Share Ted Kennedy Stories

IT seems that all of the news commentators have a story about Senator Ted Kennedy, each ending with laughter or awe or compassion. And I notice that they speak of him in the present tense...something I have never noticed. Now I invite you to share your Senator Ted Kennedy story here with mine.

FIVE years ago Ted Kennedy was the featured speaker at a Families USA (The Voice for Health Care Consumers) Conference that I attended in Washington, D.C. Punctual to a fault, I arrived at a room with 500 empty seats. So I took advantage and secured a place in the second row, directly in front of the stage.

THEN I notice Senator Kennedy sitting next to the podium. Just the two of us in that bare room. I have always been in awe of anyone who can clasp hands across the aisle to move powerful bills into being. And he has gained a history of bills that touch each of us. Bills for Wage Earners, Veterans, Social Security, Health Care as a Right, Drug Safety, Disability, Elder Care, Mental Health, Civil Rights, National Service. A life of good works.

AND Senator Kennedy looked up. Not a word passed between us. But somehow he made me feel beautiful. I don't know how that happened. But I have no doubt.

I held a throw-away camera to secure him along with all of the Capitol's monuments. But from the instant he spoke, his passionate words captured my attention. I had never heard such a charismatic speaker. My camera lay untouched.

AFTER he spoke, the media stood ready. As Senator Kennedy turned to the cameras, his charisma transcended time and space. And I understood.

Don't Blame Me

Every day I hear economic experts faulting us for causing the recession with our unbridled spending & credit cards. But business taught and nurtured us to ride on the backs of our spending.

At the same time, in an attempt to squeeze out the last few dollars, corporations cut too close to the quick. And now that ride is limping badly, business displaced too many jobs, forcing the economy into a wall. It seems our jobs were the fuel that makes our economy go. Imagine that?

Sounds like a dichotomy to me. I suppose we could have one hand signing for the credit card purchase while the other hand stays home instead of shopping. And how exactly would we do that?

Yes greed caused this recession, which incidentally started in 2004. But it was corporate greed, business that broke the economy. Now how how is it going to fix it?

Economic Predictions 2009: Past & Future

The Quantum Thinker's Economic Predictions: Past

1. Job loss source of deep recession, 1972.
2. Failure of Trickle-down Economics, 1981.
3. Failure of deregulation, 1982.
4. Need for internally computerized patient charts, 1983 (invented & implemented the first one).
5. Individually owned PC's, 1984.
6. Failure of corporate outsourcing, 1985.
7. Individual GPS, 1988.
8. Significant collapse of Fortune 500 companies, 1995.
9. Failure of No Child Left Behind Act, 2001.
10. Failure of Iraq War, 2003.
11. Anticipated major economic recession, 2004.
12. Predicted failure of a global economy, 2005.
13. Folly of Social Security outsourcing, 2007.
14. Failure of governmental outsourcing, 2008.

The Quantum Thinker's Economic Predictions: Future

1. Advantages of one-provider health care, 1970
2. Public education systemic problems, 1972.
3. Fundamental shift in upper education, 1988.
4. Dynamic corporate management vs. authoritarian, 1990.
5. Failure of Welfare-top-Work Program, 1995.
6. Remove cap on Social Security tax bracket, 2001.
7. Deficiencies in Ground-based mid-course defense (missile intercept), 2003.
8. Defect in electronic border system, 2006.
9. Fundamental flaw in computerized patient health records, 2007.
10. Housing bubble hoax, 2008.

NOTE: Fixes for Future Predictions Available.

HOUSING BUBBLE?

Housing Bubble? I don't think so. As much as this little phrase has spun out across the country as the source of all our money woes, it is not true. This is the sequence of events:

1. Intelligent people believed that corporations would self-regulate. Is it impolite to laugh now? Instead companies began the quest of squeezing ever more profit out of businesses. They began laying off hundreds of thousand people beginning in the early '80's and before. A reasonable white-collar work week was 37 hours in 1970. Now people do the jobs of 2 and 3 others. And regulating slid off a well-planned track.
2. Lobbyists became ever more prevalent on Capitol Hill until Representatives and Senators found themselves swimming with the sharks, particularly the special interests species. It was exhilarating. Our representatives felt cossetted by the attention. But they forgot two things. First sharks can turn on you in a second and with disastrous consequences. Second our elected officials were supposed to be swimming over here with the myriad of fish that we are. I can see how it happened. Who wants to say they work for fish? But they do.
3. Then NAFTA was born and soon began to make that sucking sound Ross Perot told us would pull our jobs south of the border. He was right. Over the past 8 years, we have seen manufacturing, customer service, and even IT head off shore. Then employers realized that it was a buyers market. They could lower the going rate for all jobs.
4. Nearly everything we consume from food to footballs is now, "Made in China", or "Proudly distributed in Wherever City and Whatever State". Translation: Made in China. We learned about the terrible manufacturing processes that killed our pets and killed China's babies. Quality Control of imports is essentially nonexistent.
5. Gasoline shot up to over $4 a gallon, which jump-started a rip tide of price increases. A package of cookies costs more than $5.00. Coffee is $12+. And the increases bleed into all other manufactured items.
6. Nearly 7 years ago, a friend was layed off from a Fortune 100 company. He had been a mid-manager in IT, but after looking for a job 2 years and losing their home, he finally got a job - in Iraq.
7. No jobs. No purchases. It doesn't take a genius.
8. People used credit cards and home equity to get along. But those two wells eventually dried up. We aren't in this money mess because people used their credit cards too much or bought houses they could ill afford. Nonsense! High credit cards and foreclosures are not the problem. It wasn't a housing bubble. Don't blame the symptom of the disease. Name the real source of the economic problem.

Who Are You?

If I met a man named, "Sucker!", or "Thief", or "ThisIsAStickup", I wouldn't give him my money. Although it is certainly not a given, I believe people tend to live into their names. Dr. Bones is a surgeon, and Dr. Looney is a psychiatrist. Mr Sweet is a pastry chef. Dr. Learner is a teacher. You get the idea.

So regardless of recommendations, people might want to hesitate when they are asked to give money to a guy names, "Madoff", pronounced, made-off, before he makes off with billions.

OUR CARS, OURSELVES

If the auto industry goes bankrupt, it will rip a massive hole in our economy. It is hard to imagine why anyone in the Senate would go on record to endorse the certain tsunami of job losses that will pour into that hole. First the 3 million employees who work for the Big 3. All the car dealers. Then the millions upon millions of people who work for suppliers to the auto makers, manufacturers ranging from from batteries to seat covers. And there are those who provide raw materials, machinery, supplies & quality systems to all of them.

And we know the demise of the auto industry would leave us bereft of a manufacturing core that could be converted into building other needed vehicles, ending unknown possibilities. One last point. Should the Big 3 go bankrupt, that gargantuan hole in our economy will also trigger an emotional backlash. Our cars represent ourselves. We grew up with these automobile icons, interacted with them intimately by making purchases laden with passion, anticipation & even a little fear. But we make that leap into the unknown, confident that the Big 3 will always be there to catch us. So the question becomes, can we afford to sever this part our personal histories, the part that beats near our hearts?

Computerized Patient Records Flaw

Hurrah! I am looking forward to a makeover of our health care system. Finally! We pay more for our health care than any other country. The bad news is the quality of our health care ranks 37th in the world, just below Costa Rica. But the good news is that we rank right above Slovenia*.

I notice that part of our makeover includes streamlining patient records by computerizing them. Everyone is excited about this: the governors, our newly elected administration and the computer software companies especially.

I invented and implemented the first commercial computerized patient chart. And I was an original board member of an organization committed to bring affordable, accessible health care to Kansans. So I am entitled to point out something that has been overlooked. There is a fatal flaw in the foundation of the patient records system's architecture.

*Source: World Health Organization (WHO)