Who Will Tell Us the Truth?

When a large number of people are convinced that certain incorrect facts are true, it is not in the interest of politicians or advertisers to try to talk them out of it. If many people thought the sky was green, Congress would likely pass a resolution praising the greenness of the sky in an effort to garner support. 

When the food industry learns that many people believe that gluten has negative effects, they begin printing labels touting the lack of gluten in their products or take the gluten out while raising the price. They will reinforce errors for votes or sales with no interest in education, while the myths are spread and supported by the news media and social media contacts.

I have written many times before about misunderstandings around the health benefits of dietary supplements, the dangers of GMOs and an irrational fear of everything from power lines to nuclear power plants. All these misconceptions have a cult-like following. 

Likewise, as crime statistics continue to improve, the news media’s search for more and more isolated incidents to report with breathless anxiety leads people to the opposite conclusion. Fear sells. (This is very apparent from the coverage of the coronavirus where they search out and report as typical, anecdotal examples of flaws in the system then ask the President what he is doing to quell the anxiety and comfort the fearful.)

Now here are a few more examples where commonly held beliefs are inconsistent with the facts. 

The first is a campaign trail mantra: the rich are getting richer while the poor get poorer. This is clearly not the case. Income is tracked in quintiles, five groupings from lowest to highest. Between 1979 and 2015, real income for all quintiles has increased. 

The Congressional Budget Office reported that, adjusted for inflation, taxes, welfare payments and Social Security, the income of the bottom 1/5 rose by 79%, while the top 1/5 rose by 103% and the middle 3/5 by 46%. There may be more inequality, but the poor are not getting poorer. Furthermore, research shows that the population in each of those segments is less stable than most believe. Individuals freely move up and down, so some of the formerly poor are much better off.

The second case has led to draconian laws in every state ruining the lives of individuals and their families, sometimes with threats of violence and death from incensed vigilantes. Laws require every sex offender to be named on the same registry regardless of the seriousness of their offense. 

The idea is to protect the public, especially children, from these monsters who are likely to strike again without notice. But reliable research shows that people who commit sex crimes are very unlikely to repeat. And a study in New York showed that 95% of those arrested were first offenders – who would not have been on a registry in the first place. 

Finally, is vaping is as bad as smoking? Johns Hopkins says that it’s less harmful than smoking but not completely safe. Most cases of lung injury (EVALI) “appear to predominantly affect people who modify their vaping devices or use black market modified e-liquids.”

The CDC opinion is that “E-cigarettes have the potential to benefit adult smokers who are not pregnant if used as a complete substitute for regular cigarettes....”

The majority of cases of EVALI are strongly associated with Vitamin E acetate added to THC. Vitamin E acetate has not been found in the lung fluid of people that do not have EVALI. 

 Although it’s not legal to sell e-cigarettes to minors since August 2016, and the federal government has just banned flavored e-cigarettes to try to discourage kids from getting hooked, kids have always been able to get cigarettes. Despite new laws, the country is stressing over a teen vaping epidemic. The result of these bans will likely increase EVALI cases as adults and kids that still want the flavors will be shopping on the black market where the real danger comes from. Meanwhile, everyone feels virtuous about leading the fight against another vice and protecting our kids.

It is so easy for people to get extremely upset about invisible threats, e.g., diseases and radiation or threats to our children like abductions or school shootings or rape culture on campus or differences that play to our sense of social justice. When this kind of artificial hysteria takes hold, no one stops to ask: what is the real danger; where did they get the numbers; who conducted the study; was there a study at all or did someone make it up to support their own agenda, job security or beliefs? 

The government reacts with stupid, purely symbolic actions like banning plastic straws. Advertisers print labels or adjust products to meet a demand generated by information with no scientific backing. Myths and misinformation distract from solving real problems. All for lack of critical thinking.

Flashback – Behavior has Consequences

[Over 8 years ago I explained the objective of this site: to get people to look at their own behavior and that of others in light of the five key dimensions. A criticism of behavior is not a personal attack. The national mood of tolerance and acceptance, however sees every criticism as negative. This former attitude is considered caring; confrontation is judgmental. In reality, the former can be more a sign of cowardice, while the latter shows a commitment to living up to higher standards. Under many circumstances, acceptance perpetuates errors, while caring correction of errors promotes success. Here is the original from 2011.]

As I reconsider my main topic, that behavior has consequences, I ask myself how anyone could disagree. Hasn’t this been the message since our youth from parents and teachers, hard work will be rewarded and laxness penalized? The ancient wisdom of the Yoga Sutra states in part that the consequences of an action will be either painful or beneficial (2.14) and that results of actions will be either immediate or delayed (3.22).

It seems that the opposite viewpoint would be very fatalistic, that no matter what you do, say or decide, your fate is sealed.  You are not rich or famous or popular or successful or happy because you were not destined to be.  It’s not what you do or say that makes a difference, it’s what other people decide. That is giving up, not taking responsibility.

True, some Americans rely on prayer to assist in their decisions, but they typically pray for help to make a good decision or to be successful in their actions. Talking to God helps them sort things out, may help put things into perspective, remind them of options, or help them find the courage to cope when things go wrong.  When something is out of control they put it in the hands of God, but not until after they have done everything they can think of. Ultimately, whatever action they take or decide not to take will determine their outcomes.

To follow what I am presenting each week requires acceptance of this basic belief that what we do matters. Bad things do happen to good people and good things to bad people. This tends to challenge our faith. On the other hand, good things happen to good people and bad things to bad people, but without the apparent irony this fact gets little attention. In general, better decisions result in better outcomes. Luck does enter into it, but there is truth in the saying that you make your own luck.

That’s why I am adamant about the information presented here. I continue to see examples of opportunities for better decisions, and hence better outcomes, in the key dimensions. I also see examples of influential people who really do believe that a sizable proportion of the population is at the mercy of forces beyond their control. To overcome this is a double challenge: taking control of our lives away from those (self-righteous) helpers while simultaneously making better decisions in face of the challenges presented by an increasingly technological society.

Whenever people ask the question “What’s wrong with America today?” my simple answer is this:  Our behavior is not consistently strong enough in the areas of Discipline, Responsibility, Economic Understanding, Critical Thinking and Perspective to deserve better outcomes. I see evidence everyday and share it with you twice a week with the hope that more and more people will begin to find behavioral solutions to our societal problems.

Don’t Be a Sucker

Last week I received an email where the subject line included the words “immune system.” There was something in the message about clicking on a link to unsubscribe. It was obviously either a promotion for a fake product or a phishing attempt. In any case, I sent it to the spam folder without opening it. 

Even if there were no link attached, it would have suffered the same fate. Anytime you see words like “boosting your immune system” or “promotes healing,” put your hand over your wallet and run away! It’s surprising how many people still don’t get it.

Marketing of these products has ramped up as the threat of the coronavirus pandemic hit the US. In fact according to this website, the airwaves and Internet are already overrun with bogus products and fake cures. “The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) have sent warning letters to seven companies allegedly selling unapproved products that may violate federal law by making deceptive or scientifically unsupported claims about their ability to treat coronavirus (COVID-19).” 

These companies and others are pushing products, running the gamut from teas to essential oils to colloidal silver and other supplements, as being able to treat or prevent the disease. By law all such substances must state in their advertisements that they have not been evaluated by the FDA and are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. Most do, but some, like the ones in the article, get into trouble when they fail to comply. 

In any case, there are not yet any treatments for coronavirus nor is there a vaccine to prevent it. Even without the disclaimer, it should be clear that these are scams. Here, for example, is what Mayo Clinic says about colloidal silver. “Colloidal silver isn't considered safe or effective for any of the health claims manufacturers make.” It doesn’t work for coronavirus or any other condition and may be harmful.

It takes almost no effort for critical thinkers to find flaws with the products and supposed health services listed. The truth should be common knowledge by now. (See any of my many previous entries debunking the benefits of dietary supplements, starting here.) References in the above article to a “naturopathic doctor” or to renegade chiropractors falsely claiming some power against the virus should raise red flags. 

But instead panic buying of supplements, or what this site refers to as “immune products,” in the wake of the coronavirus scare is leading to supply shortages and higher prices.

The expression “There’s a sucker born every minute” is often attributed to P.T. Barnum, but there is no evidence that he ever said it. It may have been said by any number of other people and is commonly heard and understood in the 21^st century.

I have no respect for these companies pushing fake remedies. They all should be sent to the spam mailbox. The ones that fail to post the disclaimer deserve their problems with the government. The ones that post the disclaimer but still imply some medicinal power for their products are no better than modern day snake-oil salesmen looking for the next sucker. Those who still believe in what NPR calls the Vitamin C myth or rely on other supplements, essential oils, reiki or other alternative medicine for their health needs may as well be handing their money to a witchdoctor for all the good it will do them.

Wise up. Don’t be a sucker.

Added Note: It is helpful to remember we are all in this together, except apparently for the news media, doing all they can to highlight the negative aspects of the disease and the efforts to combat it to promote fear and anxiety.

Flashback – Freedom and Responsibility

[What results from a lack of responsibility is often deceptive. No one gets hurt, and any important job usually gets done. When an individual fails to take care of it, someone else takes up the slack by doing it for them. The so-called helicopter parents fit into this category. But what happens when this behavior occurs on a societal level? – The helicopter government steps in with programs and regulations, and we give up our freedom one step at a time. It's true both for citizens and for corporations.

I reminded everyone of this consequence back in July 2011.]

Some think the opposite of freedom is slavery or perhaps living under a dictatorship, but in our society the opposite of freedom is the benevolent authoritarianism of warnings and legal restrictions resulting from our failures in the dimension of responsibility.

We are told that we are all victims of the economy, of our high-stress jobs, and of our non-stop lifestyles. The word is used in ads everyday, one even asking me if I am the victim of hair loss. We are presumably victims of big oil when gasoline prices rise, of big drug companies, or of big insurance companies when they raise their rates or dispute our claims. 

Especially in legal cases involving civil suits, attorneys first persuade prospective clients that they are victims (you’ve seen the ads on TV) then persuade juries that their clients are victims and someone should pay. In those same TV ads you often hear the word settlement, because the targets of these lawsuits fear that juries will buy into this point of view. It's cheaper to settle out of court, because those juries, from a basic lack of economic understanding, assume that a big corporation or insurance company will pay the cost out of their own pocket and it will never get back to us.

Claiming victimhood is an easy answer. It takes no effort. What went wrong is someone else’s fault; we are not to blame; we share none of the responsibility. It’s a passive stance. I don’t have a high-paying job, not because I didn’t bother to finish high school, but because I am being discriminated against. I got lung cancer not because I refused to quit smoking, but because the tobacco companies tricked me. My kids have too many toys not because I bought them, but because of the cartoons on the TV. The banks fooled me into getting a mortgage I couldn’t afford. When I have a sore knee, I ask the doctor for a pill or for surgery rather than losing some weight. I get to put all my problems in someone else’s hands. Responsible people don’t act like this, but victims do.

When we feel and act this way, we need to be protected. That’s when the warnings and regulations begin. Since these people can’t take care of themselves, we must require warnings on cigarette packages, on ladders, on hairdryers, and on almost every other product, telling them not to use them in ways that may seem stupid to the average person. When we sign up our kids to play sports, we must sign “hold harmless” forms. All the warnings don’t stop the lawsuits, so next come the regulations: all playgrounds must provide soft landings, all car trunks need an escape handle, all lawnmowers must have an automatic shutdown device, etc. Some cities ban the sale of certain foods or of fast food in certain neighborhoods. Victims are treated like children and must be protected from the real world and from themselves.

Where does it all end? The old analogy of boiling a frog applies. Throw a frog into boiling water and he jumps back out. Put him into a pot and slowly increase the temperature and he sits complacently until it’s too late. Likewise, when we don’t behave responsibly, our freedoms slowly trickle away.  Each of those efforts seems well-meaning and harmless at the time, but each is another example of someone restricting our choices for their interpretation of our own good. Each restriction is a loss of freedom, the consequence of patterns of behavior that show weaknesses in the dimension of responsibility.

Coronavirus Fears

The fears, more so than the virus, are leading people to do strange things. The toilet paper and bottled water hoarding is just one example. I stopped by the grocery store today and it was packed at 1:30 in the afternoon. Schools announced they would shut down for 2 weeks to disinfect, and apparently what you do when the schools are closed to keep the kids from infecting each other is take them to a crowded grocery store instead.

And what the schools are disinfecting is a mystery, since there have been no reported cases of coronavirus (COVID-19) in this or any of the surrounding counties. But I guess the schools will be as germ-free as they have ever been.

I don’t think the Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health, Dr. Anthony Fauci, is doing anyone any favors. He is undoubtedly very knowledgeable on the subject, but his bedside manner leaves something to be desired. With the country in a panic he told Congress, “things will get worse than they are right now. ”

That is the direct truth, perhaps a little too direct. It is understandable from a purely clinical point of view that diseases spread, especially in a population without immunity, but words like that don’t do anything to get people to calm down. They have the opposite effect (to the great delight of the news media). 

So here is another way to think about it. America is very likely better at dealing with such a problem than China. The first case in China was traced to November 17 of last year.

By February 29, we were seeing headlines like this from NPR: “As New Coronavirus Cases Slow In China, Factories Start Reopening.” They were still having some economic problems, but the future seemed brighter.

By March 12 Reuters was reporting: “The Chinese city of Wuhan, ground zero of the coronavirus outbreak, reported just five new cases on Friday, the second day in a row the tally has been less than 10, while no locally transmitted infections were reported in the rest of the country.” Less than four months after the initial outbreak they seemed to be getting a handle on the problem.

That should be encouraging for the rest of us. Though it will likely get worse as Dr. Fauci stated, the first case of coronavirus was already detected in the US just about two months ago. “On January 19, 2020, a 35-year-old man presented to an urgent care clinic in Snohomish County, Washington, with a 4-day history of cough and subjective fever.”

Now extrapolation can be a little dangerous, and no one can guarantee that we will be out of the woods less than two months from now. But judging from progression of the disease in China and subsequently in Italy, it seems like a decent assumption. Whether it is or not remains to be seen, but taking that point of view is certainly more comforting (and realistic) than listening to the evening news and then hauling the kids off to the store to buy more toilet paper. 

Flashback – Job Creation Basics

[Every two or four years we hear tales from federal and state candidates about who has or who is going to create the most jobs. In reality the only jobs governments create are government jobs. The best any government can do is to minimize regulations that stifle job creation and not try to micromanage the job market. 

I wrote a reminder of this in August 2011 when the job market was just recovering.]

There has been a lot of talk about jobs in the past two or three years, but I think it requires strong economic understanding and critical thinking to draw accurate conclusions.

Jobs are not created; they are purchased. You don’t work for the boss; you work for the customer. Conversely, jobs don’t go away, customers go away. My experience is that many bosses don’t understand this important concept and fail to pass it along to their workers. When a company is growing or downsizing, it is usually based on matching the number of jobs to the needs of their customers.  (Sometimes, though, they economize by passing along their work to their customers, think self-service check-outs and those irritating phone menus).

When we work at jobs, making goods or delivering services, there must be a market for those goods and services. People should say to themselves, ”Wow, this is better and cheaper than the other comparable alternatives. I’m glad I made that particular purchase.” Everyone in the organization, whether it be a single proprietor or a global corporation, is working together to make that sale successful. Then customers continue to buy and more customers arrive. By buying more products or services, they essentially create more jobs. This is the motivation for a company to focus on customer satisfaction.

When a governor decides to “create green jobs” by mandating that a portion of electricity be generated by renewable sources (wind, solar), who purchases these jobs? Since they are created, they must be additional to jobs that already existed and the additional wages for these additional jobs must come from somewhere. Because there is no magic money tree, utility customers pay more. These jobs are created not because there are voluntary customers; instead the customers are forced to buy these new jobs with money they would have spent on other things (i.e., other jobs). Then we are paying more to support a wind farm that no one asked for, with a much bigger ecological footprint than conventional generation, that requires a back-up system anyway because it is only 35% efficient as the wind blows only part of the time and more at night, when less electricity is consumed. It doesn’t improve customer satisfaction or attract new customers. It merely creates jobs by displacing other jobs.

When we hear of jobs being created, we must be very wary. GM, GE, General Mills, and Geico don’t create jobs. When they have something we want, we, as customers, create those jobs voluntarily by our buying decisions, not because of new laws or regulations, but because we believe the output of those jobs makes our lives better.

Thoughts about words

An activist is any person with a platform who makes it a habit to be offended and then to seek revenge on behalf of another person. This has more impact on society than those who act offended on behalf of another just to do some virtue signaling. In the latter case, it’s a matter of showing off for friends and family. In the former, it’s trying to use one's influence or celebrity to get the offender fired, chastised or cancelled in some other way. 

An example comes from the TV show America’s Got Talent. Gabriel Union, a judge at the time, along with the host “were upset with how...offensive issues were not addressed, including reports of an offensive joke made when [Jay] Leno made a guest appearance on the show.” One of his jokes referred to serving dog meat at a Korean restaurant. “She demanded that Leno be reported and wanted to increase the ratio of Asian staffers working there."

Having never seen her (or heard of her), I wondered what part of Korea she came from that she was so offended. Wikipedia lists her as American, born in Omaha. But it also lists her as an activist, which explains the outrage. You can’t maintain activist credentials unless you are prepared to seek out and try to remedy every possible case of apparent injustice. What used to be considered humor, perhaps in bad taste, is now cause for condemnation and reparations. Any ill-advised wise crack can brand you as a racist – apology expected, but it won’t do you any good, as a vocal minority demand that you be fired anyway.

Notice how these activists are all so well off that they have the luxury of indulging in this hobby – a kind of self-righteous bullying.

On another subject, notice how in the first paragraph I used “impact” as a noun. Notice also in day-to-day life how often people use impact as a verb. In the weather report the cold front will impact the temperatures or the snow will impact driving conditions. In sports the number of players on injured reserve impacted the performance of the team. In health news: “CMV impacts Newborns.” In an insurance notice: “This change does not impact any benefits.”

I have a theory of why every situation seems to be impacted (as if they were all wisdom teeth). The confusion in usage between the words effect and affect is often listed among the most common errors in English. So people have found an easy solution to the problem by avoiding them not only in writing, but also speaking. The snow may affect something – or will it effect something? – Who cares, just say impact. It sounds more forceful anyway.

Finally, what is an artist? An artist is anyone who calls himself an artist. Duct tape a banana to a wall and you are an artist. Take the banana down and eat it and you are also an artist. When something is so subjective as art, visual or performance, does the word really have any meaning anymore?

Perhaps it means that any time we make a mistake or violate a norm, we can claim as a defense that we are artists practicing our art. Tell your questionable joke and when people object, just say it was art. You were only trying, through irony, to elicit a teachable moment and to positively impact society. 

Coronavirus Benefits (?)

I thought perhaps one of the few possible benefits of this coronavirus (COVID-19) scare is that people would begin washing their hands more often. Apparently I was wrong. Instead people are hoarding hand sanitizers, leading to price gouging on the Internet and bare shelves at brick-and-mortar locations. Time reports: “Sales of hand sanitizers in the U.S. were up 73% in the four weeks ending Feb. 22 compared to the same period a year ago.”

Further along in this and several other articles we are reminded that washing with soap and water is superior. “If you’re not near a sink, hand sanitizer will do. But keep in mind that it doesn’t kill all germs, the CDC says.”

I reminded readers about this last fall in a piece about how the media insists on presenting old news as the latest discovery. Here is an excerpt from that entry.

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Here is an example of well-known information being presented as a new revelation: a study hitting the Internet and the airways recently revealed that “Washing your hands under running water may be a better way to stop the spread of infections than using a hand sanitizer.” The hand sanitizer can be nearly as effective as washing hands for removing flu viruses, provided both are done properly. It just takes longer.

In laboratory experiments “it took about 30 seconds for the sanitizer to eliminate all the flu virus in the saline samples, but more than 4 minutes for the sanitizer to get rid of flu in the mucus samples.” From the lab tests they moved to a more real-life situation by putting mucus directly on people’s fingertips. When it was given time to dry (for 40 minutes), the hand sanitizer killed the flu virus within 30 seconds. But in a more realistic situation where the mucus was still moist, it took about 4 minutes of rubbing for the flu virus to be completely eliminated.

Proper hand washing removed traces of the virus in both cases in about 30 seconds, whether the participants used soap or not. The benefit is not from the soap, but from the rubbing under running water. 

No one is likely to rub the hand sanitizer for 4 minutes or alternatively to let their hands dry after sneezing for 40 minutes, but neither do many people spend half a minute scrubbing under running water. When a sink is not available the alcohol is a good option. 

That’s what we know today, but we had substantially the same information 10 years ago. From Live Science in October 2009: “Hand washing with ordinary soap and water is the most effective way to remove germs. But when you're on the go, alcohol-based hand sanitizers are tremendously effective in preventing the spread of the seasonal flu.” They gave 20 seconds for washing and 15 for the sanitizer, so the latest study just worked a little on the details. It wasn’t really news.

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Relative to the recent hoarding, CBS News made a good point a few years ago when they asked: “Does hand sanitizer give people a false sense of security?”

Furthermore, earlier this year Fox Business reported that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) sent a warning letter to Purell about claims on their website pages and social media platforms, claims that were either totally erroneous or not supported by evidence.

Others fear that germs accumulating on bar soap negates the benefits or washing and believe that antibacterial soap is the better choice. Both these assumptions are faulty as I explained in “Thinking About Soap” in September 2016.

The question remains: Will Americans use the latest coronavirus outbreak as an opportunity to learn and grow, taking rational precautions and not flying into a panic, or will they continue to react to each intentionally scary news story as if the world is ending? Time will tell.

Why Aren’t We Insulted?

When companies and politicians treat us like compete idiots or pander to us by latching on to the latest trends, I think we should be insulted. We are being manipulated, but continue to respond predictably. The latest example that caught my attention was the CNN headline: “Colgate toothpaste goes vegan, organic and all-natural.” Using words like vegan, natural, organic and sustainable are sure to draw in customers, because they are supposedly synonymous with healthy and conscientious. The lemmings fall in line.

CNN continues that the new products “appear to be aimed at the same younger, more health- and eco-conscious crowd that buys from niche, smaller competitors like Tom's of Maine and Dr. Bronner's,” as part of a rebellion against artificial ingredients, a trend that Colgate-Palmolive believes “is making its way to non-food products as well.”

But not so fast! The Only Buy Vegan website objects to using toothpaste that may be vegan in name, but is not also “cruelty-free.” They provide a list of products that meet their criteria, including Tom’s as listed above. But Tom’s is owned by Colgate-Palmolive, which the Vegan Rabbit warns is not a cruelty-free company, because they do animal testing; and you shouldn't contribute to a company like that!

The vegan toothpastes are also “free from all the bad chemicals such as fluoride, SLS, parabens and gluten” and they warn us that regular toothpastes are poison. It’s true, warnings on the package tell us to keep it out of the reach of children and not to swallow more than the amount used for brushing. This is puzzling because fluoride is good for teeth, it’s in city drinking water, and reasonable people don’t swallow toothpaste. Of this list of scary ingredients, only fluoride was listed on my tube of Colgate; and since I don't eat toothpaste, I not worried about being poisoned.

This dental website is reassuring about those supposed dangers. “The benefits of a fluoride additive far outweigh the risks” and “just use 1/3 as much [as they show on the TV ads], the size of a pea.”

However, those vegan websites make it clear that it’s not totally about what people ingest (or brush with). It’s also about animal testing. I suppose that’s fine, but is testing necessarily cruel and is a blanket opposition to all animal testing an informed stance?

As a veterinary science professor once told me, “People who oppose animal research should consider how many of their friends and family could have suffered horrible deaths were it not for cures developed through animal testing.” The Foundation for Biomedical Research points out, “Nobel-winning animal research happens practically every year. In fact, of the 216 award recipients in the Physiology or Medicine category, 180 used animal models in their research.” 

This has led to many important breakthroughs. “Through the development of vaccines and other medical procedures, animal studies have accomplished amazing things, extending and improving the lives of both humans and animals.” The National Association for Biomedical Research details how it has led to significant progress in fighting the five leading causes of death in the world.

Anyone who wants an all-natural, organic, gluten-free solution, need look no farther than the kitchen cabinet. According to WebMD, “That box of baking soda…can do some major things” including holding off tooth decay by using it to brush your teeth and keeping your gums healthy. “A half-teaspoon of baking soda mixed in a glass of water can also freshen your breath.” It’s a traditional solution.

Problem solved, without undue expense. It may even be kind to animals, but be sure to pick the right brand. PETA says  Arm & Hammer is a no-no. 

As long as there are fads and trends, the advertisers and politicians will continue to use their magic words to get us to buy their product or their message before critical thinking has time to kick in. It’s so much easier to live that way, continue to be manipulated and follow the crowd.