Medical Protocols

I have a lot of problems with our medical system and in this bog I want to explore a few.

Over the years, I have tested doctors who I have encountered with a question about their knowledge of "Bayes Theorem".  If you have never heard of this before, do some homework.  I have not found one who is familiar with "Bayes Theorem" which is the statistical foundation of diagnostics.  It gets worse.

Every time I hear a doctor spout about some "protocol" I almost throw up.  They sound like cooks who are baking cakes.  They follow the recipe where it calls for "exactly" one tea spoon of salt or
"exactly" one cup of flour.  The world is not digital, it is analog.  There is nothing that is "exact" and this is particularly true in medicine where 99% of what they call science is "empirical".  If you are not familiar with the term "empirical" maybe you need to do some more homework.  Now to the evaluation of testing for cures for the coronavirus.

On TV, I keep hearing doctors say that potential cure "A" has not been proven and all we have are anecdotal results. I am not a doctor, but I do understand logic and it has an application regarding cure "A".  Here is my observation.  "A" has been used for over 50 years so they know about some of its benefits and its dangers.  They know that it has been used for arthritis with success. I know that arthritis is mostly the result of one's immune system over reacting and "A" moderates this.  It is my understanding about the cornonavirus acts like arthritis only on the lungs.  Your immune system kicks into overdrive and floods the lungs with mucus causing severe pneumonia.  Product "A" moderates that effect and thus is a partial cure.  Did you ever hear this logic any place else?  I did not think so.

I could come up with all kinds of examples where our medical training has created so call experts who can do little more than regurgitate protocols.  This ability was what allowed them to get A's in our schools when they really did not know to think.  Biology is mostly memorization while physics teaches "rules" or "laws" that can be jointed together to find something "new".  Interesting!

Remittance Man

Remember the song by Jimmy Buffet  about the "remittance man"?  It was a great song, but there was also a great message for all of us in that song.  Here is what I think it was.

 During this time of self imposed quarantine, I have time to do some research on the subject and I would like to share that with you. 

Country                         $ Billions       Population Millions       $ Amount per person
Mexico                               30                     128                                  $234
China                                  16                   1,435                                     11
India                                    12                   1,380                                      9
Philippines                           11                     110                                   100
Vietnam                                8                        97                                     82
Guatemala                             8                       18                                    444
Nigeria                                 6                       202                                     29
El Salvador                          5                          7                                     714
Dominican Republic           5                          11                                    454
Honduras                             4                          10                                    400
South Korea                         3                          51                                     59

There you have the numbers.  I guess that I was surprised with Nigeria in Africa, but there may be more people here in the USA from Nigeria than I thought.  It is a big country in terms of population at 202,000,000.  That makes it almost 2/3 the size of the USA.

The point that I want to make is that the people who remit back to their home country are "leeches" on the USA economy  Look at the billions that was earned here but did not support our economy.  The clear worst among these countries is El Salvador at $714 per person.  This has to amount to at least 75% of their economy.  The country is so over populated that they have dug themselves into a very deep hole.  Guatemala, Dominican Republic and Honduras are not far behind.  All of these countries are clearly over populated and well beyond the capacity of their small countries to support.  I think that we need to put greater controls on these people getting into the USA and sending money back home as remittances.  It is also my observation that these people come from a society that has zero respect for the law.  That means they earned most of their money under the table and did not pay their taxes.  This only makes me respect them less.

Look over the numbers and see what you think.  We are being screwed by these people no matter what you may think!

One Belt One Road

Did you ever hear of this before?   I didn't either and is why I am writing this blog.

I stumbled on to the "One Belt One Road" concept when I was researching the coronavirus in Italy.  Why was there so much coronavirus in Italy so fast?  It was because there were hundreds of Chinese workers in Italy.  They were working on infrastructure projects financed by China.  The workers were going back and forth with few controls or regulations.  It was similar for Iran who also is confronted with the coronavirus from  China.  Exactly what is the "One Belt One Road" thing?

This is a very big deal and here is why.  Borrowing money with the plan to pay it back is one thing, but this is not normal borrowing.  It is simple importation from China.  I look at it like buying food at the company store on credit.  Sooner or later the company store owns you and your future.  My grand father used to say that the worst thing that you can do is to by food on credit and I agree and it applies here.

In a normal situation where a country might borrow money to build infrastructure, the money is used to pay local citizens to do the work.  That means the value the end product and the cost stay in the country and if it works out correctly the value produced is more than enough to pay back the loan.  That is not the case in the China situation.  Often times the credit extended by China was far too big and the country has no way to pay it back.  This is the opportunity that China is looking for so they can take over some other asset in the country.  It also invites corruption in countries like Italy where insiders and officials get a piece of the action.  You know how this happens in the countries that China has chosen.

Like buying food on credit, a loan is not a loan.  The other thing that I want to point out is that once the country has the infrastructure it is "new" and fantastic.  Everyone is happy.  It is like the person who buys a fabulous home with winning from the lottery.  That first few weeks or months in that new home can be fantastic, but wait until it needs some maintenance.  They have no money for the continued expense.  Now what do the do?  Look at new roads or railroads in the country that bring goods from China in and haul out "raw materials".  That's right raw materials  These are the small but critical building blocks that China will build on with their cheap and skilled labor to sell back to the same country who now has little money to buy the products.  Are you starting to see how it works?

The USA has done almost the same thing by thinking only in the short term.  If something is cheaper by less than 1%, you can bet one of our capitalist will opt to buy the item from China and fire his workers here.  That means places like China who might have a cost 2% higher than here would only have to cut their price by 3% to end up 1% below us.  The other thing is that they don't need to keep this up for ever.  They only need to do it long enough for the USA business man to close his plant.  It happened with textiles and shoes right under our noses. The growth of Nike is a perfect example of a group from Coos Bay, Oregon.

My final note is that we need to wake up and take a lesson on what is going on with "One Belt One Road" and make sure that we do not fall for China's game!

Coronavirus Doctors Are Digital

This might sound like a strange title, but you will see that it is very significant as you read my blog.

What turned me on was an interview with one of the medical expert doctors who said that, "Masks for everyone would not be effective."  Further, he said that, "Only the #95 masks were effective."  He did not think that "quilters" made masks were not effective either.  His statements shows how ignorant he is.  It is because he is a "digital" thinker".

To bring you up to date, I will expand on "digital" and "analog".  Our educational system has caused most of us, including doctors, to be "digital".  That means we tend to think in terms of "right" and "wrong".  Schools bombard students with tests that are structured with questions that are either "right" or "wrong".  It makes the job of teaching simpler by not having to deal with answers that are some where "in between". This type of thinking is every where.

Analog means that the answers to questions are in "degrees" of "right" and "wrong".  Here is a simple example.  What size shoes do you wear?  The answer might be 10-1/2, but is it really correct?  No!  If you look in more detail at your shoe size, it might be that 10-1/4 is actually the "best" size for you.  If you look a little deeper, you will find that your two feet are "not" the same size either.  One might be 10-3/4 and the other 10.  The fact is, no person has feet that are both the same size!  They might be very close to the same size, but if they are measured to the finest degree, they will not be equal.

Now back to the Cornonavirus and masks.  No mask is 100% perfect.  Each mask type and the degree of its fit have different degrees of effectiveness from zero to something approaching 100$ but not 100%.  There are also different degrees of possible users.  Here is a partial list.

(!) people who don't have the virus and think they don't
(2) people who have the virus and think they don't
(3) people who don't have the virus but think they do
(4) people who have the virus and think they do
(5) People who have many contacts with people who have the virus
(6) People who have many contacts with people who they don't know their status
(7) people who have zero or few contacts with people

This is only a partial list, but I think it points up the problem with determining the effectiveness of masks.  Next, look at the mask.  They have different degrees of effectiveness to stop the virus from exiting a person or entering a person.  Now, think about telling people if the mask is recommended.  Only a fool would presume to make specific general statements about use or not use of a mask.  It seems very clear that some people in my group above would benefit from wearing a mask while some would not.  Like all decision, they are choices between alternatives.  Also, very very few decisions are perfect so we need to consider which side of this unknown perfect should be error on?  In the case of the mask, if 100% of people wear masks the benefits of the mask is maximized.  Given that we can not determine 100% just who has the virus, the only optimum decision would be to recommend 100% use of masks, no matter what their quality and effectiveness.

If there is a limited quantity of masks, the decision process might be different and one where we would want to optimize the effectiveness of the limited supply of masks that we have.  In my opinion, I think that if we were to be short of masks, then Jessie James bandannas would be justified as a fill in.

I don't know if I have made it clear that we need to understand the world is analog and few things are right and wrong or perfect.  Children tend to expect perfection while mature adults know that perfection is not possible or worth it.

Scent Slammer And The Coronavirus

I just purchased a "Scent Slammer" from a sporting goods store that is used by hunters to sterilize their hunting clothes.  I will explain in this blog how I use it.

In prior blogs, I pointed out that hunters have been using ozone generators of different types to kill their scent when they are in their hunting blinds for years.  They also use them to kill the scent and sterilize their hunting clothes.  I just purchased a unit that has a rechargeable battery that you can put into a duffel bag with your hunting clothes to kill any smell and sterilize your clothes.  Here is how I am going to use it.

When I have to go out to buy food and supplies, I am going to wear gloves and a special jacket.  When I get home, I am going to put my gloves and jacket plus any thing that I have purchased into a 30 gallon plastic garbage can with the Ozone generator for 30 minutes.  Since Ozone is heavier than air, the garbage can should hold all the Ozone generated.  After I go into the house and wash my hands, I will go back out and bring in my stuff, including what I had purchased.

I think this is a simple and inexpensive procedure to assure that I do not bring home any virus.  I can use this unit to sterilize the car or truck that I used as well.  If, for some reason, I would be concerned about a room in my home, I could put the unit in the room and close the door.  This could be done for the whole house while I was out for a walk or some other outside activity.  The mfg does not recommend the use of the unit in a closed space with people!

It is still interesting that you hear little about the use of these common hunting devices on the news or any place else.  Ultraviolet is also very good, but is more difficult and expensive to get set up right.  Hospitals and airplanes almost all use ultraviolet to sterilize their air and most people don't even know it. 

PS--I noticed on the TV News that there is a small Ozone generating unit that is being marketed to CPAP users to clean and sterilize their equipment.  It costs $99.00, it has a rechargeable battery and a small case for sterilizing the mask.  Why isn't this being marketed for the virus?  Businesses could have one of these just outside their door and require 100% of people to sterilize their masks before the come into the store.  They could also have a container of hand sterilizer there too.

Hand Wash Alcohol, Craft Distillers

I was just watching a story on the news about a craft distillery that was going to divert some of their alcohol into hand wash to fight the coronavirus.  Interesting story, but mostly BS and this blog will show why.

In a prior blog about hand washing, I pointed out that we produce millions of gallons of alcohol that we put into gasoline for our cars.  The point is that we have an almost unlimited supply of alcohol for making hand sterilizer.  The cost for a gallon is about $10.  There is no way that a craft distiller could come close to competing at that price.  Why the News picks up on this kind of story is beyond me.  It points up how little they know or how little background investigation that they do before they splash the story all over the place.  This is just one more reason that my respect for the News media has been going down so much over the past few years.  How about you?  How many other things does the News media report that are just as false as this one about a craft distiller?  One question that they asked was if you could drink their hand sterilizer and the person interviewed said that they did not know.  Does this invite someone to die drinking hand sterilizer?  You tell me.

I think that the proof has to be well above 100 proof to be assured that it will work as a hand sterilizer, so you can't really use Vodka off the shelf.  I have a sailboat with an alcohol stove.  I chose the alcohol stove because if you have a spill, the alcohol evaporates and because it is lighter than air escapes out of the boat.  Propane, on the other hand, is heavier than air and settle to the bottom of the boat creating an explosion possibility.  For my boat, I used alcohol that I purchase from the paint department in my hardware store.  That might be one of the cheapest sources for you if you want to use it for a hand sanatizer.

Be cautious about the News.  It may not be correct.

PS--For the record, the Farm News just reported that they are very concerned about the possibility that many of the companies who produce alcohol from corn for cars may go out of business.  Is that further "proof" that the availability of alcohol for hand wash is not a concern?

Nationalizing Transportation

Did you ever think about "nationalizing transportation"?  I am going to explore the subject in this blog.

Rather you know it or not, we have already nationalized much of our transportation system.  Look at "public" roads.  This is clearly nationalization.  Not only have we nationalized roads and highways, we have nationalized airports, railroads, subways, buses and water ways. We have allowed public use of the roads and highways, but we tax the use thru fuel tax or toll roads and bridges.  The airlines might be private companies, but they use public airports.  Many countries around the world have nationalized airlines and we have accepted that for years.  In the case of electric cars, there is a debate about how to charge people with electric cars who do not pay fuel taxes.  Isn't it clear that this is an area where some kind of long range decision is needed?

In my area, we have Amish people who drive their horse drawn buggies on our public roads without paying a tax.  We also allow people to run SUV's on our public roads.  Farmers run their tractors on our public roads while being exempt from paying fuel tax.

I own an airplane and have to pay an aviation fuel tax on my fuel just like the commercial airlines do.  It is much less than the road tax, but it must be enough finance airports.  I know that some airports have landing fees, but those are exceptions. From the above, I think that you can see that this whole area is a mess of over lapping governmental units and procedures.  I would like to also point out the current political debate where many are proposing that we need to spend more on "infrastructure".  What does that mean?  Is it the time to start looking at infrastructure in a totally different way since we all know that transportation is one of the largest components of infrastructure?.

I don't have a firm position on how we should deal with transportation in the future, but I think we might be at one of those points in history where it might be the time to make a change.

Coronavirus And Computer Trading

Most of us have been "killed" by the stock market and I have some comments on why.

Rather than look at the stock market in the conventional way, look at it like any dynamic mechanical system.  Think of it like a string on your piano.  Each string vibrates at its natural frequency.  If you pluck it harder you get a louder sound, but it still vibrates at the "same" frequency or note.  The stock market tends to be this same way.  It vibrates at a frequency based on people buying and selling.  These transactions take time.  That means there is a limit to how fast the market can go up and down.  Most of you have watched the index go up and down, but it does not go up and down instantly!  It takes time.  This allows us humans time to check the data and made decision about buying and selling.  This is how the market has worked since the beginning of time, but not anymore.

What we have now is computer trading that can occur in seconds, rather than minutes.  Another way to look at the market is with two "water tanks" that are connected with a pipe.  The pipe represents the "flow" up and down of the market.  If the market is static or not changing, there is no flow in the connecting pipe.  Investors who are trading in a market that is static or not changing do not make any money nor do "computerized traders".  Look at what happens when there is a big flow in the connecting pipe?  The computerized trades can take place in seconds, before the direction of flow can change.  Are you following this? As long as the direction of the flow does not change for a few seconds or even minutes, the computerized trades can take place and they can win regardless of the direction of the flow.

The reason that the exchange has instituted the "shut downs" is to allow the humans to catch up with the computerized traders.  There are a lot of problems with the stock market since they allowed computerized trading and I don't think that most people realized it.

Here is a point from aviation.  Pilots understand that a plane's control surfaces have a limited amount of "authority".  If a plane is in a dive, the only thing that can be done is to pull the "stick" back for the elevator.  If there is too much weight forward, the elevator may not be able to generate a force big enough to cause the plane to stop diving.  That means the elevator did not have enough "authority".  Now, look at what the exchange has done as well as the President.  It appears that they do not have enough "authority" to stop the falling market.  Those of you who are familiar with control system, you understand how these all follow the same control rules or laws.  Over time, some of us start to feel that this or that system is exempt for the control system laws.  It is a little like the "law of gravity".  We can't violate the fundamental "laws".

Remember that much of what we are seeing has been caused by computerized trading.  The other thing that we will not know for a while is, "Who made how much during this computerized trading period?"  You can bet that the net worth distribution in the USA has gotten much much "wider".

PS--It looks like at the end trading session, the computerized day traders cover their shorts.  It all looks like speed of light timing to me.

That Is All We Do

If you have been watching adds on TV, then you have heard those from law firms who say, "That is all we do"  That simple statement is very significant as I will explain in this blog.

Everyday we see adds from law firms who only deal with cases related to products like "Round Up" or cases related to "Asbestos", or "personal injury".  Do you think that these law firms are responsible and are providing a good public service?  We hear these adds almost back-to-back so there must be something significant going on here.  Now, what do you think that is?  Are these law firms actually looking out for you and me or are they looking after "number one"?  I think it is the latter.

It seems clear to me that this whole thing is like a "Gold Rush".  That is where there is a discovery of a big pot of Gold and all the miners rush in to grab as much as they can.  I think that these lawyers are much like the Gold miners of old.  Our political system is dominated by lawyers.  We all know that.  Who do you think is pushing all the laws and regulations?  It is these same lawyers who are cashing in on the newly discovered Gold.  If you check the statistics, you will find that we have far more lawyers than any other country in the world and our lawyers earn more than lawyers any place in the world.  Remember that there is no "free lunch" and that money has to come from some place.  Think of what our economy would look like if 75% of our lawyers were doing something "productive" for the economy?  Some of the smartest people that I knew from college are now lawyers digging Gold out of our society.

This is only part of the problem.  Look at my title, "That is all we do".  I thought that these guys were lawyers who represented the legal interests of the people.  I was wrong!  They only represent themselves and they do it in a very special way. They "specialize" just like the workers on the assembly lines in Henry Fords factory did 100 years ago.  Remember my blog on "specialization"?  I pointed out that with specialization people of much lower skill and intellect can function and be competitive.  It  appears to be the same with lawyers.  If that is the case, why are we spending all this money training lawyers in our colleges and universities?  Why don't we train them in our high schools?  If they work for one of these, "that is all we do" law firms, what exactly do they need to know?  I know of law firms that are so specialized that they already have the forms made up for the cases so that all a clerk has to do is to fill in a few blanks.  They have these forms all pre-printed up and ready.

One reason that these lawyers charge so much is that it is "legal".  They have been able to make laws and regulations that allow them a percentage of any settlement, plus their expenses on the side.  Here is a classic situation.  About 40 years ago there was a big case about Asbestos against several companies including Johns Manville .  Rather than bankrupt the company and divide up the spoiles, the court decided that they could get more money from Johns Manville if they allowed the company to keep running and set aside money in a fund.  Sounded good at the time for the defendants, but wait.  I thought that with the fund, there would be no need for lawyers, a panel appointed by the judge could easily administer the distribution of the money to those deserving.  That is not how it worked out.  Law firms sprung up that were, "that is all we do" started getting a major cut out of the fund.  Is that sick or what?

When you see these law firms advertising, "that is all we do" complain to your friends and political representative to see if there is not some way that this whole business can be changed.  These guys are bleeding our country dry and many of us don't even know it!

The Government Is Not Perfect

Have you noticed that our  government is not perfect?  Before you answer that, exactly what is perfect?  Are you starting to understand the problem?  That is what this blog is about.

Do we really need a perfect coronavirus test for everyone?  We don't have it and it is my guess that we will never have a perfect test for everyone.  Given a little taste of reality, what should we be doing?  If you think about it, we already do have several tests for the coronavirus right here under our noses.  Here are some examples"

(1)  Have you been near or touched a person who has the virus?
(2)  Do you have a temperature?
(3)  Do you have any other symptoms that look like flu?
(4)  Are you older than 60 years of age?
(5)  Is you immune system compromised in any way?
(6)  Have you traveled to an area that has the virus?

It seems to me that the six questions above amount to a test.  Do you think that the answers to the questions above would lead any doctor to start treating you as if you had the virus?  You know it would. Now, let's see what the treatment actions would be.  Would they be any different if you had tested positive?  I don't think so.  As far as I know, the treatment for the coronavirus is no different from how you would be treated if you had one of the known forms of the flu.  Interesting isn't when you look what happens if you have or did not have the test.

Is there really any difference between a self quarantine and a "forced quarantine?  I don't see any. Do you?  Look at your own personal actions.  If you had a positive test for the virus, would that mean you could stop washing your hands?  Further, if you had a negative test for the virus, would that mean you could attend sports events?  Are you starting to see that your actions with and without the test are 99% the same?  That gives you and idea of how significant the test is.  It is human nature to want some thing that they can not have or feel what they can't have is the answer to their fear.  Does that sound like the type of logic that our children use at the dinner table?

Why don't we all stop wishing for "perfect" solutions when we must know that "perfect" solutions do not exist for most things!  How about some maturity here!

PS--It sounds like the government has started a web site where you can go and take a test similar to the six tests that I described above to get a score that you can use to determine what action you should take.  That score will also be used by our government to to guide them on their help to you.

PS--I just bounced this off some of my friends who are familiar with Bayes Theorem.  They pointed out that the test is not 100% accurate.  It shows people have the virus when they don't and shows that they don't have the virus when they do.  Once the virus gets beyond a small percentage of the population the strategy shifts from testing and tracing to prevention and treatment of those infected and that is where we are now here in the USA.

Compared To What?

I would like to refer you to my prior blog on "Life Years".  In that blog, I proposed that we look a the flu in terms of how many years of life it shortens.

So far the data shows that we have had 31 deaths due to the Coronavirus.  2/3 of those deaths were in a singe nursing home in Washington state.  I used to work with a guy who used to say, "Compared to what?" every time I said something.  It irritated me at the time, but now I understand where he was coming from and it applies to the Coronavirus.

Now, let's look at the facts in this new context.  The first is that we only have about 10 deaths beyond those in the one nursing home.  During this same period, I would estimate that we have had more deaths to people driving too and from their doctors.  When you look at this in terms of "life years" the picture looks much less critical.  Figure that people driving back and forth to their doctors have an average age of "37" vs the age "80" of those who have died.  If just 10 people died who did not have the flu, it would be "equal" to those older individuals who did die.  We need to focus on this point when we make new proposals.

As the data comes in, look at the number of people who have had the coronavirus and compare that to the number of deaths.  Right now the number of people who have the coronavirus is "under stated".  It is because many people who actually have it have no symptoms that would make them think they have the virus because they have never been tested.  When that data comes in, it is my opinion, that it will double or triple the numbers now being reported.  Do the math.  It means the number of people who actually die from the virus will calculate to 1/3 to 1/4th of what is now being reported.  This is borne out by the numbers that we have been getting from South Korea

The other thing is that we need to take into account the roll of the biased media.  If you compare the news media today with that of 50 years ago, you will notice a big difference.  Today the media reports on the biggest event they can find in the whole USA and make it sound like it happened just next door to you.  50 years ago the news focused on things that happened within a few hundred miles from the reader or listener.  Now, we have a concentration of our news media in New York City and they push the same story out to the whole country. 

The next time you hear an opinion from the news media, challenge them with, "Compared to what?"

Hand Washing And The Coronavirus

It appears that the shelves are empty on masks and hand sterilizer wipes.  What are we all going to do? I hope this blog helps.

I was talking to some friends about the coronavirus and the fact that stores are running out of a lot of the things that people need.  One of those is the sterilizer hand wipes.  As it turns out you can easily make your own.  Some people keep vinegar in a spritz bottle and spritz their hands lightly with vinegar after they wash them.  Most vinegar contains about 5% acidic acid which is a good preservative and sterilizer.  Other than the smell, it does a good job and does not harm your hands.

There are other things that you can use too.  How about a bottle Gin or Vodka?  It is 40% alcohol and like vinegar, is a good sterilizer.  You could use plain rubbing alcohol too in a spritz bottle near the sink and do the same thing.  It is not as if we are short of alcohol.  Your gasoline contains as much as 10% alcohol or ethanol.  Both do the same thing.  We have plenty of oil, and it is cheap, so why not divert some of the more expensive ethanol to the hand sterilizing department?

If you look in your kitchen pantry, you find a lot of things that you can use to keep your hands clean other than soap or detergent.  How about plain salt?  There are a lot of caustic items under the sink, but you need to be very careful with those.  I am talking about things like oven cleaner and household lye.  A good one is a spritzer full of water and with a table spoon of bleach.  It might smell at first, but you will get used to it and the smell will not last long.  Many people already have a spritz bottle with diluted bleach handy in the kitchen and bath room.

For my money, I am using vodka with a dash on my hands and "tongue".  Stay safe!. 

Zero Sum Game

I asked a group of associates if they had ever heard of "Zero Sum Games" and 60% had no idea what I was talking about.  One tried to come up with a definition, but failed badly. In this blog I am going to see if I can explain its significance.

The concept of "zero sum games" is important for the understanding of both economics,  and political systems, but it appears that much of our population is unaware of this.  A good place to start is a simple definition and example.  It is a game where the prize is fixed from the beginning so that the game only determines how the prize it distributed.  A good example of a zero sun game is "poker".  Each play starts with table stakes and playing only determines how the stakes will be divided.

Here is why this concept is significant in economics.  Many people feel that economics is only a way to divide up the wealth and for that reason, they tend to prefer socialism or communism.  That is because the "promise" of both socialism and communism is to equally divide up the wealth.  At first sight, this might look good, but on further consideration they discover that the promises are not kept. Even if kept, they find that the pie that is to be divided has not grown and may in fact, may have declined.  Doesn't this look like a zero sum game situation?

Here is another point.  Consider that our population grows at the rate of 1% per year.  If the economy does not grow faster than 1%, the share of pie for each individual does not grow and thus, at best, we have a zero sum game.  Why would "merit" be a consideration in such a situation since everyone is "equal"?  If one is to progress upwards in this kind of economic situation it is driven by younger people replacing older workers who retire or die.  Doesn't sound very inspirational does it?

There is yet another important point and that is how the economic system is organized.  In prior blogs, I have pointed out that as systems grow in size and complexity they move away from central control to distributed control systems.  Here again, 60% to 80% of people who I have talked with have no idea what a distributed control system is.  Sad but true.  What distributed means is that decisions are made at all levels of the system rather than just from the top. How those decisions are made is thus critical.  As I have blogged before, those decisions need to be made on the basis of "merit"!  If you are a football coach, doesn't it seem logical that you would select players on the basis of "merit".  Why would you let an inferior quarterback play in place of your best quarterback?  You wouldn't.  If people would make decisions on the basis of merit at all levels, this would tend to optimize the productive value of the economic system.  That would make the pie bigger and allow more participants to get a larger piece of pie.  Isn't the the objective?  It recognizes what we all really know and that we are not all equal. At the starting line we are all even, but as the race or game is played, merit determines where we will end up.  Is that fair?  Can you suggest a better way to produce a bigger pie and divide it up?  I don't think so.

If we play a zero sum game long enough we know that all the pie is going to end up in "one" place and no one whats that kind of system.  Capitalism or "Meritism" is not perfect, but it is clearly better than any other economic system that has been tried! Can we all wait for the "perfect" system that may not exist?  I don't think so!

Coronavirus And Life Years

I have come up with another way to look at the coronavirus and want to explain it in this blog.

First off, I need to define a few terms and concepts.  The average life expectancy in the USA is 81 and our average age is 37.  These numbers may be a little bit off, but these are the numbers that I am going to use.  The next concept is a little more difficult to understand so go slow.  The average life expectancy is based on people who start at "one" year old.  If you are one year old, you can expect to live to an average age of 81.  This is how most mortality tables are calculated. Now it gets complicated.  How long can you expect to live if you are "now" 37?  It is "longer".  This is because some of those who started off at age "one" have passed away.  This is called a "conditional" probability because it is "conditioned" on you getting to age 37.  It turns out that if you are now 37, you can expect to live to age 83.  Does that sound logical to you?  Here is another way to understand the concept.  What if you are now 84?  How long can you expect to live.  You are already beyond the life expectancy listed in the tables.  It might be 89.  Again, what if you are 100?  It might be 101.

Here is why you need to understand this concept. How many years of life has a death eliminated?  If you died at age "one", it has eliminated 80 years of life.  If you died at 37, it would eliminate 46 years of life.  If you died at age 84, it would eliminate 5 years.  Here is why I think this new way to look at life expectancy is important.  The data shows that 9 people have died in Washington state due to the coronavirus and all were in a nursing home.  Let's assume the average age of those who died was 84.  By using my numbers above, the virus has eliminated 5 years times 9 or 45 "life years".  Do you follow that?

Next, let's look at the deaths from the tornado in Tennessee.  The News reported 24 died and I would expect that these were average age people or 37. From my data above, they could have expected to have lived to age 83.  If we calculate the "life years" we get 46 years times 24 people for 1,104 "life years".  This means the tornado was almost 25 times "worse" than the coronavirus deaths!

This is a totally new concept and a way to look at the coronavirus.  What do you think of this new concept?  I propose that it is a much better way to look at diseases than how we currently look at them.  Further, I propose that we should be spending our money such that it maximizes the number of "life years" rather than just on deaths.  I do not propose that we stop medical care for the aged, but we need to balance where we spend our money.  We don't have unlimited amounts of money and have to be honest about it.

PS--Here is another small point.  I keep hearing how we have "saved" this life or that, but what does this really mean?  If you saved a person who was 85 year old and they survived another 3 years, what have you saved?  At best, you have "delayed" their death by 3 years.  We know that it is impossible to save one's live forever, so why do we keep calling it "saved"?  Why don't be call it "prolonging" their life or something like that?  If we did that, we would start thinking more logically about where we spend out money on medicine. Most of us know that things continue as now, "in the limit" we would be spending 100% of our GNP on medicine.  What about quality of life?  Our quality of life would go to "zero" if things don't change and if you are honest you know it. All decisions are between alternatives and we need to start putting all of the alternatives on the table!

PS--I would like to point out that the life expectancy for the USA is about 81 and it has been going down while we are spending more on conventional medicine.  Some thing has to be wrong here. Look at places like Japan who have life expectancy of almost 10 years more than we do while spending much less on medical.  Can we take a lesson?  We know that the life style, freely chosen by individuals, is the biggest factor in longevity We need to encourage better life style conduct.  What our medical policy does is to discourage better personal responsibility for one's health by providing the same benefits regardless of the conduct of people.  An auto insurance company would not do this.  They would take into account the driving history of the individuals.  Do they know more than our government?

Coronavirus Test Kit

I was watching the News this morning and they were interviewing a doctor from New York.  He had all kind of bad things to say about how the virus is being handled by our government.  I thought that I needed to shed some light where he only saw darkness.

The doctor said that there was no excuse for the USA not having test kits for the virus and went on to bad mouth the government even more.  As I listened to him, it became clear that we have a serious problem with the education and intellect of our doctors. It seems that they mostly work by the application of "protocols".  Those are little more than recipes like we use to cook cakes and pies.  They do little real thinking.  It is not just doctors who have this problem.  It is thru out our education system.  I call it "algorithms".  Our education system seems to teach these "algorithms" and  the students go away thinking that they have been educated.  A good cook often does not follow the "recipe", but goes beyond the "recipe" to prepare a great dish.

Now look at the shortage of test kits.  I would guess that they have test kits for the other known types of the flu.  If a person comes in with flu symptoms, they could test to see if it was a know strain of the flu and if it was not, then it must be some unknown type flu.  Follow that one?  Isn't the coronavirus one of these unknown strains?  Hello!

Further, even if they know that it is this unknown strain, how do they treat it?  Oh, they need some kind of protocol or recipe.  How does having or not having a test kid make any difference?  I have developed AI programs to trouble shoot very complex systems and the process of elimination is always a key method to consider.  Why don't our doctors understand this?  Did they ever hear about the "null set"?   I am not going to explain it here, but you should know what that is.

Later in the News, they reported that the most trusted data on the flu was coming from North Korea and there the mortality rate from the flu was about 0.2%.  That is two out of a thousand for those of you who had difficulty with 4th grade math. If that is the case, why is there such a panic?  Further, it is my understanding that no children between the ages of 1 to 10 have died.  It has only been older people who already had health problems and the new born.

Here is another point.  Iran appears to have a very disproportionate number of these flu cases,  Why do you think that is?  Have you ever been inside of a Masque?  Well, I have been in several including the Taj Mahal.  All those going into a Masque are required to take off their shoes.  When they pray in the Masque up to 5 time a day they get down on their knees and put their heads on the floor.  They do use small prayer rugs, but I am sure they do not wash them between prayers. How many time per day have you been on your knees down on the floor with people doing the same thing all around you?  Never!  Many of their rituals require touching different objects.  I am not sure about shaking hands.

Here is another thing.  They never put their left hand on the dinner table.  That is because their religion tells them to use the left had to wipe their bottom.  Interesting isn't it?  They practice sanitation by never spitting on the side walk, so the spit on the walls.  When it rains, it does not flush the spit off the walls,  It stays there.  These are just a couple of reasons why there may be more flu in Iran than in other places, but you will never hear this any where else.

Merit

This is a short title, but I think that it might be one of the most important blogs that I have ever written.

Just what is "merit"?  It is a complex thing as you will see.  When I was in school, I paid attention and did my homework so that I could get the highest grades.  I wanted to make my mother proud of me by getting on the honor roll.  As judged by my fellow students, I deserved their admiration and I got that admiration by "merit".  Over time, due to political correctness, more and more kids got onto the honor roll.  It was because of grade inflation that we all know now exists.  Many of the kids now on the honor roll do not have the "merit" to be there and we all know it.  Is that "fair"?  No!

What most of us want is for any system to be "fair".  Do you agree with that?  I think that "merit" is just another way to demonstrate fairness, but it goes further. Look at sports.  We all want sports to be "fair" don't we.  Would you want the players on our basketball and football teams to be chosen at random?  I don't think so. One summer while I was in high school, I played in the local summer softball league.  I tried out for a team where the coach was politically correct.  Even though I was clearly better than many other players on the team, I did not get to play in the first two games while he allowed several kids who were much worse than me to play.  I can't tell you how pissed off I was for the coaches unfairness.  I clearly merited getting to play.  When in the third game of the season, the coach finally offered to put me in, I told him that he could "stick it in his ass" and I took my mitt and walked off.  A few days later, my father who was at the game, told me that he was very proud of me.  Merit was the reason.

Now, I am going to switch to economics.  Economic systems are not fixed.  The economics model has changed over time and we have to recognize that.  I have pointed  this out before in my blogs.  The biggest shift or trend is the shift to toward an economy driven by intellect.  Years ago, when it was based more on one's physical abilities you could select and promote more on "random" selection.  I have pointed out before that in the physical area, 90% of people could do the same physical task within +/- 10% or 15% of the mean.  When it comes to an intellectual tasks the variance is much wider, where the top 10% of people can do an intellectual task 50 time that of the mean.  Random selection for physical tasks was thus much fairer, than random selection for intellectual tasks.  Is it clear that to be "fair" in the current and future economic system driven by intellect that we have to select on "merit" in order to be "fair"?

Now look at two different economic systems.  Socialism and Capitalism.  The basic difference is that selection, promotion and rewards are based differently.  In socialism, the rewards are based on random selection assuming that all are equal or are nearly equal.  Years ago when the economic model was base on physical ability, this was not too unfair, but what about now?  Capitalism rewards us on the basis of "merit", not random selection.  Isn't that much more "fair"?  The trend in capitalism is away from capital.  Having a stack of money is less important today than intellectual "merit".  In a prior blog, I proposed that we change the name of capitalism to "meritism".

There is one more point that I would like to make.  Given that the future is driven by intellect, what economic system will produce the biggest "pie"?  It is "meritism".  If we put together a company by picking employees randomly as with socialism it has to be clear that by selecting on "merit' the company would clearly be more prosperous.  That means a bigger pie.  The problem now becomes how to divide the pie.  In the case of socialism, the pie is much smaller and thus no mater how it is divided, may will go hungry.  In the case of meritism the pie is bigger and there is the potential that it be divided up so that no one goes hungry.  Isn't that the kind of thing that we all should be focused on?

Back to sports.  Would you pay good money to go see a football or basketball game where the players were selected randomly or a game where the players were selected on "merit".  I rest my case!

PS--Check my prior blogs on economics where I pointed out that the "exploitation of our natural resources" is a very major part of our economy.  To assure that its contribution to median family income does not go "down", we need tight controls on immigration.  Much of our economy driven by value added labor is not competitive and thus has to be off set by the "exploitation of our natural resources".

PS--I was questioned about my "merit" economic system with the question, "Who is going to define merit?"  The implication was that they saw the economy controlled by some "central" authority.  This attitude is more common than you might think.  Capitalism or "Meritism" is not a centrally controlled model.  Decisions are "distributed" which is more of a proven optimization model.  Thus, the application of "merit' is distributed.  Profit may be an optimum model if "merit" is the driver rather than nepotism or racial consideration.  No central authority defines "merit" we do it every day as we make our individual decisions.