Hmmm. Well, maybe the fact that our oceans are filling with oil because those assigned to protect us were snorting coke and doing the nasty with the oil industry should cause us to reconsider the commitment of our government to consumer safety.  The fact that we are in a massive recession-0n-the-verge-of-depression because we allowed big banks free reign to do anything they want might be a warning about being watchful. Perhaps all of us have to exercise a little of our own vigilance in case there is corruption in the ranks; just in case TMobile and Verizon are hosting crack and sex parties for ranking members of the FCC.

So I don’t want to spread fear and rumors, but…..  I could not help but notice that lately there are a lot of questions about cell phone safety being publicized.  In a recent article on the subject, a reporter for GQ revealed the following:

75% of studies undertaken by independent researchers have determined there is a correlation between cell phone use and serious health risk.

However, in studies financed by the cell phone industry, only 25% of studies found cell phones to be harmful.  These are the studies that most government officials choose to utilize.

So, depending who financed the study, there is somewhere between in a one in four to a three out of four chance that yakking incestantly on your phone might ultimately result in you getting chemo pumped into your brain to get rid of that pesky tumor.  Somehow those odds are a little alarming to me.  OK, I might have been really irritated the other night when the guy at the table next to me in the restaurant talked loudly on his cell phone during dinner, but I really did not wish cancer on him.

I am not a big cell phone talker, but I do spend a lot of my day with my iPhone clipped to my belt so I have easy access to my music and a variety of Aps I use, and it occured to me that having a microwave receiver a few inches from one of my favorite and most useful parts of my body might not be a good idea.

And perhaps the bigger issue that disturbs me (and not to sound like an anti-government wacko), but I really don’t trust that those paid from our tax dollars really have our best interests at heart. 

We have to all understand and accept that big corporations are soul-less.  They live to profit without any consideration for our and our planet’s general health. They are not people; they are bank accounts and financial infrastructure.  They are not incentivized to be publically responsible, unless there is profit in that position. And they particularly thrive during periods of deregulation. They can buy politicians and bureacrats, and sway public opinion by massively manipulating the media, and that is precisely why we need strong regulations to control many industries that can have major impact on the health of society and our planet.

So if there is somewhere between a 25% and a 75% chance that cell phones could lead to major health issues down the road, I want to make sure that there is an unbiased public agency protecting us,  just as I am willing to pay taxes to make sure experts are minding the corporate hen house when it comes to protecting our environment, our food supply, our transportation system, and all the other integral aspects of society.

So, while I was suprised at how long it took to address the problem, I was happy there was at least some momentum.  I was also disappointed to see that the Republicans are unwilling to back even the most essential reforms.  These are nasty political times, with the Right Wing so angry I doubt they would agree to anything Democrats might advocate.  I suspect that if Obama introduced legislation “to allow every American the right to breathe” the Republicans would find a reason to fight it.  

But it is equally disturbing to see how quickly the Democrat’s ethics disappear when money starts to flow, as the big banks try to buy their way out of this scrutiny.  In 2010 the securities and financial sector has dumped $5.3 million into the coffers of Senate Democrats – three times the amount donated to Republicans. Senator Chuck Schumer has received $1.4 million, Senator Kristin Gillibrand $630,000, and Harry Reid $530,000.  Banks and Democrats would seem to make odd friends, but soul-less corporations have no real political affiliation – they will support any person or group that advances their goal of profitability; like parasites that have found a way to feed their prey so they can continue to gorge themselves.

Perhaps this points out the reform that is most needed in this country – campaign reform.  As long as we have a political structure built on incredibly expensive elections that force candidates to spend their time begging for donations, and allows major corporations the same status as individuals, we will continue to suffer a system that is filled with undue influence and corruption brought on by big business.

But it turns out that smart people are actually good for a country and its economy. They have ideas. They build and invent things, and help society operate more efficiently. They cure diseases and invent iPads. They help spread the wealth. They bring joy to society through art and entertainment and hope. The leaders that followed Mao realized this, and quickly opened society back up and let the smart people do their thing. They improved their educational system. They encouraged people to use their brains and their initiative. They allowed society to reward good ideas and hard work. The result…. in a few short years China has risen from a pauper nation into a world economic power.

Seems like a simple lesson that America can especially embrace. After all, we really perfected Capitalism and a society the stresses innovation and rewards great thinking and hard work. And during this economic crisis, it would seem that we could especially use a lot of both to pull us into better economic times.

So I am confused when I hear uber-conservatives blast brainpower as if being smart were some kind of crime, and wear their ignorance as a badge of honor. I was watching a little of my favorite sitcom network the other day – Cspan – when a Southern Congressman went on a rant about “Progressive Intellectuals”, as if the words were synonymous with “goat rapist”.

“I am not a progressive, and I do not support these so-called intellectuals that would lead us to socialism”, he screamed. He went on to pine for the “good old days in America”, which is really code for a time when society was dominated by middle to upper-class-white men. And I realized that if he had his way, Congressman Foghorn Leghorn and his cohorts would lead us into an American Cultural Revolution, and create a country that values a fictional past over a progressive future. They want to spearhead an American Taliban that would drive us all back a generation or two. Create our jobs in coal mines and cotton fields, and have us drive quality autos like the 1984 Mercury Marquis. Put the women-folk back into the kitchen and whore house where they belong. Don’t worry about global warming, or education, or building an equitable society….. instead let natural selection run its course and chew up the weak.

The truth is we need big-brained people to help think our way to a better world. The internet, life saving drugs, solar energy devices, digital cameras, organic farming methods, and digital television were not developed by bearded guys living in caves or rednecks that still think the world is only 6000 years old. We need smart Democrats, Republicans, and Independents. You can be smart and be conservative or liberal, educated or self-taught. Society just needs to admire, and insist upon smart – whether smart comes from a college professor, a software engineer, a hockey mom, a construction worker, or anyone from any walk of life that chooses to question “how can I make this better” and is willing to work for it.

And that means supporting smart as an integral part of American life – instead of making it somehow shameful. We should have disdain for ignorance, not education. It means making sure our schools are funded regardless of budgetary implications. It means not allowing the books our children read across the country to be chosen by a small group of people with religious or political agendas. It means always separating fact from fiction, and not allowing our leaders to convince us our best future is to live in the good old days.

Since I have not gone to a tanning salon since the Bee Gees were a top ten band, this tax does not bother me personally. And George Hamilton can probably afford a tanning tax surcharge. But there are a few other tax increases that do sound a bit painful.

• In 2013 the threshold for medical deductions is increasing from 7 ½% to 10%.

• There will also be a 2.3% tax on medical devices (excluding glasses, contacts, and hearing aids). I assume this will hit those pec and calf implants I have been dreaming of.

• The Medicare tax on household incomes over $250k increases from 1.45% to 2.35%. Whew!

• And here is another big one….. starting in 2013 there will be a 3.8% tax on net investment income. This is again a tax targeted at the rich – and will apply to individuals with income over $200k, and household incomes over $250k.

I will probably be pontificating a lot about taxes in this blog over the next few months. I am fortunate enough to be among the income group that is getting hit with a lot of tax increases, and despite the fact that I don’t like paying more taxes I do understand that some tax increases are inevitable and fair.

But I think the politicians have to be very careful about how they tax, as it could have unintended and serious consequences. The last thing we want to do is de-motivate people from investing in the economy. Hit people with too many taxes on their investments and they will quit taking investment risk. Investment fuels the economy, and right now we need everyone willing to pour a lot of fuel into companies to get them to invest in innovation and expansion, which will build jobs and result in more tax payers. It would be a shame if a tax on investment income actually shrunk the economy and resulted in a loss of taxes overall.

The folks at The United States Department of Commerce take the 2010 Census quite seriously, and rightly so. There has been a lot of publicity to get people to participate.

You must also assume that the Government is flush with cash from the way the are handling the Census. A week before the Census came in the mail I received a letter telling me that in a week I would receive the Census. Interesting approach. My credit card company does not send me a letter a week before my statement comes telling me to expect my statement in a week, probably because that would cost a fortune.

Lets assume the government mailed the letter to 100 million households at a cost of 25 cents per letter.  The letter telling me a letter was coming cost us $25 million.  Your tax dollars at work!  Perhaps this was a secret stimulas plan to boost the Postal Service.

I have to go now.  I am going to write my sister a letter to let her know that next week I am going to write her a letter.

“I was traveling via Los Angeles International Airport — LAX — last week. Walking through its faded, cramped domestic terminal, I got the feeling of a place that once thought of itself as modern but has had one too many face-lifts and simply can’t hide the wrinkles anymore. In some ways, LAX is us.  We are the United States of Deferred Maintenance. China is the People’s Republic of Deferred Gratification.  They save, invest and build. We spend, borrow and patch.

And this contrast is playing out in the worst way — just slowly enough so the crisis never seems acute enough to take urgent action.  But, eventually, infrastructure, education and innovation policies matter.  Businesses prefer to invest with the Jetsons more than the Flintstones.”

You can find Friedman’s entire article here:  http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/03/opinion/03friedman.html?ref=opinion

As usual, Friedman makes many compelling arguments in favor of innovation – of progressive thinking and planning.  And I can’t help but think about how his ideas stand in stark contrast to much of the hyper- right wing conservative agenda that for some reason prefers the status quo, or even moving backward, to a society that is constantly innovating.  I watched a recap last weekend of a recent conservative caucus, where a prominant speaker proudly announced “WE ARE NOT PROGRESSIVES, AND WE OPPOSE THE PROGRESSIVE AGENDA”. 

What does that mean?  If I were to translate Progressive versus Non-Progressive to the business world, it would lay out something like this:

Progressive Companies -

• Apple
• Google

Non-Progressive Companies -

• Chrysler
• Sears

If I had a financial advisor that recommended investing in Chrysler and Sears over Apple and Google I would immediately fire them, yet many people find some comfort in the idea of Non-Progress, living life like the Flintstones instead of the Jetsons.  Progress conquers disease, racism, and poverty.  It levels the economic playing field.  It improves our quality of life and spreads optimism.  What could be bad about that?

As I look out my office window I can see a beautiful three story stone building that fills the square block across the street.  Despite the fact that it is a historically-significant building that sits on one of the most valuable locations in Portland, and borders some of the highest priced developments in the history of the city, it has been vacant for almost ten years since the federal offices moved out.

A couple years ago I attempted to buy the building, but the Federal Government that owns it was not interested in talking. I know of at least three other major developers that also tried to buy the building, but due to government bureacracy they were unable to make any headway.  So it sits unoccupied, and instead of the government realizing several million dollars by selling the building, or even attempting to lease it out, they pay maintenance fees for a big empty building, while creating a bit of a blight in the neigborhood.  Even if the government was not open to selling or leasing the building at this point, the site is surrounded by a couple dozen open parking spots that would be in high demand in this neighborhood.

OK, I know that collecting $20,000 a year for parking, or even the millions of dollars the government could reap by selling the building certainly would not cure our budget crisis, but I can’t help but wonder how many other government buildings are sitting empty across the country.  Hundreds?  Maybe even thousands?

When an individual or a business is in financial trouble they initially look at their assets to see what they can sell to raise cash. Maybe they have a little garage sale. Of course, I don’t want the government to sell our National Parks or sell and lease back the White House, but I am willing to bet that a little ”garage sale” could raise a significant amount of cash and lower expenditures.

A trillion is a pretty daunting number to comprehend, but here  is one way to put it into perspective.

A million seconds = 12 days.

A billion seconds = 31 years.

A trillion seconds = 31,688 years.

The odds of an American being killed in a terrorist attack are roughly 1 in 5 million. You are 575 times more likely to commit suicide, yet you don’t see massive national programs to combat killing yourself. Our airports are not lined with free mental health clinics to counsel depressed travelers.

Since 9/11 over 100,000 Americans have been killed in alcohol-related traffic accidents, which is over 33 times the number of people killed in the terrorist attacks. Certainly there is a national effort to combat drunk driving, but we don’t make everyone that travels take a breathalyzer.

According to the new book SuperFreakonomics Americans take their shoes off in airports approximately 560 million times a year, all because of a guy named Richard Reid who tried to light up his Nikes.

We simply can’t afford, nor should we be forced to endure, ridiculous and expensive programs designed to make us feel better but accomplish little else. Terrorists can wear their exploding moon boots into movie theatres and kill just as many people as they would on a plane.

Here’s a bold move for our politicians. Fire the TSAs – and hire more teachers. The smarter we are, the less we will have to worry about terrorism.

While it is certainly legitimate to worry about “shipping jobs overseas” and staying competitive in the new world economy, we also need to think about the kind of jobs we want to maintain in our own country. The profit generated from an iPhone is a good example of what we should strive for. The primary profits when an iPhone is sold are divided between three countries; Korea, China, and The United States. At the low end of the totem pole is China. Chinese workers assemble the product, and their low-paid laborers receive a few dollars per phone. Samsung in Korea manufacturers the screen, and they receive approximately $15 per phone for this crucial piece of the device. And the rest of the profits all come back to the United States, where the product was conceived, designed, and marketed.

In these times of high unemployment we certainly need and want jobs, but I want the jobs Apple generates in the United States to expand, as opposed to the ones they generate in China or Korea. Intellectual capital and marketing expertise are much more valuable than a huge cheap workforce, and unfortunately there will always be an emerging economy ready and willing to work cheaper. China and Korea are primarily building their economy on their ability to act as a cost-effective factory to manufacture what we create and market. We are the best in the world at innovating, and our goal should be to continue to conceive, design, and market the world’s most innovative and needed products. It’s OK if the rest of the world builds the alternative energy devices designed in the US that help solve global warming. Our economy can still be robust if the world’s best autos and fashions and appliances are all developed here but manufactured abroad. The demand for innovation is so great that we should be able to support our entire population with a core group of “big brains” and “savvy marketers”.

But this vision requires a commitment to a few core beliefs that for some reason America is now hesitant to commit to. If we are going to be the smartest, most creative and innovative people in the world, we need to be the best educated. We need to embrace intellectual curiousity and foster creativity. But right now we are going in the opposite direction. As covered in this blog earlier, we are now turning out the first generation of Americans less educated than the last. As a result of our economic crisis, teachers are being fired, schools are lowering their standards, and fewer students can afford college. It is a recipe for disaster and a road to becoming a second-tier nation. Instead of regarding our educational system as sacred and protecting it at any cost, we quickly discard it as something we just can’t afford anymore.

We are in a bizarre period when intelligence is often ridiculed by a very vocal crowd that believes science is a theory, and would prefer to focus the national discourse on conservative religious issues, the antics of ratings-hungry talk show hosts, and the latest reality television stars.

We need visionary politicians that understand the absolute necessity of building a population that grows continually more enlightened and intelligent, instead of leaders that pander to any group that will donate to their campaign funds.

The Obama administration is currently backing a bill to give $250 to every Social Security recipient, since this is the first year retirees won’t get a cost of living increase. Two hundred and fifty bucks is not going to change anyone’s life – but in total it represents $13 billion dollars. $13 billion dollars pumped into our education system could change a lot of young lives and would represent a big investment in the country’s future.

Imagine if instead of invading Iraq we had pumped up our national education system and funded innovation. Why do we have people marching on Washington and into town halls complaining about healthcare, but there is little public outrage over our crumbling education standards and a population growing increasingly stupid?

Instead of putting governmental support behind failing companies with outdated products and/or Weasel management, lets pour some cash into our education system and new technology start-ups that will continue to keep us on the cutting edge.

It is certainly no accident that The Silicon Valley – the heartland of America’s technological and economic dominance over the last two decades – is just around the corner from Stanford University. Stanford graduates started Google, H-P, Cisco, Yahoo, and Sun Microsystems, just to name a few. The correlation between a smart population and economic prosperity and security in undeniable, and much easier to justify then pumping cash into dodgy financial institutions.

America needs more Apple Computers, Hewlett-Packards, and Googles, and the only way to keep building companies like this is if we have a culture that values education, intelligence, and innovation.