Brain Flossing

The conversation then moved on to the notion of debt. We talked about how one of American's greatest problems is debt. Back in '00 '01 when the recession started, it was the consumer that was blamed. We simply weren't spending enough to keep the system growing. Philip had heard that too and was as astonished as I was. "American's already have more debt per person than any other country, how will spending more money, they don't have, help?" Precisely my question. He then talked about how the rest of the world is thinking twice about lending America money as they are all getting concerned with our ability to pay other countries back. For a country that relies so heavily on debt, how will we fare when the U.S. government starts getting denied credit for having too much outstanding debt. I know I've been denied for that reason :) He related that in Europe, debt is still frowned upon. "There is a certain degree of shame in using credit cards to buy things." Fredrick couldn't believe it when he saw that he could buy clothing with terms in America. I asked if it was viewed as acceptable to use credit to buy vehicles. It wasn't. What about education? Nope. Only to purchase a home or start a business with the reason being that a business will make money back and a home will increase in value, whereas clothing and cars only lose value. I asked if Europeans were seeing the folly of Americans and would continue to shun debt. They were somewhat divided on this, but related that they were seeing more and more ads for credit cards and debt in general. Philip, the more pessimistic of the two, saw it coming.

Over the weekend I spoke to a number of Europeans from a number of different countries. All of them thought our health care system was atrocious. Philip said, and I quote, "America is a third world nation." I was completely stunned by this comment. "If you look at your health care situation, your education system, your homeless situation, your unemployment situation, you are a third world country." Wow. I'd never heard anyone call us a 3rd world nation. It's almost sacrilegious, especially for a country that has recently become so nationalistic. He also mentioned how bad our media was. I got the feeling that Europeans knew how bad/filtered our media is. This notion, along with a few others, made me realize how blinded we've become by our nationalism. We spend so much effort trying to be the uber democracy, and trying NOT to be Communist China or Russia of yore. Better dead than red! Socialism didn't work! That is one reason people give for not moving towards socialized medicine or other services. That point of view is merely one of ignorance. Many European countries that have socialized medicine are more of a democracy than we are. Combine that with our, report what they want us to hear, media, and America begins to look far less democratic and far more like the communist threat we'd been so afraid of.

Speaking of nationalism, they also felt that American's were disliked because of how arrogant we were. We talked about how there are really 2 America's. When Europeans come to visit, they usually come to the California coast, or New York. Both places have a very liberal viewpoint and are probably more open to these ideas than the part of the country Europeans never visit. In this way, many Europeans get a false impression of what American's are really like. On the other hand, they related to me that many (maybe most) Europeans saw American's like the classic texan, loud, arrogant, ignorant. In sheer numbers, they are probably right.

Personally, I never knew how the Swiss system of government worked. I was surprised to find it remarkably similar to ours, but with some key differences that seem to answer some of our system's shortcomings. Philip pointed out that while most American's believed they lived in a democracy, "America is not now and has never been a democracy." American's do not vote for their laws, or even their own president (as we saw in the last election). Switzerland is an extremely diverse country with 4 native languages, (German, French, Italian, and some mountain language I forget and probably couldn't spell anyway). It was important to the architects of their government that the system wasn't a run just by majority rules. The country was too diverse for that. They two have 2 houses (of parliament) like ours. Each has elected officials representing specific states. In one branch of parliament the number of senators (my interpretation) is based on the population of the state they come from (like our House). The other has two per state, regardless of the population of that state (like our Senate). The biggest difference between the Swiss system and ours is that they have a true democracy. Every law is voted on by the citizens. They vote around once every 2 months. In this way, lobbying representatives is not guaranteed affective, unlike in our system. He was amazed how in our system we elect officials with the notion that they will vote the way we expect them to, but in reality, vote however they want (or are pressured to). A perfect example of this is the recent passing of the medicare reform bill. It is the first major overhaul in medicare since its inception. I don't want to go into whether it is a good or bad thing, but I do want to mention how the vote went down in the House. Normally, once everyone has spoken and a vote is called, it is over very quickly, within a couple minutes. This vote lasted 3 hours, which is 2.5 times longer than the longest vote in history. Why? Once you have cast you're vote, you can change your vote before the closing gavel. It is the speaker of the house that, rather arbitrarily, determines when the vote is over. During this three hour vote, intense lobbying to get democrats and republicans who had voted against it, to change their vote was happening. Obviously, there was lobbying on both sides, but it was those that wanted the bill to pass that controlled the gavel. Votes changed on both sides until at one point, the republicans had enough votes and it was at precisely that moment the gavel fell, giving it to the republicans. Meanwhile, there were some dems that had originally voted FOR the bill, who were intending to change their vote against it, but were unable to once the gavel fell. It was obvious to Philip that a representative democracy like ours is a bought democracy. Representatives can be bought with money, influence or support. Votes are given for strategic reasons rather than on their merit. If you vote with ME on this, I'll vote with YOU on that. In a true democracy, it simply isn't that easy to buy the system.

On Education. Citizens of Switzerland are guaranteed an excellent education all the way through college. Their public schools are better than our private ones. As proof of this, their system does allow for subsidized private schools where you can pay varying amounts for your kids to go to one. The idea of subsidized private schools has been debated a great deal in American, but never made into law because it seems obvious that public schools would get worse as those who could afford it would send their kids to private schools (which would be much less expensive than today), while those that could not afford private schools would be forced to go to an even WORSE public school. The best teachers would naturally gravitate towards private schools where they'd make more money and be treated better. This system might be better for the middle class and up, but would probably be much worse for the lower class. In Switzerland, even though it isn't expensive to send your children to private schools because of subsidies, few people do and there are few private schools. Why? Because the public school system is widely recognized as being very good. Why pay for something you get just as good for free? According to Philip, private schools in Switzerland are mostly for the lazy and the troubled.

Health Care. Switzerland has a strange hybrid socialized health care system. I say hybrid because while ever woman man and child has guaranteed health care, they are all required to pay for it. Phillip pays around ~$130/mo for health care. If you can not afford health care, you still get it for free through clinics and other means. The government may take some percentage out of your monthly income if you can not afford the standard fee. What do you get with this health care? Free doctor and hospital visits. All prescribed drugs are free. Would you pay $150/mo if everything was free? I know I would. I paid that much for a long time and that came with a $25 medicine co-pay, and a high deductible. For most, they spend a lot more than $150/mo on health related needs. For some reason, dental isn't covered, but it is far less expensive at full price than it is here. Given their lack of deductibles, how much less they spend on the rest of their health expenses, and how much less dental costs anyway, they don't mind the occasional dental bill.

Is the Swiss system perfect? They didn't think it was. Though there was some debate as to whether on eof the apparent flaws was really a deficit. Because everyone votes on everything and because any minority group can veto any move by a majority, things move very slowly. In our fast paced, quickly changing, global economy, this can put them behind. But perhaps it is best for governments to error on the side of caution when deciding for millions. Rashly changing policy without proper debate can have long term consequences. For example, it might not be wise to rush in and occupy another country for revenge, without fully realizing the long term ramifications and costs. It might also not be wise to rapidly decrease civil liberties in a panicked attempt to regain control of ones people.

I stipulated that when America rose to power with its brand of capitalism and democracy, both were quite new and unproven. Since then, many countries have experimented with variations on both and it would be naive to think America got it right the first time, or even that there aren't other variations that have yet to be tried. I asked what would happen if European countries started taking away things like health care for all. Philip said, "revolution." And indeed, historically, this is how radical change is gained. Our founding fathers predicted the same for our country. As we talked about the decline of the age of the American Empire, they couldn't help but bring up the comparison between us and the Roman Empire, mentioning our military might as another similarity. Fredrick, who had served in the Swiss military in mandatory service related how much more powerful our military is than any other military on the planet, both in numbers and technologically. I pointed out my observations on the problems with the Roman analogy. In the Roman Empire, as well as other empires throughout history, the lowest classes hated and did not support the upper class. The upper class shunned the lower classes and made it clear they were better in every way and that the poor had no chance of ever getting to their level. Indeed, they were almost a different race in their eyes. Whereas in the American Empire, the poor love and revere the upper class. You may think I'm crazy, but look at how we worship Hollywood stars and other famous figures. Even Donald Trump is lauded as a hero for going bankrupt, pulling himself up by his bootstraps and rising to riches again. The rich have figured out that if the poor are led to believe they too can attain the riches and power of the upper class, they will follow blindly, even giving what little they have to those that already have too much. I don't actually believe rich people think about it in that way. The truth is, they probably see the peasants as the aristocracy saw the loath-full peasants in Roman times. The love of the rich by the poor is a product of this system where the pursuit of life, liberty, and BMWs is supposed to be guaranteed by the very system that keeps them accruing so much debt they will never rise above poverty.

We ended the discussion talking about how America needs to start seeing itself as a single community. If a large percentage aren't doing well, it will bring the rest down. In this same way, because of the global economy and globalization in general, the world is becoming one large community. We will not prosper in the long run, monetarily or in our individual pursuit of happiness, if we do not recognize and rectify our attitudes.

Are we headed up or down? The consensus says down. As America drags the rest of the world away from social consciousness in order to protect their capital investment, quality of life for most will suffer, even as the availability of resources increases. There WILL be another revolution. But who will start it and where. What will be the catalyst that ignites a firestorm, awakening the wrath of the ignored masses.

Viva La Revolucion