Hotel Hitler, aka the Beverly Hills Hotel

I rarely boycott establishments based on politics.  No one shares my politics completely, and it doesn't make sense to insist that I will only do business with people who share most or all of my views.  But, when things get bad enough, it becomes a moral obligation to boycott.

I'm talking here about the Sultan of Brunei, the dictator of a small oil-rich nation in South East Asia.  The self-styled Sultan recently passed a law calling for the stoning to death of gays.  Frankly, that comes as no surprise.  The Sultan has always held fundamentalist Islamic views, which include treating women and non-Muslims as second class citizens, among other things. 

The Sultan also owns the Dorchester Hotel chain, which includes both the Bel Air Hotel and the Beverly Hills Hotel.  Would you spend money at a Dorchester Hotel, knowing whom you are doing business with?  Would your answer be different if you knew that the hotel were owned by Adolf Hitler?  Where do you draw the line?  It can be difficult to do so, but not this time. 

Boycott the Dorchester Hotel chain!

Je Suis Charlie!

This morning, Charlie Hebdo published a new edition with a simple depiction of Mohamed on the cover:

Some Muslims complain that this cover is an insult to their religion, which forbids any depiction of of Mohamed, and they suggest that Charlie Hebdo acted immorally in publishing it.  For example, Egypt's Grand Mufti complained about the publication of the above drawing (see quote below).   Their outrage is completely absurd, and should be completely disregarded.

Muslims have every right to practice their religion as they see fit. If they do not wish to create or view images of Mohamed, that is certainly their prerogative.  No one should force them to do so.

Under no circumstances, however, do they have any right to tell anyone else not to make or view such images, any more than a Jew has the right to tell a Christian not to eat pork or not to drive to the store on Saturday.  If a Jew sees a Christian driving to work on a Saturday, eating a McRib sandwich and gets offended, that is his problem.

Ironically, the Koran and the Hadith contain statements that I find extremely offensive.  For example, they state that homosexuals should be killed, and that women must be subordinate to men.   Muslims assert that these dictates are the word of God.  

I find parts of the Koran and the Hadith to be utterly ridiculous, and I find the claim that these are the words of God to be very offensive.  As a result, I do not read the Koran or other Islamic literature, and I certainly do not practice Islam.  But I do not tell others what to do.

I do not warn Muslims not to publish the Koran or other religious books with material that I find offensive because of my sensitivities.  Quite to the contrary, I know that people will disagree about all sorts of things, and I am happy to live in peace with anyone who will allow me to do so.  I do not seek to force others to live by my views, nor to live the way I live.  But I expect the same respect in return.

So let's compare: Charlie Hebdo publishes the image above, and Muslims (some of them) are outraged.  These same people repeatedly proclaim that a book that says I should be killed as the word of God, and they see no problem with that.  And, even worse, some non-Muslims in the West sympathize with their offense.  But that is for another day.  

____________________________
Quote from the Grand Mufti of Egypt, copied from Huffington Post:

"This edition will cause a new wave of hatred in French and Western society in general and what the magazine is doing does not serve coexistence or a dialog between civilisations," the office of Grand Mufti Shawqi Allam, one of the region's most influential Muslim clerics, said in a statement.


"This is an unwarranted provocation against the feelings of ... Muslims around the world."

Why Switch to a New Blood Thinner?

Last time I needed a blood thinner, I received Xarelto.  That was 2013, and Xarelto was new on the market and very expensive.  Previously, I had used Coumadin (generic name warafin) with no significant problems.  The patent on Coumadin has expired, and as a result it was very inexpensive.

Today, Facebook showed me an ad placed by lawyers who are suing the maker of Xarelto in a class action, alleging that the drug causes excessive internal bleeding.  From what I can tell, however, the drug is still on the market.

Two of my friends recently needed blood thinners, and both received Eliquis, yet another new drug.  It is also very expensive.  Their doctors did not discuss alternatives, they just prescribed Eliquis.

So, what was wrong with Coumadin that suggested that I should take Xarelto instead?  There may well be an answer to that question, but if so I cannot find it.  A brief internet search suggested that the most serious side effect of Coumadin is sever bleeding, which is exactly the same problem alleged with Xarelto.   I have no medical training, and I have not done researched the issue extensively.  Nevertheless, I would expect that, if there were a clear reason why Xarelto was better than Coumadin (or why Eliquis is better than both) that it would be easy to find.  

Moreover, all other things being equal, it makes sense to stick with an older drug.  By definition, a new drug has no history and we do not know what other problems may arise with Xarelto after it has been in wide use for a number of years.  

I do not believe that our doctors are part of a conspiracy to sell us expensive medications.  But I am concerned that they do not do enough research, and simply accept the drug companies' claims that the new drugs are better.  And, we patients often respond to advertising by asking for the new drugs.  

The solution is to ask your doctor why he/she is prescribing a particular drug.  Ask for alternatives.  Ask about the risks and benefits of each.  Then make your own decision!    

In Defense of a Living Wage

When I was a boy, I ran a lemonade stand in front of our house.  I made the lemonade from frozen concentrate that my mother had bought at the market.  I was able to pocket a few bucks, because my mom didn't charge me for using her groceries.  But I'm not sure my business was actually profitable, and it certainly was not as profitable as it seemed to me because my cost of lemonade was zero.  Mom was subsidizing my business.

Similarly, any company that pays less than a living wage is, in effect, on welfare.  Such a company is not really profitable, but rather is being subsidized by tax dollars, just as my lemonade stand was subsidized by my mom.  

A company that employs workers uses labor, in the same way my lemonade stand used concentrated lemonade.  Labor requires people.  If a company does not pay the worker enough to survive at a minimum level, then that company is not really paying for what it is using.  And, it is usually the government that makes up the shortfall by way of welfare, food stamps and subsidized medical care.  

Each of us is capable of certain number of hours of work in our lifetime.  For example, let's say a man starts working full time at 18 years of age, and retires at 68, and lives to 80.  Let's call full time 40 hours per week, 50 weeks per year.  That's a total of 100,000 hours of labor.  If he receives $10 per hour, that is $1,000,000 earned over a lifetime, or about $12,500 per year.

A living wage must provide enough to support a person at whatever standard society decides is the minimum acceptable level.  This must include the cost of the person's education, medical expenses and taxes.  Taxes pay for things like police, roads and defense which we all use.  If a wage is not sufficient to allow a person to pay their fair share of these expenses then someone else must pay.

The Federal government collects on the order of $5,000,000,000 in taxes each year from about 300,000,000 people, an average of something like $17,000 per person per year.  Thus, $10 per hour is not enough to pay one's fair share of taxes, let alone to eat, even if one works full time for one's entire life.  

I realize that some of those taxes pay for welfare and social security, and that those amounts must be deducted from the calculation.  But even so, my back of the envelope calculation shows that $10 per hour is clearly insufficient to support a person.   My best estimate is on the order of $20 per hour, although I certainly do not pretend to have conducted a rigorous calculation.

Companies that pay less than a living wage may argue that some people simply are not capable of work that is worth $20 per hour.  And, better to pay such a person $10 per hour than to pay him nothing.  In extreme example, such as a person with Down Syndrome, this may indeed be admirable.  But a company who relies on such a labor force in a substantial way must recognize that it is getting cheap labor as a result of the misfortune of others, and that their worker would not be able to survive but for the generosity of society at large.

In the vast majority of cases, however, there is no excuse for paying less than a living wage.  What work is "worth" is a function of what it costs to create.  The calculation above shows what it costs to create an hour of labor.  

Responding to Terror in Boston

How should we respond to the attack on yesterday's Boston Marathon? In very large part, we should not respond at all. Of course, those who know the victims should comfort them, and law enforcement should investigate. Those who felt the emotional sting (as I did) should take this as a reminder that life is short and uncertain, and reach out to their loved ones for comfort. But beyond that, however,we should not respond at all.

The manner in which we respond to adversity defines us. The running community understands that better than most. We should not allow the crazy/hateful people behind the attacks to turn us into fearful/angry people. Instead, we should go on with our wonderful lives. We should start training for next year's Boston Marathon; I'm proud of my friend who announced, with hours of the attack, that he will not alter his plans to run next year if he can qualify.

Some will urge that we implement more security measures, but that would only be counter productive. It is impossible to stop terrorist attacks of this nature. If we place security at the marathon, they will go to the ballpark, the shopping mall, the supermarket, the freeway or any other place where people congregate. We would have to shut down society to prevent such attacks, and even then it probably wouldn't work.  Indeed, by responding to the attacks we encourage the next crazy/hateful group seeking attention.

And for what? Terrorism accounts for a minute portion of injury and death in this country. Far better to shut down the freeways to prevent car accidents than to shut down a marathon to prevent terror attacks.

So, how should we respond? Perhaps by getting in shape, qualifying for Boston next year and then making plans to join in that wonderful celebration of life, health and a free and open society with thousands of like minded friends.

Enough!

Republicans lost the 2012 presidential election. Yet, they still seem to believe that they are entitled to rule this country with an iron fist. I'm talking about Grover Nordquist and his pledge - signed by the majority of Republicans in Congress- never to raise taxes at all. What a foolish pledge, swearing never to compromise one iota, no matter what. Did it not occur to these people that they might not control the government forever?

These Republicans have pledged themselves into a corner. They now have a choice between violating their oath or making themselves irrelevant. Having lost the White House and the Senate, they cannot expect the Democrats to simply roll over and give up on even one penny of new revenue just because the minority party made a unilateral promise. This pledge will eventually spell disaster for the Republicans who will be shown up as the extremists they have sworn to be.

And for what grand purpose did these Republicans swear never to compromise? To protect the very wealthiest among us from having to pay their fair share. Taxes on the wealthy are lower than they have been in decades, way lower, and our government is deep in debt - in very large part because of wars started by the last Republican administration. We also have a failing infrastructure, declining educational system and inadequate health care. These things cost money to fix.

Yet, the Republicans insist that not raising taxes on the rich is more important than any other priority: balancing the budget, funding education or defense, health care, roads - none of these are as important as making sure robber barons like Jack Welch and Mitt Romney don't have to pay taxes at the same rate as the people who pick up their garbage. It is simply disgusting.

Furthermore, these Republicans are, for the most part, Christians. In other words, they purport to follow the teachings of Jesus Christ. Christ would be sickened by the policies of these Republicans. What hypocrites!

It is time to say "Enough!" to the Republicans!

Why All Good Capitalists Should Support a Gasoline Tax

The free market works because it allows people to decide for themselves what they value.   Suppose I buy a loaf of bread from the baker for $2.  I make the decision that the loaf is worth $2 -- or more -- to me.  Otherwise, I wouldn't buy it.  No one tells me what I like, want or need, nor what bread is worth or should cost.  Similarly, the baker decides that it is worth it to him to sell his bread at $2 per loaf.  He probably takes into account his rent, the cost of flour, labor costs and many other factors, but in the end both he and I conclude that the transaction makes sense -- otherwise there is no deal.

The baker decides how much bread to bake, and how much to offer for flour, based on what we are willing to pay for his bread.  The combined effect of everyone's willingness to pay for goods and services sets prices and allocates resources across the entire economy.  It is a bottom-up method, which allows everyone to make their own decisions, but it results in the most efficient allocation of resources and the greatest good for the greatest number.

While this may sound like some new search method instituted by Google, it is in fact old news, famously summarized in 1776 by a Scot named Adam Smith, in The Wealth of Nations.  Smith was born in Kirkcaldy, Fife, about 25 miles from where I studied at St. Andrews.

But, like any theory, the "invisible hand" of the free market only works its magic under certain specified conditions.  This, too, is old news, dating back a couple of centuries and taught without controversy in every Econ 1 class across the nation and indeed around the world.

The most important exception, for the purposes of this post, is something economists call "externalities," i.e., the impact of my buying decisions on other people.  There are few, if any, externalities related to my purchase of bread.  I buy the bread, I make toast, I have breakfast -- end of story.  I pay the $2 price; you pay nothing and my decision to eat bread does not change your life.

But let's say I decide to pay my gardener to remove the leaves from my driveway, using a leaf blower.  I pay $50, and I put up with the infernal racket those leaf blowers make.  It is worth it to me to get the leaves out of my yard.  Unlike my purchase of bread, however, my decision has consequences for ten of my neighbors.  They, too, must put up with the outrageous sound made by that leaf blower, but their concerns are not mine and do not play a role in my buying decision.  This externality blows away more than just leaves, it blows away the entire theory of the free market.  The free market's "invisible hand" no longer works.

As I said, this is not advanced economics, far from it.  It has been known since 1776, if not before, and is not in the least controversial.  You cannot find an economist who would not agree with this analysis, although you could no doubt find many who could explain it more eloquently!

Let's apply the concept of externalities to gasoline.  Burning gasoline dirties the air, air which we all breath.  If you burn a gallon of gas, the impact on you is small.  But, the combined impact on the millions (or billions) of people who breath the air is millions (or billions) of times greater.  You also raise the temperature of the entire planet, however slightly.  This may not matter to you, but multiply your decision by the 6,000,000,000 people who must live with it, and the math changes significantly.  And, your decision to buy gas also drives our foreign policy.  Your decision to buy a gas-guzzler impacts the entire world, not just you.

If it were just you and your one gallon of gas, it wouldn't make any meaningful difference.  But the situation is different when we all buy gasoline.  Billions of us make the same decision to burn a gallon of gas; each of us worries only about the gallon we are burning because, after all, that is all we can control with our buying decision. The result is a market that is massively out of whack.

There is a way to adjust for this imperfection in the free market: impose a tax on the consumption of gasoline.  The tax must be high enough to balance the harm caused to others by your decision to burn a gallon of gasoline.  Ideally, the money would go to eleviate the impact, i.e., to clean the air or to combat global climat change, but even if the money just goes into the general tax fund, it still serves the purpose of keeping the free market in balance.

But our government actually subsidizes oil production.  If you believe in the free market, that decision makes no sense.  Burning oil does not benefit others; it harms others.  The government should not subsidize oil, it should tax it heavily, enough to compensate for the harm done by the consumption of oil.

Tragedy Amplified; Lessons Not Learned

The shooting in Aurora, Colorado has dominated the national news for the past week, but why?  Yes, the shooting was a tragedy for those involved, their friends and their families.  I do not mean to minimize that.  But we are a country of 300,000,000 people, while 12 people died in Aurora.  Approximately the same number die ever day in car accidents.  Those deaths are just as painful and tragic.  Even more people die each day from cancer, heart disease and other causes.  So why do we spend so much time focusing on an incident like what occurred in Aurora, while the real dangers to public health are relegated to the bottom of the news?

The simple answer is that the theater shooting was spectacular and unusual.  An unusually disturbed man took action in a very unusual and violent way.  Such incidents get people's attention, sell newspapers, create hits on websites and get eyeballs on TV screens.  That is the obvious reason why the news media pays so much attention to Aurora.  It gets people's attention; it is entertainment that sells.

This perverse form of entertainment is not good for us as a society.  It scares the daylights out of some people, making them unhappy and causing them to do silly things like not got to the movies for fear of being shot.  It makes people believe that we live in an incredibly violent society.  Perhaps our society is violent, but the manner in which the media replays a single violent over and over makes it feel far more violent than it really is.  And, in the end, it may make society more violent; recent news reports reveal that gun sales are up almost 50% in Colorado since the shooting.

The real lessons of Aurora, such as they are, seem to go unnoticed.  The shooting occurred because a highly disturbed individual was able to get his hands on guns and ammunition.  The only ways to prevent future incidents is to limit access to guns and ammunition, and to improve our mental health care system.  But those lessons seem to have gone by the wayside.

An Old Story with a New Twist: Weapons of Mass Technology

Long ago,  the amount of harm a single individual could do was relatively limited.  A man with a club could kill, but not very efficiently.  Over time, humans developed arrows, metal armor, guns and tanks.  In the last century, we invented nuclear weapons that could destroy entire cities, and indeed threatened to wipe out all of human civilization.  Somehow, we managed to avoid that fate, at least so far.  Yet, the mere existence of nuclear weapons alters the way in which we respond to rogue states, such as North Korea.

Recently, the story of ever-increasing power to destroy has taken a new twist.  High tech weapons such as drone planes, cyber attacks and biological weapons have been in increasingly in the news.  This morning, NPR suggested that drone planes may soon be the size of insects.  While the specifics of these new weapons and methods of attack are unclear, at least to me, the overall path of history is plain for all to see.  As we humans become more sophisticated in general, we will become better and better at inflicting damage on each other.  It will become easier and easier for fewer (and less intelligent and less well-financed) individuals to inflict more harm on others.

Certainly, we can work on defensive measures.  Cyber security can counter cyber attacks, at least to some extent.  Radar can, one hopes, detect some drone planes.  But it seems clear that offensive weapons will always outstrip defensive ones.  And, as weapons become more effective, the damage done when just one offensive weapon gets through increases.  

The only solution I can see is to discourage people from using these weapons in the first place.  We must create a world in which people see all other humans as part of the "in-group."  We must create more wealth equality, so that everyone has something to lose.  It is not an easy solution, by any means, but it is the only one that can work.  

Why Words Hurt

I've had this post in my mind for some time, but have hesitated writing it because I am afraid some will find it unnecessarily offensive. I apologize in advance if your sensibilities are hurt; I assure you, that is not my intention, although perhaps that is inevitable in some cases. On balance, however, I believe it is important enough to justify some hurt feelings. So here goes:

This post is about the word "nigger," a word that has become so offensive that most people will not utter the word, nor write it down. For example, the media learned that presidential candidate Rick Perry owned a property that a previous owner had dubbed "Niggerhead." Perry owned the property for years before changing the name. In reporting the story, the media almost uniformly refused to use the word "nigger." Instead, they used euphemisms that suggested the real name.

I find the refusal to utter a word to be highly counterproductive because it only serves to make the word more offensive and shocked when it is used by those who seek to offend.

To be perfectly clear, I find the word "nigger" to be highly offensive, and I certainly do not condone anyone actually using the word, e.g., calling someone a "nigger" or referring to someone as a "nigger" behind their back. But saying the word, as in reporting that, "Rick Perry's failure to change the name of his ranch from 'Niggerhead' to something else shows that he is grossly incentive to Blacks" is not in the least bit offensive nor racist.

The word "nigger" comes from the word "negro," spoken with a Southern accent. While the word "negro" was not in any way offensive at the time, most Southerners who spoke the word no doubt held Blacks in disdain and treated them like sub-humans. It is easy to see how the Southern utterance "nigger" soon came to make people's skin crawl.

The socially correct word for people of African descent has changed over time, as has the socially correct for disabled people and many other groups. The reason for this is related to the origin of the word "nigger." A group of people is mistreated or looked down upon by society in general. As a result, when the then-current word is used in conversation, it is usually in a negative fashion. Eventually, negative connotations build up around the word. Those who are more sympathetic to the group in question become offended, and demand a new word.

But, if society does not change, the new word also eventually builds up negative connotations as well. Those who are more sensitive or sympathetic demand another new word. And so a word that was introduced in order to avoid an older and offensive word can itself become offensive. I love how Berkeley Breathed played on that cycle of new words in an old Bloom County cartoon. The dialogue below involves the character Steven Dallas, who is learning to be more sensitive, and his older parents, who just doesn't seem to get it:

Mom: That's the most adorable little colored girl playing outside.

Steve: "Colored"? You're saying "colored people" in 1988? You know better, Ma.

Mom: Then why the "National Association for Colored People? I don't think Negroes mind at all.

Steve: Don't say "Negroes," Ma! You can't say "Negroes"!

Mom: Can I say "United Negro College Fund"?

Steve: You are baiting me, Ma!

Dad: That's it. We're leaving.

Mom: Stay put, Reginald. "Mister Socially Sensitive"isn't finished shaming his parents into enlightenment.

Steve: Everybody just calm down. Let's agree to use the the New-Age term "People of Color."

Mom: People of Color.

Steve: People of Color.

Mom: Colored people.

Steve: NO!!

Dad: We're leaving.

An interesting counter-example is the word "queer." Gays took this word and made it their own, thus changing the negative connotation. Similarly, the Republican party has taken the positive word "liberal" and managed to give it a negative connotation by repeating the word in a negative light, over and over. I certainly do not believe that we need to try that with "nigger"; better to leave that word to die off. But we can understand that not saying the word is not making things any better.

Perhaps the bigger and more important lesson is that words only mean what we agree that they mean. Changing the words does not change reality. Calling the Navaho "Native Americans" or "First Nationers" rather than "Indians" is not going to get us anywhere if we do not start treating Navaho people better. Absent better treatment of the group, we can expect the name to keep changing every ten or twenty years.

Thought Experiment for my Straight Friends

Imagine that you grew up in a world dominated by gays, where straight people were called "fags" and teased mercilessly at school. Imagine that movies and television focussed almost exclusively on same-sex relationships, and that any straight characters who did appear were portrayed as stereo-typed weirdos. Imagine that the only straight people you ever actually saw were treated as outcasts by the rest of society, and that you attended a Church where the minister told you that a relationship with a person of the opposite sex was a sin in the eyes of God, punishable by spending all eternity in hell. Imagine that marriage between a man and a woman was illegal.

How do you imagine this kind of upbringing would have impacted you? Specifically, how do you think this would effect your ability to form and maintain a meaningful relationship with someone of the opposite sex, even assuming that you could find someone with the courage to have such a relationship with you? How would your life be different? How would you be different?

There is no question that the treatment of gays has improved tremendously over the past 20 years. Back then, gay marriage was not on anyone's radar. But then again, neither was a Black president of the United States. So things have changed, and it seems that the tide is moving inexorably in the right direction.

Republican Treason

Rick Perry, the leading Republican candidate, recently referred to social security as a "Ponzi scheme." He further stated that telling young people that they will receive benefits when they retire is a "monstrous lie."

It is Perry, and the rest of the Republicans, who are the scam artists. Perry knows that what he is saying is, at best, a gross overstatement. His goal is not to inform, but rather to misinform. He knows that if he can convince people that they cannot rely on social security, they will support reducing or eliminating the entire program, a key element in the Republican agenda.

Playing fast and loose with the truth is not treason, but other Republican tactics are. The Republicans are presently engaged in a war on our own economy, knowing that Obama's chances of reelection are far lower if we are still in a recession come Fall of 2012. The Republicans are willing to damage their own country to achieve the key item on their agenda: making sure that Obama is a one-term president. That is treason.

And these treasonous tactics are nothing new. The Republican party regularly sabotages government institutions -- ranging from public schools, to FEMA, to the EPA -- by shackling them with absurd regulations such as "No Child Left Behind" that are designed to cause failure. Similarly, the Republicans appoint incompetent or willfully negligent individuals to leadership positions within those institutions. The Republicans then point to the institutional failure they have caused and demand that the institutions be shut down.

Willfully causing our a government institution to fail to advance one's own agenda is treason, even if that institution is not the armed forces.

Republicans Seem Determined to Destroy the Economy in an Attempt to Keep Obama from Getting Re-Elected

The Republicans created the recent budget and debt ceiling crisis for one reason: they seek to destroy our economy, and thus prevent Barack Obama from being re-elected in 2012. What they did was tantamount to treason, and will cause untold misery in the United States and elsewhere by derailing the nascent economic recovery. We need to call the Republicans out on what they did, and hold them accountable in the next election.

The Republicans, like everyone else, know what it takes to get a country out of recession: spending. Yet, they insisted on just the opposite, demanding cuts in spending at what they knew to be exactly the wrong time. And, by acting irrationally, they intentionally panicked the stock market, with predictable results.

The basic economic facts are not complicated, nor in meaningful dispute. The solutions are fairly straightforward. I propose:

We need to spend money to get the economy out of the current recession. At the same time, our infrastructure -- roads, bridges, electrical power grids -- are in need of repair. In addition, there are projects, like the high-speed rail line from Los Angeles to San Francisco, that would be highly beneficial. The obvious solution is to get to work on these projects. In the short run, the spending will stimulate the economy, creating jobs at levels ranging from engineers to construction workers. In the long run, this kind of spending will leave us with capital improvements that will improve the economy and our standard of living for years to come.

Similarly, we should invest in education. Among other things, we should hire more teachers and pay them more. Teachers do not make much money, and they therefore spend a higher percentage of every additional dollar they receive (unlike the rich, who are more like to save a dollar they receive in tax cuts). And, education is just another form of investment. A child who is educated is more likely to earn a good living, pay taxes, invent useful things and otherwise be a benefit to society as a whole. We spend the money now, we get a return on our investment later.

Spending on war, by contrast, is of little or no economic benefit. War creates nothing. Bombs blow up, and they are gone. A solider who spends a year in Iraq could instead by creating something of value here, or anywhere else for that matter. A bomb or missile just blows up and is gone. Military hardware wears out, and while it is still operational, does not add to our economy anyway.

Cutting taxes on the rich is the least effective way to stimulate the economy. Give a poor man a dollar, and he will almost certainly spend it. That means someone else will earn that dollar. Give a rich man a dollar and he may well put it in the bank. At best, that lowers interest rates by making more money available to lend. But, interest rates are already low. And, some rich people will simply buy gold or other commodities, creating no jobs at all.

If you agree with me, please speak up. Vote. Don't watch Fox. Call the Republicans on what they do. Write a blog that no one reads. But please don't sit there quietly.

Stand Up and Be Counted

Our firm recently interviewed a young job applicant whose resume states that he is a member of the Christian Legal Society. A Google search reveals that the CLS is a student club that requires its members to sign a Statement of Faith that, among other things, rejects homosexuality as inconsistent with Christian values. The CLS sued Hastings Law School, claiming that it was entitled to funding and recognition despite its discriminatory policies.

Presumably, this applicant would not have applied to our firm if he had known that one of the partners is openly gay. Or perhaps he would have simply removed that item from his resume. But no matter, because what he actually did was present a resume identifying himself as a member of the CLS. Needless to say, he did not get the job.

The majority of the members of our firm felt that the best course of action was to simply allow the applicant to go through the interview process, and later tell him that we would not be offering him a job, with no explanation. I disagreed.

This man needs to know that his membership in a group like the CLS has real consequences. Specifically, if he chooses to belong to an organization that espouses hate towards gays, gay people will not hire him. That may not change his views on gay rights, but at least he will understand that his views have consequences in the real world. And he will understand that gays are not just outcasts who can be attacked at will, but rather include people who matter to him -- in this case, someone he wanted to give him a job. Next time, it could be a friend or family member who is afraid to come out of the closet in light of his views.

Telling a single job applicant that he cannot have a single job because of his membership in an anti-gay group is not going to change the world. No single event of this kind matters. But if everybody ignores things like membership in the CLS, then the members will rightly think that nobody really cares. They will think their views are acceptable to all. But they are not, nor should they be. Anyone with a conscience has a moral obligation to speak up in situations such as this. There is no need to be rude or disparaging; in fact, that would be counter productive, but the message must be delivered clearly: you are not welcome here because you are a member of a hate group.

Some of my friends and colleges have asked whether telling the applicant why he was rejected could expose our firm to liability. I believe that the answer is "no." No gay person has a legal obligation to hire someone who is openly hostile to gays, nor does a Black man have to hire a racist. The fact that the CLS is also a religious organization is utterly irrelevant. We did not deny him a job because he is a Christian, nor is his Christianity in any way relevant to our thinking. If he had been a member of a non-religious skinhead gang, for example, my position would be exactly the same. Whereas, if he were a member of a normal Christian group, the topic would not be relevant to our hiring decision. It is the hate, not the religion, that disqualifies him. You say you hate me, I won't hire you. It is as simple as that.

And, if I am wrong and the laws of this State compel me to hire a man that hates me simply because his hate comes from or is cloaked in religion, then perhaps it is time for me to stop paying taxes and leave this State.

Thoughts on the Firing of NPR's Juan Williams

NPR recently fired long-time news analyst Juan Williams, ostensibly for remarks he made on The O'Reilly Factor. Here is what NPR said about the firing, from NPR's own website:

"Look, Bill, I'm not a bigot. You know the kind of books I've written about the civil rights movement in this country. But when I get on the plane, I got to tell you, if I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, they are identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous."

Williams also warned O'Reilly against blaming all Muslims for "extremists," saying Christians shouldn't be blamed for Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh.

NPR's position is ridiculous. Williams' statements were not in any way inappropriate.

Williams made it clear that he was talking about how he feels, not about what he thinks. All normal human beings have feelings that they do not act upon. Not acting on all of one's feelings is arguably what best distinguishes humans from other animals, or at least adults from young children. Most, if not all, people have different emotional reactions to people of different ages, genders and races. In fact, one of the most pernicious aspects of racism, and other inappropriate biases, such as homophobia, is that the victims tend to internalize society's dislike of them. Blacks and gays end up believing that they are less worthy than straights and Whites. That is why role models are so important.

But I digress. The point here is that Williams' comments were completely appropriate. He did not say that we should be suspicious of all Muslims. He candidly admitted how he feels, and made it clear that it would be inappropriate to act on such feelings. He was quite clear about that.

Ironically, however, Williams was back on The O'Reilly Factor the day after he was fired. giving what I find to be a very good reason why NPR should have fired him. Williams told O'Reilly that NPR does not want him on the show. If so, then I agree wholeheartedly with NPR. Of course, as a matter of fair dealing, NPR should have warned Williams and should have told the public the real reason Williams was fired. But in the end, I am not sad to see Williams go.

The O'Reilly Factor does not contribute to meaningful discussion of issues. Quite to the contrary, O'Reilly cuts people off and is prone to yelling "shut up" at his guests. He profits and advances his agenda by removing all nuance, and polarizing every discussion. Any self-respecting journalist should know that. Williams certainly knows that, yet he chose to appear on the program anyway, thus making a fool of himself and lending credibility to O'Reilly and his circus.

Even more ironically, what happened to Williams is completely predictable given O'Reilly's behavior. O'Reilly works on sound bites. And, he intentionally makes ambiguous statements that can be taken as offensive. For example, he recently stated that "Muslims" attacked us on September 11. That is literally true, but it suggests that all Muslims or some committee representing all Muslims was behind the terrorist attacks. O'Reilly intends to suggest that, but when confronted directly, he disowns it. This is just like George W. Bush suggesting that Saddam Hussein was behind the attacks. He wanted to be misunderstood. And he was misunderstood by a majority of Americans.

Williams did not want to be misunderstood, but he should have known better. He opened himself up to being taken advantage of by O'Reilly, and he was. Perhaps he got what he deserved in that regard. In the end, both Williams and NPR embarrassed themselves. I'm not sad to see Williams go, but I am very disappointed -- yet again -- with NPR.

It's Not News

A man in Gainesville, Florida named Terry Jones threatened to burn copies of the Koran on the 9th anniversary of the September 11, 2001, attacks. No, not the Terry Jones of Monte Python fame. This Terry Jones styles himself a minister of some kind, but in fact he has a following of approximately 50 people. This Terry Jones is nobody, and no one actually cares what he thinks. His plans for Saturday, September 11, 2010 are not news.

Yet, every major news outlet has given Jones his 15 minutes of fame. I understand why Fox News would make a fuss about Jones' activities. The story is titillating, and it helps provoke the kind of us vs. them emotional reactions that Fox News and its far right wing overlords thrive on. But why would NPR run a story on Jones? And why would President Obama ask Jones not to burn the Koran? Why does Obama care what Jones does?

NPR should not have run the story at all, or perhaps should have run a story about how other news media were reporting on a nobody in order to provoke a reaction. President Obama should have either ignored Jones entirely or, if asked, stated that the actions of one whack job in Florida do not represent the views of the other 300,000,000 Americans, and that our First Amendment allows people to burn the flag, the Bible, the Koran or whatever else they choose to burn.

The publication of Jones' actions is not just a waste of headline space, it is extremely counter productive. The vast majority of people in all countries just want to be allowed to live their lives in peace. The few nut jobs on the fringes -- Terry Jones, Osama Bin Laden, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad -- intentionally stir up hatred for other groups. They make it possible for the slightly less nutty Dick Chaneys and Sarah Palin's of the world to exist.

Profit at the Expense of the Consumer, Part 2: Talking to India

We've all experienced poor customer service. Getting a customer service representative on the phone in the first place can be difficult and time consuming. Large companies like Chase and Citibank force customers to fight their way through computerized menus before we can talk to a human being. Some companies do not even publish their customer service phone numbers.

And, when you finally get someone on the line, they are likely to be uneducated, untrained and underpaid. Often times, they are located in India or El Salvador and might not even speak English well enough to get the job done. Hotels.com comes to mind as a company with laughably bad phone service. Their employees only speak enough English to handle two or three specific tasks. Beyond that, you'll need to speak Tagalog or Spanish, depending on which call center you get.

Part of the reason for poor customer service is a simple desire to save money. It costs a lot of money to staff a customer service line, and it is cheaper to hire someone in India whose English is less than perfect.

But there is another, and I believe more important, reason why some companies make it difficult to communicate: they want customers to just give up. Most of the time when you call your bank, for example, it is because you were charged a $7 fee you should not have been charged, and you want it removed (how many times have you called a company complaining that you were undercharged?). Many companies, United Airlines being a prime example, have an active strategy of making it difficult to communicate in order to be able to get away with overcharging or otherwise not providing what they promised.

Another way in which big American companies try to bamboozle consumers is with incomprehensible bills. If you cannot understand your bill in the first place, it is hard to know if you are being cheated, let alone convince the company to refund the $18.47 they overcharged you this month. For example, my Sprint contract is quite simple. I pay a fixed amount of money for a fixed amount of "anytime" minutes each month. Everything is supposed to be included in one price. Or at least that is how they sold me the contract. But, my current Sprint invoice has no less than 42 entries, not including the various taxes. They charge me odd amounts for various items, then credit me back for other items. None of it has anything to do with our actual agreement, and none of it makes any sense. AT&T and DirecTV both do the same thing. Their bills are actively designed to be difficult to understand so that we will not question them. It would be easy to make the bills easy to understand, but that is not what AT&T wants.

These incomprehensible bills nearly always contain mistakes, and the mistakes are nearly always in favor of Sprint, AT&T and DirecTV. I know that from experience, and if you look closely at your own bills, I am certain you will find the same thing. But, finding the mistakes, getting through to customer service and trying to get them to refund the excess charges is rarely worth the time and effort. And DirecTV is smart about the way it overbills its customers. The amounts are generally small, on the order of $10 to $30 each month. That way, some consumers will not realize that they are being cheated, especially given the complexity of the bill. Others may realize that they are being overcharged but are unwilling or unable either to figure exactly where on their complex bill the overcharge appears, or to fight through the customer service jungle to get back $18.47.

It seems that the majority of large American companies have adopted the same cynical policy of abusing their customers in order to squeeze out a few extra dollars each month. True, it is not all of them. Apple, for example, has a policy of providing excellent customer service, often giving their customers more than they agreed to provide, e.g., serving a product a month after the warranty expired. The business practices of the majority of the companies, however, are just the opposite, and the cost to society are high. The uncivilized and dishonest practices of Sprint, AT&T, United Airlines and DirecTV may net them a few extra dollars in the short run, but they make life unpleasant in small but persistent ways. These companies teach people to have low expectations, and to cheat whenever you can get away with it. And, in the long run, these companies destroy their own reputations, at their own peril.

Profit at the Expense of the Consumer, Part I: Gift Cards

Gift cards have become increasingly popular with consumers in recent years, and for good reason. Say you are looking for a gift for a friend. You know she loves music, and you know what kind of music she likes, but if she really likes an artist she may have already bought most of his albums for herself. That makes it hard to select the right gift. If you buy her a gift card, she can choose for herself, and she always gets the right gift. In a culture such as ours that frowns upon giving cash, gift cards are a good option, both for the giver and the recipient.

Gift cards are popular with merchants for an entirely different reason: about 10% them are never redeemed. Best Buy sells a $100 gift card for $100. Seemingly, there is not profit on that transaction, just a small cost in creating and handling the card. But on average, $10 of that card will never be redeemed. That money does not get forfeited to the State, nor donated to charity. Rather, it is nearly pure profit for Best Buy; a plastic card sold for $10. The business of selling gift cards is less risky and more profitable than selling televisions, computers and cell phones.

Gift cards are only profitable because consumers make mistakes. Consumers buy cards that they do not need, they lose the card or just put it in a drawer and forget about it. If everyone cashed in their gift cards, the business model would not work. It is a business designed to take advantage of people's mistakes; no mistakes, no profit.

Compare that with the ordinary business of Best Buy, which involves selling consumer electronics. Certainly, Best Buy could increase its profits by selling shoddy or overpriced goods, or by misleading or otherwise cheating customers. But none of those things are necessary in order to make money as an electronics goods store. On the contrary, at its core, the business of selling electronic goods is based on the principle of selling consumers what they want and making a profit at the same time: a win-win business model.

No, I do not think gift cards are the devil, or that they should be banned. But, consumers should be aware of what is going on. And, when you buy a gift card, you are buying a very high profit item and you should expect to get a little something in return. For example, Peet's Coffee gives a dollar off for every $20 added to a Peet's card. That makes sense; the consumers share in the windfall profits generated by the gift card business.

Supernatural: Only Because I Want to Believe

Most people's working definition of the supernatural is something like: anything really neat that I cannot understand and which seems impossible. Harry Potter raises his magic wand, shouts "Expelliarmus," and a flash of lightning sends his opponent's wand flying across the room. That certainly meets the working definition of supernatural. I have no idea how that could have happened, and it sure looks impossible.

But, a 747 taking off arguably meets that definition, too. I don't know airplanes work, and all that metal gliding through the air sure looks impossible to me. Yet no one calls airplanes supernatural. A couple of centuries ago, people might have agreed that a 747 taking off was a supernatural event, had they chanced to see one departing from the local airport, but not today. Now it is commonplace, although a 747 leaving London Heathrow on time does still seem a bit miraculous to anyone who is familiar with that particular airport.

Our working definition of supernatural leaves something to be desired because it is based on what a particular person knows about how the world works. If you don't know how airplanes fly, they are supernatural to you, but if you do know, or perhaps even if you just know that someone else knows, then airplanes are no longer supernatural. The working definition is as much about the observer's state of mind as it is about the allegedly supernatural phenomenon. By that definition, the supernatural clearly exists. It just changes all the time.

So let's get a bit more serious and look at the actual definition, which is something like: outside of nature, or not following the laws of nature. By that definition, or any reasonable definition, the concept of the supernatural is barely coherent. It is easy for someone to say they believe in the supernatural, but if looks at the concept a bit closer, it simply loses meaning. The supernatural does not exist, by its very definition.

For example, let's say that we actually see Harry Potter disarm his opponent by pointing his magic wand and shouting the magic word, "Expelliarmus." Such an event is indeed supernatural -- until it actually happens. Once it happens, it is, by definition, natural. It might be new and surprising, but that does not matter. At one time, flight was new and surprising. For centuries, people believed that the laws of nature simply did not allow bigs hunks of metal to fly through the air. But they were wrong. That does not mean that the laws of nature changed. It simply means we did not fully understand them before. And of course, we do not fully understand them now, either.

The laws of nature are not like the laws of the United States or the laws of Britain. The laws of the United States are only laws because Congress passed them and the President signed them. Those laws can change. Moreover, they can be broken. That is what prisons are for. And, it is even possible to break the law and not go to prison. The laws of nature work in a completely different fashion. Scientists do not write down laws and command nature to obey. Rather, they observe what happens, and try to come up with rules that explain what is happening. Those are not "laws" in the same sense as the laws of the United States.

The laws of nature cannot, by definition, be broken. If the laws of nature as calculated appear to be broken, then it is laws that are wrong, not nature. And of course that happens all the time. The most powerful laws of nature, like F=MA, often turn out to be approximations that only "apply" under certain conditions. Einstein's theory of relativity is a better approximation, and made predictions that turned out to be correct, such as the bending of light in a gravitational field. That bending of light might appear "supernatural" without knowledge of relativity.

When people imagine supernatural events, they imagine them to follow logical rules. For example, Harry's spell would not have worked if he were not a wizard. It would not have worked if he had used a cricket bat instead of a magic wand. It would not have worked if he had said the magic word incorrectly. Ghosts do not randomly appear in the middle of the day, in the middle of the woods, with no one around. Rather, they haunt the houses where they were horribly murdered, in the middle of the night, because it is angry. The fortune teller follows fixed rules to interpret the cards. Perhaps those rules are new, strange or not fully understood. But they are still rules. (And, if those rules were chaotic, that still wouldn't matter. There is nothing that says that nature must be orderly, although it has always proven to be. I'm not going to follow that line of thought here).

Some may be tempted to try to rescue the supernatural by changing the definition to something like: things that humans can never fully understand. But that definition is not terribly interesting, and it certainly does not capture what people really mean when they speak of the supernatural. Those who know the most about quantum mechanics say that they do not really understand it, and never will. Richard Feynman, for example, admitted that he did not really understand quantum mechanics. Yet no one claims that quantum mechanics is supernatural. It is just really hard to understand.

Of course, Feynman could describe quantum mechanics, just as J.K. Rowling can describe Harry Potter and his magic tricks. It is easy to say: This is what I saw happen. The electrons are behaving as if they are both here and not here at the same time. I saw blood flowing from the eyes of the statue. I saw him lifted up to heaven. She was able to read my thoughts. These are all supernatural events by any meaningful definition, and they can all be described in the sense that we can report what happened. The fact that we can report on an event does not mean we understand it, and if we cannot even understand something well enough to report on it, we cannot even begin to have a discussion about it.

Moreover, there may be things even more complicated than quantum mechanics. Some humans, like Richard Feynman, can understand quantum mechanics in the sense that they can show it is true and describe what occurs in mathematical terms. Perhaps there are natural phenomenon even more complicated, such that our minds are simply incapable of comprehending. But that does not make those events supernatural. It just means our minds are limited, something we knew already.

Anything that actually happens is part of nature, whether or not we understand how it works. If something does not happen, then it is not part of nature. The supernatural cannot, by its very definition, exist. So, in the end, belief in the supernatural comes down to belief in gibberish. No one can really believe in the supernatural if they think about it in any meaningful way.

So, why do people insist on saying that they believe in the supernatural? Because people want to believe. Because it is exciting, scary -- or, in the case of religion, reassuring -- to believe in something being "out there" that is beyond our understanding. Harry Potter would not be magical if we knew the physics behind his tricks. Thinking about it to hard -- or reading pedantic blog entries like this one -- takes all the fun out of the supernatural.

In the end, we are just going back to that old working definition of supernatural: anything that we do not understand and which seems, in our experience, to be impossible, but with a slight twist: the supernatural is something we want to believe.

Medical Hell, Part III: 7.5 Minutes

Most doctors schedule four to eight appointments every hour. Eight appointments an hour, which seems to be the norm for orthopedic surgeons, means an average of less than 7.5 minutes per patient, given that the doctor must spend some time walking from room to room, etc. We're probably lucky to get five to fifteen minutes of our doctors' attention in the average appointment. Next time you visit your doctor, look at the sign-in sheet and figure out how little time the doctor has allotted for your consultation or examination.

In these short appointments, we are expected to make important decisions about our health: whether to take a medication, to undergo a procedure, or to just let things be. It is simply impossible to make a good decision in such a limited amount of time, and I can think of no other profession that gives such short shrift to its clients. Yet there is no profession more important than medicine.

I am confident of the problem, but I am less sure of the cause(s) and solution(s). Nevertheless, in the spirit of the internet (speaking out when you are not really sure if you know what you are talking about), here goes:

The underlying problem is that we simply do not have enough doctors to go around. There are two reasons for this. First and foremost, we do not have enough medical schools. There are only about 125 medical schools in the entire United States, about 1 for every 2,500,000 people. As a result, there are many capable students who would be more than happy to pursue a career in medicine, but who are not able to qualify. We would do well to close a few law schools and open a few medical schools.

Second, medical training is unnecessarily long. Many doctors --dermatologists, for example -- do not use even a fraction of what they learn in medical school. These specialists should be given separate degrees, with training focused on what they will need in their practice. Think of dentists, for example. Reducing the length of training means that each medical school can produce more doctors.

Clearly, there is a need for some doctors who know all fields well, and there is a need for all medical practitioners to have a certain minimum understanding of how the human body works. But, in a world of limited resources, it makes sense to allocate education more carefully.