Everything in Moderation

Some form of the phrase “all things in moderation” dates back to Aristotle’s “golden mean” or to the ancient poets of Greece and Rome.  It’s easy to see the wisdom of this in isolation, but it takes a strong amount of perspective to practice it in daily life.  It’s so easy to get carried away, especially when the rest of society is following the same cues to “indulge yourself” or that “you deserve it.”  It’s hard, but important, to resist the urge to believe more is always better.  In modern parlance we might say, “Don’t get carried away!” or “Get a grip!”

Here are a few examples where we have gotten so caught up in the hype and the perceived need to be safer, healthier or more caring, that we need that kind of extra reminder.

Antibacterial soap and related products have become very popular in recent years.  Despite the fact that they are not superior to the hand-washing routines of the past, they are hard to avoid because they are contained in over 2000 products.  “According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), antibacterial soaps are not necessary, but washing your hands thoroughly with ordinary soap and warm water is one of the most effective ways to ward off infection.”  Now, in addition to the fact that we are probably paying more for almost no benefit, new discoveries reveal a negative aspect to antibacterial soaps.  “The Food and Drug Administration has been reviewing the safety and effectiveness of antibacterial products containing the chemical triclosan and triclocarban.  New research shows expectant moms and their unborn babies are frequently exposed to the potentially harmful chemicals.”  (Emphasis added.)  This effort to go the extra mile in terms of sanitation seems to have backfired.

Dietary supplements, a favorite topic of these entries, are one way Americans are trying to improve health or performance by using shortcuts without considering the consequences.  The US Anti-Doping Agency has joined others in discouraging their use and now warns athletes with a multipage website, but their warning easily applies to everyone.  It concludes:  “There is very strong evidence suggesting certain dietary supplements provide minimal, if any, athletic improvement which can’t be matched through proper diet and training, and that the potential negative consequences of taking supplements outweigh the potential positives.”  Seemingly innocent efforts to improve on proper diet and exercise, in this case training, can be dangerous.

The call for moderation applies to the environmental movement as well.  As wildfires in the west grow more fierce and deadly, experts are beginning to call for more clearing and controlled burns to reduce the amount of fuel available when fires get out of control.  They face resistance from environmentalists and the government, which requires applications and approvals that can take up to four years and still leave them short of the necessary acreage to make a significant difference.  “Regulations to protect habitats and clean air often interfere, as regulators balance protecting endangered species and people's lungs with the need to thin forests.”  People lose their homes and die.  We expend precious resources all for a lack of moderation.

This lack of moderation is echoed in my previous writings about our newly developed oversensitivity when buying food:  all natural, organic, gluten-free, rBGH-free, and many other fads drive us to waste money for little or no benefit.  It also affects how we raise (and overprotect) our kids, how we spend our money on non-food items looking for the magic answer, what causes and organizations we choose to support, and how we lead our lives in general.  If we want to be calmer and happier without the extra expense, our sense of perspective should be reminding us to “get a grip.”

News: First and Fluffy

Network news has reached new lows.  I have already discussed how they go to extremes to remind us how we “heard it here first.”  It doesn’t matter that to be the first often means being able to give us only an incomplete story.

This is their appeal to people with poor perspective, the ability to distinguish the substantive from the trivial.  Whether we heard it first or ten hours later usually makes no difference.  It will not change our choices about what to have for dinner or how to spend the evening – or the next day.  If the need for us to know is urgent, we will hear it from neighbors or the authorities.  Sirens go off and we take cover.  To hear it first is important only if we compare ourselves with others and feel inferior or left out when we are not the first to know the latest news.

Now the immediacy of the news can take a back seat to the latest trend of turning to light, humorous, and cute stories.  It’s just fluff and a waste of time for anyone expecting serious news.  Last week on NBC Nightly News two stories appeared in close succession.  First we were told that Bill Cosby was going to return to television with a new series – and surprise! – It was going to be carried on NBC.  This was no more than a commercial message thinly disguised as news.  Next was a story about a prank where a police department covered an officer’s car with colored sticky notes as an anniversary surprise.  

The following night on the CBS Evening News they presented first, a very short piece about a girl who was carried away by a Tsunami ten years ago but recently reunited with her family – sweet, but not really world news.  The next was about a toddler who squeezed through the fence at the White House causing minor problems for the Secret Service – cute, but not really news.  (This same story was covered in my local newspaper in a short item under the heading of “Odd-ball” news, almost word-for-word, including the little joke about giving him a time-out instead of arresting him.)  They wrapped up with a piece about a happiness formula taken from a psychological study.  The story implied that our satisfaction with results is highly dependent upon our prior expectations, but it was covered so cursorily that it left me wondering why they even bothered.  

It has been some time since we last watched ABC news, referring to it as the puppy-dog and kitty-cat news, where you can always depend on a cute story captured off YouTube or Facebook of animals or cute kids based on its tens of thousands of hits on the Internet.  (CBS seems to acknowledge this trend when they boast of “more real news,” but immediately undermine their credibility with video of a baby seal climbing onto a surfboard.)

I wonder that Brian Williams and Scott Pelley are not embarrassed to call themselves journalists.  It’s not like other, far more important things aren’t going on in the world.  Take for example the serious anti-Semitic protests and violence all over Europe.

We get the news we ask for, the news we deserve.  As long as the networks and their sponsors detect low standards in the rest of our behavior, not only tolerating, but craving, this kind of intellectual Pablum, in the form of cute kittens and Funniest-Home-Video-style shots to the crotch, this is what they will continue to serve up.  Of course maybe the CBS story was right in that if I had lower expectations going in, I would be happier about the news I get when I turn on the TV.

Behaving Your Way to Wealth

I was drawn to this CBS News article about five ways to go broke, because it has so much in common with the behavioral philosophy contained in these bi-weekly essays.  Financial freedom, or at least avoiding going broke, is one aspect of a successful life that can be achieved through generally strong behavior in the key dimensions.

The author describes these as five traps that snare us, keeping us from getting ahead, keeping us from financial happiness.  Let’s look at them one by one to see the behavioral connections.

1.     Focus on looking good is about keeping up with or ahead of the “Joneses,” dressing to impress with designer clothing, buying in to the latest fads to be popular.  People who do this are missing out on perspective that reminds us about gratitude for what we have instead of always looking for more.  Perspective is also about moderation.

2.     Live paycheck-to-paycheck:  “Surveys show that virtually everyone who lives above the poverty line has the ability to save $20 a week. But 28 percent of the population has absolutely no emergency fund.  Much of this behavior reflects poor discipline, the inability to delay gratification, to save for a vacation, education, retirement or emergencies.  We want it all; we want it now.

3.     Play the lottery, a system designed to take half the money and spend it on public programs, not on prizes.  I’ve pointed out in the past that you get better odds from casinos than from the state lotteries and people still lose enough money to make those casinos very profitable.  Faults in critical thinking lead to profitable lotteries, which have been dubbed by some cynics as taxes on ignorant people.

4.     Buying on credit is cited here as a mistake, but the mistake is not the use of credit.  The error comes when you pay the interest.  Using a free credit card, paying it off monthly is smart living.  You delay payments, don’t have to carry a lot of cash and get points or bonus cash.  If everyone did that, the credit card companies would be hard pressed to stay in business.  Economic understanding tells us that the interest payers help support those who use the cards wisely and come out ahead.

5.     Being a victim encourages people to rationalize errors, looking for someone else to blame.  “If you want to be rich someday, you need to take responsibility for what's wrong in your financial life, learn from it and fix it.”

Not surprisingly the five financial traps reflect the five key dimensions.  You may not be able to behave your way to fabulous wealth, but avoiding these traps will help keep you out of financial danger.  Likewise, this is true not only about money, but also relationships, health and life in general.  When Americans ignore the key dimensions and consistently act in contrary ways, it affects their individual goals and happiness, and it also spreads like a plague through the rest of society.  The real solution is found not in government programs or new initiatives or popular self-help books, but in everyone living according to these ideals.  Until it happens America will continue to be beset by these familiar crises (retirement, poverty, education, debt, obesity, and the rest) that continuously rotate through the headlines.

Right to Water

A big question in Detroit recently is:  when should something be free and who should pay for it? 

This New York Times report is just one of many about protests about  “a move by the city’s Water Department to force tens of thousands of delinquent customers to pay up or face a cutoff in service.” The move to cut off service is drastic, but the Water Department believes it is the only way to motivate people to pay.  “About 92,000 customers are at risk of having service cut off, meaning they are at least 60 days past due or more than $150 behind.”  The LA Times reports that overall,  “the utility is currently owed $90 million from customers, and nearly half the city's 300,000 or so accounts are past due.”

Meanwhile the protesters are joined by the United Nations, in contending that access to clean water is a human right.  They believe it is a violation of international standards to shut off water when people are too poor to pay for it and when the shut offs may include the disabled and seniors.  Michigan Welfare Rights Organization (MWRO) adds:  "We live near the Great Lakes, we have the greatest source of fresh water on Earth, and we still can't get water here."

Where do the UN, the MWRO and the rest of the protesters think the money is going to come from to pay for treating and testing the water and delivering it to the customers' houses?  Who pays the people who have to tear up the streets to repair the water mains that break or those who maintain the water towers?  Should the poor and the elderly be allowed to steal the water just because they live near a lake?  Should the cost of their water just be transferred to other people who can pay, assuming that if they can pay one water bill, they can afford to pay for two?  What message does this send to the elderly, on a fixed income, or the poor who are struggling but still paying their water bills, or to the rest of the customers?  Are they all fools for paying for what others consider their right?

This is classic magic-money-tree thinking.  Detroit is the largest city to go bankrupt, and there is no mystery about how it got that way.  It’s this very attitude, this entitlement culture, that forced the city into bankruptcy.  The city employees (as well as the employees of automakers and auto parts makers which dominate the area) felt they had a right to a guaranteed job with lifetime, top-of-the line health benefits and to a retirement before the age of 60.  They took this superior life style for granted until the system crashed and the automakers, eventually followed by the city, went into bankruptcy.  The politicians and executives made promises they couldn’t keep and no one questioned it.  Most of those politicians and executives were long gone before it inevitably became time to pay.  Everyone wanted to believe in the magic money tree, and they apparently haven't learned the lesson yet.

This is why economic understanding is critical.  Everyone goes along thinking that resources are unlimited, that we can buy today and not have to worry about paying tomorrow, that goods and services and other people’s work should be free to me while my wages should be higher to make it fair.  Trying to be generous today results in wide-ranging suffering tomorrow, and everyone acts surprised.  Those who call attention to reality are labeled greedy and heartless.