Shockingly the one area of healthcare that hasn’t been addressed is cost. We simply spend too much. We have solid gold demands and a tin credit card. During this whole discussion no one will talk about the 1000 pound gorilla in the room.

Healthcare spending equals 16% of our GDP. Twenty years ago it was 6%. By 2020 it will be 25% on a projected basis. We have the best healthcare system in the world. BS. At 78.1 years, our life expectancy stands at 33^rd in the world. At 70.0 years, our healthy years are 33^rd. In infant mortality rate we rank 34^th. Next question?

I am not advocating socialized medicine but there is a strong case to be made. Since the advent of Medicare we have seen the medical/industrial complex evolve. We have simply made a business out of disease and medical treatment. As widely held stocks we have pushed these companies to show profit growth. Ergo, the sicker, the longer, the more complex, the better.

Today we bring out new drugs at higher prices. They in many cases are only marginally better than the old one. They advertise. The doctor is not going to argue with a patient that wants this or that. What does he care? Prescription drug benefits don’t quibble. Pay for all but God forbid there would be a bidding process to lower Medicare costs. How tacky.

Machines can look into anything. Studies have shown hospitals with the latest and greatest gizmo see a huge growth in usage. To make people better? No, to pay for the damn thing. There are sophisticated operating rooms. Gotta pay for them. Oncology, cardio, orthopedics, obstetrics… We have to have the best. But we have got to pay for them. Don’t forget the same is being done at two or three other hospitals across town.

One would think that competition would be could. No way. Rather than being a cost lowering piece we raise costs well above inflation. We have to make profits so we raise prices because nobody cares or checks. We can jam more procedures into a two day stay than you can shake a stick at.

Now enter the doctor. Now docs are wonderful people and many are friends at least until now. He is a traffic cop. He treats. He refers. He will prescribe tests, MRI’s and treatment. And don’t you dare question him. Sure you can seek a second opinion he says but you may die in the meantime. No one wants to be a GP because there is no money in it. Besides I want a specialty where I don’t have to work weekends or be on call.

Sounds cruel but you have to question someone who has a proprietary interest in an outpatient surgical suite, MRI machine or blood testing center. Ask the question next time. You will be shocked.

Enter the patient. If you have cancer it can be a daunting task just to get a straight answer about your odds. Docs and hospitals don’t like to talk about death. It is truly against their oath. The characterization of “death squads” really pissed me off. Sitting down with two or three specialists discussing your disease, your outcomes and treatments doesn’t sound scary to me.

I am not pulling plugs but I am trying to be rational. If it is profitable to keep me alive at all cost and no matter what my degeneration stage might be, then we have 65 million problems coming up real fast.

Today we don’t run hospitals for charity. If you are owned by a big corporation you have got to show profits. Fill those beds with paying customers. Show them the latest and greatest no matter what. But if you are an insurance company you cut this down to the bone. Fight them every inch of the way. But still you pay for all the overreach and if it is Medicare, bill them for anything. Oops, I put in the wrong code that changed that treatment from $500 to $10,000. Tylenol? Of course they are $14.73 per tablet.

We heal older people only to have them develop something else.

We don’t want to give up but it gets into the realm of the absurd. There was a 92 year old woman in final stages of cancer. She was being seen by 15 specialists, including a psychiatrist…..and she even has a Pabst Smear. I’d laugh if it wasn’t so sad.

It is said that 30% of our $2.5 trillion annual medical costs is wasted on unnecessary procedures. That is $750 BILLION. They say malpractice insurance and suits only account for 7% of medical costs. What was I thinking? That’s only $150 billion.

Once again I have nothing against medical professionals making money. But when the whole process is bloated by oversupply of facilities and machines there is something terribly wrong. We can see the heavy hand saying if you don’t do this you are going to die. I say if we keep doing this we are going to die any way.

As Always

Ted The Great

Factoid…sort of

Many of you know I work in hospice. I am there as people “pass on” as the new phraseology states. I asked one of the nurses if the person was not in hospice how long could they be kept alive on ventilators, feeding tubes etc? She said depending on the disease progression and treatment it could be anywhere from one month to over a year. I said “what about quality of life”?. There was no answer.

Medicare Fraud:

It is estimated that between $60-90 billion of Medicare costs are the result of fraud. Because of regulations to protect bona fide business owners many of those who defraud the government are back in business almost immediately or are not prosecuted because the staff members do not show up for hearings. I can’t make this stuff up.

Dateline: Denver …..Hick Governor Conquers all.

Here in Denver we have a governor by the unstately name of John Hickenlooper. Not to worry his appearance matches his name. In the eighties he was a geologist…got laid off. Became a developer. Then mayor of Denver. Now the top spot.

He is a strange one. He foregoes pomp for simplicity. Ties are worn only if they have to be. The governor’s mansion was vacated for his suburban home. He actually goes out without bodyguards. They are all attributes of living in a state of 5 million citizens and probably an equal number of livestock.

He went down in front of his capitol office last week to address the Wall Street protesters. They were on his front lawn so to speak. He didn’t yell or scream. He said they couldn’t stay there. Extolling the first amendment  he also simply stated that if the tent city burned down and killed people he was liable. Made perfect sense. They left.

But his down home diplomacy really hit home when Arrow Electronics, a Fortune 150 company decided to move from New York where they were founded to, you guessed it, Colorado. They are bringing 1500 employees.

The crazy part is how it came to be. Last May he assembled Arrow’s CEO, as well as  DaVita’s, Western Union’s and their wives at dinner…in his wonderful but simple house in Park Hill. There they sat in down home surroundings around the dinner table  and just talked about business as we all might on a Saturday night. No backdoor meetings. No falderall. Just talking.

We also got GE to build a $300 million solar panel facility in Aurora. My son in law who is in commercial real estate has a variety of deals either cooking or in the process of closing. I spoke with a wonderful young lady on Saturday who is in retail. Things are cooking. Twofold moral: Keep it simple east and left coast. The world is not coming to an end.

Are We Watching The Same Game?

The paper and pundits a week ago Friday described the market as a rally stalled. The market for the week was up about 700. On Friday it was down 30. Doesn‘t sound cataclysmic to me. Last week it kept climbing. We seem to be intent on giving nothing but bad news. As a readership we seem to gobble that up. Let the bad times roll.

Once again why do we get mired in sadness? Nothing like a four car fatal accident to spice up your evening. One mass murderer coming right up. Puppy mills. For desert let’s have Mitch, Harry and John and Barak come on stage as the Depression Ensemble doing Gloom and Doom in A minor. I am sticking with Hick.

Live and Let Die.

I speak of hospice. The other night I worked a shift at the Johnson Center in southeast Denver. We have 19 beds and a waiting list. Those amazing people were facing one of life’s progressions. For those that had family, they were at their sides. Some would probably go that night. Some would linger. They were all consenting adults.

I am not allowed to speak of specifics but suffice to say there were enough poignant moments to really get the tears going. Sometimes sad but always fulfilling. And in a crazy way a celebration of life.

The great part about the work is that you are really giving. It has nothing to do with you. You are a bit player and only if called upon. Our primary emphasis is on the patient. In every way he or she calls the shot. If they want you there that is cool. If not, you wait outside. You do not try to manage the situation. You are not a know it all. You are just there to serve.

The transient nature of hospice bespeaks life. I am always taken when I go back a week later to see rooms empty or with a new resident. The blackboard shifts like a lineup card in baseball. Life goes on. In a very surreal way it reminds me of a maternity ward. Women give birth. The family gathers around the bed to say hello. Here it is the end of the process we call life. We say good bye. We all love.

Travel

Kath and I are off for a bit but will I check in from time to time. I have stored up Ted’s Head. The great Megan Kane will transmit on Wednesdays and I hope it all works out okay. Thanks for listening. Thanks for reading. Most of all thanks for thinking. We need those creative juices going full bore.

As always

Ted The Great

Factoids:

Incredibly, hospice and other palliative care facilities were unheard of  anywhere in the world before the late 60’s. There are now over 10,000 programs.

Fully one third of people dying in the US last year took advantage of hospice. On that same note for some reason Canada makes hospice available to only 10% of their population. Not sure why but it is not taught in but a few nursing or medical schools there.

There is still a distinct disconnect when it comes to doctors discussing death with a patient. It could come from the Hippocratic Oath. It could come from the superman status attributed to doctors.They have egos and they have to while making instantaneous calls in many cases. It seems they have to grapple with the concept that they can do no more. It is counterintuitive.

Wow,  is there a lot of negativity in this man’s world. I have been reading a book by Tom Freidman “That Used To Be Us”. I know some of you will say “I know the gloom and doom he is writing” but wait. I love to read him because as TTG tries to do, he’s a pragmatic thinker. I don’t think he is being a downer but rather providing practical solutions to things. And he tells it like it is.

Several years ago Freidman really caught my eye on a special on PBS. He spent two weeks on either side of the wall in Israel. He listened and provoked discussion of everyday people from either flank. He found faults and strong points for both sides. He is a Jew. Ditto David Brooks. Their beliefs don’t prevent them from thinking clearly and without apparent bias. They say yes.

After detailing the world and peril we live in, Freidman says the way out is using the three C’s: Creativity/Critical Thinking, Communication and Collaboration. I really focused on the Creativity side.

Just for a moment think about our world and probably specifically you and I. We all have great ideas. We can look at the simplest of things and see possibly a way to do them better. You know “If only…” but it stops there. We are too busy or worse yet we are afraid to get dumped on.

Rejection and fear of failure sucks. Ridicule is worse. But how often in our day do we see that? Take politics. Well we can’t raise taxes. No. No. Don’t touch entitlements. No way. We can’t take out loopholes. I won’t get reelected.  And the beat goes on. Simpson Bowles was a great blueprint to solve the debt crisis but nobody even looked at it before it was shot down.

Think about our kids. We normally have two reactions. Do it my way and be careful you don’t go out on that ledge. Granted we want to protect them and yeah probably keep them in line but what are we really doing? Stifling original thoughts. You know when I was your age… We are  so afraid to let them fail. To be scarred.  But that is really the only way they can learn.

Schools today with their emphasis on testing never consider there could be another answer to the question. Just regurgitate back to me what I have told you. That is the right answer. Did I hear this week that Einstein’s Theory of Relativity might be in doubt? I am not a rocket scientist but that doesn’t keep me from trying another way.

I had a couple conversations this week. One with a mother and the other a manger of sorts. When I posed something new they were either doubtful or dismissive. I just imagined if I was one of their kids or employees. Ugh!

Going on with the book it became apparent that the “New Normal” was going to reward those who can think outside of the box. It was that creativity and critical thinking that couldn’t be done by a machine or the masses, which would engender value added and ergo higher return.

Here’s my try. We have 42,000 miles of interstate highways in the U.S.. We have enormous supplies of natural gas. What if we put a natural gas station every 50 or so miles on those biways? Even if we had to build them from scratch let’s say it would be $50 billion. One time cost. The nations trucking business consumes 54 billion gallons of fuel a year. Instead of oil from Arabia what if that was gas from the U.S.?

Now quickly test yourself. Did you say there is no way that will ever work or hey, maybe that’s a good idea. Let’s hear more. Did you take the idea and run with it a bit or just dismiss it? Don’t worry about me. I gave up being sensitive a long time ago.

What about all you geniuses out there? What about your kids? Please don’t tell me you are too busy. Just look around for simple things. Send them back and we will get you press time to the hardy souls that read this. Most importantly just get that great mind of your going. Creativity is looking at the ordinary and seeing the extraordinary.

One other chat I had this week was with a wonderful young man. He is smart and industrious. When I tried to engage him in my ruminations about the state of our country he begged off. As a matter of fact I think he was telling me in a polite way to bug off.

I got it but I wondered if his dislike of engagement was personal or endemic of a larger malaise. Get in your own foxhole. Forget about the rest of the world. Somehow I wanted to enable him. I wanted to tap into his ideas. I wanted to say yes. Maybe that is just me.

As always

Ted The Great

Factoids:

There are 15.5 million trucks in the U.S. Almost 4 million are tractor trailers.

UPS is the largest trucking company in the U.S. There are actually 500,000 companies overall. They all pay $21.5 billion in road taxes.

Google Creativity. There are 186,000.000 results.

PBS has a great show called “Everyday Edisons”. Have your kids watch it.

Da Vinci drew detailed sketches submarines, helicopters, parachutes, crossbows etc. In the 16^th century JUST SAY YES

Dear Barak, John, Mitch ,Harry etal.

My salutation speaks not to a lack of respect but to remind you from the start you are just one of us. I went to school in Washington and saw the pomp and circumstance in all its glory. It was not earned then. It is far from earned now.

The country is so tired and so frustrated. We need leaders. We need states people. The charade of speeches to empty houses, press conferences with all the resident thugs standing behind this one or that or the prospect of another presidential address just throw gasoline on the fires of our discontent.

With regard to the budget and deficit why is it so apparent to us and unfathomable by all of you ? We know taxes have to go up. On income. On gasoline. On a lot of things. The code has to be simplified and loopholes closed. Just deal with it. We already have.

As for Social Security there are two steps that can be taken immediately. First is to raise the age of retirement to 67 and 69 in 2040 and 2050 respectively. That’s 30 and 40 years from now. Actuarial charts alone show this to be long overdue. Secondly, raise the maximum salary for FICA to infinity. Forget AARP. This will clean up this mess in a hurry.

The major piece that is going to break us is healthcare. Medicare, Medicaid, prescription drug benefits, donut holes, fraud have not been addressed. Means testing is a reality not a third rail. Obamacare does nothing to address costs. These are pieces that are incredibly broken and you all stare at them like  red headed stepchildren.

The wars we have fought are ill gotten. They never should have happened but they did. And many of those votes took place on many of your watches. Let’s just get out and move on. The only people they served well were the tribal leaders and the military industrial complex. Incredibly we paid them all with our hard earned dollars and they funneled that money right back to so many of you with their lobbying and money.

Our alliance with Israel is an albatross around our necks. That is not anti semitic. It is a pragmatic observation. They should be protected but not spoiled. Both sides have been brats and fools. And it goes on.

We cried out for the Arab Spring and yet we want it only on our terms. We lambaste Iran and we should. But look the other way at Israel’s possession of atomic weaponry. Saudi Arabia? Syria? Where is our outrage? We have played chess in the Middle East for ten years with our wealth and our sons and daughters as the pawns. The rest of the world has made hay.

We should cut our defense budget. Yes, we should go with a lean, well trained force instead of brute force. Carrier groups and forward bases are a thing of the past. Get out of Germany, South Korea and Japan. 25,000 elite forces with drone support could do more damage to Al Quaeda than all of those poor devils we put up as IED fodder and propaganda.

It’s not the regulations that are holding back our economy. It’s lending and attitude. The banks aren’t out of money. The eight top banks control 80% of our dollar holdings. They borrow from the Fed at 0%. They refuse to lend. Why should they? Most of the top eight banks obtain  a bulk of their profits from trading.

I talk to regular Americans. Times are tough but they are making do. Sure they have cut back but they get it. Have you? They want to get better but the daily litany of petty fighting and childish back and forth has led them to believe you all have no intention of doing anything. You want to wait until the next election. That in case you haven’t realized is 16 months away from swearing in. Do you really think we have that long?

I could go on but what is the use? There are no miracle pills. There are no warm fuzzies. We are not going back whence we have come. It is sad but true. But all of you don’t get the new normal. You are cloaked in denial. The first thing an alcoholic has to do is admit he or she has got a problem. None of you have.

My daughter asked me today if any of you get it? I couldn’t name a one. I am apolitical and I mean it. I hope I speak for many Americans are not the lunatic fringes. We know the road ahead. Yours seem to be paved with outdated principles and warped realities. How incredibly sad.

Sincerely yours

Ted Kenny

Factoids:

2011 House schedule, 112^th Congress

Jan.29 – Feb. 6, constituent work week

Feb. 19 – 27, constituent work week

March 19 – 27, constituent work week

April 16 to May 1, spring recess

May 14 – 22, constituent work week

May 30, Memorial Day

June 4 – 12, constituent work week

June 25 – July 5, constituent work plus Independence Day

July 16 – 24, constituent work week

Aug. 6 – Sept. 5, August recess, with Labor Day

Sept. 24 – Oct. 2, constituent work week

Oct. 10, Columbus Day

Oct. 15 – Oct. 23 constituent work week

Nov. 5 – 13, constituent work week, including Veterans Day

Nov. 19 – 27, constituent work week

Nov. 24 – 27, Thanksgiving

Dec. 8, target for adjournment

With everything needing immediate attention the boys and girls you and I elected have 145 out of a possible 312 days off.

Harry Reid and John Boehner have found it impossible to allot any time to discuss and vote on the jobs bill.

There are approximately 1,515 bills introduced in the Senate and 2,830 in the House this session. See  http://www.opencongress.org/bill/all

Here in Denver we have the Arrupe Jesuit High School. It is scholarship only. The students are mainly underprivileged. There is no entrance exam except for basic proficiency. They do not cherry pick the best students. The results are astounding.

The school is a work study program. A company hires a team for the school year consisting of four students. The cost is a little over $20,000 per team paid by the company. For that they get a student worker every day working eight hours. No benefits except some highly motivated young men and women We deliver them at 8:00 AM and we pick them up at 4:00 Every day.

The kids are trained in basic office skills before they get there. They are in shirt and tie for boys and skirts for the girls. There is inspection before they leave school. They work like their future depends on it. It does.

There is discipline but there is also a tradition of involvement between the school, corporate sponsor, student and parents. Both student and parent have to apply. Communication is constant. Not all homes are stable but they figure it out.

The companies love them. Staff heads have been known to ask for the Arrupe kid. They have trouble giving them enough work to do. There a banks, law firms, securities firms, manufacturers, local government.

The best part is in the last year there was 100% graduation rate. The entire senior class was accepted into higher education. They won over $2.5 million in scholarships. No other educational system comes even close.

Arrupe is part of a national Corporate study program that is called Cristo Rey.  There are 24 schools in 17 states educating 6500 young people. They have received grants form Bill and Melinda Gates. They work.

The cost of educating a student is $7500. The students put their $20,000 into a fund that is split four ways or $5,000 per student. The rest is made up in donations and grants. What does it cost to educate a child in your neck of the woods? This is money well spent.

Sure it is Catholic but it proves the viability and ultimate success. As in “Teacher Teacher” a lot of their work does not require special fancy school buildings (they use the space of a defunct parish school) or huge outlays. It is just discipline, parental involvement and an atmosphere for learning.

We could educate more kids with more corporate sponsors. It is a system that is designed to teach and for children to learn. Funny, no one is trying to use this model for public education except for some charter schools. Probably too radical. Too bad.

As always

Ted The Great.

PS: Want to see more go to:

http://www.ArrupeJesuit.com   Be careful. You might get hooked

Don’t you remember when you had the answer. You would raise your hand and wave hysterically until you were called. Well at least in grammar school. Damn! She picked someone else. Wait. He didn’t know the answer. Another chance.

NBC is having a special week on Education. What’s right. What’s wrong. I think you know where the air time is being spent. They are discussing, money, testing, teacher performance.

Some of these educators are both gifted and giving above and beyond. Some are disgruntled. Frustrated comes to mind immediately. These aren’t screaming labor types. They just want to do their job.

Back to the classroom of yesteryear. We had 51 eighth grade boys and girls in the basement of St. Mary’s Church. We had one rolling blackboard. Oh yes and ONE nun. We not only survived but we all went on to pass the New York State Regents exams in reading, math and social studies.

No, the good sister was not a tyrant but she was strict. If I got a ruler pop, I deserved it. Other than my congenital character flaws I was not affected to the negative. That was a huge part of the answer I want to give now. Discipline.

My mother was a part of that same program. The woman should have worked for the Department of Defense. No matter what I did, her sonar or radar or whatever was working overtime. She was aware of my misbehaving before I came through the door. Nailed again. An observant and inquiring parent conquers all.

And we did not have girls in short shorts with one or both cheeks showing. The boys did not wear their pants below their butt. There were no controversies over what expletive was written on shirts. The girls looked downright plain in their blue skirts. For the guys you cannot look cool in an old royal blue tie and white shirt..

Looking back there was an emphasis on learning. We did not have gym class because our school didn’t have one. We played punch ball at lunch and the girls jumped rope. Cafeteria ? There was a plain brown bag with a bologna sandwich wrapped in waxed paper. Somehow we all survived.

Now I am not espousing parochial schools for everyone. But there were common denominators that could be applied anywhere. First and foremost the teacher was in charge. He or she had the ability to mete out punishment for miscreants. Somehow the threat of lawsuits never entered into the equation.

Secondly were the parents. They were part of the three legged stool that included student and teacher. They were there to back up the teacher. To oversee homework assignments. We had to have our homework and tests signed by mom or dad.

Lastly was the uniform part. It took all the guesswork out of getting dressed. All the grief too. Incredibly the parents of the Parsippany Troy Hills School District in New Jersey voted and rejected the idea of uniforms. Go figure.

Look, I get all the complexities of today’s world. Computers. Cell phones. Drugs. But are these the result of too much discipline and uniformity or too little? Does wearing a white polo shirt and khackis really cramp one’s creativity?

Parenting, discipline, interaction with the teacher and uniforms don’t cost anything more. I know there are working parents but do you really want me to believe there is not 15 minutes in the day or every couple of days that they can’t be part of the most important aspect of their children’s upbringing.

It takes a lot to raise a child in today’s society. Kathy and I have been through it. We had three in high school at the same time. We didn’t have a social life on weekends. Big deal. Still it resulted in three great kids and their families. Teacher! Teacher! I think I have the answer. Or at least part of it. Raise your hand too.

As always

Ted The Great

Factoids:
13,506 school district governments
1,196 education service agencies (agencies providing support services to public school systems)

49.3 million students grades 1-12
3,825,000 teachers
Total budget…approx $600 billion

Of 70 Countries around the world:
We are #4 in the world on spending per student
We are #1 in the world by numbers who finish high school
We are #25 in math… Japan #1
We are #17 in science… South Korea #1
We are #14 in reading…Finland #1

Question: When it comes to teaching are both teachers and parents filling a bucket or lighting a fire?

I hope you don’t mind me shortening Leonardo to Leo. It’s kind of what we do today. The past is old hat. We think we are beyond smart. Wish you were here to show them what real thinking is all about.

I just returned from a trip back east. I love Denver and couldn’t wait to get back here. Sort of my Milan after visiting Rome. Just like days of old there were villas and monuments to me, everywhere I went back there.

There were orators both in New York and Washington. Nothing has changed. They love to go to the Forums and BS. They don’t really say anything new. Just rehashing the samo samo. It’s like our new version of the Dark Ages.

I couldn’t help but think of your maxim of “Curiositae”. You know the part where you question everything. You look at a problem from three different sides. Not looking for the most popular answer. Just the one that makes most sense.

These guys look at one side. It been the same for decades. They know it by heart. They ascend to thrones. Think the monarchy is dead? No way. They just take turns being kings and queens. Backchannels by those out of favor? Machiavelli would have field day. He could become what they call a spin doctor. Or even better a lobbyist.

Hey, I know you played to the Medicis and the other swells because that was the way to survive. You thought they were idiots but what the hell? You could be brilliant in the back room and then make them think it was their idea. Very clever, mon ami. Oops I mean amico.

There are a lot of city states these days. You know the old fiefdom bit. They all vie for power and independence until they realize how many lira it takes to run these shows. Then they want all the taxes they pay to Rome as it were, to come back to them. They shuffle the decks and the vaults are running dry.

There are plenty of cats like the Borgias and Medicis. Some have class. Some don’t. There is this dude called, “The Donald”. You would have to meet him to believe him. All in all, they think the rest of the country are peasants. Ignore them. Use them. Let them eat cake. Sorry.wrong century.

I really try to look at things in the Forum with “Sensazione”, using all my faculties to try to understand this thing we call government. Smell? That’s a problem. Sometimes I think everything stinks. Taste? A lot of bad ones. Sight? This is really getting ugly. Touch? A lot of greasy slimy things. Hearing? Why didn’t you invent earplugs? Be still my heart. We now have a thing called TIVO.

I think I will spend the rest of my day working on “Connesione”. That place where I realize and appreciate that all things are connected and dependant. If I remember correctly, we can achieve who we are at our greatest potential by interacting and cooperating.

I really believe we all have our innate talents and abilities. The problem now is that we are all Lone Rangers. Sorry, that is a twenty first century metaphor for selfish. I am not sure we are bad as much as worried that we kind of crawl up in a cocoon. Man if we could just get everyone pulling on the oar at the same.

The strangest part is while publicos are warring there is the hint of optimism with the young. They are going to make do. They will blaze a new trial. Change of mind and spirit is not alien to them. They are not so afraid of new ideas.

I did have one particular bit of fun on my journey. I made it a point to reach out to every stranger I could. I tried to make them laugh. I tried to hear what they were saying. I tried to make them the most important person in the world at that time. And they responded. They lit up. They smiled. One check out clerk in a grocery store was luaghing so hard I almost saw tears. I almost had the feeling no one had been that way to them before. You would have loved it,

Sorry to take up so much time. I know you have a lot of thinking to do. I do too. I want to be alone with my thoughts but on the other hand I have to try to reach out to others. I am not the cat’s meow but I pray I can resonate in some way. A lot of them won’t understand. I just hope a few do.

Ciao bella

Ted The Great

Things that don’t make sense:

We put people in jail for kicking dogs and cats. We teach our kids to step on spiders and ants to kill them.????

The Kardashians.

Getting a dog for the hell of it. Having kids for the hell of it.

Spending $500 on dinner Saturday night and $5 in the collection plate on Sunday.

Sean Hannity. Keith Olberman. Nancy Grace. Ozzie Osborne. The Vatican.

Being for abortion and against capital punishment. And vice versa.

When you ask for a 7:00 PM reservation and all they have is 6:45 or 7:15.

Failing at suicide and then saying, “Please don’t tell my wife”. Actually happened in Pittsburgh.

NOTE: I am going to try to set up some sort of forum or chat room. Several have asked for it. More to come.

We have been traveling in the New York area visiting family and friends. Some places I haven’t been in ten years. There are roads I am traveling that I haven’t seen in forty years. The most fascinating part is seeing old houses that were new when I was growing up. The trees planted 50 years ago look like…well, a fifty year old tree now.

I am a sucker for old houses. There is a charm and inherent beauty no matter how run down they may be. My wife, daughter and I have renovated several. There is a certain sense of wellness in making something that was abandoned come back to life. Rejuvenate. I hope it is a product of our optimism.

In real estate it fascinates me that a house that is twenty years old is considered dated. How did we ever get along growing up with five bedrooms and two baths? No den. No family room. What were we thinking? A one or two car garage? What peasants.

There was linoleum. There were tiny TV’s. There was a milk box on the back porch. There was a diaper pail. Yuk! There was a bread man. Soda man. Milk man. Egg man. They were all friends. They were us.

There was a hardware store. There was a butcher. A fish market. A neighborhood pharmacy. The super market was small. There were four or five of them. Everyone knew you by name. There were movies on Saturday for a quarter. Ice cream cones for a dime. In Penn Station you got two hot dogs and a soda for fifty cents. There was this crazy thing called an automat.

I am writing this in a Starbucks on the Village Green in Morristown, New Jersey. There is a fellow selling Sabretts hot dogs from a cart. There are people doing something really stupid. They are just sitting watching the world go by.

I am in an enclave of four leather chairs. There is a young lady working at her computer. Another guy is reading the recap of the yesterday’s games in the Star Ledger. Tranquil and peaceful in this crazy wound up part of the world.

The soft jazz playing has just been shattered by a new entrant into our den of relaxation. He has an earpiece and a Blackberry. He didn’t buy coffee. He just sat down and proceeded to dial an associate or client of some sort.

He speaks louder than me. Can you imagine? We all look up and glare. The man is impervious. At the cessation of his negotiations he gets up and roars out the door and down the street. He was just looking for someplace tranquil to have his phone call.

What a guy.

Church bells are ringing. It is 12 noon. I sure hope he doesn’t need any more serenity. Edith Piaf is singing La Vie En Rose. It could almost be Paris. Well, not exactly. I am back to my train of thought. As a counter to my ravings last week I just want to have fun. Ted’s Head is moving at half speed.

I am so struck by the 9/11 ceremonies. What has faded to a far part of my memory is so poignant and still incredibly raw for so many of these people. It’s hard to equate country lanes and historical homes to shiny towers that disintegrated. Metal and flesh that vaporized. My nephew wrote to a small group of friends about how searing that day was. His cousin died. He was one of his best friends. There is so much to forget. He was eloquent in his still held grief.

Family, friends, tomatoes, corn on the cob. Cherrystone clams. Fresh swordfish. We all have our strengths. We all have our weaknesses. We have traditions and rituals for better and for worse. We want to be critical. We want to think our way is better. We want to be right. Sometimes we are so wrong.

I have finished my coffee and my ramblings. I am going to walk back to the house, a half mile down the road. I am going to take a long walk in the woods later on. I am going to come up with some positive thoughts about myself, my family, our country, our world.

I am going to figure out how to renovate this old house. This place we call home. We can’t scrape and rebuild. We must take out the original set of plans and rework them. She has what we call in the biz, good bones.

We have got to bring out her beauty once again. Even if we have to take her down to the studs. Repaint her. Rework her. There is so much here we have overlooked for so long. Just like old houses we can fix anything with enough imagination and hard work. Let’s dust off our brains and our hope. Let’s put on our tool belts again.

As always

Ted The Great

Factoids:

In the normal NFL game there are actually only 11 minutes of play time during a three hour telecast.

There are 261 births in the world every minute. There are 107 deaths.

There are 8.4 million millionaires in the US.

We now have a poverty rate of 15.1% in the US. That’s 46.2 million people

Americans go to bed hungry every night. There 17 million children in the US without access to nutritious food.

John Kyl (R,AZ), member of the super committee of six to do spending cuts announced after the first meeting that if there were cuts to the military he would resign. Good start.

PS: The phone caller from Starbucks came back. I asked him to go someplace else. He apologized and did.

Note:

The world is 8,000 miles wide not 8. Thx to our observant readers. To the others you are bored or don’t read the factoids

Poor Ted’s Head is bursting at the seams. Pondering the imponderables is taking its toll. I sit in my perch on the world and really look for a plan…a way out. Not of my particular morass but of the country’s. Hopefully I have been a decent businessman over my life. I just don’t get it in an intellectual way.

Our consumer based economy sucks. Why? Because people aren’t buying. Because firms aren’t hiring. One side says we have to save and wean ourselves off credit. The other side says we have to get back to buying. The absurdity of a consumer based economy is glaring.

Companies worry to death about their stock price. They have to cut expenses and improve revenue. But we cut expenses by firing and going automated. Outsource to cheaper pay scales. But the unemployed don’t buy things. Duh!

The companies make money by hoarding cash. They are doing just fine. So the stock price and ergo 401K’s go up. But if the guy on the street has to cash it in then where does that leave us? But capitalism is a beautiful thing and left to our own designs we will come out of this.

So let’s do away with regulation. Wall Street and the banks want to govern themselves. We have been holding them back. Get rid of the SEC and FDIC and they can make some real money. It was because of our stupid laws that the housing crisis occurred. Credit default swaps are really good things. Who cares if Goldman can be selling securities to the clients and shorting them on the other side. Caveat emptor.

Farmers are being screwed. Department of Agriculture inspectors at hog farms, poultry giants and food processors are bringing them down. Salmonella. Schmowmonella. It is part of doing business. Let’s bring back DDT.

Let’s get rid of building inspectors,the FDA, FCC,FAA, FTC etal. No more Homeland Security. No NOAA. No FEMA. No EPA. Let’s roll the dice. I hate all this regulation but why do they exist. Because we are too shallow and greedy to police ourselves. We have shown time and again you can’t “Trust us”.

Infrastructure doesn’t need any further improvement. Highways, bridges, water tunnels, sewage treatment plants are just fine. Some have been around a hundred years and could go for a hundred more. Don’t worry. Be Happy. I am paying way too much for water and electricity. It’s almost as high as my cable bill.

Natural disasters? We build homes by the rivers and oceans. I love the view of the water. Many of my family own homes there. But then there is good old Mother Nature getting a little cranky. The hell with it. Let’s subsidize flood insurance. Fires. Hell, I love living in the woods. Let’s just call it a disaster area and make it all go away.

Education is the way out of this maze. Put more money in. That’s the problem. But we put more and more in and yet get less out. I would imagine a large part of the learning curve has to do with looking at the past and seeing what we have done wrong. Maybe we just have to look back. But we won’t.

I have been part of inner city parochial schools. They usually educate on about 65% of the budget for public schools. They have 100% attendance and in many cases 100% go on to higher ed. They wear uniforms. There is discipline. Above all there is parental involvement. Why doesn’t someone study this model?

Lastly is the food we put on our tables. Or on tables somewhere. We are obese. Mc Donalds stock has doubled in the last five years. So have our waistlines. Yet we give out food stamps. Hey, you can buy soda and lottery tickets with them. Maybe even cigarettes.

This world has changed so drastically in the last ten years. The last five years. We have rested on our laurels. “Just wait til we get back”. It is not really that easy. It would take a huge overhaul in business strategies, bureaucracy and most of all public attitude.

Watch Meet The Press from this weekend. Tom Friedman stated with great perception that we are making economic decisions with a political board of directors. He went on to sadly say there are so many things out there that we invented but have let the world take the lead with. Doris Kearns Goodwin recalled the effort we put forth in World War II. At that time it was all that mattered in the US. It’s where we have to get to today. The task is that Herculean.

To make sense of all this we have to put a shoulder to the wheel. We have to get rid of selfish, self serving attitudes. The rich. The poor. The old. The young. No one is immune. I really don’t think we can do it. Politicians are in charge. They now want to wait until next year. We just wring our hands and sometimes just shrug. Are we that cynical?

Can we be great again? Yes, but I think we have ALL had it too easy, too long. We can’t seem to shake ourselves out of this malaise. We are dreamers but in the wrong way. I guess this is the part that Ted’s Head really doesn’t get. What a tragedy.

As always

Ted The Great

Factoids:

Unemployment by Education level.

Not finishing high school…15.4%High School Grad…9.4%Some College…7.9%College Grad…4.7%

In 2004 we did not have Twitter, Facebook,  IPads, IPhones

Over the last 25 years our calorie consumption per annum has increased some 40%. We have approximately 10% of our population (30 million) suffering from diabetes.

An Amtrak train, The California Zephyr derailed in southwest Nebraska. It had 190 in passengers and crew on board the line that is 2438 miles long. We pay a subsidy of around $35 per passenger for approximately 350,000 carried over the rails

The hurricane season is upon us but Mother Nature has really been getting her hits in all year long. How soon we forget! Earthquakes in New Zealand, Japan, and of course the east coast of the United States. Tornadoes in Joplin. Drought in Texas. Flooding in the Catskills and Vermont. What is going on here?

If you are living in any of the affected areas you are quick to use the term disaster. And for you it really is. We have had the pine beetle wipe out huge sections of our forest greenery in Colorado. We have had raging wildfires taking out palatial homes and cabins alike. It has not been good.

In our scientific, uber cyber world this seems not only inconvenient but downright scary. But wait. Don’t we have satellites to do something about it ? Don’t we have an app. When I built my house the agent didn’t mention these things on the disclosure forms. There has got to be a way I can sue him, the county or God or something?

In Katrina we didn’t do enough. In Irene we did too much. FEMA screwed up in Louisiana. Ron Paul says we don’t need them at all. The TV and radio got carried away. There was only $5 billion in damage not $8 bill. The stock market soars. No sweat. Only 40 poor souls lost their lives.

Has any one waxed eloquently about the beauty of the forces of nature? I have been at sea in a raging hurricane. Sure you get a little nervous but there is a majesty of a rolling angry wave that is all its own. We didn’t fear the sea. We respected its power.

There is something quite amazing about an earthquake. The epicenter was about 80 miles south of DC. It’s tremors and reverberations were felt in Cleveland, New York and Canada in a matter of seconds. I though of the massive fissures in the earth as our planet pushed here and there, searching for some leg room. Not to destroy but just to relieve pressure. Plate upon plate of rock and magma, heaving and groaning thousands of feet deep in the earth’s bowels and oceans.

We are so quick to equate power with money or guns. Armadas. Flying fortresses. Missiles that can wipe out cities in seconds. We throw accolades at rock stars, movie queens and sporting heroes of all types. The almost farcical spectacle of a Kardashian wedding. We ooh. We aah.

Whenever I would hike in Vail I would come upon this glen or that. I almost imagined I was the first human being to ever set foot on this little piece of earth. The incredible beauty. The deafening silence. Then you began to hear. Birds. Animals. All in unison. Better than any concert I have been to.

We live in the city and the other evening I took my sentry duties on the front porch. There was the faint rustling of the trees on a beautiful summer night. It had rained a little earlier and the smell was sweet. I thought that even in all the turmoil of the world, life wasn’t so bad after all.

I guess in the midst of all the craziness of this thing we call life, I actually revel in the uprisings of Mother Earth. I really do look at our planet as a vibrant organism. A person prone to tantrums. A beast that can be tranquil and hibernate for only so long. Like every other human thing it wants to be appreciated and loved. Not just used and thrown away.

I am not sure we have done a good job. We have really laid waste in so many ways. I am not a tree hugger per se but I have the utmost respect for this wonderful, gift giving hunk of a planet.

I believe God has put it here but let’s not debate theology. All I know is we should be thankful and understand we have to give something back if only by protecting it. Kiss the earth? Why not? She would love it.

As always

Ted The Great

Factoids:

The earth has a width of approximately 8 miles.

The fresh water in the entire world comprises 3% of all waterOf that approx 70% is in glaciers and 30% in groundwater(lakes and rivers)

The earth’s surface is 28% earth,72%water

As a country we put almost 5 1/2 million metric tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. As a planet we put 29.9 metric tons into the atmosphere. No matter what you think about global warming this can’t be good.