Too Big to Succeed?

 

The United States is the third most populous nation on Earth. Only India and China, culturally profoundly different and despite language issues oddly homogeneous compared with the United States, have more people. Each nation struggles with governance, China with repression, India with a strange balance between powerful local rule (Chief Ministers – the US equivalent of governors – exercise near total control over their designated state) and less powerful central national power (currently under PM Narendra Modi of the Hindu Nationalist BJP Party). The forms of government in these two Asian powers were only created in the middle of the 20th century, while the US form of government was created 200 years earlier.

Simply, the ability of the US democracy to govern effectively has recently unraveled to the extent that deep “irreconcilable differences” – mutually inconsistent visions of governance – have rendered that historic pattern of legislative compromise a vestige the past that has slipped by. Butterfly effects have redesigned our nation. As Canada has contained the cost of higher education, producing STEM candidates at reasonable costs, the average educational level has risen proportionally. With no real healthcare issues, Canada has avoided having classes of healthcare haves and haves not (or have a whole lot less). As an extension of these realities, Canada is now leaning less on religious foundations and increasingly on fact-driven scientific realities.

That Canadians are looking at fundamentalist religion and aversion to reliance on empirical facts as a uniquely American phenomenon which actually scares them, and those Americans holding what would be radical minority views in Canada are anti-democratic, pro-autocracy really, and represent a growing sentiment where democracy cannot be sustained.

That America has risen to be an economic monolith with bully tactics and a clear desire to extend her borders into nearby nations is sending political shudders across the Great White Northland. As discussed in the January 13th The Conversation by Canadian academics Galen Watts and Sam Reimer, organized religion’s brand is becoming decreasingly popular, just as liberalism and secular science have become culturally dominant: “In 1961, less than one per cent of Canadians identified as having no religion. In 2021, 43 per cent of those between 15 and 35 considered themselves religiously unaffiliated… Organized religion — and especially Christianity — is in decline. Secularization is advancing apace. Most sociologists of religion agree on this. What they disagree about, however, is why…

“To understand branding’s role in shaping views of ‘religion’ we drew from recent survey data on young Canadians’ shifting sentiments toward the term, as well as our own interview data with 50 Anglo-Canadians born between 1980-2000 who identify as ‘spiritual but not religious’ — a phrase claimed by around 40 per cent of Canadians.

“Our findings indicate that the decline of organized religion in Canada is caused by a significant shift in the country’s religious imaginary: while ‘religion’ was once widely seen by Canadians in positive terms, among younger people especially, it is increasingly seen in a negative light.

“Many of the Canadian millennials we spoke to tended to view the word ‘religion’ as:

(1) anti-modern;

(2) conservative;

(3) American; and

(4) colonial.”

But we Americans now live in a world where if the Americans who seem out of power (liberals) do not admit they are wrong and that red states are the only correct political voice, the blue Americans cannot receive benefits, like disaster relief, from the political party in power. And that includes denigrating scientific thought, decrying our finest institutions of higher learning as woke and out of touch with “reality” and elevating obviously inane conspiracy theories above empirical facts. Even as we are a nation of immigrants, dependent on poor immigrants to harvest our food and build our homes, as the local population no longer has babies anywhere near replacement value, we have turned on immigrants with no sensible policy ready to right our ship.

Addressing the recent fires in California, all sorts of “blame” has been heaped on our elected leadership. Trump himself could not fathom how local firefighters could not put out a fire… not remotely understanding that red state leaders could no more stop water carrying hurricanes than fires facing the same level of winds. MAGA officials continue to blame California for not cleaning up their forest land as the cause… even though these were not “forest fires,” and it is federal forest land that needs the clean-up.

There is no fault here except our “woke” refusal to face climate change as the underlying vector of power. 2023 as the warmest year on record was just a repetition of a string of warming records. But once those “theories” are uttered in MAGAland, they become immutable truths. “Obviously there's been water resources management, forest management mistakes, all sorts of problems. And it does come down to leadership and it appears to us that state and local leaders were derelict in their duty in many respects… So that's something that has to be factored in. I think there should probably be conditions on that aid. That's my personal view." House Speaker Johnson, echoing the opinion of his most rightwing faction, some of whom simply want to withhold fire aid entirely.

As the United States grew, mostly from immigration, it got rich. Scientific facts and good old fashioned American engineering exploded economic growth. But as economic equality began to slip away, as a new class of billionaires rose, complaining about high taxes and too much consumer and environmental regulation, excoriating extending healthcare and retirement benefits to ordinary Americans as “entitlements” and “creeping socialism,” those oligarchs used religion and fundamental “American values” to stop those benefits to the American who paid into the system.

Canadians are happier these days, even with their own political turmoil, than are we. Why is that? How does a democratic government function when even the basic “facts” around us are refuted and replaced with vacuous conspiracy theories? I guess it doesn’t. It used to be that we were big enough to tolerate markedly divergent views… we were the great mixing bowl that accelerated growth and prosperity. But today, that very bigness has created such strong factions that we are slip-sliding in the wrong direction… and the piper is en route to our shores.

I’m Peter Dekom, and if we cannot build our society on reality, how can democracy survive… or does that matter anymore?

Blame, Don’t Solve and, Above All, Protect the Super-Rich

 

“Governor Gavin Newscum refused to sign the water restoration declaration put before him that would have allowed millions of gallons of water from excess rain and snow melt from the north to flow daily into many parts of California, including the parts that are currently burning in a virtually apocalyptic way,” Donald Trump. That water restoration declaration never existed.

“I will demand that this incompetent governor allow beautiful, clean, fresh water to flow into California. He is the blame for this. On top of it all, no water for fire hydrants, not firefighting planes. A true disaster.” 

Trump fabrication.

I live in a rightwing, pincushion, spear-catching state that is the major vegetable growing and technology creating state in the Union. California. Far from perfect, California is the most important part of our national economy. According to the Calif. Public Policy Institute, in 2023, California's gross domestic product (GDP) was about $3.9 trillion, comprising 14% of national GDP ($27.7 trillion). Texas and New York are the next largest state economies, at 9% and 8%, respectively. California's economy ranks fifth internationally, behind the US, China, Germany, and Japan. What’s more, California contributes significantly more to the federal tax base than the aggregation of any benefits it receives. And there are rather large areas of California – from farm country to the wealthiest enclaves of Orange County – that are politically as red as Idaho.

Fact: we are facing “natural” (actually, man-induced) disasters that are escalating in number and intensity as virtually every year, the average global temperature exceeds that of the previous year. Hurricanes, wildfires, coastal erosion, rising seas, severe drought in some areas, severe flooding elsewhere. Above all, demon winds of unprecedented ferocity are decimating our way of life. And no, this is not God’s punishment to anti-Christian/woke Americans for embracing diversity (isn’t that the tolerance set out in the New Testament?) or the “hate thy neighbor” anti-immigrant wave that throws the baby out with the bathwater. Who will rebuild our losses? Harvest our crops? Do the work local Americans cannot or will not do?

From my window in my home office, I can see massive smoke enveloping the Westside of LA and the hills that rise above the city. I am getting texts, emails and phone calls about who, in my group of friends, folks I work with every day, have lost their homes, cars, possessions and memory-laden personal effects. I have cried solid tears for their losses… and while I know they will come back better than ever, unlike so many leering at California, grasping at Schadenfreude as if it we the elixir of gods, delighting in our misery, I feel their pain, even as I struggle to recover from my own major surgery.

At a time when Americans should pull together, the death and destruction around me has become wildly exploited by the religious right – that punishment motif – MAGA for some purported compromised competence because there are too many DEI first responders (raw racism) and a complete misunderstanding of the largest urban American firestorm (with winds at hurricane strength supercharging embers of destruction to attack new targets) in the 21st Century. Simply, no one has ever had to deal with a firestorm of this magnitude. While a small portion of our water reserves were being updated and repaired, no one at any level of understanding thought we were lacking enough water to feed hydrants everywhere. But we were. One of our essential water-dropping aircraft was taken out of service when it collided with a civilian drone that had no business being there.

We’ve had virtually zero rain. Atmospheric rivers may have doused Northern California, but they missed us. Everything here is profoundly dry. We are lumbering past that 1.5 degrees Celsius red alert level, facing a future of increasing damage and intensity. And this will hardly be relegated to California. Climate change denial is all the rage in so many demographic segments of America… and “drill, baby, drill” will neither reduce prices at the pump nor restore America to greatness again. Rightwing vituperatives solve nothing, in fact lead people not to act in order to “teach those lefty Californians a lesson.”

Californians have fought fires all across the US, leaped into action when hurricanes decimated vast regions and voted to increase disaster relief without limits or question. We’re Americans! We only ask that we be treated and cared for as we have treated and cared for other Americans in their time of need.

I’m Peter Dekom, and apocalyptic Los Angeles is not a disaster that we be relegated to the history books; it is the vision of the world of the future that just couldn’t give up fossil fuels.

A Hack is a Cough, an Amateur or, in China, a Hero

 

"China has built the world's most comprehensive ecosystem for capture-the-flag (CTF [hidden pieces of data (the ‘flags’]) competitions—the predominant form of hacking competitions, ranging from team-versus-team play to Jeopardy-style knowledge challenges… China's CTF ecosystem is unparalleled in size and scope—something akin to four overlapping National Collegiate Athletic Associations, each with a primary government sponsor just for cybersecurity students to exercise their skills… Many of these marquee competitions include talent-spotting mechanisms for recruitment." 

 Per a report from the D.C.-based Atlantic Council think tank.

Donald Trump’s unabashed priorities – as evidenced by his cabinet picks – focus heavily on making clear that the People’s Republic of China (PRC) is America’s primary enemy. Tariffs. International waterways. Technology security. Social media control (like TikTok). Maybe even Taiwan. Trump’s continued relationship with Russia’s Putin and his closeness to Israel’s Netanyahu suggest that the wars in Ukraine and Gaza will be relegated to sideshow distractions as his administration focuses on marginalizing, isolating and containing Xi Jinping’s global ambitions… particularly challenging that Chinese President’s effort to marginalize the United States, create workarounds against the domination of the dollar and US trading platforms, and cement international ties to limit American influence outside of our traditional allies.

Traditionally, the United States has been wary of cozy relations between Moscow and Beijing. That entente has recently witnessed a strange move of those two powers to work together more, particularly in joint efforts at countering the United States in her own Arctic backyard. But Russia’s engagement with North Korea, including that small nation’s sending thousands of troops to fight against Ukraine, seems to be a threat to China’s unique and primary relationship with Pyongyang. China’s ground forces truly outnumber ours; her air power dominates her region well beyond any countermeasures we might mount, and while still not as advanced as out naval capacity, the PRC has a larger total fleet and an overwhelming sea-based advantage in China’s neighborhood, including a new naval base in the Spratley island chain. Missiles, jets and nukes? Oh yeah!

Even as China’s economy is still suffering from a real estate, banking and unemployment crisis, US tariffs are a genuine threat to her recovery. But Xi has been preparing for years to trip up and contain US economy and military dominance in anticipation of this ultimate showdown. She has engaged in industrial espionage on an unprecedented scale and has created one of the most effective and highly substantial programs that hack our most sensitive private sectors (from medical, social media, power grids, financial to cutting edge technology) and our government. China’s capacity to spy and misinform through hacking may be the most sophisticated on earth.

As the above quote suggests, “Hacking competitions in China have surged over recent years, supported by strong government backing and rising public interest, raising alarm in the U.S., where officials are warning that the widening cyber skills gap is placing America at a strategic disadvantage and posing national security risks.

“China has made great strides since President Xi Jinping's call for the nation to become a ‘cyber powerhouse’ a decade ago. University programs in cybersecurity have been standardized, a National Cybersecurity Talent and Innovation Base capable of certifying 70,000 cybersecurity experts per year was established, and hacking competitions—many touting their alignment with Xi's ‘powerhouse’ ambition—have proliferated…

“Jessica Ruzic, deputy associate chief of policy at the Department of Homeland Security's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), pointed out during an Atlantic Council event streamed on Saturday that the long-term focus of China's authoritarian, one-party state model has afforded it more continuity than the short-term approach seen in democracies like the U.S.

“‘China's mentality is that they are building something structural, and the U.S. mentality is that we are trying to solve a problem that's right in front of us,’ Ruzic said during an online event hosted by the Atlantic Council's Global China Hub. ‘The U.S. government as a whole is not set up for long-term strategic thinking. That's just not the way that term limits work, right?... Frankly the time to establish a foundational strategy for countering PRC… malicious cyber activity was 20 years ago…”

“Dakota Cary, co-author and nonresident fellow at the Global China Hub and co-author of the Atlantic Council report, pointed to a difference in focus between Chinese and American CTF competitions… ‘The U.S. CTF ecosystem generally hosts defensively oriented competitions designed to assess participants' ability to secure their systems against attack. For many of China's CTFs, offensively oriented skills are tested and prioritized,’ he said.

“When asked about the U.S.'s cyber capabilities since whistleblower Edward Snowden revealed the National Security Agency's global surveillance programs, Cary said perceptions of U.S. dominance are outdated… ‘Large-scale, back-end collection is now incredibly difficult due to pervasive encryption,’ he said. ‘The U.S. system was previously unparalleled, but many in the field now admit that China is the more capable actor. The scale of its research community dwarfs other nations, both due to China's size and its focused effort over the last decade.’” Newsweek, November 12th. With China’s ability to throw hundreds of thousands of operatives at targeted hacking, the aggregation of bits of hacked “flags” can be monumental.

What are they looking to do (or might have already accomplished)? “FBI director Christopher Wray and other intelligence officials have warned Chinese hackers seek to lay the groundwork for the country to disrupt critical infrastructure when the moment is right, as well as engage in intellectual property theft… ‘The PRC has a bigger hacking program than every other major nation combined,’ Wray said in a Congressional hearing earlier this year. He warned that hackers are laying the groundwork to ‘wreak havoc’ on American infrastructure when doing so would benefit China.” Newsweek.

They can also subtly sow dis- and mis-information into social media at an unprecedented rate, often exceptionally difficult to trace, but quite capable of planting credible conspiracy theories that are quickly lapped up by gullible Americans seeking evidence to support their political leanings. Are the Chinese better at this technological challenge than we are? Vastly. Is their cyber hacking capacity larger and more effective than ours? Vastly. Just look at how “vast and influential” TikTok is today. Red (literally) alert!

I’m Peter Dekom, and the raw political ambition of a Chinese autocrat, who has disposed of term limits a long time ago, is thoroughly focused on unseating the United States from its primacy in global influence, military power, technology and economic domination.

Dementia, Bravado or Unparalleled Narcissistic Personality Disorder

 

Dementia, Bravado or Unparalleled Narcissistic Personality Disorder

Greenland, Panama and Even Canada?!

As the richest person in the world ranges and forages among Europe’s rising rightwing – we believe in efficient autocracy – among major and often governing political parties, alienating liberal governments as if he were immune from retribution, US Co-President designee, Elon Musk deploys his vast wealth and influence first and foremost, on his own investment holdings, and secondarily to destabilize liberal forces that refute his vision of who should rule… and who should bow down in absolute fealty to him. Is Trump becoming less mentally stable – just think what the rightwing would have said if Biden had uttered such Trump Greenland/Panama/Canada territorial “claims” – or is he otherwise protecting his center-stage in global politics by making demands and observations far more bullying than Musk.

For Trump, is this the Monroe Doctrine reboot on steroids turned on its megalomaniacal head? The world is watching. Trump touted a sale of Greenland by Denmark (it is semi-autonomous Danish territory since 1953 and could not be sold without a local vote anyway) during his first term, but the initial response this second time around was met with a belief that this was Trump’s attempt at humor. Yet as this claim was repeated with increasing seriousness, as Donny Trump (above) traveled to Greenland (a huge Arctic land with under 100,000 people), people began to take the elder Trump’s threat (a little hint of saber rattling behind the offer to buy) seriously. On January 7th, Denmark’s Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said that “Greenland belongs to the Greenlanders” and that the island is “not for sale.” Not now. Not ever.

Trump did his usual double-down – coupled with his seemingly equally serious threat to Panama (which acquired the US-built Panama Canal in 1977 during the Carter administration) to lower canal fees and give US vessels a preference or else expect a US takeover. The Canal recently incurred billions of dollars in investment to modernize and widen the passage, and ships are allowed to enter the Canal with no built-in preferences. Cost to traverse the Canal? Generally, between $300,000 and $1,000,000 depending on size. Nobody gets a discount. But President-elect Trump hinted that he would use economic and military force to take back the Canal if Panama does not steeply discount passage to US ships (cargo and military) and accord such ships a priority. Panama stiffly resisted. Greenland too?

"There is obviously no question that the European Union would never let other nations of the world attack its sovereign borders, whoever they are… We are a strong continent." French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot told France Inter radio in response to a hypothetical question addressing a US invasion of Greenland. Arctic power Russia made its own intentions clear “Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said Russia is closely monitoring the situation, after US President-elect Donald Trump refused to rule out military action to take Greenland from Denmark… Peskov said the Arctic was in Russia's ‘sphere of national and strategic interests and it is interested in peace and stability there.’" BBC.com, January 9th

Yet Russia might love the US imitating Russia’s efforts to take Ukraine by annexing it neighbor to the north. After all, why stop at sparsely populated Greenland or at Panama (which doesn’t even have a standing army), when Canada has so many more riches… Even greater than the industrial wealth that Taiwan offers China, which is threatening to take that independent nation by force. Hopefully in jest, Trump suggested that Canadians would love to become the 51st state. Don’t bet on it… but for existing US citizens, adding Canada to the US would be a blessing… finally bringing national healthcare to our shores and blunting the harsh rightwing MAGA vector that brought Trump back into power. With Canada’s population slightly above that of California, adding Canadians to our voting mix would definitely move the United States to the left. Prime Minister/US Governor Wayne Gretzky?! Yup, that’s what Trump suggested.

But there is another parameter rising here, the standard Trumpian distract and blame when he obviously cannot deliver on most of his pledges. Like: cutting food and gas prices, funding government just based on tariff income, ending the Ukraine War in a day, dropping inflation can cutting taxes for the rich while reducing the national debt and installing his incompetent cabinet picks to run the country. It does seem that de facto co-President Musk is getting what he wanted… even if Trump cannot deliver on his promises.

I’m Peter Dekom, and even if Trump makes a little headway on immigration deportation, even that will add costs to just about everything.

Climate Change: The Reigning Power of Water

 

Water destroys and kills. Yet, no life on earth can live without it. It keeps us alive. As water rises and falls, it redefines civilization, agriculture and life at every level. It is the subject of religious doctrine – from Judeo-Christianity’s description of the Great Flood to the Hindu sacred Ganges River – that is often a spiritual determinant, used for blessings and part of essential rituals in reverence to God. But one of the greatest impacts of climate change is the dramatic reconfiguring of water’s placement, power and perseverance. Most of the planet is completely unprepared for the obvious and inevitable.

For example, in the recent torrents in the Valencia region in Spain: “In a matter of minutes, flash floods caused by heavy downpours in eastern Spain swept away almost everything in their path. With no time to react, people were trapped in vehicles, homes and businesses. Many died and thousands of livelihoods were shattered.” Associated Press, November 4th. In fact, hundreds were killed. Can mankind adapt fast enough? Will that adaption ultimately fail? How will other forms of life on Earth respond? And in particular, how is a purportedly modern and educated nation like the United States dealing with these realities? Simply, it isn’t, as climate change deniers literally prevent us from dealing properly with this extraordinarily obvious and accelerating reality.

As Christopher Flavelle, writing for the October 22nd The Morning NYTimes newsfeed, explains: “America has a flooding problem. When Hurricane Milton hit Florida, the images of inundation seemed shocking — but also weirdly normal: For what felt like the umpteenth time this year, entire communities were underwater. Since the 1990s, the cost of flood damage has roughly doubled each decade, according to one estimate. The federal government issued two disaster declarations for floods in 2000. So far this year, it has issued 66…

“The reasons are no mystery. Global warming is making storms more severe because warmer air holds more water. At the same time, more Americans are moving to the coast and other flood-prone areas… Those conflicting trends are forcing people to adapt. Advances in design, science and engineering — combined with a willingness to spend vast amounts of money — have allowed the United States and other wealthy countries to try new ideas for coping with water…”

For starters, we need to stop building in obvious flood-prone areas or near sites where coastal erosion is promising to take back land… into the sea. Insurance companies are sending that message rather clearly. In coastal Florida, there are uninsurable areas and others where increased insurance costs exceed mortgage payments. Flavelle suggests three approaches that flood-control policies address, which mostly involves not doing anything today: fight the water, live with it, or pack your bags.

When you add a belief that government can contain flooding – as the Netherland’s mega-expensive engineering systems hold back the Atlantic for a nation that is mostly below sea level – to climate change denial, you foster a reactive vs a proactive approach. Used to finding someone to blame or pay for our folly, Americans expect either for climate change to end or for government to build the required technology to stop the damage. Simply put, most of that effort is a losing battle.

“Behind those options is a puzzle: With so many tools available, why does flood damage in the United States (which cost more than $180 billion last year, according to one estimate) keep rising? I asked Chad Berginnis, head of the Association of State Floodplain Managers. ‘Two things,’ he told me. ‘Irrationality and elections.’… People struggle to assess the danger when disasters are infrequent but incredibly costly, he said. And politicians realize they won’t become popular by raising people’s taxes to pay for colossal infrastructure projects.” Flavelle

With open hostility towards educated elites, a strong minority of Americans are guided by their interpretation of the Bible: God promised the world, after the Great Flood, that he would never again wreak global destruction on mankind… and that the Earth’s resources were provided so mankind can do whatever they want to extract them. They actually believe that efforts to contain these natural forces defy God’s “pledge.” Other Christians, notably Roman Catholics admonished by Pope Francis to take responsibility to care for God’s gift of the environment, take a more realistic tact. But Mother Nature, not swayed by legislative votes or large gatherings of religious groups certain God will save them, does not care. She’s armed with the laws of physics… she started with nothing and no has issue with going back to zero.

I’m Peter Dekom, and the assuaging yet angry words of sheep-like politicians saying what their flock would like to hear are likely to be drowned out… quite literally.

Hello World, I’m Back!

Hello World, I’m Back!

What I Saw, What I See… Who We Seem to be Becoming

From the cloistered view from a hospital room (post-surgical and then rehab), surrounded by caring people overwhelmed with bureaucracy, red tape, equipment in dire need of updating, I witnessed the American political landscape migrating into a really huge swamp, a deep state run by plutocrats and a scared nation with demographic segments wondering where they belong. I witnessed the quicksand of insurance company approvals, which have sucked millions into sometimes terminal soup of easy answers no one seems willing to make. My treatment was first rate, more than I can say for many lost in a healthcare system designed to make profits.

As years have passed, with consumers who even have healthcare insurance being denied coverage for obvious ailments in need of treatment, I have learned of doctors spending as much as half their time fighting insurance giants over rejected treatments, just as we face a doctor shortage. Better to waste doctors’ time to support mega profits of insurance giants that to deal with the treatment so many people need. I witnessed nurses, doctors and specialized treatment personnel use handwritten notes (where streamlined ultra-thin tablets could translate handwritten notes into text for subsequent charting and data entry) and then re-type them into the main data repository, highly regulated by HIPAA federal requirements.

On my hospitals’ limited channels, I witnessed Luigi Mangione, the suspected killer of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, treated as a hero by a huge demographics, just as mass media (of all kinds) carefully tip-toed around aggrandizing his success in refocusing the nation around a failed healthcare system, the least effective and most expensive in the developed world. We remain the only developed country in the world without universal healthcare. We pay fortunes for prescription drugs, often a multiple of what other countries pay, even with the recent Biden adjustments to Medicare coverage for some vey routine drugs.

Republicans, who use the word “entitlement” to describe earned and vested benefits (like Social Security and Medicare), suggesting that these entitlements need to be trimmed so that the richest in the land can receive the vast portion of the renewal and expansion of Trump’s first term tax cuts. The completely disproven notion “trickle-down economics” – where if the rich get gobs of newfound money, they will immediately turn around and create wonderful new jobs – is the GOP axiom that underlies their planned tax reduction for the rich initiative (the bedrock of their platform). But TRICKLE-DOWN ECONOMICS HAVE NEVER, EVER WORKED TO CREATE JOBS OR BENEFIT ANYONE BUT THE RICH! EVER!

If the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson had not happened, would the outrage over “delay,” “deny” and “disapprove” – the seeming cry of major healthcare insurers often pushing treatment off to allow death to eliminate claims altogether – ever have been so heavily featured? I seriously doubt it, and, no, I do not condone murder. What a sad commentary on our system. Sadder still since those who face a world without insurance or “delay,” “deny” and “disapprove” with higher premiums, soaring deductibles, more caps and exclusions and escalating co-pays… with a disproportionate number being MAGA adherents in red states hoping to terminate government support for healthcare. They believe their lots will be improved, that trickle-down economics will boost their livelihoods and still allow for a balanced budget.

Not the prediction of most credible economists from both sides of the aisle. They project $4-$7 trillion of resulting deficit borrowing to service the tax cut. Hence the GOP frenzy to raise the debt ceiling during the waning days of the Biden administration. That would allow Republicans to blame Dems for the deficit increase. Now, with control of the presidency, the House, the Senate and the Supreme Court, the damage from that debt ceiling increase to accommodate that tax cut will belong solely to the Republican Party.

And with Musk’s seeming success in pushing deregulation and tax cuts – crying creeping socialism if we do the only effective solution to our crumbling healthcare system: stop prioritizing corporate profits over having an effective healthcare system in the United States… we become an oligarchy where the ordinary citizens are expendable to foster a society where only the rich are comfortable. Healthcare is no more socialism than is government-provided primary and secondary education. For those who tell us that if we adopt universal healthcare, we will only get long lines and inferior medical care, that happens only if the system is badly designed. Perhaps we should look at the German and Swiss systems to see what happens if the design is done right.

My greatest disillusionment through all this is that the religious right (98% of registered Republicans are self-described “Christians” accorded to Pew Research) either believes that the Bible is a menu or that virtually the entirety of the New Testament is simply too woke to be believed and followed. We need to care about each other again. We need to understand that our choice to support a profit-driven healthcare system vs embrace viable universal healthcare is an either/or decision. These alternatives are profoundly mutually exclusive.

I’m Peter Dekom, and I will try and add more blogs as I continue with a long recovery, so bear with me!

Good for the USA? – Another Kind of Toxic Inflation!

Good for the USA? – Another Kind of Toxic Inflation!

Grades

It’s not as if colleges and universities are having a good time these days. Aside from skyrocketing tuition, triple the rate of inflation, the unraveling of DEI initiatives and mishandled student protests – for or against Israel/ Palestine – amplifying racism and other forms of intolerance, it seems that the once honorable “B” and the tolerable “C” have lost their cachet. They call it “grade inflation,” where the curve is gone and the proclivity to level academic performance metrics has taken its place. While that’s not the reason multiple university presidents have resigned (including notables like the now former heads of Ivies Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania and Columbia), you have to wonder if all these elements are the result of a big pandemic reset.

On November 6th, Karin Klein, a member of the Los Angeles Times editorial board, looked at this DEI-alter-ego with more than a mere touch of disdain: “Grade inflation is spreading from high school to college… Research has shown that students’ marks are getting better even as measures of learning aren’t. [Starting with an analysis of high school trends, epitomized in Los Angeles public schools:] grade inflation marches on. A 2022 Times analysis showed that grades in the Los Angeles Unified School District had been rising while scores on standardized tests were falling — and that the two weren’t anywhere near each other.

“Not to pick on L.A. schools or students: Grade inflation is omnipresent and more common in affluent areas. To avoid discouraging students, some school districts did away with D and F grades. Grade-point averages have consistently risen even though scores on nationwide standardized exams such as the SAT and National Assessment of Educational Progress have not.” No wonder why selective colleges are looking to alternative indices of suitability for their admissions criteria.

For a while, there was a trend away from the above standardized college entrance exams, but as alternative metrics lost their credibility, the call to return to such testing rallied quickly. While DEI admissions criteria have been slammed by the US Supreme Court, the undertones – criteria like: which secondary school was noted (their pattern of grade inflation is often tracked), how well the non-AI-generated essay topic fared, how those additional activities (consistency admired) defined the applicant, interviews where possible, etc. – colleges and universities can still indirectly implement their DEI criteria… a tad more subtly perhaps.

At a college or university level, even in trade school, performance metrics often matter to prospective employers, graduate schools, major academic honors and program selection (Rhodes Scholars for example), prestigious appointments (like federal judicial clerkships), etc. Students may think they are getting a just reward, but those who used to rely on academic performance metrics often cast a jaundiced eye to the most flagrant examples of unmerited “exceptional grades.” That reminds me of the old query, what do you call the lowest performing graduate of the worst medical school in the country? “Doctor.” Karen Klein continues:

“A report by the National Center for Education Statistics found that although high school students were taking more credits and tougher courses and getting higher grades in math, their actual mastery of the material had declined. In a 2023 poll, educators said that close to half of students argue for higher grades than they earn, and 8 of 10 teachers give in. It’s hard to blame them: A third or more of students and parents harass them when they don’t.

“Unearned grades are damaging in many ways. They warp the college admission process, for one thing. While colleges used to regard high school grade-point averages as the best predictor of higher education success, their predictive value has declined. Although many schools dropped consideration of the SAT and ACT as part of admissions, selective schools are bringing them back. They need measures they can trust.

“Some students, armed with good grades, march off to college to find themselves in remedial classes because they haven’t learned enough to take college-level courses. Employers have complained for years that high school and even college grads lack basic skills needed in the workforce. College professors complain that the students coming to them aren’t even adept at reading books.

“With reformers and the U.S. Education Department pressuring colleges to improve graduation rates, it should be no surprise that grade inflation has followed students into postsecondary school. Some professors hesitate to grade accurately because of student evaluations, which are often more negative for tough graders. Remember that about 70% of college instructors are adjunct professors who have few job protection… No wonder 65% of Americans think they are more intelligent than average. Parents are fooled into thinking their straight-A students are stars and stunned when they are rejected by selective universities. They don’t realize that these days, A is for Average.”

Usually, the system adapts to such devalued information. When those adjustments are made, students often feel betrayed, because the grades they thought they “earned” were neither merited nor of value for that student’s “next.” But in a competitive universe, facing an even more formidable competitor in AI, it’s time to return to the real world and deal with “what is.” Perhaps in an era of science skeptics, disdain for educated “elites,” and conspiracy theories replacing hard facts, it is no surprise that that altered reality has invaded our schools and colleges. Unfortunately, continuing on this path makes the entire nation less competitive. And that’s not good any way you look at it.

I’m Peter Dekom, and earning good grades, earning a living, earning a better place in life… sometimes with a little help, well, I was always taught that hard work, earning what you receive, is the real definition of American opportunity.