on the left assert that convicted killers have a right to live, yet won’t accord that same basic right to children who haven’t left the womb.

Inconsistency #5

Many people on the right claim that we don’t have the right to terminate a pregnancy which will eventually lead to a human child… Yet they think that we do have the right to extinguish a fully developed human in the case of the death penalty.

I’m sure that there are more than just these.  And I’m sure that there are ways that some of these tensions and inconsistencies might be resolved.  But they all lead me to the conclusion that there aren’t any real political solutions.

Leveling the playing field for God

God tells me to worry about the foriegner and the widow and the orphan.  It seems a safe bet that he’s talking about all the disenfranchised and disenpowered.

He’s located me in America in the year 2007.  He’s blessed me with an amazing career that’s exposed me to inner city, emotionally disturbed kids. 

I have no doubt that these are the widows and the orphans and the foriegners that God told me to worry about. 

So I ponder and I pray about how best to take care of these kids where I am.  One thing that I struggle with is people who think we are doing enough.

It’s awesome that I live in America.  I love my country.  I love democracy.  There are great things about capitalism.  We are doing a better job than many places and times in history of looking out for the least of us.

But I don’t think it’s enough.

People talk about equality versus equality of opportunity.  They characterize liberals (like me) as folks who just want to equalize everything: divide all the money we have among all the people, divide all the property we have among all the people, irrespective of the abilities, work ethic, risks taken, etc.

But this isn’t really what I want.

The folks who sometimes characterize liberals thusly say that we don’t need to do anymore, than in fact we shouldn’t do anymore.

They claim that all we really should supply is a level playing field.  And then people should just slug it out.  If they win, they win.  If they lose, they lose.  If they don’t try, then they didn’t try.

The thing is this: I totally 100% agree that  we should provide a level playing field.  Within certain limits, we should allow people to benefit or pay based on this performance.

My real issue is just how level the playing field is.  Does an inner city kid have the same shot as a suburban kid?  Does a person who starts off wealthy have the same shot as somebody who starts off with nothing?

No, No, no.  There is so much injustice in all this!  No!

I’m going to take a little trip in my brain.  I’m going to compare hypothetical sucessful person and a  hypothetical failure.

Let’s call the winner “Fred” and the loser “Barney”

Fred’s mother becomes pregnant.  She has access to adequate health care.  She is educated and has a support system.  She has access to adequate health care.  She’s able to afford a midwife, pregnancy books, etc.  Her doctor is top-notch and respected in her field.  She’s got a white-collar job during which she spends a fair ammount of her day sitting.

Barney’s mom recieves medicare.  And she is thankful for it.  But her doctor is not an expert in his field.  Barney’s mom does her best on a limited budget but can’t afford to eat healthily all the time.  She’s not much of a reader, perhaps, and has a few loving family members who don’t know much more than she does about healthy pregnancies.  Barney’s mom doesn’t get much time off during her pregnancy, and she works a physically demanding, blue-collar job which leaves her on her feet.

Fred is born healthier than Barney.  He hits his milestones earlier.  He learns faster.

Fred ends up with a college-educated Nanny that reads to him.  Barney ends up in a day care center.  Fred is frequently read to.  He has a library of books in his nursery.  Barney’s dad tries to get him to the library.  He often has a couple books around.

Fred’s reading readiness skills are all set by the time he enters kindergaren.  Barney?  Well, he’s starting to get some basic concepts, but he’s behind.

Studies show that we can predict high school success pretty accurately based on grade school performance.  Fred is at the top of his class in a suburban school.  Barney is somewhere in the middle.

Fred’s school has all the resources it needs.  It has well paid teacher and lots of technology.  It has lots of opportunities for enrichment. .. Much of it’s increased funds come from the higher property taxes of where Fred lives.  Also, Barney’s school is forced to spend it’s limited funds remediating the poor standardized testing results his inner city school suffers from.  The music teacher from Barney’s school is fired  (Never mind all the studies that demonstrate the academic value of enrichment classes.) to free up enough funds for the school to offer an after school program to low-performing students.  Barney, not particularly low performing, doesn’t participate. 

Fred’s parents new that they needed to start saving for college years ago.  They also have the resources to do so.  Barney takes out loans or works more hours than Fred.  But he went to an inferior school where he learned less subject matter, was taught less critical thinking and study skills, etc.  Fred graduates at the age of 22.  Barney is on the 6 year plan.

Barney has less understanding of business expectations because he comes from a blue collar family.  Fred’s loving parents take him out to buy interview clothes after college graduation.

Imagine Fred and Barney showing up at an office, interviewing for the same job.

Fred is suave and well dressed.  He is well prepared, having discussed his first big interview with dad.

He got a great night’s sleep on his new matress.  He traveled in comfort because he just had his air conditioner charged.  He learned stress management techniques at summer camp growing up.  He’s young and hip and seems a go-getter.

Barney’s old matress lead to his old back injury flaring up.  It’s scorching hot and his cheap hair cut is sticking to his scalp because his sensible car’s air conditioner is running down.  He made guesses about appropriate dress and couldn’t afford the most fashionable.  The boss deduces the 7 years Barney took to graduate by subtracting high school college graduation date from college graduation date.

The boss is sensible enough to know that it might not be Barney’s fault… He might be an amazing person.  But the boss has a responsibility to hire the best person for the job.  How could it not be Fred?

There are a hundred little ways that the field is tilted.  It seems petty to mention any one of them in isolation.  But when taken together, they form this barrier to equality… more than that, they form an empire that opresses God’s children as surely as the Romans and Egyptians did.

 

The second and third tower

I yelled the name of that fallen place once in a canyon.What came back to me

was not

“-orld trace center… -rld trade center… -d trade center”

When the name of the fallen place rebounded back to me it was a discourse

on chosen ignorance.

The language we sought to unite the world in–

this time–

was one of greed

arrogance

exploitation.

The first tower,

in the forever ago.

I am sure it also was staffed by loving people

struggling people.

God is inexplicable:

He uses even sin for his purposes:

The hijackers were doing his bidding

and it was sin

God is inexplicable.

I am so sad.

I am so sorry.

But I also know something.

The highest tower in the world.

Should reach up a loving hand toward Him.

It should not look down

on all the world with plans

of economic conquest.

If God is the center

(and he is The Center)

then the most loving thing he can ever do

is prevent us from moving him.