Sunday, August 16, 2009

Musings

"Whenever we try to do the impossible, such as trying to solve a true dilemma with an enforced grandiose scheme, we are likely to do more harm than good."

"The more the elements necessary for proper behavior of a consumer and a vendor are removed from the the point of transaction, the more irresponsible the result."

Saturday, August 1, 2009

An addendum to a birth certificate?

You are hereby informed that someone has used your imputed financial value to borrow money for their own use. It has been spent and is not recoverable. This may have been immoral, but was nevertheless quite legal because those that borrowed the money said so (made the laws). Payment on this debt will require your lifetime of labor. There is no way that you can escape this servitude. You have been, thusly, taxed without representation since you failed to vote before you were born or achieved legal age with wisdom. Try to bear your lot with its ever-present pain with the knowledge that the "Greatest Generation" that left you with this dire financial legacy did do some admirable things. Those may have been necessary for their own survival and welfare but do redound to your benefit. Keep in mind that they had a really good time with your money.

Some of it was used by the obviously futile goal of living forever. Learn from that and accept the official reality of "quality-adjusted years of life expectancy" as your guide. This will be determined by a government that has your entire electronic medical record and control over the delivery of what medical care they decide you warrant. Who better to know your worth? Study the authorized course in thanatology and end of life decisions early so that you will have perfected the psychological mechanisms of coping with death. Death will be the easier frustration with which to cope. You will be prevented from using your own assets to obtain existing medical services to fight it. After all, communal egalitarianism is the new foundation and must be honored, avoiding the greediness of self reliance and the quest to excel for yourself and your family. What medical care the government has deemed it can't afford for the masses, should be foregone with quiet acquiescence.

The example of consideration by the state of Oregon in denying a patient a cancer drug under the state's program of care with the compassionate touch of assuring the patient in the same letter that doctor-assisted suicide, however, is a covered benefit is a forerunner of the coming era.

Government officials will not be part of this program because of the ethically sensitive need to maintain an arms-length distance from it which will enhance objective management of it.