The following personal essay was inspired by the recent discussions on health insurance (more precisely the lack of) brought to our attention by Jed, Ed, Stephen, and the Leaking pen.
* * * * * An interesting analogy that made the smarmy economics of our country a little easier for me to comprehend was the personal realization that when GNP remains stagnant it should theoretically mean that everyone's material quality of life should remain stagnant as well. Curiously, that rarely happens. Lets assume for the sake of argument that we live in a country called the United Gumdrops of America, or UGA. Each UGA citizen produces a single gumdrop to be consumed each day, and that there are exactly 300 million citizens in the fair land of UGA. That means 300 gumdrops are being produced and subsequently consumed each day within the UGAn economy. Now, here's the catch: Once a UGA citizen manufactures their own gumdrop they must then sell their personally manufactured gumdrop to another UGA citizen because they can't consume their own gumdrop. They can only eat a gumdrop manufactured by another UGA citizen. Despite countless UGA government and privately financed projects to crack the barrier that prevents UGA citizens from consuming their own personally manufactured gumdrop no citizen can consume their own gumdrop. This forces every UGA citizen to consume a gumdrop manufactured by another UGA Citizen. Under this scenario our UGA economy produces 300 million gumdrops each day, and every single gumdrop must be redistributed fairly and equitably throughout the land of UGA - and everyone consumes their acquired gumdrop. Everyone's daily gumdrop requirements are being satisfied and all of UGA's citizens are happy, at least when it comes to consuming gumdrops. Of course, maintaining fair and equitable system of gumdrop distribution throughout the country UGA rarely happens. There are always individuals who know how to manipulate the system of gumdrop distribution better than others. They posses greater power or gumdrop influence over others and subsequently end up consuming more gumdrops per day; let's say two or three gumdrops per day. And as we all know, the laws of conservation dictate that if someone consumes two or three extra gumdrops over their daily single gumdrop allotment, that means an equal number of UGA citizens must go without consuming any gumdrops at all for that day. Let's assume it's really, REALLY IMPORTANT that everyone GETS their daily gumdrop allotment. Go without consuming a gumdrop a day for a few days straight and suddenly all those gumdrop-deprived UGAn citizens decide maybe it's time to take matters into their own hands and start TAKING gumdrops away from others who seem to have their own gumdrop. Maybe they'll focus their frustration on a few UGAn citizens who seem to have acquired the skill of securing lots of gumdrops, and maybe they will get their gumdrop and subsequently not feel so gumdrop deprived. More likely, however, too many of the gumdrop deprived will simply take a gumdrop anyway they can, meaning what's easiest for them to reach for, and that typically means from someone who is not all that adept at holding onto their single gumdrop. Maybe those who aren't adept at keeping their own gumdrop are sick, or too old, or simply too ignorant to know they've just been hoodwinked into relinquishing their daily gumdrop allowance. What is the UGA leadership to do? Its citizens are beginning to riot over gumdrops! They ponder their options: (*) Eliminate the gumdrop deprived – specifically those who no longer seem capable of acquiring their daily allotment of a gumdrop. Unfortunately, there is an unpleasant cascading effect that accompanies this solution as each UGA gumdrop deprived citizen who is eliminated results in one less gumdrop they personally manufacture that subsequently enters the UGA distribution system and isn't sold, and that means another UGA citizen will no longer be getting their daily gumdrop either, and subsequently they too will need to be eliminated. How far should the UGA leadership carry this scenario? Most UGA citizens will most likely decide, sooner or later, that this plan isn't a very good one and subsequently decide to remove every UGA leader that had made the suggestion in the first place, and while they at it, they'll take their gumdrop away from them too. (*) Eliminate and/or prevent those who consume more than their daily allotment of gumdrops from consuming more than their daily requirement of a gumdrop. Unfortunately, this suggestion is considered just as Un-UGAn, and every UGA leader that had ever suggested it is also voted out of office, and their gumdrop is taken away from them as well. (*) Figure out a way to increase gumdrop production as manufactured per UGA individual. Hey! Maybe this might work! However, the suggestion has consequences as well. If implemented it's probably a good idea to start planning for: (1) Additional UGA cavities. (2) Increased instances of UGA diabetes. (3) And last of all, growing discontent from former UGA citizens who got used to being perceived as special and powerful, primarily because they were extremely skilled at acquiring more than their daily gumdrop allotments. Now everyone gets to consume more than one gumdrop a day. Well... almost everyone. That's no fun! I'm no longer special! My skill of accumulating extra gumdrops is no longer envied! Some of the disgruntled discontents decide to install their own UGA lawmakers who have pledged to pass a law making it illegal for individual UGA citizens to manufacture more than one gumdrop per day – on the premise that excess gumdrop manufacturing is depleting UGA's finite resources, UGA's sacred cache of raw materials that go into the manufacturing of gumdrops. * * * * Well, that's the end of my essay. I never said I had the solution. "Gumdrops, get back. I'm all right jack keep your hands off of my gumdrop" With apologies to Pink Floyd: http://www.lyricsfreak.com/p/pink+floyd/money_20108700.html Regards Steven Vincent Johnson www.OrionWorks.com www.zazzle.com/orionworks
