My wife and I boarded a plane for the Dominican Republic at the end of February this year. The trip was an early celebration of our 25th year of marriage. At the time, Novel Coronavirus or Covid-19 was certainly in the global news stream. However, the impact this disease would ultimately have in the U.S. was not readily apparent. At least three planes landed roughly at the same time as ours on the island’s small main airport. Consequently, there was an hour’s wait in a crowded cattle pen-type area to clear customs. There was a single man who was a bit older than I who candidly looked a bit rheumy-eyed and to me a little vertically unstable. He was the only one in a crowd of several hundred who was wearing a surgical mask. Social distancing would become a reference term in the weeks ahead. On this day it didn’t exist. The resort awaited.
First, this was a very nice vacation. Our timing could not have been better, for as we departed, the resort was beginning to get what would be a tsunami of cancellations. As we retuned to the U.S. at the end of the first week of March a new world order was beginning to unfold. The significance of what Covid-19 would mean for life in the U.S. for the next three months or so was a function of where one turned for news and one’s perception of veracity. Depending on your information source Covid-19 was nothing more than the flu or it was a highly contagious disease of plague-like proportions with victims preparing to besiege our healthcare system’s capacity for treatment. As is often the case, especially where social media is concerned, lots of incorrect and conflicting information made its way onto various platforms leaving most consumers ill-informed (though many rarely thought so) and confused.
There have been several virus-related epidemics in recent history. Among these epidemics are SARS, Swine Flu, Ebola, H1N1, etc. (1)The origin of many have been in China or Africa. They generally did not rise to the category of pandemic. In the U.S. our Center for Disease Control (CDC) is tasked with managing our response to these diseases, often in coordination with the World Health Organization (WHO). While the U.S. remained aware of the rapid spread elsewhere of Covid-19 the current administration did implement a travel ban from China in late January. (2)However, the same administration also chose to propose cuts to CDC and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) funding. These organizations exist to formulate, execute and coordinate policy relating to many diseases. This effort by the administration was reversed after significant push-back from Congress. (3)It would not be inaccurate to characterize the current administration as lacking a belief in the scientific method. However, this is better left for another article. Nevertheless, with at least two months of advance knowledge of the highly transmittable nature of Covid-19 little was done Federally to prepare the U.S. for what would be required to provide some measure of protection for our citizenry. There exists science fact and science opinion, the latter yet to be proven one way or the other. There also co-exists science and politics. As we have seen heuristically, the problems arise when the latter tries to inform the former.
What Covid-19 has done is to poke holes in the belief of American exceptionalism. Sadly, transparency suffers; truth becomes political. Weaknesses are self-evident in elements of one’s day-to-day living. (4)Many years ago when Ross Perot ran for U.S. President he referred to the “Giant sucking sound’ of the North Atlantic Free Trade Agreement. His perspective was prescient, referring to the American job losses as our formerly U.S.-based supply chain moved out of America to Mexico and other locations in Asia. Supply chain issues involving food, technology manufacturing and other key components now produced in foreign locales illustrate fragility in those systems. Worker representation suffered, wage growth stagnated, too big to fail was born, income inequality grew to historic levels, stock buy-backs as opposed to organic growth drove up equity price levels along with debt, all combining to increase stress points on the U.S. population.
It’s sadly ironic that so many organizations whose compensation benefits a select few on the way up, rally for the benefits of unregulated free market capitalism as the growth curve ascends, yet clamor for what amounts to corporate welfare when fortunes are reversed. If ‘we’re all in this together’ on the way down, why doesn’t this apply on the way up? Covid-19 has simply illustrated the human cost of the way things were. I’m not sure if it’s unanimous to go back to the way things were. It may be time for a new normal.
As I write this, we, as a society, are possibly on the verge of a summer of discontent, especially if one’s skin isn’t white. By the mid-2040’s Caucasians in America will be a minority. This scares the s*** out of an extreme politically-right portion of a white segment of society. It’s game over and there will likely be a reset, especially in terms of policing . I remember well the protests of the 1960’s. It was a turbulent decade. However, N-95 masks were not a fashion statement or a health necessity at the time as they are today.
This reset will ripple across many areas of society, both in the U.S. and globally. The current work from home (WFH) experiment is still in progress. Clearly, organizational leadership will look at the hard costs of physical plant, particularly if there is consensus among employees for a more flexible work schedule and environment. While WFH may not be for everyone, it’s the upcoming Millennial generation leadership talking over from the Boomers and GenX that will define the direction. (5)Productivity, mental health, need for socialization and other key variables will figure prominently in this decision-making process.
(6)I’ve written about the state of healthcare in America in a previous article. (7)However, the current pandemic has illustrated how fragile one’s healthcare benefits are when furloughed or laid-off. (8)Too, hospitals, often operating under thin margins, have struggled during this pandemic. It’s time for Congress to pass legislation that provides a meaningful level of healthcare coverage for those U.S. citizens that are not covered by an employer-sponsored plan.
(9)The collective shutdown of our global economy has had a major positive effect on the environment. It’s naïve to believe that the air, water, flora and fauna of Earth will be in this healthier stasis once our economies ramp up. This pause, though, does provide a window of opportunity to assess how to move forward in manner that allows us to be better caretakers of the only world to which we have access. What kind of stewards do we want to be for ourselves, our children, grandchildren and future generations.
While I’m not quite sure what the new normal will look like, I’m hoping that it is simply not a return to the status quo. First, the pandemic is not over. It will return. Having responded to the initial outbreak it’s important to heed the lessons learned to be better prepared. Interestingly, as the U.S. begins to reopen its economy an election season is preparing to get underway. As is often the case, the contrasts between the candidates is profound. Whether standing in line at a polling location or at the post office, you have a vote. It’s your voice. Speak.
Not long ago I was scheduled to coach a high-performance
tennis family at 8:00 on a Sunday morning. It happened to be the day after the
evening in which those of us in the eastern time zone of the U.S. were
scheduled to turn our clocks back; as it’s more colloquially known, daylight
savings time. I remembered to do so
before calling it a night. My first thought after awakening the following
morning was, I wonder if my tennis family remembered?
There are certainly worse things in life than showing up to
coach a full hour before one’s students.
However, sleep, like time itself, is a precious commodity, both of which
I highly value. For years I commuted to
my position as a media executive in NYC, getting up at 5:00 am and rarely
returning home before 7:30 pm. In my military
life with the USAF after college the clock was 24/7. We arose as the mission dictated and slept
when and where able. Fortunately, my
tennis students did, in fact, remember to turn their clocks back. No harm, no
foul.
Many of us lament the shorter days of fall and winter,
especially in the northern latitudes. Even
snow lovers such as winter sports enthusiasts complain about the lengthening shadows
cutting across snow-covered slopes by mid-afternoon. I’m a sunshine and palm tree kind of
guy. Summer is my favorite time of year
for myriad reasons. However, I’ve always
been curious about the rational for what’s become known as spring forward
and fall back.
Anecdotally, a thrifty Ben Franklin is believed to have
first thought of the idea of a shorter winter day and a longer summer day. However, historically, (1)in 1895, George Hudson, an entomologist
from New Zealand, came up with the modern concept of daylight saving time. He
proposed a two-hour time-shift so he’d have more after-work hours of sunshine
to go bug hunting in the summer.
(2)Seven years later, British
builder William Willett (the great-great grandfather of Coldplay front-man
Chris Martin) independently hit on the idea while out horseback riding. He
proposed it to England’s Parliament as a way to prevent the nation from wasting
daylight. His idea was championed by Winston Churchill and Sir Arthur
Conan Doyle—but was initially rejected by the British government. Willett kept
arguing for the concept up until his death in 1915.
(4)Soon, England and almost
every other country that fought in World War I followed suit. So did the United
States: On March 9, 1918, Congress enacted its first daylight saving law—and it
was a two-fer: In addition to saving daylight, the Standard Time Act defined
time zones in the U.S. In those days, coal power was king, so people really did
save energy (and thus contribute to the war effort) by changing their clocks.
Today, one’s preference for
either standard time or daylight savings time is often a function of where one resides. First, it’s important to note that the energy
savings associated with this time shift decision in the early years of the 20th
century no longer apply. Consider our
planetary physics. (5)The further you travel
from the Equator, the more drastic the seasons will be. That’s because Earth is
tilted on its axis with respect to the sun.
The top and bottom portions of the globe receive more-or- less sunlight
at different times of the year, making the loss of daylight hours more
pronounced.
Although countries and specific geographies with countries that adopt a ‘spring forward, fall back’ approach are subject to change here’s a **map of those that do and don’t as of this writing.
**
(6)Daylight
saving time indifference causes one U.S. state—Hawaii—to brush off the time change
entirely. Arizona, where scorching temperatures often make night the only
bearable time to be outside, also said no to moving its clocks around, because
its residents preferred to savor the cool nighttime hours.
Empirical data
indicate that the transition to and from daylight savings time (fall back) and
standard time (spring forward) can have significant consequences in the short
term. Risks increase for heart attacks,
car accidents and other issues linked to sleep deprivation and a disruption of
one’s circadian rhythms. Fortunately,
these issues seem to be temporary, unless, of course, the car accident or heart
attack was fatal.
For those of us who experience this time shift its sort of like a bump in the road met with a resigned sigh. The good news is that before too long we can look forward to longer days of sunlight. Meanwhile, don’t forget to set your clock(s).
There’s been a good deal of media coverage over the past several decades regarding the issue of climate change. I peripherally became aware of the topic when news reports began mentioning the ozone hole in the Antarctic. At the time there was a lot of anecdotal speculation as to what was causing the hole (e.g. high-altitude jet exhaust, generally human generated CO2 build up or simply the naturally dynamic nature of earth and its atmosphere.) (1) Most recently, the hole is reported to be getting smaller.
I tend to be someone, who, while willing to acknowledge an individual’s right to an opinion, feels that I have a right to my own opinion, too, one that’s based on facts. In the case of climate change the science yields the facts; (2) it’s real. The graph below illustrates the change in global temperature over the past 140 years or so.
While there
will always be deniers and as previously mentioned they are certainly free to
have their own opinion, I figuratively place them in a column tangential to the
conspiracy theorists. Interestingly, this
behavior is now clinically classified by the Journal of Psychiatry as a
personality disorder. (3) In a
culture of fear, we should expect the rise of new mechanisms of social control
to deflect distrust, anxiety, and threat. Relying on the analysis of popular
and academic texts, we examine one such mechanism, the label conspiracy theory,
and explore how it works in public discourse to “go meta” by sidestepping the
examination of evidence. Our findings suggest that authors use the conspiracy
theorist label as (a) a routinized strategy of exclusion; (b) a reframing
mechanism that deflects questions or concerns about power, corruption, and
motive; and (c) an attack upon the personhood and competence of the questioner.
This label becomes dangerous machinery at the transpersonal levels of media and
academic discourse.
I am a proudly registered independent voter. I have voted for both Republican and Democrat candidates. I am a voter that nearly always votes the issues as opposed to a specific candidate or political party. I feel it’s important to acknowledge this because I could not help but think of the policy or lack thereof by the (4) current administration for eliminating all references to climate change in policy statements by governmental departments such as the Department of Energy, the Agriculture Department and others. Add to this the fact that, as of this writing, there is no American executive or upper legislative branch support for the ratification of the Paris Climate accord and one wonders if science, as a basis for decision-making, has any home in the current elected body politic.
The second bifurcation of opinion regarding climate change is
its root cause. Is climate change the
result of the natural dynamic associated with the rhythm of our planet? Is climate change happening for another
reason such as the impact of an ever increasing population with a rapidly
developing third world economy, one that is not much different than that of the
U.S. when it shifted from a largely agrarian economy to one that was
industrial-based post Reconstruction?
Could it be a combination of factors?
The graphs below illustrate that the earth’s climate is indeed variable. A long time ago, looking back:
(a)
And, a less prehistoric and contemporary perspective . . .
(b)
An economist
would characterize this second illustration as a hockey stick graph denoted by
the sharp upward curve starting about 1900.
This is roughly the beginning of the industrial age in what today are
considered developed countries.
For eons humans were largely hunter / gatherers whose life was framed by agriculture, livestock, etc. Cows and dinosaurs, too, have always passed gas. Methane (CH4) is a condition of a carbon-based organism. It’s likely that the eruption of volcanos, asteroid collisions and the flora and fauna of prehistoric times accounted for the narrowly bound variations in climate. Based on the data above it can be shown that a significant inflection point correlates to large scale human industrialization.
A cohort subset
of the climate change deniers mentioned earlier are those that believe climate
change is a means of societal control by the economic and political elite. There is some truth to this. However, I believe the motivation is not as
nefarious an agenda as this libertarian political characterization. I suspect it’s more of a clarion call to
those capable of critical thinking.
Beyond the ‘wake up’ warning is an acknowledgement that the world is
changing. What were once economically
disadvantaged counties and societies are now undergoing their own industrial
revolution. A new middle class has
emerged where one never existed. China
and India are only two of many countries that in the past half century have
undergone their own industrial revolution.
These two nations alone account for over a third of global population.
These are simply some of the noteworthy science-based organizations that have concluded that the sharp increase in the curve of global warming is largely due to human activity: The American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Chemical Society, American Geophysical Union, American Medical Association, American Meteorological Society, American Physical Society; that’s just the ‘A’s’. For a more comprehensive list please visit: https://climate.nasa.gov/scientific-consensus/
While I applaud the efforts of the United Nations, the leadership some of its member countries individually (sadly, the United States is not in this group) and the activists drawing attention to climate change I will take issue with one statement made by young activist Greta Thunberg when addressing the U.N. Climate Summit. While there is some truth that money and profit remain a contributing catalyst to global warming, I believe Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi more correctly positioned the role of these factors moving forward. (4) Both are needed to develop and put in place the technology needed to reverse the trend of global warning.
As a USAF veteran I’ve lived through and experienced many a cold and snowy winter in various parts of the world. As a former pilot I know a little bit about weather; enough to get me up and down safely. Weather is a day-to-day occurrence. Climate, however, is longer term. For some policy-makers, people, organizations, countries, etc. it’s only today that matters. However, tomorrow will surely come, if not for us, then our children. As one parish priest told the congregation in a non-air-conditioned church on an unbearably hot, humid summer day back in the 1960’s, “I know it’s hot, so this sermon will be short. But, if you think it’s hot now, wait until you get to Hell!”
From time to time, particularly after presidential
elections, there exists a lot of conversation among the political zeitgeist
regarding the functionality of the Electoral College. Most often, the genesis of this heightened
awareness is rooted in the political party whose presidential candidate won the
popular vote but did not win the election.
As a democracy the United States has central to its
political tenants ‘One-Person, One- Vote.’ (1) The One-Person One-Vote Rule refers to the rule that one person’s voting power ought
to be roughly equivalent to another person within the same state. The rule comes up in the
context of Equal Protection. The most relevant Supreme Court case is Reynolds
v. Sims, 377 U.S. 533 (1964).
I share the frustration of
voters who cast a ballot for a candidate who feel that individually, one’s vote
really didn’t matter based on how a majority of voters in a particular state
voted, hence, allocating that state’s electoral college votes to another
candidate. So how did this system, fair
or otherwise, come about?
(2)The
Constitutional Convention of 1787 considered several methods of electing the
President, including selection by Congress, by the governors of the states, by
the state legislatures, by a special group of Members of Congress chosen by
lot, and by direct popular election. Late in the convention, the matter was
referred to the Committee of Eleven on Postponed Matters, which devised the
electoral college system in its original form. This plan, which met with
widespread approval by the delegates, was incorporated into the final document
with only minor changes. It sought to reconcile differing state and federal
interests, provide a degree of popular participation in the election, give the
less populous states some additional leverage in the process by providing
“senatorial” electors, preserve the presidency as independent of Congress, and
generally insulate the election process from political manipulation.
This
final point is rather poignant as it’s unlikely that our founding fathers anticipated
outside voter manipulation by a foreign power, hostile or otherwise, via social
media. Bear in mind that when the electoral college was conceived there was
slavery in the United States and women were not allowed to vote.
These
considerations are central to our electoral process in the 21st
century; bear in mind that process is
an apt characterization of the electoral college. It’s not a place, but rather
a mechanism. Much has changed in society, writ large, over two centuries. This
is why there exist amendments to the U.S. Constitution.
Let’s see how the current electoral college is allocated by state:
(3) The Electoral College consists of 538 electors.
A majority of 270 electoral votes is required to elect the President. Your
state’s entitled allotment of electors equals the number of members in its
Congressional delegation: one for each member in the House of Representatives
plus two for your Senators.
I’m confident that a great
deal of thought by individuals far more intelligent than I went into devising
the electoral college system.
Nevertheless, as a former scholar-athlete and an advocate of the application
of the Occam’s Razor principle as often as possible, (keep it simple) I submit
for your consideration a comparison between a game of tennis vs. the electoral
college.
In a tennis match, without a
tie-break, the player that gets to six games first – or in the case of the
electoral college 270 votes – wins the set.
The difference is that regardless of the length of the point, the
quality of the point or other factors, the player with the most points
wins. While the same holds true for the
electoral college, I would contend that not all points, or votes, are
equal. In tennis the player with the
most games doesn’t always win. Similarly, the candidate with the most votes doesn’t
always win, but maybe should win? This
is not the case with the electoral college and sometimes not in tennis.
Consider the match score
6-1, 5-7, 5-7. The match winner won a
total of 15 games; the loser won 16 games. The winner also won two out of three
sets. The electoral college corollary is
not dissimilar. While a loser may have
more (popular) votes and even more states, the winner is determined by getting
to 270 votes, the equivalent of winning two our of three sets of tennis.
It may be time (or not) to
revisit what is considered by some an antiquated system of electing an
individual to lead this country. This is
a man or woman who works for you, not the other way around.
(4)Here are some pros and
cons associated with the electoral college . . .
Pro: The Founding Fathers enshrined the Electoral
College in the US Constitution because they thought it was the best method to
choose the president.
Con: The reasons for which the Founding Fathers
created the Electoral College are no longer relevant.
Pro: The Electoral College ensures that all parts
of the country are involved in selecting the President of the United States.
Con: The Electoral College gives too much power to
“swing states” and allows the presidential election to be decided by
a handful of states.
Pro: The Electoral College guarantees certainty to
the outcome of the presidential election.
Con: The Electoral College ignores the will of the
people.
As a U.S. citizen and independent
voter I believe that in our democratic republic the will of the people remains central to the government. While this refers to inherent power vested in
a citizenry as opposed to a king or monarch the current electoral process was
designed to affect this will. However, current in this context dates back to
the late 18th century. As Bob
Dylan aptly characterized in his lyric, “The times they are a changin’.
Change and the inherent
uncertainty that change can bring about is a scary thing for a lot of
folks. I’m sure if a member of our
citizenry at that time was transported to the present they would be amazed,
disoriented and disenchanted; probably not in equal measure.
Nevertheless, the momentum
of change, like progress, is a difficult, if not impossible mechanism to
stop. The roots of innovation, the
engine of our productive economy, is seeded in change.
To date there are 14 states that have voted to enact the National Popular vote plan. This is a plan whereby states have elected to enter into a pact to cast all their electoral votes for the winner of the popular vote. (5)Here’s a map that illustrates these states.
There are pros and cons
regarding the national popular vote, too.
For the sake of brevity they are:
List of the Pros of
Using the Popular Vote
It
gives each vote an equal amount of power.
Under the electoral college system of voting, the number of representatives a
state has in Congress (Senators and Representatives) is the total number of
electoral votes it is allowed. That means every state is allowed a minimum of 3
electoral votes. In 2016, Florida had 29 electoral votes and 9.4 million
voters, created a voter value of 0.72. Wyoming had just 3 electoral votes, but
only had 255,000 voters as well. That created a voter value of 2.85.
All
other elections in the U.S. are through the popular vote.
The only election in the United States which is not governed by the popular
vote is the presidential election. Mayors, governors, and senators are all
elected by a simple majority. Under the electoral college, the majority votes
of states assign electoral votes to a candidate, which then creates a majority total
required for a victory. A popular vote election would bring the presidential
election in line with the rest of the election structures.
It
would eliminate the threat of a faithless elector.
A faithless elector in the United States is someone who casts an electoral
ballot for someone other than the individuals to whom they are pledged. Even if
states impose fines on faithless electors for their actions, it is not a
guarantee that the behavior will stop. Although faithless electors have not
affected the results or outcome of an election yet, in 2016, there were 7
faithless electors. Going to the popular vote would eliminate this issue
altogether.
It
could encourage voter turnout.
One of the biggest reasons why voters don’t vote is because they feel like
their vote doesn’t count. Under the electoral college system, if a state
consistently pulls as leaning to one party, someone who supports the other
party may not vote because they feel like there isn’t a need to do so. Their
vote only counts at the local level, not the national level, because of the
electoral votes. Removing this system could encourage more people to come out
to support their candidate.
Security
would be improved across the country.
There are logistical issues that are managed at the local level in each
election. Some areas may “bend” the rules of an election by extending voting
hours illegally. Others may struggle to meet higher than expected voter turnout
levels. If the election is based off a popular vote, each of these areas would
need to be closely examined in real-time, which would enhance the security of
each vote that is cast. There would be fewer opportunities to illegally alter
the results of an election.
Battleground
states would disappear in U.S. elections.
Under the current structure of the electoral college, the focus of a
presidential campaign is on the so-called battleground states. These are the
states that may go to either major party candidate in the election. That means
some voters, like Republicans in California or Democrats in Mississippi, are
voting without power and without attention from their preferred candidates each
year. A switch to the popular vote would eliminate the concept of a
battleground state because the issue would be more on issues than states.
It
would eliminate the Congressional provisions for a non-majority election.
The electoral requires that an election which does not receive a majority of
electoral votes be taken into the U.S. House of Representatives. At that stage,
anyone who received an electoral vote is eligible to become the next president.
Should that happen, then the final decision of who gets to serve as President
of the United States is taken away from individual voters. It happened once, in
1876. Moving to the popular vote structure would eliminate this potential
issue.
It
could help to reduce partisanship.
Under the current structure of presidential elections in the U.S., the states
become a battleground of red states vs. blue states. This divide creates
natural divisions between groups of people who both support their country, but
in different ways. If a popular vote were allowed to declare a winner instead,
it wouldn’t be through a state-by-state counting of electoral votes. It would
be a national mandate to put someone in office, even if that winning candidate
received less than 50% of the vote.
It
would eliminate superfluous votes.
Under the electoral college system (and other voting systems not based on
popular voting), it only takes one extra vote more than the other candidate to
create the needed results for the election. All other votes cast for that
candidate are therefore superfluous. In 2016, Hillary Clinton had more than 10
million of these votes, while Donald Trump had more than 8.3 million, even
though Trump won 30 states and Clinton won 20 and the District of Columbia. The
popular vote eliminates this issue too.
A
close election would trigger the need for a full recount.
The cost of a presidential election in the United States is already several
billion dollars. On a close popular vote, often defined as a difference of 0.5%
or less in the tabulated results, an automatic recount would likely be
triggered. That means the cost of counting all the votes would be duplicated.
With the polarization in global politics today, especially in the United
States, a switch to the popular vote would likely increase costs even further.
It
would limit the influence of local issues in the election.
When a popular vote is held for a national office, the election becomes more
about platform issues than local issues. Resource allocation would be focused
on paid advertising, which would negate the need for grassroots activities.
That would likely reduce the number of voters who cast a ballot in each
election as most people are more concerned about local impacts than national policies.
There
would be a reduced need to build coalitions.
With a popular vote in place, each election win would be decreed a mandate to
follow the platform of the winning party. That would increase the amount of
polarization being experienced in politics today because there would be less of
a need to compromise. Even the minority party wouldn’t be encouraged to
negotiate because they could simply stall until the next election. Less would
get done, which would affect the needs of households at the local level.
It
would reduce the influence of third parties on the U.S. presidential election.
Under the electoral college system, the candidates which receive the most votes
in each state (or district) receive its assigned electoral votes. That means a
candidate who receives a majority of their votes in a high-delegate state, such
as California, could make a dramatic impact on the rest of the election. In
2016, Gary Johnson received 4.48 million votes and 0 electoral votes, but the
potential is always there for this to happen. A popular vote structure would
virtually eliminate the idea of a third-party candidate having a chance in an
election.
It
would reduce the threshold necessary to win the office.
If the presidential election were switched to the popular vote, then it would
only take about 35% of the vote for a candidate to win. That is hardly a
mandate for governing, though it would be taken as such. We’ve already seen
this issue take place with the GOP primaries in 2016. Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz often
split about 60% of the GOP vote, which allowed Donald Trump to win early
primaries with 35% of the vote.
Unexpected
emergencies would be difficult to handle.
During a popular vote, a candidate who withdraws from the race or dies before
the election can be held could still be on the ballot. That offers the
possibility that someone unwilling or unable to hold the office could be
elected. In U.S. history, there has been one vice-presidential candidate who
died after being nominated and one that withdrew from their party’s ticket.
Although the 20th Amendment to the Constitution provides clarity to this
situation, that process is based on the electoral college. What would happen
during a switch to the popular vote would be unknown.
It
would reduce diversity in the election structures.
Although moving to a popular vote election would balance the weight of each
vote, it would also create more sway in larger population states. People are
moving to live in like-minded communities more than ever before. In the U.S.,
that means people who lean Democratic live in urban areas, while people who
lean Republican live in rural areas. More people live in urban regions, which
means they would have a constant sway over the election. Rural voters would
almost always be in the minority.
Regional
candidates could secure enough votes to win a national election.
Imagine a scenario where a presidential candidate focuses on Los Angeles, New
York City, Portland, OR and Seattle. That’s a bank of about 14 million
potential voters that reliably vote as a majority for Democratic candidates.
Using a popular vote system, candidates could campaign regionally, targeting
major areas of support, to secure enough votes to win an election. Without any
sort of broad support, the politics of the country could become even more
fractured than they already are.
9. It would require an
Amendment in the U.S. for presidential elections.
Since the Constitution and the Bill of Rights became governing documents in the
United States, there have only been 17 amendments made to it. The last
amendment, the 27th Amendment to the Constitution, was ratified nearly 200
years after it was originally proposed. The amendment requires that any change
to the rate of compensation for members of Congress can only take effect after
a subsequent election in the House of Representatives. It isn’t impossible to
pass a Constitutional amendment, though history shows that it is not an easy
process to complete.
For the 7 presidential elections between
1992-2016, the Republican candidate has won the Electoral college 3 times. They
have only won the popular vote once.
The pros and cons of the popular vote
structure of an election allow for the majority to have their say in who they
wish to serve. Although this may limit the amount of diversity that occurs in
office, and may generate extra financial costs, the argument could be made that
these risks outweigh the results of an election where a majority of states, not
a majority of people, put someone into office.
During a recent holiday I was part of several toasts, many of which began or ended with the title of this article. For most of us over the age of forty or more our health and well-being take on increasing significance as we age. No longer so young that we realistically think of ourselves as invincible, we begin to see and appreciate the significance of taking better care of our body and mind. There is a connection between the two which I discuss in my book Late Call – Health Tennis for the Older Younger at Heart. More profound for many, though, is the state of health care access in the United States.
For those of us who are working and many who are not but are painfully too young for Medicare, we are aware that the employer/employee-based structure of healthcare in America needs a check-up. The Great Recession of 2007-2009 was a health care access pivot point of sorts. While a significant number of Baby Boom, Gen X and Y have to some degree financially recovered, many have not. For those employed full-time one’s employer likely picks up a significant though commonly diminishing portion of health insurance costs. Same for one half of an employee’s mandatory social security contribution. These are benefits often overlooked by an employee when expressing compensation.
For simplicity let’s look at a round number of $100K annual compensation. However, the math applies to most levels of a full-time pay scale. Bear in mind that as one goes down the pay scale the percentage becomes disproportional to the base. Above and beyond this annual ‘salary’ (it may be commission income, a combination thereof, bonus, etc.) the employer contributes $7.5K toward your social security obligation. Additionally, if the employee is one of a family of four the cost of health insurance, in this case about $20K annually, is largely, but not solely covered by one’s employer. Too, this cost amount is increasing every year significantly faster than the rate of inflation. Ergo, both parties are paying more. However, the percentage is shifting and not in the favor of the employee. That said, given this example the employee’s true annual compensation is about $127.5K.
Once the employee becomes unemployed due to down-sizing, reorganization, lay-off, etc., the worker is responsible for these employer-paid benefits (now COBRA [Congressional Office Budget Reconciliation Act] for healthcare) until it expires and the full 15% (self-employment tax [was social security]) on any income derived from one’s labor. Simply, the employee now needs to earn $135.K in real dollars just to equal her previous compensation. This does not include any employer reimbursed business expenses. The now self-employee is truly on her own. It’s a scary scenario faced by many in the course of a working career. Stress does impact one’s health.
Historically, the United States has had a challenging time delivering healthcare access in the manner of other developed democracies; that is full coverage for all the country’s citizens.
(1)Decisions that were made as early as World War I, we are now seeing the consequences today. The United States turns its face away from the idea of government involvement in provision of health insurance. Starting in World War I, we developed a very robust system of private insurance, but that was only for people with high-end jobs. So, union workers negotiated and got more coverage in the 1950s. Executives started getting private insurance as part of their employment package. So, insurance became more available, but at a high cost that left a lot of people out, and we’re still trying to figure out how to get the lost ones into the fold.
As is the case in the current political climate healthcare access for all has taken on an entirely political dimension. While it can be shown that the intention behind The Affordable Care Act – also known as Obamacare – is inclusionary, the test of time has proven that the model as conceived and implemented isn’t sustainable for many Americans.
(2)Escalating premiums and deductibles, lack of insurance options, failing co-ops, the cost of expanded Medicare at the state level, etc. are just a few cause and effect issues. Exclusive of the legislation’s purview is the lack of primary care physicians and by extension increased wait times.
There’s little doubt that our current system is complex and costly. Arguably, the outcomes associated with this system are dubious. (3)In 2016, the U.S. spent 17.8 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP) on healthcare. Other countries’ spending ranged from a low of 9.6 percent of GDP in Australia to a high of 12.4 percent of GDP in Switzerland.
(4)The U.S. spends about twice what other high-income nations do on health care but has the lowest life expectancy and the highest infant mortality rates, a new study suggests. More doctor visits and hospital stays aren’t the problem. Americans use roughly the same amount of health services as people in other affluent nations, the study found. Instead, health spending may be higher in the U.S. because prices are steeper for drugs, medical devices, physician and nurse salaries and administrative costs to process medical claims, researchers report in JAMA.
Most of us paying through insurance for prescription medication see on the receipt the difference in the price between what we pay and what the company charges for the drug. Those without insurance feel the full impact of this pricing difference. Bear in mind that big PhRMA is a significant lobby recently (5)spending in excess of $25-million for their share of legislative voice. It’s been only recently that the executive branch of the government has had the political will to call-out the industry for the cost of drugs in the U.S. relative to other countries. Where this effort goes remains to be seen.
As the population ages the role of Medicare and Medicaid figure prominently. However, as a result of legislation passed during the George W. Bush administration these federal programs were not allowed to negotiate with drug companies. This provision as part of a Medicare overhaul bill was passed almost clandestinely in the overnight hours. (6) An editorial in the Washington Post summarized this chaotic conclusion to the debate on H.R. 1. For sheer political drama, it would be hard to beat the past few days on Capitol Hill. Between the normally apolitical hours of 3 and 6 on Saturday morning, the House voted, by the tiniest of margins, to pass a hugely controversial Medicare bill.
Here’s breakdown of where health insurance coverage pays its bills . . .
As a veteran I’ve received care at both an active duty military hospital and a VA hospital. Both are operated by different organizations in the federal government – the Department of Defense and the Department of Veteran’s Affairs, respectively. I found the care I received excellent in both cases. Of course, with any large organization, public or private, there will be exceptions. My ageing parent, while in generally good health, is on Medicare. So, too, and ironically are my fellow free market, small government advocate acquaintances 65 years and older.
The framework of these existing systems can provide a blueprint for health care access by all U.S. citizens. Not to be meant as a rhetorical question, but is there an obvious difference to an average American between sending one’s money to a private for-profit insurer or sending it to the Federal government through higher taxes?
(7)It can be shown that putting all Americans on one insurer would create a large-enough pool to force private health-care providers to charge less, while eliminating private insurers’ spending on marketing and administrative overhead that do not improve health outcomes.
(8)On its current trajectory, [sic.] the United States is projected to spend $7.65 trillion annually on health care by 2031, according to a Mercatus study. That number would drop to $7.35 trillion if (Sanders’s) plan were implemented, the study found. Over time, that adds up to a net savings of about $2.1 trillion.
(9)“It’s a surprisingly positive view of Medicare for All from a very conservative research institute,” Larry Levitt, a health-care expert at the Kaiser Family Foundation, said of the Mercatus report. “According to the analysis, you could provide universal coverage with no patient cost-sharing and actually spend less on health care than we would under the status quo.”
It’s the prediction of this writer that momentum will build; not just by an ageing population but also by a financially challenged Millennial and Gen Z group. These smart, digitally adept Americans will seek action and accountability by elected officials. They remain social activists in a world far more dynamic than at any other time in American history. I look forward to the next chapter on health care access for all U.S. citizens being written. The future is now. Cheers! To your health . . .
Please feel free to enjoy the relevant music via this link while you read this blog post:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJA21UmUquI
(1) WBUR, Here and Now, The Origins of a Complex American Healthcare System
(2) The Daily Wire, 11 Biggest Problems with Obamacare
(3) Reuters, Health News, March 2018, Lisa Rapaport, S. health spending twice other countries’ with worse results
(4) Ibid
(5) Pharmaceutical Technology, January 2018, Ellen Daniel, US pharma lobbying spend surged to $25.m in 2017
(6)U.S. Library of Medicine, National Institute of Health, Millbank Quarterly, Jone 2004
(7)The Washington Post, Business, July 2018, Jeff Stein
As I write this blog the U.S. is only a couple of weeks away from the 2018 mid-term elections. Earlier today I was looking at some family photos. The one that resonated and was the genesis of this article captured my child as an infant. She sat in her high-chair, her face covered with some sort of sauce. She was joyously eating a meal with her fingers. A power washer would have been appropriate to clean up the mess covering both her and the kitchen floor.
As I looked at the photo I could not help but think about our body politic and how dysfunctional and messy it seems to have become. Unsure if the political noise I am hearing lately is a function of the times and/or the proliferation of media I did some historical research. What I discovered is that our current time and place in this democracy is not unique. In fact, body politic is an apropos characterization if as the definition implies, (1)“ is a medievalmetaphor that likens a nation to a corporation[2] which had serious historical repercussions throughout recent history . . . the Crown (as a legal term) is a convenient cover for ignorance and traces the legal term Crown as corporation sole originally from the 16th century and argues that it was both a political and legal ploy . . . amalgamated into the early medieval domain of early church property law. The modern understanding of the concept means a body politic comprises all the people in a particular country considered as a single group.”
Our Declaration of Independence and Constitution, not to mention the first of many wars, separated a United States from the Crown as well as, in theory, church and state. However, the mechanism of democracy back then seems to have been as historically spirited as its contemporary progeny. To paraphrase the late rocker Lou Reed, “Hey baby, take a walk on the wild side”. Look no farther than 1800, a mere 24 years after 1776 and the country’s independence.
(2) As fans of the Broadway smash “Hamilton” well know, this election went down just as the nation’s first political parties were taking shape. At the time, the electoral college process was far different than it is today. Each elector voted for two candidates; the one with the most votes became president, while the runner-up became vice president. Under this system, Thomas Jefferson and his chosen V.P. pick, Aaron Burr, tied for first place 73-73 due to a communication error among Democratic-Republican electors (or a Burr-led conspiracy, depending on whom you believe). President John Adams, a member of the rival Federalist Party, managed only 65 votes. For the first of only two times in history, the election went to the House of Representatives. Alexander Hamilton, the nation’s first treasury secretary, turned the tide by lobbying his fellow Federalists to throw their support to Jefferson. Though Hamilton and Jefferson despised each other, Hamilton considered him a safer choice than Burr, whom he claimed “loves nothing but himself—thinks of nothing but his own aggrandizement.”
Some may say that this characterization of an event 218-years ago bears both a resemblance and relevance today. Of course, dueling for one’s honor, as did Hamilton and Burr, is no longer in fashion.
Today, our 16th president Abraham Lincoln is revered by most Americans. However, in the election of 1860 this was not the case. (3)It tore the nation apart. Abraham Lincoln, the chosen nominee of the fledgling Republican Party and a steadfast opponent of slavery, wasn’t even on the ballot in most Southern states. While the Democratic Party went with Lincoln’s Illinois rival, Senator Stephen Douglas, as their candidate, the southern branch of the party defected, choosing sitting Vice President John Breckenridge as its candidate. Sen. John Bell of Tennessee rounded out the race on the ticket of the new Constitutional Union Party. Lincoln won only 40 percent of the popular vote but took most of the electoral votes in the North, along with California and Oregon. Breckenridge won the electoral votes in most of the South, along with Maryland and Delaware; Bell won Tennessee, Kentucky and Virginia, while Douglas captured only Missouri, despite finishing second in the popular vote. Just weeks after Lincoln’s victory, South Carolina voted to secede. Six more Southern states followed, forming the Confederate States of America in February 1861, with Jefferson Davis as president.
As recently as 2000, the start of a new century and millennia, the judicial branch of the U.S. government had to decide the election between candidates George W. Bush and Al Gore. Similar to the election of 2016 the losing party actually won the popular vote.
Today, seemingly, the political narrative appears to this writer to be driven by media; that is both the traditional kind (e.g. TV, radio, print, etc.) and digital (e.g. social, blogs, portals, etc.). Pick an issue, topic, political affiliation, conspiracy theory, the list is endless and as diverse as the participants. There’s a place to find like-minded individuals. Candidly, these outlets serve to propagate the theme, kind of like preaching to the choir or politically, ‘the base’.
Time is the arbiter of evolution on a scale, at times, too vast to comprehend. On an existential level technology has enabled time to speed up. Information access is nearly instantaneous. As a marker of time I want to choose, arbitrarily, the time leading up to and following what is known as the Dot-com bubble.
It was about this time that I as a voter sensed a tangible apathy among some of the people I knew. I believe that this apathy was rooted in a belief that their vote simply didn’t matter. I also began to realize that if what I was sensing was true that the inherent nature of the mess that is democracy could be easily compromised.
During this time period historical trends are illustrated to be somewhat consistent by race, ethnicity and other factors. However, when America elected its first black president in 2008 non-Hispanic black voters peaked and continued to be strong in President Obama’s 2012 re-election year. Non-presidential election year or mid-term election participation by all eligible voters showed consistent declines.
Interestingly, mid-term elections often determine political control of both legislative houses, in turn, providing a system of checks and balances. Yes, the same one most of us learned about in high school civics. However, the question remains, why are not more people voting? Let’s take a look at a large state like California. I choose this state more for its diversity than for any political affiliation. California has elected both republican and democrat state governors in its recent history.
Nearly 70% of registered voters cite either lack of interest or time/schedule constraints as reasons for not voting. Given the recent social media scandals and reports of foreign state actor hacking, it would be interesting to see an updated (currently unavailable) percentage of those who lack confidence in elections.
It can be show time and again that an individual’s vote matters – sometimes. Here’s a helpful video that helps frame the process and how your vote is counted.
In the end, your decision to vote (or not) – (4)it’s not mandatory in the U.S. as it is in 22 other countries – is up to you. The same holds true for the people for whom you cast your vote. These are personal decisions in a democracy, one that’s most often messy; it’s rarely otherwise. However, lack of participation erodes the foundation of a democracy. At risk is the election by either a majority or minority of voting citizens of an individual that has the power to usurp the tenets upon which a government and society writ large functions.
In 2018 election day is November 6th, the first Tuesday to follow the first Monday of the month. I also learned this in high school civics. Thank you, Ms. Murphy. I hope to see you at the polls. My location sells baked goods, reason enough to go vote.
If you don’t vote, stop complaining! You’re part of the problem, not the solution.
This past week was the 10th anniversary of the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers, the 158-year-old investment banking firm. It never made it to year 159. Its demise was the first domino that fell in the downward slope of the U.S. GDP curve characterized as The Great Recession. BBC Radio recently produced and aired a Peabody Award winning feature presentation about this profound circumstance; one that is both instructive and sad. The former providing lessons to be learned. Those that ignore the lessons of history are reconciled to repeat the same mistakes. The latter, viewed in post-script, reflecting the financial carnage that was a by-product of reckless financial engineering and decision-making by both businesses and consumers.
The term American Dream came up in conversation this week during a small party for a group of adult tennis players who are part of a local area USTA league team. Two of the players, one originally from Turkey, the other from Yugoslavia, each now naturalized U.S. citizens spent part of this past summer in their respective birth countries. Individually, they talked about their own American Dream and how difficult it has been lately to achieve it. While acknowledging the fortunate quality of life each has attained since coming to America, they both expressed a tangible ‘not-what-I-thought-it would-be’ assessment of life in the United States.
There’s a refrain I’ve often heard during times of economic uncertainty. It goes ‘When your neighbor is unemployed it’s a recession. When you’re unemployed it’s a depression.” True enough. However, we are currently riding what is being characterized as the longest equity bull market in modern history. Yet, for the two tennis players, both of whom are well-educated and by most measures affluent, and for a diverse set of many other workers, professional and otherwise, with whom this writer has conversed, the interpretation of what the American Dream means has changed.
I was struck by the recent cover of Time magazine. It speaks to some of the many challenges faced by workers in a labor force where, as of this writing, (1)there are more jobs available in the U.S. than there are qualified employees to fill them.
The photo is reminiscent of a dream sequence where one is running, or more accurately one is going through the motion of running, but in the dreamscape there’s no forward motion no matter how fast the legs are moving.
For those in the Baby Boom generation the notion of the American Dream had its genesis in the post-World War II years. The inherent prosperity during the decade of the 1950’s was largely inclusive. The G.I. bill allowed many returning veterans to get an education. Family creation (procreation) was abundant and so was the opportunity to better one’s self with respect to your parent’s economic circumstances, many of whom were immigrants with not a lot of formal education and a limited skill set. Too, these individuals also navigated through the Depression era of the 1930’s.
I’ve written in earlier blog posts (see #3 and #2 www.CafeCarpe.net) about a financial pivot that occurred in the 1960’s that began a cycle of economic dislocation. (2)The roots of this bifurcation may be found in the establishment of K Street lobbying of federal lawmakers and the attendant campaign financing that paved the way for special interest influence.
Remember from your high school psychology Maslow’s Hierachy of Needs? It looks like this.
Bottoms up, but not in a cocktail hour sense, the pyramid represents food, shelter, companionship, feeling good about attaining the previous two and finally personal fulfillment. Let’s take a look at how the costs of just food and shelter have changed.
Interestingly, in spite of the fluctuation in commodity prices the cost of food has gone down as a percent of income. The volatility is balanced over time by more efficient food production and distribution methods. (3)This characterization in no way addresses food quality, consumer health, the effect of climate change, globalization and other factors that may result in higher prices moving forward. How about shelter?
(4)Clearly, the cost of housing has increased dramatically. Adjusted for inflation the increase is over 70%.
In terms of social belonging as expressed in the pyramid one may assign having children as a central component to this aspect. It’s instructive to look at the how the cost of raising a child has changed over the years.
(5)Regions in the U.S. may vary. However, societal changes have taken place since the decade of the 60’s. Then, there were more stay-at-home parents, usually Moms. Today, a dual income is often the norm to make ends meet to balance a household budget. You’ll note that included in these pie charts are three very significant cost factors – child care, healthcare and education.
(6)Consider that fully 78% of full time workers live paycheck-to-paycheck. Too, 10% of households earning more than $100K annually can’t make ends meet. It’s unlikely those in either scenario would consider themselves impoverished. In fact, the poverty level hasn’t changed much since the 1960’s.
(7)However, the poverty rate percent change is more relevant when measured against an increasing employment rate of a growing workforce over several decades; essentially while the poverty rate changes in a narrow range it represents a change as a percentage of a growing number. Note the workforce decline, though, following the recession of 2008-2009 and subsequent economic recovery stabilization.
(8)The significance of all this data are found in the lack of growth in worker’s real wages relative to the growth in GDP and compensation of an increasingly narrow sector of private sector senior executives.
It is not my intention to assert that a skilled full time salaried or hourly worker should be compensated similarly to that of an organization’s leadership. However, an organization’s leadership, particularly when the supply of skilled jobs exceeds the employment demand, should adjust compensation to reflect the costs associated with an employee’s ability to attain the basic foundations of one’s quality of life as expressed in Maslow’s pyramid.
This writer is a capitalist and entrepreneur at heart, the result of some success by most measures, but also a good deal of empathy. However, the inability of a population to attain a sought-after quality of life has historically sown the seeds of discontentment and in some cases, revolution. France, 1789-1799; Russia, 1917 . . . history has an interesting way of repeating itself. This is a salient thought as one views the graph below.
(9)The American Dream has been characterized as dead. Depending on how it’s defined it may be or at least on life support. For some The American Dream is a nightmare. It’s a matter of perspective. Einstein was right. Relativity is a function of one’s vantage point.
There’s a stillness, a kind of melancholy emptiness, that envelops me as I enter the house. I’m used to hearing singing and some level of activity from my daughter. She moved to the lower level of our home during her senior year of high school for what I believe was her attempt at parental separation and independence in advance of leaving for college. This is the area where I enter our home having parked in the garage. My wife and I have just returned from moving her into a university dorm to start the first year of what I hope will be a positive, memorable four-year journey of self-discovery and academic growth.
As is the case with most parents whose child(ren) – she is our only – plans for college the senior year of high school is very busy. For the student it’s not an easy street coast to the finish line, especially if one is at a competitive high school. There’s the need to show consistency of merit, AP courses, college application essays (thankfully there is a common app; very different than my world back in the day) and the anxiety of acceptance into a school of one’s choice. For my child, after visiting more than a half dozen schools between Boston, NYC and Washington, DC she was accepted into her first choice. Parents wrestle with the FAFSA, financing and managing expectations. Still, when there’s alignment with a next step to a destination the trip seems far off. Some students such as ours heard early of her acceptance; others much later, uncertainty raising the peer group anxiety level a bit.
There’s a change in cadence as the spring semester of high school draws to a close. Graduation is the punctuation mark of a long secondary school sentence. Still, the start of summer doesn’t truly capitalize the beginning of the next paragraph slated to begin with the college move-in trip. While anticipation is underscored with excitement by one or both parents and child, there exists the pleasant distractions of summer’s longer days. However, little by little we accumulate all the items needed, or so we thought, in preparation for the move to college. With each walk past a growing pile of bags and boxes from Amazon, Bed, Bath & Beyond, Wal-Mart and a bevy of other retailers they collectively serve as a reminder of what’s to come; ready or not.
In our case her school was in reasonable driving distance. After seven hours in a rented mini-van (like I said there was a lot of stuff) my back might not agree with reasonable. High school friends and parents prepare for more profound move-in trips ranging from campuses in Europe to the coasts of the Gulf and to the far west. The good-byes among these close high school classmates are tinged with the first inklings of separation anxiety. It’s likely Snapchat, Facetime and Instagram will continue to be their long-distance connection and ours until reunited again during the year-end holidays.
Her school, really the block in which the dorm is located, is organized move-in chaos when we arrive. Thankfully, there’s a ready, willing and able contingent of undergraduate worker bees and residential advisors to help unload a rotating group of cars, SUV’s, vans and trailers. Getting all her dorm life material into the room was a far less daunting task than the actual unpacking, building (think Ikea) and cleaning required to get truly settled.
She shares what is referred to in NYC parlance as a pre-war building living space with three other young ladies; a quad. Each of these students have been in touch with one another via social media and their new university e-mail. Parents are introduced, unpacking help proffered and I along with a few other Dads are ushered out – time for a much-needed lunch break – to let the Moms coordinate the home stretch details.
There’s a peace, of sorts, that settles over the room once ‘a place for everything and everything in its place’ is achieved. We know it’s time to say good-bye. Our parenting and our child’s hard work has gotten us as a family to this point. There’s a lot of satisfaction in this. However, a deep well of emotion exists just below the surface that’s ready to percolate as tears. My voice cracks with emotion; a last kiss and hug until visiting again in a couple of months for parent’s weekend. Characterizing this feeling as sadness isn’t accurate. It’s simply a limitless love for a child that’s well-prepared to launch into a new and independent phase of her life.
For the student it’s an adventure; decision-making that she must own. As a parent, it’s a hope that her time in college will be as rewarding and self-defining for her as mine was for me. Too, it’s a sigh of resignation that this young lady who still needs me just doesn’t quite need me as much or in the same way as when she was younger. She knows that both her parents will be always be there for her to the best of our ability. However, there remains a stillness, a kind of melancholy emptiness, that envelops me as I enter the house. It’s going to take time for this to pass. Then, as parents in a home too large for three, never mind for two, in a town too expensive with no other children of our own matriculating in our excellent public schools, we can have a conversation about down-sizing. Meanwhile, I so look forward to parent’s weekend.
Immigration has been front and center of the news cycle as of late; not a lot of it very positive. Interestingly, contemporary migration has been going on for almost two decades particularly since the U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Iraq followed by the Arab Spring and the Syrian ‘Civil War’ (kind of an oxymoron) as well as the proxy war in Yemen having displaced hundreds of thousands of people. Global media have documented this migration of refugees to the European continent as a whole, but disproportionately to several countries as illustrated below.
To be sure there is significant migrant/refugee resettlement within the Middle East, too, but like Europe it is not uniform. (1)In 2015, among some of the Persian Gulf states, migrants make up an overwhelming majority of national populations in United Arab Emirates (88%), Qatar (75%) and Kuwait (74%). Most of these migrants are non-displaced, international migrants. The migrant share of the population is smaller but still substantial in countries like Jordan (41%), Syria (40%) and Lebanon (34%), with most being displaced migrants, of whom some were born in these countries and others have crossed international borders as refugees or asylum seekers.
It’s instructive to make a distinction between migrant and refugee. (2)What is a migrant? The simplest definition is a person who moves, either to another country or within their own. This blog post combines international migrants and people forcibly displaced from their homes but remaining in their country of birth to estimate the size of the total migrant population. (Internal migrants moving within their countries for reasons other than conflict – jobs, family and education – are not included because reliable data for this group does not exist.) This approach provides a comprehensive view of the intensity of movement occurring in the region.
(3)Often, people cross international borders when migrating. Many of these international migrants move for job opportunities, to join family or to study. They are not forcibly displaced from their homelands, but voluntarily leave one country to live in another. However, some international migrants move to another country to escape violence or persecution. These forcibly displaced persons (refugees and asylum seekers) also cross international borders. They are considered both displaced and international migrants. This is very similar to what is happening now along the U.S. southern border.
(4)People also move inside their country’s borders when fleeing conflict. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees estimates the number of people who are internally displaced within their countries due to armed conflict, persecution, violations of human rights or natural disasters. This is an important group to include when looking at recent global immigration for the reason(s) articulated above.
Historically, migration seems to be an inherent part of the human condition. (5)The human (homo sapien) has been around for about 200-thousand years. From our ancestor’s earliest beginnings in south-eastern Africa humans have migrated in a global diaspora. Here’s a timeline look at how this unfolded.
Fast forward to the Renaissance, Europe and Marco Polo’s expeditions east and those of the Norse and Spanish (Columbus, although Italian was financed by Spain) exploring to the west; behold – the new continents of North and South America. Since the discovery of North America this land mass was to be fought over by the British, Dutch, French and Spanish; the British ultimately won the battle, but lost what is now known as the Revolutionary War leading to the establishment of the United States. It’s ironic that conflict, too, seems to be an inherent part of the human condition. While as humans we biologically have more similarities than differences, it seems that the latter, whether these seeds of discontent are grounded in the seven deadly sins (pride, greed, lust, envy, gluttony, wrath or sloth; add in real estate and religion for good measure) migration has caused discord for millennia.
The issues faced by the United States along its southern border are rooted in the generally positive way the country is viewed from the outside, coupled with unfavorable conditions in other countries. It should be acknowledged that except for Native American Indians (including Eskimos) every single person living in the United States is the ancestral progeny of immigrants. (6)The Pilgrims were essentially refugees, fleeing persecution as a Puritan religious cult. There existed a xenophobia when my Italian grandparents came to the U.S. over 100 years ago. The same social circumstance existed for any number of immigrant foreign nationals coming to America near the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. During this time the American economy was transitioning from it’s agrarian roots to one of manufacturing. Labor force skills demanded little more than a strong back and a willingness to work hard and long regardless of age. Demand existed for this type of labor, a far cry from the technological and/or trade-oriented skill set required in today’s economy. The ‘Golden Door’ opened by the words of Emma Lazarus on the Statue of Liberty in 1883 while inspirational, is not closed, but open more narrowly, letting in those with a workforce skill set more aligned with the needs of America in the 21st century. And, currently, though being challenged legally, even more narrow for certain ethnicities and religions.
For readers wanting to gain some additional insight into the one generation removed immigrant genius character (think Steve Jobs [Apple], Sergy Brin [Google], etc.) you’ll enjoy this podcast from Bloomberg Radio’s Barry Ritholtz. He interviews former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell. Truly non-partisan, his perspective is illuminating. While the interview is extremely engaging much of the immigrant discussion may be found toward the last quarter or so.
This author does empathize with the frustration of those who express annoyance at having to press 1 for English when calling a U.S. company’s customer service number within the U.S. The ability to communicate in one of two (French or English) languages is a prerequisite for Canadian citizenship; (8)English is a prerequisite for Australian citizenship (no mention of a propensity for Foster’s lager), (9)same for New Zealand.
(10)One of the basic tenants of a sovereign nation is the ability to control access through its borders and ports of entry. The Heritage Foundation has provided a thoughtful analysis of the complex immigration issues that require all three branches of the federal and state governments to address. Here’s a link to the report:
Unfortunately, the current lack of bi-partisanship and political polarization makes this cooperative effort unrealistic. There is also a case to be made that the issue of both legal and illegal immigration to the U.S. is a function of this same political dysfunction. (11)Inconsistent application of enforcement standards exist at federal and state levels.
While this writer remains truly politically agnostic I have long reflected in my professional and personal life on the axiom “Although I have the right to do it (the ‘it’ is open-ended) doing it may simply not be right.” This speaks directly to the separation of children from their parents from those families illegally and in some cases legally crossing the U.S. southern border. The political paralysis in the U.S. has led to a judicial system that is short on immigration judges, lacking in adequate immigrant housing facilities while being processed and the will to address an issue that no longer insulates America because of large bodies of water. The answers lie with those elected officials who job it is to represent each of us, to work together to solve problems, to understand that decision-making can be strong while having empathy for those who are effected by those decisions and most importantly, understand that our immigration issues are a symptom. The cause lies with other sovereign nations whose social, economic and political infrastructure fail to provide a safe and prosperous way of life for their citizens. Until that changes the diaspora will continue.
As I write this blog it’s graduation season. In a few short weeks proms will be over and an estimated (1)3-million high school graduates will begin the next chapter of their post-secondary school education lives. If you’re curious about where these high school graduates come from and other demographic and statistical data here’s a link to some helpful information: https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2009/2009062.pdf
Despite the second, third and fourth marriages I hear about, there is some truth to the adage that as one ages there’s a realization that learning is a life-long process. However, this is not necessarily a salient fact to an 18-year-old. There are a lot of thoughts going through one’s mind at this age. For many, college looms, fraught with both excitement and uncertainty; untethered from home and independent. For others, it’s a job or training for one of any number of skills that do not necessarily require a four-year (or more) degree.
If it’s the former and the student is from a reasonably competitive public or private school, this past year has been populated with, among other things, the rigors of AP courses and tests, selecting one’s schools of choice, the anxiousness of acceptance (or not) and for many parents the costs associated with continuing a child’s formal education.
Early in the fall we as parents may have attended one or more seminars on college financial aid. These forums likely included the financial aid forms that are required and when each had to be submitted. These are the FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid) and the CSS (Financial Aid Profile). While the former is used for student loans obtained with a federal government guarantee, the latter is used by many colleges and universities to also assess need-based financial aid. Make too much dough and you’re out of luck!
It’s at this point that many parents, including this writer, ask “Why does college cost so much?” Is there a relationship to inflation? Not likely. The following graph illustrates the historically low level of inflation based on the CPI. It’s important to note that this measure of inflation does not include food or energy because of the volatility associated with these costs. However, those of us who pay for the food and energy we use know that this exclusion is a fallacy; one that has a direct impact on our household budgets.
One of the factors used by some researchers to validate the ‘value’ (not cost) of a four-year degree is the earning power afforded the college graduate over a lifetime of work versus, by comparison, the high school graduate without a four-year degree. This is illustrated in the (2)graph below.
The calculus here suggests that at age 52, both lines start a downward trajectory. I’m sure that those in this group that have been ‘laid off’ for a variety of reasons can relate directly to this income reduction. Ironically, for many, this is about the age that one’s child(ren) begin college.
Getting back to the ‘cost’ factors of this higher education function that seem to give many parents a hollow feeling in the pit of one’s stomach and likely their investment portfolio, too, what is it that’s driving the cost increases illustrated in the following (3)graph?
Bear in mind that this illustration is tuition-only specific. Add in room, board, fees, etc. and the cost factor can easily increase by a factor of 1.75!
There’s a lot to be said for being a saver and/or having other financial resources from which to draw (i.e. generous family, athletic, academic or myriad alternative scholarships, etc.). Nevertheless, the financial commitment is daunting. But, it’s hard to save, right? There’s a reason for that. Can you believe it’s been nearly ten years since the end of the Great Recession? That’s March of 2009. (4)Yet, nearly half of American households, 49%, still live paycheck to paycheck. (5)Let’s look at the increasing costs of key major line items in a household budget and compare these increases to the climbing cost of college.
Hospital services is the only cost in a household budget that exceeds the cost of college and related expenses. (6)Since the Great Recession housing values for some areas of the country remain sluggish – real estate is local – and (7)wage growth, a function of productivity and necessary to cover these expenses above and more has been flat. Framed in this manner it’s easy to see why saving for college is a difficult task for many families.
(8)There is a skills gap that exists in the U.S. and it’s causing a lot of concern among businesses and government policy makers. The question to be answered is whether filling this gap requires a college degree. And, if so, is it worth it? I submit that the answer can be found on the type of skills gap one is seeking to fill. TV personality Mike Rowe provides an interesting narrative in this regard and the value of the type of skills one possesses or needs to learn. Simply click on the link for this enlightening video.
It is rare today that when a student graduates college it’s done so debt free. (9)In fact, both the total amount of debt outstanding and the student loan debt delinquency rates are increasing, with nearly a quarter of millennials holding this debt anticipating some level of forgiveness. Seemingly, hope springs eternal.
(10) Student loan debt is now the second highest consumer debt category – behind only mortgage debt – and higher than both credit cards and auto loans. When I look at this graph I cannot avoid thinking about the similarities to the mortgage debt crisis that precipitated the Great Recession.
Beginning one’s professional life deeply in debt with annual net (take home) compensation that’s less than $30K annually sets limits on what can realistically be done. This extends to purchasing food – what, where and when to eat, renting or purchasing a home, leasing or purchasing a car, when and where to take a vacation and other intrinsic quality of life factors.
Candidly, the reasons behind the increasing costs associated with college are not much different than what many of us have encountered locally. Towns and cities increase taxes to pay for municipal and/or school budgets. States, too, face a similar set of circumstances. The key is to understand the cause-effect nature of the dramatic college cost increases.
(11)Today’s students demand and expect much more in terms of services outside of the classroom. These expectations are wide-ranging and include amenities in living space (i.e. air conditioning, kitchens, privacy, etc.) recreation, open space, environmental sustainability and more. Schools that have a significant research commitment spend more in this area. Coupled with increasing costs of healthcare, pensions and other contractually-obligated line items associated with employees and cuts in outside (state and federal) funding, plus the costs supporting a school’s physical plant . . . well, one can draw an apt conclusion for why these college costs keep increasing.
I spent six years (four active, two reserve) in the USAF after college in the late 1970’s. Altruism for wanting to serve aside, I also had, for its time, a significant amount of student debt associated with my undergraduate degree from an expensive private college in Boston. The military allowed me to first, defer payment for three years and second, the Air Force paid for my graduate school. College was a tremendously formative experience for me and it was worth every dollar invested. However, this isn’t the case for every high school graduate. Decisions confer outcomes and this important decision is one that’s very personal.
I wish my child well as she embarks on her college journey. She is among the fortunate. Her post-university debt will be minimal to non-existent. I hope she finds her course of study as rewarding and transformative as I found mine. Equally as important is her appreciation of the very expensive gift of knowledge to launch her professional life; it’s a gift from her parents and family, some now gone, who love(d) her very much. Congratulations to all our graduates!
