Category: culture

  • Change I Could Believe In

    photo credit: jasoneppink Back in October I wrote about the dangers of a crisis mentality and tried to show that the abuse of crisis was not a one-party trait. I see that Will Wilkinson did a better job of showing that this month in Let the next crisis go to waste: The Aughts began in…

  • Defined Benefit Pensions: A Failed Experiment

    photo credit: inspecie.co.uk After the town hall meeting I attended on Wednesday I have been thinking about pension plans generally. The state of Utah is looking at changing their pension offerings for new employees to save the state from future financial ruin. I have seen other companies go through that process already. As a nation…

  • How Do You Solve a Problem Like Haiti?

    photo credit: United Nations Development Programme These days everybody wants to help the poor people of Haiti – and that’s obviously a good thing but when I think about Haiti it makes me wonder what the proper course of action is for outside nations to help that struggling country. I’m not talking about the proper…

  • Roll Your Own . . .

    photo credit: She Who Shall Not Be Named When I wrote about the importance of investing in yourself I was having trouble trying to find the words to convey what I meant. I finally found a way to explain what I mean so that nobody should be confused (I hope). Virtually every book on financial…

  • Missing the Boat

    In a comment over at KVNU’s For The People blog Craig concluded that if I was right in my position about health care it would mean that basically everyone had been missing the boat on this issue. My response to Craig was that I honestly believe that this current reform debate is missing the boat…

  • Medical Cultures

    [quote]I have called David Goldhill’s How American Health Care Killed My Father a must-read for anyone who wants to speak up in the health care debate. The New Yorker also has a must-read article on the issue called The Cost Conundrum. In that article we are introduced to the town of McAllen, Texas where Medicare…

  • What Are Your Fundamental Assumptions?

    photo credit: quarksteilchen In the midst of a recent comment the author revealed a fundamental assumption that he and I don’t share that clearly explains why we have differing views on government: Federal mandates are about the only power the government has to prevent a race to the bottom. . . THE only way to…

  • A Fundamental Difference Between Conservatives and Progressives

    photo credit: Marcin Porwit Late in October a comment by Jason sparked my brain to recognize a subtle but fundamental difference between conservatives and progressives. Perhaps it should have been obvious simply by comparing the definitions for “conservative” and “progressive” but the implications seem to be  both subtle and profound. The word “conservative” can be…

  • Political Cultures

    photo credit: www.charlietphoto.com There are two political cultures that we need to change in order to have a healthy “government of the people, by the people, and for the people” in this country. The first is the culture among the voters as defined by how thy perceive those who hold political office. The second is…

  • Term Limits for All

    One year ago today I pointed out that the subject of term limits becomes popular after an election. Like clockwork it came up again this year. Jim DeMint jumped the gun a bit by announcing three weeks ago that he would introduce a term limit amendment. Yesterday he introduced the bill and today I read…