What's the Answer?

Many years ago I noticed that every opinion poll I saw reported that Americans were overall dissatisfied with the direction of the country.  For example, this Hart Poll shows that on over 40 occasions over the last four years when that question was asked not once did the percentage thinking the country was headed in the right direction exceed those with the opposite view.  For over 20 years results from many different polls are consistent with this finding.

It didn’t matter which political party was in charge or who was asking the question, with few exceptions America’s opinion has been that we were headed the wrong way.  The last 249 essays are based on a theory that we, not the government or some other advocacy group, hold the solution to our dissatisfaction.  We can make America better, but we must change our approach to defining the core problems and not continue to deal with the surface symptoms.  When we look deeply, we find that our behavior, not a failure of government caused most of our problems.  Changing behavior, not electing a new crowd of politicians is the answer.  The only thing politicians do is blame each other for problems and look for painless, quick-fix relief for these symptoms.

Here’s how it works.  Behavior generally has corresponding consequences.  Call it Karma, God’s justice or whatever, but eventually bad or negligent behavior leads to trouble, while positive behavior leads to favorable outcomes.

Behavior, however, is such as broad term.  It includes all our words and actions, the decisions we make.  How do we track and classify it?  To make sense of a long list of possible actions, I have chosen five categories or dimensions.  A wide range of behavior can be condensed into these five areas.  Whenever I cite an example, I also specify which dimension it falls under.  As I give examples, it becomes clear that weaknesses and errors in the five dimensions are really the source of many of our so-called crises, as individual choices build into societal consequences.  The long list of problems we hear about every day, from obesity to healthcare to education to discrimination to retirement insecurity and many more, are really the accumulation of faulty individual decisions.

An immediate advantage of this approach is that when you talk about behavior, you are barred from labeling people.  You can’t say someone has a bad attitude or someone is an extremist or someone is worthless or uncaring or hateful or attach any other name or description.  It serves no purpose to criticize motives; just deal with the behavior.  Behavioral observations deal with words and actions – he said this or did that.  See how different this is already from the way our politicians (and many private citizens) act today.  Without this approach all we get is a firestorm of insults and accusations without any real progress.  No wonder Americans think we are headed in the wrong direction!

Now I have 250 essays on this theme and will continue to present examples of behavior in the key dimensions.  The news is dominated by political disputes, but I don’t comment on politics.  The answers are not to be found in Washington.  The answers are in our behavior, and I don’t expect to run out of examples very soon.

My objective of these short essays is to inspire a group of people to think about the problems in a different way, to show you what to look for, to get more people to adopt a behavioral approach.  Look at what we and our neighbors are doing to make the situation worse.  I know that tolerance is very trendy these days, but must we be tolerant of behavior that is sure to lead to problems?  Remember, it’s not about beliefs and attitudes; it’s about actions and decisions, behavior that has consequences, consequences that add up to societal crises, the same crises that keep the media and politicians stirring us into a panic to distract us from the real answer.

It’s not time to panic.  It’s time to join the team and spread the word that improving behavior is the only real solution.

Gambling and the Stock Market

When you talk to some people about investing, they compare buying stocks with a trip to Las Vegas.  This is understandable as huge dips in the stock market always make the news, whereas a gentle rise over time or even a large surge gets less attention.  Looking at investing and gambling over the long run shows one significant difference.

Gambling, on average, is a losing proposition.  Most lotteries are set up to pay out about half their revenue.  Buy a pick-3 ticket for $1 and get a 1 in 1000 chance to win $500.  Those are terrible odds.  You know this when you hear the states boast about how much lottery funds contributed to schools or property tax relief or another chosen cause.  That funding comes from the dollars of the losers who far outnumber winners.

At a casino lay down a dollar on a roulette number and win $35 if you happen to choose the right number out of 37 or 38 possibilities.  Those odds are better than the lottery, but over the long term the house keeps a few cents for every dollar bet.  Those pennies add up quickly and pay for those big, impressive buildings.  Slot machines pay a little to keep you playing and a large jackpot just often enough to keep everyone hoping, but over the long term the casino always wins.  On average gambling is a losing proposition.

The stock market does have some wild swings and looks like a gamble, but the difference between traders and investors is important.  Traders play the market trying to anticipate these swings.  Investors pick a stock or, less risky, a diversified fund and stick with it.  Investors are not as exposed to wild swings, because they are patient and ride out the peaks and valleys.  A good example (not a recommendation) would be the Vanguard Life Strategy Fund, which is very diversified – in fact it’s a fund made up of other funds.  Anyone investing $1000 in January 2003 would have around $1700 by now.  That includes all the scary economic problems over the last 10 years.  Over its 19-year history, it has yielded over 7% per year on average.  That’s so much better than money in a savings account or CD.  Of course, during that time anyone who tried to time the market, acting like a trader by buying and selling, could have gotten burned as badly as a Las Vegas gambler, but the history of positive gains is similar for almost any diversified fund from a reputable company.  They are easy to look up on line.

Now past performance does not guarantee future results, as they always say, but unlike gambling, investing – real investing and not trading and timing – has not been on average a losing proposition.  There is still risk, and emergency funds do not belong in stocks or any other volatile investment, but over the long term the stock market differs in this important way from gambling.  If the comparison to gambling has worried you in the past, it might be interesting to do some research or talk to a trusted advisor.

CEOs and Welfare Cheaters

The subjects I address are based on the premise that behaviors have matching consequences.  Touch a hot stove and get burned.  Be convicted of a crime and have trouble finding a good job.  Fail to save while you’re working and become dependent on the government/charity for a not-very-comfortable retirement.  Graduate from high school and have a better chance at a good job.  There are a few exceptions, and as usual, I want to show surprising similarities between two classes of people not usually associated.

The first group is overpaid CEOs who take money from the owners of the corporation when they have clearly not earned it.  The second group consists of those who accept money from the government when they are not eligible.

We are asked to believe that those who rise to become CEOs have very special talents, and that no one else could do what they do.  They are special, and their time is so valuable that they travel in private jets and chauffeured limousines.  Their special status justifies lavishly decorated offices with thousand-dollar trashcans.  Their decisions affect the lives of thousands, but if they make mistakes and lose their jobs, they have developed a network of contacts to help them find another high-paying position quickly.  (They may have screwed up, but they’re still special).  Others pay the price while boards of directors continue to treat CEOs like rock stars, often ignoring these quirks and errors, while rewarding them at levels hundreds of times the pay of an average worker.  Take for example the ousted JC Penney CEO who made over $53.3 million while putting the company in a position where survival is now questionable.  (Several others a few years ago collected huge bonuses on the heels of a government bailout.)  They play on their status to avoid consequences, while gathering wealth and fame.  Then, in retirement, they consult and write books.  Contrast this behavior with that of Pope Francis who shows everyone, not just Catholics, that a position of power need not be automatically linked to a lifestyle of luxury, privilege and self-indulgence.  This characterization does not apply to all CEOs and top executives, but there are enough of them in the news to give the rest a bad name – a few bad apples but too few exemplary ones.

At the other extreme, dishonest behavior can also lead to favorable consequences.  They haven’t the status, and we find nothing to admire about them; but they seem to use a similar rationale that they are special and deserve to be treated differently.  “Since 2003, there's been a 29% jump in Americans with little or no work experience getting disability payments, according to the Social Security Administration. Over the same time, there's been a 44% increase in disability claims by people formerly in the workplace.”  With no evidence of an epidemic of injury or illness, a reasonable conclusion is that a major proportion of this increase must be attributed to cheaters, people who feel they have the right to continue their cash flow from the government without working, taking the money indirectly from us while ignoring the rules that the rest of us follow.  Last Sunday a 60 Minutes segment showed the depth of the problem.  Again it’s not a majority, but statistics tell a distressing story.

The behaviors and attitudes of these groups from each end of the socio-economic spectrum are so similar.  Except for the level of power, the main difference is that those who benefit by claiming disability, the cheaters, have only an indirect obligation to society, the same obligation shared by the rest of us to act honestly and not take what we don’t deserve.  Their actions are illegal, and if caught, they may be punished.  Those CEOs, on the other hand, have a direct and explicit obligation to shareholders, customers and especially to employees to be faithful stewards of the corporate resources, using them to provide quality products and secure jobs. Irresponsible actions may be unethical, but only in rare cases are they prosecuted and rarely do they act guilty or remorseful.  When things go well, they take credit.  When things go poorly, they blame the economy.  Both groups justify their actions by feeling privileged with a primary obligation to themselves, regardless of the effect on others. Both act without consequences with few mechanisms in the system to correct this misalignment.  It’s the height of irresponsibility, but the appropriate consequences are missing.

Unfortunately there is little we can do to balance the scales. There is no sense of shame.  Ordinary stockholders have little influence.  Reporting slackers is frowned upon.  As long as enough Americans consider it cool to be a powerful, but self-serving executive or a clever slacker abusing the system, the behavior will continue at a cost to us as customers and taxpayers.  It would take a groundswell of citizens with economic understanding and true feelings of contempt toward such behavior, as well as the lawyers and boards of directors who support them, to begin to right the equation.

Say What You Mean

I’ve written before about how choice of words reveals the presenter’s position on a subject or reveals a prejudice.  It could be a marketing trick to increase the appeal of a product, service or political agenda.

Use of the word home has become a pet peeve of mine.  Realtors promoted this alternative to house because it sounds warmer and friendlier, and everyone seems to have adopted it to the point where we read of abandoned homes, foreclosed homes, efforts to redevelop vacant homes.  Can it really be a home if no one lives there?  Can’t a rental with a loving family be as much a home as any house?  Is it accurate to change townhouse, referring to an architectural style, to townhome in advertising material or news stories?

Similarly, when someone tries to sell you “window treatments” or “eyewear,” you are probably paying more than you would for identical curtains or glasses.  

Those who moved from Mexico to the US without permission are described in various ways.  Choices include:  illegal alien, illegal immigrant, undocumented worker, undocumented immigrant, unauthorized immigrant, (just plain) immigrant, or migrant (implying a move, but not a border crossing).  In some cases, the different terms reflect a progression of public opinion or a political bias.

My new e-mail gives a choice of line spacing.  What was once called narrow, regular or wide spacing has been changed to slim, regular or relaxed – like e-mail is the same as blue jeans!  Perhaps the subliminal message is that the obesity epidemic will be cured not by healthier habits but by adopting a new vocabulary.  Perhaps they can’t say what they mean for fear of offending someone. To me this seems crazy.

In an art supply catalog I saw an ad for paint to be used for “contemporary urban calligraphy.”  Is that a polite way of saying graffiti?

Professionals use words to enhance their own importance by diminishing ours.  Medical professionals call us patients.   Lawyers and consultants call us clients (and the client term seems to be spreading.)  If instead they used the word “customer,” it's possible that respect, consideration and the level of service might improve.

Profanity, like antibiotics, loses effectiveness by overuse.  Any shock or added impact is lost.  It's no longer saved for "special occasions" to add emphasis, but dropped into casual conversations, written communications - often by means of not-so-clever abbreviations, and tossed around everywhere except where the FCC specifically bans it.  (Some movies contain little more than 25 minutes of plot and dialog, the rest being profanity and special effects.)  It's cool not to be shocked, and soon no one is shocked.  So it has devolved into the equivalent of troglodytical grunts.

Critical thinking rebels at this imprecision and laxness.  There may be no cure for the rappers, reporters, politicians and advertisers, but it would be helpful if we didn't pick up their bad habits and just said what we mean.

Blissfully Growing Old

When you wake up in the morning and run to the bathroom, do you ever stop to think how grateful you are for indoor plumbing?  You don’t have to put on your boots and slog through the mud to an outhouse or use a not-very sanitary pot stored under the bed until it can be emptied outside.  Having a warm, dry and relatively clean bathroom nearby is something that most of us are so used to that the thought of any other arrangement never crosses our minds.  It’s expected.

This occurred to me as I read a UN report, not on bathrooms, but on the aging population.  “By the year 2050, for the first time in history, seniors older than 60 will outnumber children younger than 15.”  An elder rights group, HelpAge International, co-sponsored the research.  Their primary concern is that “most countries are not prepared to support their swelling numbers of elderly people.”  Like indoor plumbing, we don’t even question this.

When did it become the responsibility of the governments to support older people?  In the US it apparently was in 1935 when the government decided that people older than 65 should receive additional support in the form of Social Security.  (It would be funded by other people by a tax on paychecks.)  Later (1983) the full retirement age changed to 66 and will slowly increase to 67.  These changes were likely based on finances and politics rather than some scientific or moral agreement that 66 or 67 was the right age for older Americans to stop being totally responsible for their own livelihood and to expect the government to take over.

The UN report recognizes that resources are not unlimited and that without changes many governments have made promises that they soon will no longer be able to keep.  What they don’t recognize is that the primary assumption that the government is morally responsible for maintaining this older population is problematic.  As everyone accepts it, this assumption takes the pressure off citizens to plan for their own futures.  They don’t have to save and can engage advocacy groups to help them complain whenever there is a threat to their “rights.”  This complacency is evident in common stories of elders who are totally dependent on Social Security and can't make ends meet when Medicare increases eat up cost-of-living adjustments. 

One day it will be like getting out of bed and finding the bathroom door nailed shut or a broken water main in the street.  It will cause panic.  If you don’t believe it, consider all the minor panics that are taking place during the government shutdown or due to the sequester.  Temporary loss of free daycare and National Parks, having work hours cut by 20%, or losing a paycheck for a few weeks doesn’t compare to living 65 years and suddenly realizing you should have put away some savings.  We have expectations.  We have rights.  We don’t even question the premise.  If resources are limited, that’s someone else’s problem.