Is California Insane?

We are all familiar with the stories of the California governor ignoring his own Covid-19 rules to dine at an exclusive upscale restaurant with friends and supporters and of the LA County Supervisor who dined outdoors at her favorite restaurant hours after voting to ban such activity as too dangerous but before the ban took effect. They go out and party, then lock down the people who elected them.

 

That’s just simple hypocrisy. That happens across the nation, although California does seem to have a talent for electing some real nutcases to various levels of government. 

 

We almost expect that kind of hypocrisy from any politician, most of whom are elected on the basis of their charm, good looks or name recognition rather than their ethics and intelligence. But that’s not why California stands out. Here are just two of many examples.

 

The Glock Company manufactures and sells guns. On their site they list the GLOCK 19, a 9 mm Luger. It’s a handgun with a magazine capacity of 15 to 33 rounds. It’s not unlike side arms carried by police. The site carries a warning, only one warning, and it has nothing to do with gun safety. It reads: “This Product can expose you to chemicals including lead [in the bullets?], which is known to the State of California to cause cancer and birth defects or other productive harm.” 

The sun can also cause skin cancer. Will they soon require that all doors that lead outside carry a similar warning? The danger of catching cancer from a gun falls far behind other, more immediate dangers.

 

Last August an estimated 3.3 million in California were “Facing [the] Largest Power Outages In Its History … Amid Record Heatwave.” On October 23 the news came:  “Due to extreme fire risk the utility is shutting off 466,000 customers between Sunday and Tuesday.” Then on December 5 the news read: “As parts of California rev up for another round of potentially fire-fueling gusty winds, Pacific Gas and Electric is warning 130,000 customers across 15 counties that they could lose power starting early Monday morning.”

 

Disregard the fact that many experts believe California added to the wildfire problem with poor forestry management. Just think about those stories in light of this headline from last September, “California Governor Signs Order Banning Sales Of New Gasoline Cars By 2035.” 

Picture hundreds of thousands of citizens stuck at home on a regular basis without electricity to charge their cars (or their phones). It’s just one more good idea – unless you can see the unintended consequences. California citizens can sit at home in the dark and applaud their governor for saving the planet. 

 

The antics of California would be funny if they weren’t completely crazy, and if the rest of the country weren’t slowly drifting in the same direction.

Flashback – The Blame Game

Many Americans stumble through life following rules of thumb they heard somewhere while making no attempt to verify their effectiveness: drink 8 glasses of water a day; avoid eating fat; wolf down Vitamin C for a cold; shun fast food, etc. They take the same attitude toward so many myths: fear GMOs and food additives; fear nuclear power; fear fluoridation of drinking water; fear vaccines; worry about (extremely rare) school shootings and child abduction and more. When anything goes wrong they look for someone else to blame and to the government to fix it. Many legislators understand and relish their role as savior, which allows this lack of responsibility to continue.

 

Here from almost 7 years ago are my comments on this tendency to blame and depend on others to help.

[I just finished reading a book called Scapegoat:  A History of Blaming Other People. In it the author tells how, back as far as the Garden of Eden, we have been finding others to blame for our problems and shortcomings. We have blamed foreigners, other religions, the rich, the poor, bankers, God, Satan, witches, priests, kings and animals, even the weather. I think he left out all the “Bigs”: big business, big pharma, big tobacco, big oil, big government, big banks and the rest. No one takes responsibility and it began with Adam blaming "the woman" and Eve blaming the serpent.

This was coincident with two news articles: one about a common whipping boy, MacDonald’s, and the other about our lack of faith in the government.

The first is in the form of a video.  A high school science teacher from Iowa challenged his students to develop a diet for him based purely on the menu from McDonald’s. They were instructed to vary his meals and keep the total intake of calories and fats to within set guidelines. After eating three meals everyday from MacDonald’s and beginning an exercise program where he walked for 45 minutes a day, he lost 37 pounds and his cholesterol dropped from 249 to 170. This flies in the face of popular opinion and documentaries like “Super-size Me” that try to shift the blame from individual behavior to the fast food industry. As the teacher says, “It’s our choices that make us fat, not MacDonald’s.” Behavior has consequences.

The second related piece of news is the results of a recent poll showing that about 70% of Americans have little faith in government. “The percentage of Americans saying the nation is heading in the right direction hasn't topped 50 in about a decade.” Many are looking for fundamental changes in the structure of government, as “61 percent are pessimistic about the system of government overall and the way leaders are chosen.” The underlying premise here goes against the idea of responsibility as we look to the government to solve our problems and worry about their inability to do so, instead of being more self-reliant.

Perhaps it’s time to stop looking for someone else to blame, whether it be the government, fast food, or any of the other popular targets. It’s time to start solving our problems with better choices all the time.]

Flashback – Coke and Pepsi Warnings

Much as the news media tries to upset us at every turn and on every subject, we don’t have time or the energy to be afraid of everything. That’s where perspective and critical thinking come in.

 

The following entry from 2012 gives a couple of examples of how the news media plays to our emotions, not only to enhance their profits, but often hoping we will take the bait and panic. It’s a power play, pure and simple, to push the public in a desired direction. If enough people back a belief, whether it's true or false, the government steps in with more regulations.

[One day I overheard discussion of a news item about using radiation to kill bacteria on vegetables. A colleague asked the rhetorical question, “Who would buy that?” I told her that I had done some reading on the subject recently and the irradiated vegetables were perfectly safe to eat. In fact, those vegetables had been exposed to radiation for at least half of the time they were growing and couldn’t have grown without it. It’s called sunlight. But people don’t think of sunlight as radiation. They don’t consider cellphone signals as radiation (except when falsely warned about cancer dangers). Radiation is thought to be always bad and dangerous – no distinction is made between harmless and dangerous. That would take some critical thinking.

People also fear carcinogens. If it might cause cancer, regardless of the conditions or dosage level, it’s bad. But so many things have been shown to cause cancer (including good-old sunlight, by the way) that comedians joke about it. There are even substances that were once considered dangerous but have earned a reprieve. It seems you can hardly move without bumping into something that at one time or another wasn’t considered deadly.

Now we get a recent news article about a substance in Coke and Pepsi coloring being banned in California because it caused cancer in lab animals. Later in the article it states that humans would have to drink over one thousand cans per day to reach the dosage level given to the rodents. Of course, if you tried to drink that much in a day the amount of water would kill you long before you reached the danger point for developing cancer. (Yes, you can overdose on water!) 

Perspective is about moderation, understanding that you can keep trying to make your food, your beverages and your environment purer but you reach a point where an extra dollar of effort yields pennies in benefit, and finally a point where an extra dollar of effort yields no benefit at all. Yet there are still those with so little perspective and no understanding of science who insist that the water and the air are never clean enough (and the soda never pure enough). Then it’s left to politicians and judges, not scientists, to sort it out.  And who pays any additional costs? – you guessed it!]

Flashback – Consumer Protection Gone Crazy

Back in 2011 I explained how new legislation regarding credit cards led to the companies increasing fees and interest rates. More recently, about a year ago, I once again emphasized how well intentioned consumer protection laws often have unintended consequences. Here is that entry from August 23 of last year.

[Last time I wrote about a lawmaker introducing a bill to protect Americans from Internet addiction, a condition that has no formal definition or diagnosis. Whenever a problem or “epidemic” arises, someone in power decides that there is a government solution to change the conditions or behavior. (Even when the government was the source of the problem.)

People are not trusted to solve their own problems, often because they don't. In the end everyone loses some freedom because of the bad decisions of a few. It takes critical thinking to identify the root of the problem and personal responsibility to own the solution instead of passing it off to a higher power.

This dynamic was reinforced a few days ago when a package arrived from one of those catalogs that frequently appear in the mailbox. In the package was a gift pen, similar to those used by various companies as promotional items. It was an ordinary retractable ballpoint similar to those from a dentist’s office or a job fair but with one difference. It came in a plastic sleeve with the words, “WARNING: Cancer and Reproductive Harm” followed by a web address.

The address led to the California Proposition 65 page. “The California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment is establishing this website to provide the public with information on chemicals, products and locations often associated with Proposition 65 warnings.  These warnings inform Californians about their exposures to chemicals that cause cancer, birth defects or other reproductive harm.” 

Notice that the above statement reads, “cause cancer” not “may cause cancer,” implying that they have studies to definitively prove a direct causal link. Since the list includes over 900 chemicals, that is a doubtful assertion. Looking at one random example: “The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) lists coconut oil diethanolamine condensate (cocamide DEA) as an IARC Group 2B carcinogen, which identifies this chemical as possibly carcinogenic to humans."[Emphasis added] Apparently it only takes possibly to make the list. 

The full list includes a large number of arcane-sounding chemicals, e.g., Amikacin Sulfate and Zalcitabine, but it also includes alcoholic beverages, aspirin, tobacco smoke, nicotine and oral contraceptives.  

How helpful is this? Is tobacco smoke or nicotine a surprise? Why do Californians need the information and not everyone else? Coffee contains acrylamide, which is on the list, so last year a judge decided, "coffee sellers in the state should have to post cancer warnings.” But in “2016, the cancer agency of the World Health Organization moved coffee off its ‘possible carcinogen’ list.”

This isn’t science; it’s judges and lawmakers deciding what should or should not be on a list. It’s “The Boy Who Cried Wolf” gone crazy. People don’t have time to be careful about 900 chemicals and all the products they go into. I have no idea which part of the promotional pen I should worry about or how it might hurt me. Tanning beds and sunlight are not on the list only because they are not chemicals. The situation is so bad that my seven-year-old granddaughter upon returning from a vacation in San Diego commented about how silly it was seeing all the warning signs everywhere coffee was sold.

Not only is this not helpful, it adds cost. The extra warning labels and signs cost money. It is costly to reformulate products to avoid having to post warnings, or worse, to avoid the threat from lawyers, “some of whose businesses are built entirely on filing Proposition 65 lawsuits” on behalf of “straw man plaintiffs." The cost of these nuisance consequences comes back on all of us. (Economic understanding reminds us there is no magic money tree to make up the difference. It all gets passed along to the end consumer.)

Does the list ever shrink or become reasonable, or do we get to the point where everything needs a progressively more meaningless label? I’m sure many people thought this was a great idea back in 1986 not realizing that they may be creating a monster.]

Flashback – Twenty-Three Months to Solve the Problem

Time’s running out! In early-December 2018 shortly after the last election, with the usual accusations of voter suppression by requiring a photo ID, I suggested that with 23 months to the election, concerned citizens had plenty of time to solve the problem themselves. Here is the original post.

[Generally, I avoid topics that touch even indirectly on politics, but this subject has overtones of responsibility – doing something about a situation instead of trying to blame it on luck, circumstances or another person or group.

I get so tired of hearing about the supposed voter suppression because citizens have trouble identifying themselves at the polls. Now we are 23 months away from the next major election, and it’s time to do something about it instead of moaning or accusing after the fact, as has been the practice for many years. There is a better solution than fighting about whether or not the laws must be changed.

Spread the word. If anyone you know cannot for any reason obtain a photo identification, figure out what is necessary, take some time away from work or other interests and help them out. It probably only takes a couple of hours, depending on the efficiency of the local DMV. 

Another faster, but slightly more expensive option would be to help the person get a passport. Last time I renewed mine, I found a local pharmacy that takes passport pictures, and I spent less than an hour to drive there and leave with my photo. The rest can be done through the mail. (Some UPS locations also have this service.)

Every nursing home I’m familiar with runs a shuttle for these kinds of errands. People confined to their own homes must have someone to check on them periodically. Perhaps the same organizations that arrange for voters without transportation to get to the polls on Election Day could set up one or two ID days for those unable to make their own arrangements. With 700 days left to find a few hours to solve this problem for everyone we know, next time there should be no excuse!

As with so many other problems, we look to the government to fix it when a simple solution is within our reach.]

Now (August 2020) with only 2 months left, I wonder if anyone took the initiative, or will we hear the same cries and complaints from the people who want new laws when all that was ever needed is a little foresight and personal responsibility.

Flashback – Hydration and Littering

Almost three years ago I wrote the following about how the incessant advice about hydration was mostly bogus, promoted by the bottled water industry and misinformed social media users. This week I ran across this Guardian article, “The truth about hydration” that reinforces everything I wrote back then. In the middle of a hot summer with TV meteorologists parroting the same reminders, it’s a good time to review.

[“The federal government announced Wednesday it will eliminate a policy that allowed national parks like the Grand Canyon to ban the sale of bottled water in an effort to curb litter.”  Fox News explains that the rules were set up in 2011 because empty bottles scattered throughout some of the parks had become a major problem.  One problem was the emphasis on bottled water.  They did not ban the sale of other beverages, such as sugary soft drinks that are typically made of sturdier plastic.  The policy was obviously not completely thought through in the first place, setting them up as an easy target for objections.

Those objections did come and the National Park Service officials changed their minds.  But instead of just admitting they were wrong or banning the rest of the soft drinks, they said they wanted to "expand hydration options for recreationalists, hikers, and other visitors to national parks."  Falling back on the idea of hydration they tried to make it sound like a health-related decision.  There are a couple of questionable aspects to this.

Later in the article is one sentence that probably gets more toward the truth:  “ The bottled water and beverage industry have previously lobbied aggressively to keep bottled water at U.S. national parks.”  As in most cases, follow the money.

But what is all this about hydration?  This is one of those urban myths that people just won’t drop.  I even heard someone talking about pre-hydration the other day, comparing drinking lots of water (or sports drink) to applying sunscreen before you go out.

More and more experts are coming forward with contrary, more balanced advice.  Here is an example.  “Drink when you're thirsty. Stop drinking when your thirst is quenched. Obey that one rule and there is no risk of dehydration,” says Dr. Stanley Goldfarb, a University of Pennsylvania kidney specialist.

Later on in that hydration article is a statement that shouldn’t surprise anyone: “Much research on human hydration [is] funded in part by bottled water industry.”

  

Another study found “no connection between hydration and the performance of athletes.”  It reiterates the sound, moderate advice to drink when thirsty.  There is no need to go overboard or walk through life tethered to a water bottle.

The final point is about bottled water itself.  I have elaborated on this subject in the past.  With a few rare exceptions or in emergency situations, bottled water is typically no purer than tap water and sells at a hundred times the price.  From time to time the bottled water companies are taken to task by some government agency for questionable practices or claims.  Some merely use tap water from another location.  Most recently a lawsuit cites Poland Spring Water for deceiving customers by “bottling common groundwater that doesn’t meet the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's definition of spring water.” 

Lately I’ve noticed in some airports an absence of the usual drinking fountains outside restrooms.  The only option is to buy the bottles from the vendors.  Again, follow the money.

Yes, it is important to have water with you when hiking in a national park (or anywhere).  It is smart (critical thinking) to buy a water bottle or canteen for the occasion and fill it at the tap or refill it at a drinking fountain. It is responsible not to throw bottles or any kind of litter around the trails or campgrounds. It shows perspective to understand that it’s unnecessary to pre-hydrate or take other extraordinary actions.  Drink when you are thirsty; it’s as simple as that.  So many of these problems can be easily solved by right behavior rather than by government regulations.]

Both Sides of Tax Responsibility

Have you heard that radio ad about the tax relief company starring Louie? A man identifying himself as Louie says that he did not pay his taxes for eight years and now he is in trouble with the IRS. No kidding?

Think of all the people who sweat over their taxes every year for fear of being audited. Actually, few people sweat over their own taxes. Less than half file them themselves, and three-quarters of those self-filers use purchased software. Nonetheless, very few are casual enough (or careless enough) to let it go for eight years. 

To be in this situation is slightly understandable for a small business operating on the edge of solvency with inexperienced entrepreneurs trying to keep up on all the paperwork, but Louie sounds like an ordinary individual who is now terrified that the IRS is coming to confiscate his house, his bank accounts and his car.

It’s a little hard to feel sorry for the guy. Everyone else is trying to be conscientious about the annual chore, motivated either by fear or responsibility. Do people like Louie just assume that the rest of us will take up the slack for him and his fellow scofflaws? 

Regardless of the circumstances, in rides that tax relief firm to the rescue. They will negotiate with the IRS and help reduce what he owes based on their experience and understanding of the various hardship and forgiveness programs. So the people that let it ride, if they qualify, pay the firm a fee and pay the government less than what they would ordinarily owe. What a sweet deal! And all the people harping on the issue of not paying “your fair share” are silent about these sorts of arrangements.

These firms, not just one or two of them but over 100 listed on this review website, are proudly advertising ways to not pay a fair share. And it ‘s not some philosophical fair share. It’s a reduction to “pennies on the dollar” from the actual calculation after taking all the legal deductions and exemptions. Where is the outrage?

On the other hand, part of their message if you find yourself in this situation is, “Don’t go it alone.” Don’t try to take on the IRS without an expert. On that point they are right. The government has unlimited resources. They can use both force of law and delays of the legal system and bureaucracy to take your possessions and bleed you dry on appeal.

IRS tactics can be similar to another program called civil asset forfeiture. (This information comes from a news article from Alabama where they tried unsuccessfully to change the law.) “Under civil forfeiture, the government may take someone’s property as soon as they are accused of a crime, without that person having been convicted or, in some cases, even charged.” Suspected criminals can lose cash and physical assets without due process. “Even when charges are dropped or the accused is found not guilty, those accused often find it difficult to get their property back. Some never do.”

So whereas I can look at Louie and people like him and despair over their lack of responsibility – there must be a healthy number of them to keep 114 tax relief companies on the list in business – I can also see the necessity of such businesses to protect citizens from a likely abuse of their rights anytime they are even accused. If everyone in America was conscientious about filing honestly and on time, it would remove the need for these firms to exist, but it wouldn’t eliminate the threat from a heavy-handed government agency in this and other areas.

Life Is Tough.

From ABC news: “Two men who believe they were switched at birth nearly 80 years ago are suing a Roman Catholic diocese in West Virginia, alleging negligence and breach of duty by the hospital where they were born.”

One of the men discovered through a DNA test that he was not related to people he thought were his family. He learned the identity of the other man and found his “real” family by searching hospital records from 1942. Together the two are suing. They claim to have “suffered a ‘lifetime of consequences’ from the switch and are seeking unspecified damages.” 

One of the men has blue eyes and says he “looks different from the family that raised him and always felt out of place.”

This falls into the category of news that is hard to distinguish from satire. Have these people really suffered over the past 78 years because they were not blood relatives of the people who raised them? Would there have been any distress had he not uncovered the facts? Does not looking like the rest of your family lead to psychological damage? Finally, what do these claims say about adopted children?

According to Wikipedia, a parent is “a caregiver of the offspring in their own species. The most common types of parents are mothers, fathers, stepparents, and grandparents.” Including stepparents extends family relationships to beyond blood relatives and to people the children may not look like.

Furthermore, since both sets of parents were ignorant of the error, there would have been no reason for them to treat the “switched” sons any differently. It’s hard to imagine what damage was done.

An adoption website points out that there are “hundreds of thousands of adoptive families in the world who all represent wonderful families….” Chances are most of these children don’t look like their parents or siblings either, but they are members of the family. 

From another source: “Adoptive families can be transracial, international, or have members of the same family from different parts of the country.  Adoptive families look different. Adoptive families are beautiful!  They are a picture of what happens when one part of the human race decides to care for another human being.” 

To most of us, family means more than a blood relationship, but rather a source of love and support.

But these concepts are not good enough for the two and their lawyers. Like many Americans they believe life is tough, and those who suffer from the most trivial problems or minor irritations deserve sympathy and compensation whenever possible. Look at the emotional support animal industry (not to be confused with service animals).

Yes, it is an industry. There are websites that offer, for a fee, certificates and vests to meet an "epidemic" demand for support animals. Technically only mental health professionals can provide documentation.  Some sites skirt the issue by employing counselors to do a quick interview or review a questionnaire. Still the person not the animal’s behavior is evaluated, and counselors would not be qualified to do so. That places thousands of untrained, unpredictable animals in public with presumed special privileges, although the certification only allows the pet on an airplane or in housing that forbids animals. It is not blanket permission to take the animal anywhere.

The government accommodates these people with special laws without scientific evidence. Wikipedia reveals, “Researchers have not established that untrained emotional support animals provide any significant benefit to people with mental or emotional disabilities…the scientific research is limited and of low scientific quality.” 

See the parallel? This lawsuit is not an isolated incident. It’s a reflection of the times. These two elderly gentlemen claim to have suffered consequences all their lives. No one dares ask why they failed to take charge at some point over 60 years of their adult lives. We have no expectations of responsibility from victims. They suffer a wrong and seek (monetary) relief 78 years later. Like the growing number that require emotional support animals, they are comforted rather than confronted. And life goes on.

People act like victims. They need and expect to get their settlements, their furry crutches or whatever without question. Anyone critical is branded as unfeeling.

Two hundred years ago they’d all be dead. At one time life was tough, and you had to be tougher just to survive. Today life is significantly (significantly!) easier, but it’s also easier to play the victim and complain rather than to be responsible in taking on life’s challenges. Doing so is hard and might even lead to personal growth and maturity, but don't expect the government or society to take that view!

And Speaking of Sugar

Last Friday I flashed back to an entry from February 2012 where I showed how eager the media is to help us blame sugar for the obesity and the diabetes epidemics instead of the taking responsibility for our own choices.

Shortly after deciding to feature those comments I came across this related news report. “The Sugar Association is asking the Food and Drug Administration to require more detailed information about artificial sweeteners on packaging.”

The problem as they see it is that, because sweeteners do not provide nutrition or calories, they are not required to be listed on nutrition facts labels. Instead they are listed under ingredients in smaller print on the side of the package.

The industry argument is, “Consumers deserve to know what is in their food so they can make informed decisions for themselves and their families.” By making these changes, the FDA “will bring the complete transparency in sweetener labeling that we know consumers want, deserve and should expect.” 

They innocently portray themselves as merely calling for transparency by putting the information on food labels as “sweetener,” followed by the name. This is similar to the tactics of the anti-GMO crowd. By forcing producers to list an ingredient on the package, they hope that past misinformation will give shoppers the impression that a safe ingredient, because it is highlighted, is really dangerous. It’s a subtle scare tactic dressed up as transparency that they have pulled off elsewhere*, but it’s not based on science!

I referred to information sources I trust like WebMD and the Mayo Clinic rather than believing folks like Global Healing, Nutralegacy or Doctors Jocker and Axe. Here is what the real doctors at Mayo Clinic have to say. 

Under the heading of possible health benefits, they state, “Artificial sweeteners don't contribute to tooth decay and cavities. Artificial sweeteners may also help with: Weight Loss and Diabetes.”

As far as concerns: “according to the National Cancer Institute and other health agencies, there's no sound scientific evidence that any of the artificial sweeteners approved for use in the United States cause cancer or other serious health problems. Numerous studies confirm that artificial sweeteners are generally safe in limited quantities, even for pregnant women.”

So they are safe and sometimes beneficial, but the Sugar Association has for a long time believed, “Consumers Are Confused: Decoding Artificial Sweeteners,” as that headline from ten years ago stated. The article goes on to say, “August marks the five-year anniversary of the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) receipt of a petition to help clear up some of the confusion...." So this has been going on for 15 years, and they are taking another run at it. Why? Before you start feeling bad for the Sugar Association, follow the money.

“The U.S. Sugar program is the federal commodity support program that maintains a minimum price for sugar, authorized by the 2002 farm bill....” It was designed to “protect the incomes of the sugar industry-growers of sugarcane and sugar beets, and firms that process each crop into sugar.”

This Reason Magazine article from last year calls it welfare for the rich, saying that it costs Americans as taxpayers and consumers about $4 billion per year. It does this in several ways: 

1. “Subsidies when sugar prices fall below a certain level;
2. Protection from foreign competition (a limit on imports); and
3. A guarantee that prices stay high (the sugar program imposes quotas on how much sugar may be produced in America).”

They are willing to spend a lot of money lobbying to maintain this sweet deal.

This Market Watch story from 2018 confirms the $4 billion cost while pointing out, “On average, U.S. sugar prices are about twice as high as world prices.” 

So, Big Sugar is trying to subtly frighten more people into buying their product at twice the price, based on a false (but popular) notion that the alternatives cause cancer and other problems, while downplaying the truth about the health concerns around sugar itself. They are counting on only a tiny minority of critical thinkers to figure it out.

*Note how successful they have been in giving high fructose corn syrup an undeserved bad rap.

Flashback – Blame the Sugar

[In February of 2012 I provided another example of how Americans are encouraged by the media to shift the blame rather than take responsibility. Each time we do, we give politicians and regulators a new target for bans and restrictions. This in turn relieves us of the responsibility of making choices along with the risks that some of those choices might turn out to be wrong, but it also deprives otherwise responsible people from making any choices at all. At the time I wondered if sugar would be next on the list.]

In past blogs I have warned that if we don't begin to change our behavior, especially by acting responsibly, bad consequences will continue. This lax attitude can force the government to step in, threatening our freedom. The idea of a threat to freedom may seem like an abstract concept, perhaps a little difficult to pin down. Now we have another concrete example.

Published Wednesday in Nature, a study by three scientists from UC San Francisco finds that sugar is as bad for us as alcohol and tobacco and should be likewise regulated.  This article from the LA Times gives the details. The study's authors make recommendations to the Federal Government including: taxation, distribution controls, age limits, and a limit or ban on television commercials for processed foods containing any form of added sugar. This is what I mean by loss of freedom.   Besides the alcohol and tobacco restrictions, there have been local bans on transfats. Today it's sugar. What next?

This article is interesting because I find the wording, "sugar...is responsible" near the beginning and "sugar itself is to blame" further on. It's the sugar's fault and we are the victims! How long are we going to let inanimate objects take the rap for us? If we don't step up and take responsibility for our behavioral failures and begin to make some changes, well-intentioned people will call for government action and our freedoms will slowly erode. Meanwhile, we will be standing around wondering how it happened!

Memorial Day

On the last Monday in May we celebrate Memorial Day. It’s traditionally considered the beginning of summer, a long weekend marked by cookouts, parades and political speeches – although probably less so this year.

Like most holidays, the meaning behind the celebration has been watered down considerably. The Old Farmers Almanac puts it well: “We spend time remembering those who lost their lives and could not come home, reflecting on their service and why we have the luxury and freedom that we enjoy today.” Most if not all those political speeches will also call on spectators to remember those who made the ultimate sacrifice to defend our freedoms.

Yes, there will be much mention of freedom, but I have written many times in the past about the inexorable link between freedom and responsibility, most recently in a Flashback entry about two months ago.

Freedom is something that can be so easily frittered away. When children act irresponsibly, good parents impose restrictions, time outs or groundings. Others, though, may dismiss it as a phase they are going through. As their behavior leads to bigger problems, parents find themselves in a position of constantly having to bail their children out of trouble, because they have never learned responsibility. 

When they become adults, the government or advocates take over, often in the form of new regulations and restrictions. The problem is that, in order to keep the irresponsible from hurting themselves or others, those new regulations apply to everyone. To keep some citizens from making bad decisions, our elected leaders take away our ability to decide for ourselves. 

Because of a few irresponsible people, police have the legal right to set up sobriety checkpoints on highways waylaying everyone, without permission or a warrant.

Because of a few irresponsible people, encouraged by members of the legal profession who profit from it, try to shift the blame for their poor choices, every purchase requires warnings that add to the cost. We sign hold-harmless agreements and must carry extra insurance to guard against such reprisals.

How many states and counties have arbitrary laws about sales of liquor, fireworks, sugary soft drinks, and trans fats? If one busybody neighbor gets concerned, you can be arrested for letting your children walk a couple of blocks to the park alone.

This has become only more pronounced during the pandemic. Many governors impose arbitrary restrictions, in some cases enforced by threats of police involvement or other penalties. Even those who choose to make prudent decisions on their own are caught up in the hysteria. Some citizens feel obligated to shout at, threaten or report neighbors.

In one case, a salon owner in Texas “was ordered to spend a week in jail after she continued to operate her business despite restrictions put in place.” She was not free to operate her business, despite having brave employees and customers willing to participate.

Michigan residents were forbidden from buying seeds and garden supplies. It’s springtime! At least one mayor threatened to shut off utilities to maverick businesses. Meanwhile those who have been terrorized by the news media’s black-and-white portrayal of the situation, support the virtual house arrest, cower behind closed doors, fearful of dying themselves and accusing those who want to go back to work of being selfish and callous about the lives of others.

How long will some of the coronavirus restrictions stay in place? Will governors and mayors assume a new sense of marshal law-like powers to be called upon in any future situations that can be defined as emergencies? Will the how-many-deaths-is-it-worth crowd dominate, as we  permanently lose more freedom while politicians continue to vow to “fight for your rights” by passing more regulations?

The last line of the first verse of our National Anthem asked the question, “… does that star-spangled banner yet wave o’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?” Francis Scott Key was asking whether the flag was still there. It is, but a better question would be: how much longer  can it honestly be considered "the land of the free and the home of the brave"? The founders chose liberty over safety, and that is presumably what all those people fought and died for. Today we seem to passively accept the opposite.

Flashback - Restaurant Menus

[Last Month I posted a flashback to “Behavior Has Consequences” from September 2011. The following month I used the regulations intended to make restaurant menus more transparent to show problems in each of the behavioral dimensions. Here, from October 2011, is “Restaurant Menus Demonstrate My Point.”]

Last time I reinforced the need for critical thinking by pointing out the dubious value of self-reporting surveys. Whether about politics or personal habits, they tend to be an inaccurate reflection of actual choices and behavior. I wonder why news agencies spend so much time on them. Here is an article from CBS that reinforces the point and gives good examples of conflicts within the other four dimensions as well. It’s about healthier menu choices in restaurants.

The report begins, “while 47 percent of Americans say they'd like restaurants to offer healthier items like salads and baked potatoes, only 23 percent tend to order those foods…” Since the information comes from different surveys, we must be careful, but the general behavior, if not the specific percentages, is confirmed by sales figures presented later in the report. Again there seems to be a significant discrepancy between what people say and how they actually behave.

As we read further, they remind us, “The government has stepped up its oversight — and influence — over the industry that it blames for America's expanding waistline.” This blatant admission that the government does not blame people for eating the wrong foods but blames the restaurant industry, leads the government to seek solutions by regulating restaurants instead of expecting personal responsibility to change behavior. When they find out this requirement of listing calories and offering more healthy choices is not working, what is their next option? How do they escalate when they don’t trust us to do the right thing? Next logical steps might be to increase threats to our personal freedom, perhaps minor at first, but where would it end? As this controlling philosophy remains predominant in the minds of government officials, they will feel justified in regulating many of our other choices.

Later the report cites efforts of a couple of restaurants to conform to the regulations. They don’t mention that in one way or another we are paying for the additional food preparation, research and reprinting of menus; but as we are strong in economic understanding, we are all aware of this. Like any other attempt to solve a behavior problem by attacking symptoms with regulations, it inevitably leads to higher costs for the public – not unlike the additional fees that came on the heels of consumer credit card protection – but it does not solve the problem. Most Americans and the government have yet to learn the main lesson of economic understanding – new regulations create added costs that are not absorbed by the business but are passed along to the customer.

Finally, why don’t people choose the healthy menu items? Examples in the report list as reasons: peer pressure and that “healthier foods also are usually among the most expensive menu items.” Both reasons relate to perspective: overly caring about the opinions of other people and not looking at the effects of today’s decisions on long-term health outcomes. 

All this effort and regulation tries to solve a problem (unhealthy eating) brought on by a behavioral problem (a failure in discipline). 

This single article, read from a behavioral standpoint, reinforces my point that weaknesses in the five key behavioral dimensions are the root cause of most of our contemporary crises, and therein lie the solutions, not in any outside programs or government interventions no matter how well intentioned.

Flashback – Build a Wall?

[Believe it or not, at the end of 2011, long before Donald Trump rode this issue to the White House, I wrote a piece with the title “Build a Fence.” Back then; when a Trump presidency was less than a minor consideration, many other people were talking about the need to control the southern border. Some of them later opposed the idea merely because of who was promoting it.

I also opposed a fence or wall because the issue could not be solved without changing the incentives that drive behavior. As long as illegal action yields positive consequences, it will continue. It called for better policies, and we are still waiting. Here are my thoughts from New Years Eve 2011.]

You are pushing your cart to check out at the grocery store and see ahead of you a man with his young son. The man is unloading his cart onto the conveyor and the toddler is sitting in the child seat. Suddenly the boy notices the candy along the side of the lane, lets out a scream and starts reaching. His father, distracted with the groceries and embarrassed, tries shushing the kid. Well, that just leads to more screaming and reaching. The father is at his wits end, trying to get control of two demands on his attention, the groceries and his son, while glancing around with an apologetic look to everyone in earshot. Finally, he relents and hands the child a candy bar so that he can pay for his groceries and get out of there.

What you are probably thinking at this time is: “Quiet, at last!” but also “That father is in for a real challenge because he has just reinforced a negative behavior." He rewarded the screaming and fussing and can surely expect more of the same in the future. You are also hoping you do not end up in the store at the same time as this family in the future. Don’t feel guilty. That’s exactly how most people would feel. Any right-thinking adult with an iota of life experience knows that for children, as well as for adults, behavior rewarded is behavior repeated. Behavior discouraged is behavior modified.

Now let’s look at the problem that some people refer to as illegal immigration. People sneak into the United States. They get free public education for their children. They are given jobs by employers who look the other way, just grateful to be able to get someone to do the work “that Americans refuse to do.” They get free medical care at emergency rooms. If that medical care is the delivery of a baby, their new family member automatically becomes an American citizen eligible for government benefits.

Some people who want to discourage this behavior think that the answer is to build a wall or a fence instead of recognizing what we all know: behavior rewarded is behavior repeated. Others think that the solution is to confer citizenship on those who have gotten away with it for a given number of years instead of recognizing what we all know: behavior rewarded is behavior repeated.

For some reason, logical thoughts like this can get a person branded as a racist because most of the people in that category are from one country. This is not about race or country of origin; it’s about behavior. If you don’t want a person, any person of any age, to sneak into your country (or have a temper tantrum in the grocery store), you set up a system or react in a way that discourages such behavior. You get more of what you reward and less of what you repress. 

There are already significant barriers, the hurdles of the immigration laws, that hundreds of thousands negotiate every year to come into this country legally from Mexico, India, China, Canada, Russia and all over to study, work and live free. Most proposals from all sides for dealing with this problem, if it really is a problem, don’t seem to recognize what we already know about human behavior.

[Eight years later the government is still trying to figure this out.]

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 – 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.

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.

Flashback - Discrimination

[Here is a posting from June 2011. The original title was Age Discrimination, but the idea is broader.]

Recent news articles presented the fact that the older unemployed are finding it harder to reenter the workforce. In one television interview a man told the reporter that one company directly admitted to him that he had all the qualifications and experience and if he were 20 years younger, the job would be his. This is not only illegal, but a distinct failure in the dimension of critical thinking. It’s illogical and probably a disservice to the owners and customers of the company.

Consider that until recently it was not unusual for a company to have a turnover rate in the area of 20% - much higher in some cases, slightly lower in others depending on the work.  [Today (2019) it might be higher than that considering the number of job openings available to any disgruntled worker.]

At 20% turnover the company is losing it’s entire workforce, on average, every 5 years.  Even a person 55, who expects to retire no earlier than 62, would have a longer than average tenure.  In any economy it's likely that a 55-year-old would remain a loyal employee for those seven or more years until retirement with a company willing to give him or her a chance.

Furthermore some studies have shown that older workers spend more time on the job, with fewer sick days, no lost time due to maternity leave, fewer interruptions with calls from the daycare or school, etc.  Add in the mentoring potential, and arguments in favor of age discrimination become even weaker.  (Here are links to just a couple of articles supporting this position.) Furthermore, older employees have not grown up with all the technology. Those who are successful have shown that they can learn and adapt on the fly.

A company that ignores these realities exhibits behavior based on unwritten policies, past practices and gut feelings. That is both irrational and not in their own best interests – a failure in the dimension of critical thinking.

Reflect on this:  how many other laws are in place, including all other aspects of illegal discrimination, that would be unnecessary if company executives made sound (critical thinking) decisions instead of letting their prejudices short-circuit their brains?  And how many tax dollars could be saved on the development and enforcement of those laws and regulations if people just acted sensibly?