A Few News Items That Deserve Comment
1. According to a recent savings study, 55% of Americans don’t have emergency savings defined as 3 months of living expenses. I wrote about the basic human nature/philosophy to live for the day several weeks ago in this column. People have a very limited view of “What Next?” and choose to deal with “whatever” when it becomes a problem. Actually, this limited vision is also found in business as many companies choose to live by quarterly reports rather than look too far forward.I’m sure that this short-term vision has some psychological underpinnings such as lack of hope or confidence. It doesn’t help that many of our politicians have chosen to promote fear instead of governing. Fear gets votes whereas promoting a united populace with hope and a hard working mentality sounds “corny.”
The next few years will be very interesting as the recent large home buying craze, funded by exotic mortgages, comes due. Americans don’t make enough money to pay the interest on these mortgages, nevertheless the principle.
2. Medical doctors have been feeling a bit pinched lately regarding their take-home pay. Over 50 percent of all MDs earn more than $170,000 per year, but have seen a 7 percent drop in earnings since 1995. Family practice and general practice doctors earn $121,262 per year and have seen a 10.2 percent drop between 1995 and 2003.
The average wage in the US has fallen to about $32,000 per year, so there may not be much sympathy from the everyday worker. But, keep in mind the tremendous debt a physician acquires from years of specialized training, the long hours, the overhead of running an office, malpractice insurance and other expenses that have little to do with the practice of medicine.
These factors are causing physicians to retire early and are changing the attitudes of future physicians. Instead of seeing general practice medicine as satisfying financial and medical goals, med students will continue adding expertise to become specialists (and a greater chance of earning higher pay). This action limits how many people can see doctors and adds more costs to an already burdened system.
When you are sick, you don’t care how much a doctor earns. You just want to get better and on with your life. Doctors deserve a system that financially rewards them for their special talents and skills.
3. I read where a man has lost 80 pounds to reduce his weight from over 400 pounds to around 320. That’s fantastic and here’s hoping you can lose another 100!
The part I found shocking was that this person is a physical education teacher. What?! Yes, here is a person that is supposed to be a role model for fitness and health who weighs over 320 pounds. Is it any wonder that children are obese?
It is just like promoting reading: if you want kids to read, you have to show them that you read. If you want kids to be fit and normal weight, then you have to show them that you are fit and of normal weight. If you don’t want to be a role model then any other strategy else is just hypocritical.
4. A new study has been released concerning high school graduation rates. The numbers are not very good, indicating that less than 70 percent of all students graduate with a high school diploma. That translates to 1.2 million students not graduating this year. And here’s another troubling fact: 7000 students drop out daily.
The surprising caveat is that this 70 percent number has been the standard for many years. There’s no need to blame the Bush Administration for the current failures as billions of dollars have been spent since 1965 to improve K-12 education and graduation rates. (Actually at the time ESSA law was signed, graduation rates were in the low 60’s, so there has been some improvement.)
States that have the lowest graduation rates (between 50-59%) are Nevada, New Mexico, Florida, Georgia and South Carolina. The Washington, DC metro area also boasts this abysmal number but it is not a state. Talk about out-of-touch politicians: they can’t even see what’s happening a few blocks from their offices!
On the bright side, states that have the best rates at 80-99 percent include New Jersey, North Dakota, Iowa and Wisconsin. New Jersey? Tony Soprano would be proud!
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