After a bit of holiday cheer (okay, quite a bit), I thought I should share these thoughts with you. I apologize in advance.

Children of the northern hemisphere rejoice - it is the most wonderful time of the year! I’m speaking of course of the winter solstice. Anyone who knows me well knows that it is the one day of the year that I am guaranteed to be my most optimistic and cheerful. (Although generally cheerful, seldom have I been optimistic lately.)

Ah, the solstice, that specific, singular point in earth orbital time when mundane planetary movements take on a special meaning to our species. Okay, maybe not all of us but at least those of us that are prone to depression in winter.

Join me now as we go back in time.

It is not hard to imagine the Druids prancing around and peering into the deep December dusk as the sun disappears below the horizon exactly where it should between the mammoth stones. Then enduring the darkness and hoping that it reappears just where it should on the other side of the great circle. Finally, after a long night of waiting, a tiny hint of light in the southeastern sky is followed by the dawn of a new solar year.

Mead all around!* 

I don't know of any culture or religion that hasn’t found some way to honor this basic cycle of life. And that’s as it should be. There is little in life that we poor, sad humans can depend on to be unchanged and unchangeable – in fact, this is it. So if I choose to wax philosophical about it, cut me some slack!

Why, you may ask, is no such big deal made of the summer solstice? Why that long, languid day of mid-summer when the sun almost refuses to set receives so little attention (outside of Shakespeare – but what does he know.) Ah grasshopper, it’s very simple: when things are going good for humans, like the days getting longer and warmer, we assume they will always be good and we become complacent. But when things start to go bad, when days are getting shorter, we become consumed by fear. Put another way, it occurred to me on my evening walk today that the summer solstice is like a guy point of view; it’s the end of youth and the slow descent into wearing Depends. The winter solstice, on the other hand, is kind of a female thing, like giving birth to new life with all the hope and the optimism that comes with it. (A tortured metaphor perhaps but apt.) In any event, I know this, the days are now getting longer, night is in retreat, optimism abounds and hope is in the air.

Now if I can just pay off my credit card debt (and this damn Druid costume) all will be good in the Pederson corner of the galaxy.

Happy holidays to all my friends, family and hangers on. 

D Roger Pederson

Sophocles of Solstice

* Sadly, they didn't have vodka then for a REAL drink.  

Healthcare as the Moai

A recent article in the Strib said the annual cost of healthcare that a company pays for a family is now about $20,000/yr - which somehow reminded me of something totally different, the Moai.

Are you familiar with the Moai?  They are those statues with giant heads that made Easter Island famous. It seems that the early Eastern Islanders were so fascinated with them – inexplicably – that everyone on the island did nothing but build statues. Perpetually. What, you may ask, does this have to do with healthcare and, more importantly, you? Bear with me.

In addition to the company's $20,000 the employee is on the hook for about $10,000. Wrap your head around that!  Along with Medicare, Medicaid and VA it all adds up to about $3.8 TRILLION/yr or almost 18% of the entire economy – and growing 5% or more each year (while the economy is growing around 2%.) That's about 50% more than the whole manufacturing industry and equal to the entire housing industry. It’s also twice as much as any other advanced country in the world spends (not to mention that we still have tens of millions of under/uninsured and with worse results.) Why is that? Maybe this explains it - compare US costs to Australia:

Cost of MRI - $1100 vs $215

Knee replacement - $28,000 Vs $16,000

Hip - $29,000 Vs $16,000

Personal favorite:

Colonoscopy - $3000 Vs $370

And don’t even ask about pharmaceuticals.

Back to the Easter Islanders. They became so consumed with building Moai that, giving all their energy, they used up every tree and resource on the island and ended up eventually destroying it and killing each other. For statues.

Healthcare is not a Moai, healthcare is important – but, like the Moai, it doesn’t add any new value to the economy. Economically it is essentially the same as repairing your house or your car. So, what does it mean if the company is paying $20,000 for something that doesn't help them build a single car or create a single app? Let’s see, wages have not increased much in last 30 years at the same time that healthcare went from 6% of the economy to 18%. Hmm, I wonder why would that be. And how much less have companies invested in their business? Don’t know but a lot - and it is a terrible competitive disadvantage for American business versus other countries. Of course, another delightful "benefit" is that, again like no other advanced country, almost 50% of all bankruptcies in the US are because of medical bills. Nice. Finally, health benefits are not taxed for either companies or individuals costing the US Treasury about $300 BILLION per year – budget deficits anyone? 

Bottom line: we pay too damn much for our healthcare! We have great health care but a crappy healthcare system. No one designing a system today would choose to make one as complex and inefficient as the one we have. Which, of course, is why every administration in the last 50 years has proposed some sort healthcare plan to make it more affordable and available to everyone - with zero success. There are no simple answers to this. Why? Because the healthcare-industrial complex is as protective of its profits as the military-industrial complex and the education-industrial complex. Insurers, doctors, pharmaceuticals, hospitals and medical device makers all see us a huge, bottomless wallet that they can take advantage of - remember, OUR spiraling costs are THEIR incomes . . .  or stock options. I’m sorry to speak so poorly of an industry I worked in for ten years but the truth shall set you free.

In a perfect world we wouldn’t have insurance for healthcare but it’s not a perfect world. So what do I think? Glad you asked! First, NOT single payer, at least not until we get costs under control. (BUT if we don’t do something soon you can absolutely count on single payer coming anyway in the next few years because people are already rebelling.) And it’s not free market mumbo jumbo; healthcare is not now nor ever will be a consumer product like a car or stove – try shopping for a doctor or hospital after a heart attack or before starting chemo (especially since you can't compare prices anyway.) It certainly can’t be totally free either, part of the problem now is that WE all expect everything all the time and paid for by someone else i.e. insurance. Skin in the game, baby!

So baby steps? Perhaps make ALL health insurers non-profits; it’s been the rule in Minnesota for many years and has served us well. Won’t do much to stop price gouging but it will take profit and Wall Street out it which has to be a good thing, right? Another option; treat healthcare like a utility - no more of this charging whatever the market will bear, it’s cost plus. I’m sure there are lots of other ideas but it’s all about the will to get it done – which means WE have to push it.

There is one other option I might offer, the Moai Option: let’s just keep building those healthcare Moai’s until we transfer all our wealth to them and then, like the Easter Islanders, hope the gods take care of us.

July 20th 1969 and the City on the Hill

Despite my general optimism about the future when I look at our youth, a special day like this causes me a certain sense of loss and melancholy. You see, it reminds me that there was a time when there was glittering city on the hill. I mean it wasn’t perfect, nothing is, and it didn’t glitter for everyone but it was there nonetheless. It was a city that made and kept great promises, promises like putting a man on the moon.

I remember that night very clearly even though it was fifty years ago, July 20^th, 1969. I was a 21 year old dude working at Donaldson’s department store between my junior and senior years in college. Life was pretty simple and living really was easy – and girls smiled often! There was also a war raging far from home and I was headed there in a year or so when I graduated since I was in ROTC. But that was okay because on that night, watching on a tv sitting on a picnic table outside a friend’s house in south Minneapolis, as Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon, nothing else mattered because I lived in the greatest country in the world. 

We have been through a lot this past fifty years, many things good and bad, but it seems obvious that this is not that America anymore. We have watched as our middle class has been devoured from within – intentionally – in the name of cheap prices and higher profits. We have apparently decided that endless wars are good for the economy even if not so great for our young troops. We have come to the conclusion that unions and public employees are now the enemy while big corporations are their victims and worthy of worship from we peons. And we've made healthcare and higher education so expensive that both are just a dream to many.

We have seen many good things as well especially in regards to recognizing that many of our citizens have had to live in the shadows because of race or sexual orientation. And, of course, we have the smart phone.

So is it any wonder that it seems like we are no longer a country full of hope, big dreams and big accomplishments? No, instead we have become a small, petty, fearful people retreating into tribes, intent on grabbing everything we own and hugging it to ourselves like some paranoid old person living alone in a hostile world. Suddenly we refuse to believe in simple science like that which got us to the moon yet happily embrace the dumbest conspiracy theories. We now distrust those who speak a different language forgetting a dad like mine who spoke Norwegian at home. We try to take back women's rights and send our LGBT friends and relatives back into the shadows to appease the least tolerant among us. We disparage those that have a different religion than ours ignoring that it wasn’t long ago that Catholics and Jews were seen as insidious outsiders. And then there's all of us white people who see danger in those whose skin color is different than ours, forgetting that in a few short years it will be OUR skin color that will no longer be the majority. There is some irony there.  

They say that empires end not with a bang but with a whimper. I wonder if we hear the beginnings of those whimpers now in the cries of children kept in pens. In the cities bulging with homeless, faceless people. In the rural areas where an opioid-ridden, helpless underclass face a desperation that is usually only seen in a depression. In a country that has been in an endless war for 18 years without any outcry from the people. Where leaders, who in the name of making America great again (whatever that means), are free to violate centuries of civil behavior, assault the First Amendment with impunity and incite their followers to abuse anyone who disagrees. Those followers, who in their haste to make themselves feel empowered, will shout unspeakable things to those they are told to fear. Perhaps most guilty of all is the rest of us who stand by, wringing our hands but refusing to take a stand as we watch these perversions of all the things that made our country great.

This anniversary of the moon landing stands as a reminder that there once was a shining city on a hill. It wasn’t perfect but it knew it wasn't and always strove to be better. We now face a stark choice: try to re-ascend that hill . . . or become a city full of whimpers and, like Rome or Great Britain, turn into the next dead empire.

Choose wisely, my friends.

Big Government? Blame James Watt.

A lot of people wonder how in the world we have come to have such big governments - federal, state, local, you name it. I, for one, blame James Watt the guy who invented the steam engine. To explain I need to start even earlier in time.

I recently finished a book called “Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind” by Yuval Harari. It’s a very intriguing book with a lot of concepts and theories that will make you really think about us as a species, the good and the bad. One particular claim he makes made me sit back and say “whoa!” He suggests that we were all probably better off as hunter gatherers or farmers. That’s right, in his opinion we gave up the natural life that humans had led for thousands of years; we just had to go get food then enjoy the simple pleasures of family and friends. Perhaps he had read Thomas Jefferson, noted urban hater, who said, “Agriculture is our wisest pursuit, because it will in the end contribute most to real wealth, good morals, and happiness.” Like Jefferson, Harari blames a lot of our real (and imagined) problems on leaving the fields to go work in the factories. I’m not doing justice to his elegant theory but the key element is that it made me think differently about modern life and more importantly about what we can control in our modern lives – and what we cannot.

So I blame James Watt who was inventing his steam engine, ironically, about the same time that Jefferson was spouting off about the pastoral life. If it weren’t for Watt maybe there wouldn’t have been an industrial evolution. Without the industrial revolution maybe we wouldn’t have become slaves to capitalism. Without capitalism most of us wouldn’t have abandoned our pleasant, agrarian lives (whistling while we work from sunrise to sunset) to take up “working for the man.” So maybe he’s the guy that led us to long commutes, endless Power Point presentations, tons of paperwork . . . and Wall Street? I guess you might as well also blame him for Facebook, Twitter or any of the other essentially worthless advances in communication technology and fact-free existence that we live in today. (Okay, settle down, some of this is tongue in cheek – I think.)

Alas, the toothpaste is out of the tube on progress though, even if you foolishly wanted to go back to when America was great, it ain’t happening. Besides, I admit that I like garage door openers, dish washers, flying to Florida for golf in the winter and a lot of other cool things; this is the world we live in, a world of constant change and progress. These ruminations have, however, made me think I may have overlooked some hidden costs for our modern reality.

When the Constitution was drafted the US had about 4 million people. Most of them were farmers or lived in small towns and were generally able to fend for themselves: no telephones, no super highways, no public education, no food inspections – no crop price supports. Also no FAA, no national parks, no huge standing military - and no strawberries in winter. Life may not have been easy but it was fairly simple and folks were mostly self-sufficient.

Today there are about 330 million of us and a large majority now live in cities (only 3% of the population grow all our food.) In order to have cheap food, live in nice houses, drive nice cars (and play golf?) life today depends on very complex interactions among people and nations. Our cars and computers come from all over the world; we shop at Target and other stores for clothes and essentials made elsewhere. Most people make a living by creating spreadsheets or work in healthcare or some other service industry.

To illustrate the change from then to now here’s a story many people of a certain age might recognize. During the Great Depression my mom lived in the small Minnesota town of Osakis while pop lived on a farm outside of town in an area called Snoose Valley (where all the Norwegians farmers lived.) Those were truly terrible times – especially for my mom’s large family. Mom’s family, like most “city slickers,” struggled to find work in town to support themselves. My dad’s large family, on the other hand, also had a difficult time but there was always milk, eggs, meat and bread; they were not going to starve. I bring this up not to imply that we should all go out and buy a few acres to support ourselves come the revolution but simply to make the point that modern life stealthily crept up and changed our relationship with nature and with each other.

Our modern society, however wonderful its fruits, often breaks down and at the worst possible time for many. This is not a bug of the system it’s a feature called “creative destruction.” In the modern world you don’t need to do anything “wrong,” you just kinda get steamrolled by “progress.” Generally most of us do okay and understandably don’t think much about how complex modern life is so most may not grasp how fragile our existence has become because of that complexity. In fact, many of us seem to live under the illusion that we still live in that earlier America -  strong, silent individuals; masters of our domain; the Marlboro Man, we don’t need no help from others or the stinking gubmint! Ah, no. In the blink of an eye any of us can lose our job, health, home – our future. Even the Marlboro man.

So here we are today.

Many Americans have a strong distrust of government including me. Some of this is by the design of our Founding Fathers and in many cases that distrust has certainly been well earned. Yet Madison, Hamilton, Mason, Rutledge, et al were all smart guys and recognized that we do need government and I’d like to think that they hoped – no, they knew - that America was bound to change and grow in ways they couldn’t even imagine. I think they also knew that government would be called on to help deal with at least some of that change. (Well, for sure Hamilton would have!)

There’s no question that government at all levels has grown enormously and it can legitimately be questioned given the many bad decisions made by our peerless leaders over the years, among but not limited to: contributing to our bloated military-healthcare-education industrial complex(es), huge welfare programs, deteriorating infrastructure and much of the income inequality in the country. You can blame big business, big political parties, big money,  unions, lobbyists, liars, schemers – and politicians (often all rolled in one), that entire group of charlatans that has turned our government into a “ Parliament of Whores” as author PJ O’Rourke so aptly named it.

I won’t pretend to know how big or how small governments should be nor do I think it  can solve every individual’s problems or pick winners and losers. I do know that there are just no other entities besides government that are big enough to counter those forces of the modern world that are seemingly trying to push many of us back into some sort of feudal existence. It can create policies that gives everyone at least a fighting chance to get ahead in a constantly changing modern world. Okay, we definitely do not need a bigger government but we absolutely do need a lot SMARTER one. If that’s true then it’s time to roll up our sleeves because WE have got a lot work to do and that starts with electing a LOT smarter people on both the left and right at all levels of government. Simply stated, we need representatives who are interested in more about the future than just getting re-elected.

I wish life was as simple as good old Tom Jefferson envisioned but it isn’t. It’s a complex and changing world that was impossible to foresee in the 18^th century. That doesn’t mean, however, it has to be as Thomas Hobbes predicted, “ . . . poor, nasty, brutish, and short.” If government can help alleviate that then it should.

If not, well, you can still blame James Watt.