DEAD FOR A GYM BAG AND SOME DEODORANT

OESTERHOUDT STRIKES

Two days ago, a Manhattan lawyer dropped her gym bag onto subway tracks on the Upper East Side. She leaped down to fetch it. She had difficulty getting back onto the platform, then she panicked as a train came rushing into the station. Horrified witnesses froze. Some told her to lay between the rails so the train would pass over her. Most said nothing and just watched. The lawyer tried to press herself against the platform wall so the train would pass her. It didn't; the train squashed her.

Later, officials reported that the gym bag contained keys, a cellphone, gym clothes and some deodorant. See N.Y. Post, Panic on tracks doomed subway victim, March 13, 2010 at p. 5. It did not contain priceless diamonds or even confidential client files. There was absolutely no need to risk life to save it.

I recount this sad story because it represents yet another occasion on which my writing has foretold true events. Just last month, I penned a satire called "Some People are More Valuable Than Things They Drop on the Tracks." See http://reasoncommercejustice.blogspot.com/2010/02/some-people-are-more-valuable-than_01.html. In that piece, I analyzed the New York Transit System's admonishment never to chase dropped property onto subway tracks. I used satire to show that our society places disproportionate weight on property over human life. At the same time, I made my own perspective clear: That it is grotesque to assign monetary value to individual lives. Still, my own sarcasm now seems eerily macabre in light of this new incident: "Further, I understand that some customers might disregard their own safety if they drop something onto the tracks, such as an iPod or other relatively expensive object;" and "The bottom line is: Property is worth more than individual human beings."

I was trying to elicit uncomfortable laughter when I wrote those words. Anyone with a shred of compassion understands that property is petty compared to human life. Yet at the same time, it is incontestable that property wields immense influence over both our society and individual perspectives. All too often, property seems to mean more than life itself. My satire reflected on that sad truth. It dared to suggest that life was more important. Privately, I held out hope that people would respect their lives more than their property.

But my hopes fell on deaf ears. The Post story shows just how much property means to people, even in very small amounts. Here was a woman with a career--and ostensibly, something to live for--who disregarded her life to save some deodorant and gym clothes. Her property was more important to her than her existence. So she jumped after it, even as a train raced toward her. At that moment, she thought herself less valuable than her gym bag.

Perhaps there are alternative explanations. I can think of several. For starters, the Post article recounts that the victim was a "lawyer" who--according to neighbors--used to wander hallways and elevators in her apartment building "muttering to herself in a strange way." See N.Y. Post, Panic on tracks doomed subway victim, March 13, 2010 at p. 5. One neighbor even said she looked "distressed" and that she was "not 100 percent there."

Many functioning lawyers have latent mental problems. When I practiced law, I knew many "well-respected" attorneys who muttered to themselves in elevators, sighed loudly, grumbled in abject frustration and habitually balled their fists from stress. It is not an easy job. "Getting results" in court is not an exact science; in fact, it is not a science at all. There are no sure things in law practice. Lawyers live with biting uncertainty and deadlines every day. They live on a razor's edge; and they are surrounded by striving, ambitious, ruthless people at every turn. They make their living battling contentious people for money. It is an extraordinarily negative enterprise. Their success depends on chance as much as preparation. Everyone wants something from them: Clients, bosses, judges. Everyone wants results now and no one wants to wait. There is never enough time; and there is always something else to do. They live under the clock; and the clock does not forgive. In fact, no one forgives. It is a fretful, ulcerous existence. That is why it is no wonder that lawyers fall into alcoholism, drug abuse and mental illness at a far greater rate than the general population.

Lawyers on schedules are dangerously unpredictable creatures. You don't want to get in their way; they might do something impulsive. When they have somewhere to be, they get there at all costs, even if it means taking absurd chances with their own lives. I own recalled my uncomfortable days in law practice when I read the Post article. I remembered what stressed-out lawyers are like. My memories helped me understand why this poor woman jumped on the tracks: She was in a hurry; she was trying to squeeze in the gym during her busy day; she did not want to wait for help to get her bag because that would throw off her schedule; if she got behind schedule, she would have to make unpleasant phone calls to disappointed superiors; she wanted to get home before 9 PM; if she waited for help to get her bag, she would never finish her day; and she really wanted to finish her day on time.

On an impulse, she jumped onto the tracks. She did not want to wait. She did not want to make those phone calls. She did not want to fall behind schedule. So she took matters into her own hands and died for deodorant.

I am glad I don't practice law anymore. And no matter how much my satires presage reality, it really saddens me when they do. I am not proud of it.

In the end, it's hard to exaggerate anything to satirical effect. Reality always sees your bet, no matter how high you make it.

AMERICANS UNITED TO RESOLVE EVERY SINGLE LIFE PROBLEM BY CUTTING A CHECK IN THE APPROPRIATE AMOUNT

By : Mr. Sidney J. Bookings, C.P.A., Chairman and Senior Spokesperson; Graduate, University of Pennsylvania (Accounting Program 1982); Consultant in Wealth Management, Morgan Stanley & Co. (1983-2002); Founder, Bookings, Holderman & Petty, P.C., an Accounting Firm servicing Fortune 250 Companies; Statistics Enthusiast; Married.

According to an old adage, "money can't buy happiness." Throughout our society, we learn that emotional satisfaction only derives from human contact and genuine spiritual fulfillment. But we, Americans United to Resolve Every Single Life Problem by Cutting a Check in the Appropriate Amount, disagree. We do not believe that happiness is about emotion. Nor do we believe that happiness is difficult to obtain. Rather, we believe anyone can find happiness as long as he or she receives a sufficiently large check in the circumstances.

Unhappiness stems from problems. In many cases, money causes problems. In those same cases, problems go away when the person obtains a sufficiently large monetary amount. Checks represent a written instruction to a bank to pay a person ("the payee") a fixed amount of money at a definite time. See, e.g., Uniform Commercial Code (U.C.C.) Article 3, § 3-104(e). In that light, it is not necessary to supply "emotion" or "comfort" to a person suffering from a problem. Rather, the person merely needs to receive a check in an amount necessary to alleviate the problem. Once the problem dissipates, so does the unhappiness. And when unhappiness disappears, happiness replaces it. That is why we believe that checks in the appropriate amount lead to happiness.

Evidence supports our position. Consider the unhappy man who struggles at two jobs to pay rent, child support, medical expenses, credit card debt and a car note. "If I only had $15,000 next month, I would be able to pay these back charges. I would feel so much better if I wasn't so worried about these bills, etc." This man is unhappy because he has not paid identifiable financial obligations. In these circumstances, emotional tenderness or even love will not make him feel better. He needs money. Thus, a check for $16,987.23 offers him an almost magical gateway to happiness. Not only will a check in that amount redress his problem in full, but it will also give him an additional $1,987.23 to spend on himself. In this way, we see that checks in the appropriate amount not only dispel problems, but also bring genuine happiness.

But checks can only bring happiness if they authorize payment for the appropriate amount. This inquiry depends on the circumstances. For example, if a woman gives birth at a hospital without insurance and racks up a $2,987,712.65 bill, a check for $45.00 will not redress her problem. In this sense, a check alone does not resolve her problem; only a check in the appropriate amount will resolve her problem. As much as we like checks, we acknowledge that a check's happiness-inducing qualities only arise to the extent it authorizes payment in the appropriate amount. Problems exist when people owe a particular amount. Unless a check authorizes payment for that amount--or a greater amount--it does not yield its maximum happiness-inducing effect. As Americans United to Resolve Every Single Life Problem by Cutting a Check in the Appropriate Amount, we insist that our checks pay us the right amount, every time.

Despite checks' proven ability to solve problems, there are those who claim that a check--no matter its amount--cannot solve certain problems. These critics say that no check can make a crippled man feel better about his body, nor can a check repair the emotional pain that flows from heartbreak, loss or depression.

We disagree with all these assertions. For one, a check might not restore a legless man to health. But a check can symbolically make him whole. If you can't get your legs back, it's better to be legless with a $50,000 check in your hand than legless with no check in your hand. Second, while a check might not completely repair the emotional damage that flows from human relationships, it certainly can mitigate any emotional problem. For example, the most heartbroken man would feel a lot better if he unexpectedly received a $10,000 check in the mail. It is always nice to receive an unexpected check. It can brighten anyone's day, no matter how many problems they face. And if the check pays the appropriate amount, it can dispel any problem.

Although checks in the appropriate amount can solve any problem, checks paying an inappropriate amount occasionally cause unhappiness. For example, let us assume that a man suffers an automobile accident and pays $5,797.23 for repairs. He then receives a check from his insurance company paying only $500.00; the check will not induce happiness. To the contrary, it will induce anger, frustration or even unhappiness. But this is not the check's fault. Checks only cause negative reactions when they pay an inappropriate amount. By contrast, if the check in this man's case had paid $5,900.00, he would not have been angry, frustrated or unhappy. Rather, he would have felt relieved, excited and joyful. In essence, this illustrates a key fact about checks: They induce happiness and solve problems when they pay an appropriate amount, but induce negative reactions--and even unhappiness--when they pay an inappropriate amount.

We support checks' happiness-inducing qualities. We believe that checks should be a force for good in our society, not worry. To that extent, we stand for checks in the appropriate amount. As all the examples above show, Americans have problems. In all those examples, we saw that a check in the appropriate amount solves those problems, even when the problems apparently have nothing to do with money. Sufficient money sums always generate happiness, no matter the circumstances. A check for $9,000,000 will make even the saddest man happy, even if his mother, son and wife died on the same day. Greater amounts transcend any life adversity. We reject any claim that "money can't buy happiness." True, money might not literally buy happiness: There is no "Wholesale Happiness Warehouse" or "Happiness in a Box" for sale at a local outlet. But checks in the appropriate amount always remove obstacles blocking Americans' path to happiness. In our view, that is tantamount to happiness.

Tell the world that you can prevail over adversity as long as you receive a check in the appropriate amount. Stand up for your own well-being and comfort. Refuse to feel depressed any longer. Get your hands on a check in the appropriate amount. Every problem has a price; do not fool yourself into thinking that a check can't solve it. Checks can solve problems. They simply must pay the appropriate amount.

Stop making life so complicated. You just need enough checks to make your problems vanish for good. And when your problems are gone, you will be happy.

Stop the madness. Stop the delusion. Get back to basics. Join Americans United to Resolve Every Single Life Problem by Cutting a Check in the Appropriate Amount.

Don't worry. The check is in the mail.

QUICK WORD ON VACATIONS : EUROPE V. AMERICA

AN ESSAY

I have many European friends. We communicate all the time on a forum. During the summer, they always write about this and that journey they plan to take. They call them "summer holidays." They talk about traveling far and wide. They talk about taking four weeks off--with pay--to wander around Eastern Europe or France. Some even talk about going to China or India. In short, they talk about vacations with true relish. When they get home, they talk about how refreshed they are. They even say they do not mind going back to work after so much enjoyable time on vacation. They don't feel guilty about forcing their bosses to find replacements while they're gone, nor do they check email or phone messages while sprawled on Brazilian beaches. Put simply, Europeans know how to relax.

I can't resist contrasting these idyllic reports with horror stories about vacation time in the United States. This morning, for instance, I read about a friend who plans to take several weeks to travel through Germany and Bulgaria. He will receive pay during his trip; his boss actually encouraged him "because it's important for you to relax" and "see the world."

In response, I described the typical working American's vacation plans:

If only Americans understood the value of real vacation time. Over here, people hem and haw about taking 5 days off, compromise and wind up taking a "monumental excursion" to a water park in some god-forsaken suburb.

What's the difference, then? For starters, there's the obvious temporal difference. Europeans just get a lot more paid vacation time than Americans. Americans are lucky to get a week off with pay per year (including sick days), while most Europeans--even entry-level twentysomethings--get five paid weeks minimum. But the real difference is about power. Europeans get so much vacation time because they have relatively more power over their work lives than Americans. Over here, people feel obsequiously honored to have jobs. Like good fawns, they are prepared to sacrifice everything to keep them. It is a hopelessly servile approach; it puts full power in the employer's hands. Employers take full advantage; they dole out one week's vacation, no more. All the while, they cultivate a belief that "taking time off is bad," causing workers to feel guilty about leaving the office.

In Europe, by contrast, employers do not dominate workers as much as they do in the United States. Additionally, workers in Europe keep both government and private industry honest through spirited political engagement. When governments in Europe deliberate measures that award more power to employers, workers revolt. When Congress does the same thing in America, workers meekly stay at home and watch Monday Night Football. Given such political apathy, it's no wonder American workers have virtually nothing by comparison to their European counterparts.

Europeans do not seem guilty about taking time off, either. I think this reflects another important difference between Europeans and Americans: The mental relationship to work. In America, workers tend to revere their jobs. They want to impress their bosses, advance and succeed. To do so, they want to make the best showing they possibly can. That means doing work at all times, even on weekends and holidays. This is the attitude that resists vacations: After all, how can you impress your boss in Toledo, Ohio if you are tanning on a beach in Brazil? You're not making the company any money tanning. Americans debate with themselves about taking any time off at all. They worry about making the wrong impression. They feel guilty about foisting their job duties on some poor sot who's stuck in the office. To assuage their guilt, they simply decide not to enjoy themselves when they ultimately go on vacation. They bring laptops and BlackBerries with them to theme parks, casinos and spas. They stay in touch with work when they are supposed to be relaxing. They even try to show their loyalty by agreeing to take off fewer days than the number to which they are entitled. They travel locally, not over long distances, "just in case they need to come back in an emergency."

In short, Americans don't escape their mental relationship to work, even when they are supposed to be on vacation. It's about work, not life. And people wonder why they are unhappy.

But Europeans forget work when they go on vacation. They don't take guilt-ridden 4-day "long weekends;" they take month-long sojourns. If someone has to pick up the slack at the office, so what? That guy will get his time off sooner or later, too. They do not bring office email accounts with them. They do not return work phone calls while drinking or dancing with friends in a Warsaw discotheque. More importantly, they actually have time to unwind, "switch from work mode," reflect and experience the world. At the same time, they are not worried about their bills, nor do they worry about the boss' wrath. Their bosses actually encourage them. This is the European approach to vacations. It is about life, not work.

Americans criticize Europeans for precisely that reason: They don't care about working enough. But what has America's dedication to work really won? Americans are generally more unhappy than their European counterparts. They face more anxiety and stress because they do not have a safety net. They face more workplace guilt and obligation. True, Americans keep more of their income than Europeans. If they're lucky, they can even own more property than Europeans. But what Europeans pay in higher tax they receive in a more compassionate existence. Their high taxes finance their month-long vacations and free medical care. And in some sense, their high taxes provide them more happiness. An existence with less guilt and less obligation is a happier existence.

But America won't change its mind about vacations any time soon. Employers hold far too much power here. It is not just economic power; it is psychological power. It is deeply entrenched, too. Until Americans stop feeling guilty about abandoning their poor-paying posts for more than two days at a time, employers will continue to hold their psychological edge. That pyschological edge maintains political apathy; and political apathy keeps employers strong.

In an abstract sense, vacation time is just a proxy for the much more significant difference between Europe and America: Who really holds the power? If you feel guilty about failing to serve your economic master even though you are entitled to take time off, are you really in control of your life?

Employers in America do not just control time. They control emotions, too. That is power.

FINANCIAL UNION OF PEOPLE WHO GET TO DO WHATEVER THEY WANT ALL THE TIME AND WHO COULD GIVE A SHIT WHAT ANYONE ELSE THINKS EVERYWHERE AND FOR ALL TIME

POLITICAL PARTIES FOR A CHANGING WORLD

By : Mr. M. Myron Bird, Jr., Ph.D. (Leisure Studies), M.B.A. (Account Management); Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Short Hills Federal Savings & Loan Society; Avid Water Polo Connoisseur; Beachgoer; Honorary Chairperson, The American Relaxation Society, Age 27.

Many Americans face difficult times today. They worry about their jobs, finances, and even relationships. In challenging economic times like these, they wonder whether they will ever find happiness amid so much worry. After all, it is hard to be happy when banks threaten foreclosure, savings accounts dwindle and you lose your health insurance. Basically, many Americans face insurmountable problems. For these Americans, life is a wrenching struggle fraught with worry, pain, inconvenience, frustration, anxiety, uncertainty, heartache and indignity. For these Americans, joy is fleeting, if they ever experience it at all. They never get to do anything they enjoy because there are too many obligations. There is too much to do. There are too many people who expect them to get things done. There is never enough money to pay everyone who demands it. Who can feel joy under such pressure? Who can feel joy when so many other people dictate how you must act in life?

We can because nobody tells us what to do. We don’t feel pressure at all. We are the Financial Union of People Who Get to Do Whatever They Want All the Time and Who Could Give a Shit What Anyone Else Thinks Everywhere and For All Time. Put simply, we are the guys who make life hard on everyone else. We impose obligations; we don’t live under them. Our fathers own massive banks, investment houses, insurance conglomerates and pharmaceutical companies. We employ people; we don’t work. We wear T-shirts and flip-flops. We stay at home. We hire and fire. We collect fees. We divide up partnership profits. We buy eighth houses and jets. We swim on Tuesday afternoons in beautiful pools. We drink pina coladas with topless blond models while Americans worry about health insurance premiums. People give us money, not the other way around. We own so much property we don’t know what to do with it. You don’t hear about us much, but we’re out there. And we’re having a fantastic time, too.

We find it strange to hear about all these Americans who suffer hardship. After all, we have it good. Every time we turn on the news, we hear about “problems” that Americans face. We hear about low-income women who abandon their children because they can’t afford to care for them. We hear about middle-class families that descend into chaos because they can’t afford an unexpected carburetor repair. We even hear about struggling young professionals who complain they have “no work-life balance” because they never leave their offices. Basically, it seems that every American is worried to death as they struggle to cope with obligations from all sides.

Sucks to be them: Too bad they don’t own banks and pharmaceutical factories. We are the guys who impose obligations; we don’t face them. The only obligation we have is not to murder the gardener or rape those hot Polish cleaning ladies. Even if we did that, I’m sure we could pin it on someone else; hell, we own law firms and our dads know all the judges. Some say that we don’t understand the term “consequences.” But “consequences” are for people with problems and obligations. We are the guys who give other people problems and obligations; we make others suffer “consequences” when they fail to adhere to obligations. So how can we suffer “consequences?” That’s like telling the king to punish himself; the king punishes, not the other way around. In a word, we shit on “consequences.” When you own banks and control currencies, you don’t worry about “consequences.” In fact, you don’t really worry at all.

That’s why we can’t understand why people whine so much about life being “hard.” For us, life couldn’t be better. We get up when we want, stay out all night, have sex with models whenever we want, drive cars, go on luxury vacation cruises at our sixth family beach resorts, drink specialty mixed drinks with friends and buy any car we see. We have fun from morning to night, 365 days a year. We never have to do anything; we only do what we want. Sure, we might defer to a friend’s suggestion to fly to Aruba instead of Monaco, but that’s just courtesy. We’re never bound to do one thing or another. Still, we are courteous people. We listen to our friends. After all, we all just want to have a good time. There’s no need to squabble when you already own everything. When you get to do whatever you want all the time, life is beautiful. That’s why we don’t really grasp all this talk about “hardship” and “difficulty.” If you were in our loafers, you would say: “I love my life!”

We recognize that many people don’t like us. They say we don’t belong in a society committed to equality for all. They say we should face the same challenges as everyone else. We disagree with these criticisms for two main reasons. First, our society is not committed to equality for all. Rather, our society is committed to rewarding those who provide value to society. Our families provide real value to society, and our reward has been to live happy lives without obligation. Additionally, it would difficult to imagine a society in which both “equality” and “obligation” could coexist, for obligations always involve a superior and an inferior party.

Second, even if “equality” really were a social aim, it would not include the requirement to “subject everyone to the same challenges.” Some people have tough luck. Others get good breaks. That’s life. Some people get chronic skin diseases and look like walking corpses. Others are born mentally defective. Surely these “equality critics” do not think everyone in society has to endure these challenges? Hey, it would be great if everyone were beautiful, well-formed and wealthy like us. But that just can’t happen. Some have it better, namely, us. Not everyone can be both beautiful and own JP Morgan Chase.

Still, most people fail to comprehend our responses to their objections. They say it’s “just not fair” that we get to sit poolside all day having sex with models while they have to trudge into an office tower and move paper boxes from one corner to another for $28,250 annually (less taxes). To this we merely point to our party name: “We are the Financial Union of People Who…Could Give a Shit What Anyone Else Thinks Anywhere and For all Time.” You see, we really don’t give a rat’s ass that people are jealous of the way we live. You have your lot; we have ours. We are the ones who make your life difficult; we get to enjoy ourselves while you work. There’s nothing you can do to change the way we live, so there’s no point complaining about it. If you cared enough about yourself, you would stop complaining and work a little harder. This is America, after all. You can try to change your circumstances. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you say you can’t get anywhere because you’re injured, you have debt, you have a family to feed, no one’s hiring, no one pays overtime, blah blah, blah. Excuses, excuses. Face it, you are who you are: A Loser. If you just tried a little harder you could make the next pay grade. You might never get to our level, but you could at least make a few more dollars if you just grit your teeth and worked until 7 each night instead of 5:45. But you’ll never get anywhere if you cross your arms and pout about us. No matter how much you complain, we don’t give a shit. You see, when you have as much property as we do, you have the freedom not to care. And let me tell you something: We don’t.

To be clear, we do care about some things, just not you. Specifically, we care about whether we have to wait for a runway to clear before our jets can take off. Or if we’ve planned an outdoor dinner bash at the Hampton House, we care about whether it rains.

Despite these occasional challenges, we can’t say we’re unhappy. Our life is good. It is hard to explain just how good to someone who wakes up every morning to face pressing obligations. We wake up any time we want. We get breakfast served. We can choose to drive the Aston Martin or the custom Maybach. We can party or we can stay home and watch a first-run movie in our personal movie theater. We never see a bill, let alone pay them. Basically, every day we can choose the best way to amuse and delight ourselves. We don’t have to think about anyone but ourselves. We don’t have bosses; we are the bosses’ bosses. Believe me, it is a great way to live. We don’t think about bank balances, child support payments, car notes, interviews, denied medical coverage, standardized test scores or school deadlines. If someone denies us something, we just make a phone call and it’s solved. We don’t worry because there is no one who has anything we don’t. In a word, we think differently because we own everything. When you own everything, you don’t stress.

We fought to get where we are. We are happy to be here. There is no way in hell we are going to share it with anyone else. We are the Financial Union of People Who Get to Do Whatever They Want All the Time and Who Could Give a Shit What Anyone Else Thinks Everywhere and For All Time. Our membership is strictly limited. We control money; we don’t worry about it. We play by a different rulebook than the rest. You can’t join us unless you kill us and take our spots. If you try to do that, you’ve got a fight on your hands, because everyone works for us. And they don’t even know it. Everyone works and suffers so that we get to keep doing whatever we want, every day. It’s amazing what owning banks can do. Just ask us.

Problems and “consequences” are for little people. We love this country.

CONFESSIONS OF AN ANGRY HEALTH CARE FUND ADMINISTRATOR

By : Mr. Marcus H. Lovejoy, M.B.A., B.S., Fund Manager, Coordinated Care Systems LLC (a Delaware Limited Liability Company); Trained Statistician; Cost Control Analyst; Certified, Standard & Poor’s Profitability 100 Association; Philanthropist.

People wonder why our health care system has problems. I’ll tell you why: Too many sick insured motherfuckers sucking up trillions of investor dollars.

It’s a disaster. You have these 32-year-old insured people who get chronic diseases. They live ten, twenty years before finally succumbing. Every day during that time, they require incessant care, medication, hospitalization, therapy, treatment, surgery, assessment, rehabilitation. Do you have any idea how much this shit costs? It costs $20,000 to remove a fucking wart in a 30-second procedure. Imagine how much it costs to care for some ailing asshole who needs constant sunctioning, recurrent surgery, ICU care and ventilator treatment for years on end. Let me tell you: Caring for sumbitches like that would break an African country’s national treasury in less than two weeks.

So what do we do? To be perfectly honest, I really don’t know. All I know is that insured sick motherfuckers really ruin my day. I run a major health insurance fund. Our company provides top-notch care to paying customers. But we assume that most people won’t require constant care for years on end. We assume that they’ll need some surgery once or twice per lifetime, not every goddamned week. We assume that they will get better, then live healthy lives during which they can pay premiums. Most people do. They pay their premiums, go to the hospital once or twice in their lifetimes, then die. Look, death might be traumatic on the family. But for me it’s a relief: It means the asshole won’t need any more bank-breaking care at the fund’s expense.

We do what we can to cut really sick people off before they drain the fund into non-profitability. Our company employs hundreds of lawyers to do two main things: (1) Draft policies that restrict coverage; and (2) Find ways to deny coverage to everyone who faces an expensive illness. As concerns the first matter, our lawyers write 100-page contracts that give the appearance that insured people will get the care they need. But upon closer inspection, they contain thousands of exclusions and exceptions that provide the company a way to bail out when care gets a little too pricy. For example, we might cover eye injuries, but not corneal injuries. Or we might cover leg injuries, but not “injuries involving the leg” as that term is defined in a later section. Additionally, we include clauses that limit our liability for certain covered care at a certain dollar amount. This means we can call off a hopeless show before it gets out of hand, like the guy who needed a $15,000,000 brain surgery. We only covered $1,000,000. He had to agree to pay the remaining $14,000,000 or forget about the brain surgery.

Hey, I have a fund to run. I don’t have time to worry about a tumor on some fucker’s brain. I’ve got a Board of Directors to answer to. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you say I’m a mean-spirited prick who doesn’t care about people. Well let me tell you something: This business is not about care. It’s about dollars, bee-otch. And I don’t make dollars when some lucky moron pays $54.99 a month and gets fully covered for a $15,000,000 surgery. Sure, I’ll let that happen: IN HELL. And I’m not afraid to say it: I’d rather keep my job than put my ass on the line for some kid with leukemia.

As concerns the second matter, our lawyers know how to fight people who claim coverage for expensive illnesses. When it looks like someone has a minor illness—like a cold or something—we don’t fight it. A doctor visit here or there won’t affect our returns. But when it looks like someone just came down with Parkinson’s or—worse—a woman just had a difficult pregnancy, we scramble for ways to back out. We scour medical histories and applications for inconsistencies and pre-existing conditions. We look for lies in statements. We send out investigators. We look for anything that lets us invoke an exclusion. Basically, when an insured woman is writhing in labor for 20+ hours with a premie, we start sounding alarms. We know the bill will be enormous. Do you know how much it costs to keep a premature peanut alive in a neonatal ICU? It’s in the tens of millions. Then I say: “Fuck her if she thinks we’re gonna cover this shit.” Guess what? We never do. We have our ways; and you’ll never know what they are. You just get the denial letter that says: “We regret to inform you that, pursuant to your policy…(no coverage) blah blah blah.”

So yeah, I have a stressful job. I have a lot on my mind. I have people to answer to. They want to see quarterly growth, not loss. This fucking recession isn’t helping things, either. Now I have to worry about insureds complaining about their jobs and reduced pay. In a way, I’m glad they don’t pay their premiums, because that means we can just strike them off the rolls; and that’s one less potential multi-million dollar Parkinson’s sufferer to worry about. On the other hand, we need lots of people paying premiums to keep the company afloat. The key to success in the health insurance business is twofold. First, you need to keep a healthy premium flow coming in at all times. Second, you need to make sure you don’t pay out more in benefits than you gain in premiums. Obviously, lots of customers mean lots of premiums. That is good. But when lots of customers get expensive diseases, it can erase all your gains in a heartbeat. Basically, it’s a balancing act: Keep the premiums coming in without paying out too much in benefits.

That’s where I come in. I scrutinize benefit payouts. I have charts. I have reminder programs. I have manuals. I have employees who keep me informed about each and every last insured bastard who might come down with a rare blood disorder. I take Tums® for ulcers. I have anxiety. I am edgy because I never know when I’m going to get another bad phone call from the Senior Claims Reviewer: “Some guy needs a full intestinal transplant.” When I get calls like that, my heart sinks. “Fuck. There goes another $10,000,000. What the hell am I going to say to the Board?” Then I call the lawyers and tell them to start checking payment records and medical histories. Most of the time, we find good news that lets us deny coverage, or at least really cut it down.

But sometimes we don’t. Those are bad days. Then I need to call up the Chairman and tell him why we just authorized $10,000,000 to some schmo who paid only $100 a month for basic hospital coverage. “I’m so sorry about this…” I say. Then comes the screaming interruption: “Lovejoy, you dumb ass! Do you know what this is going to do to our numbers for May?!? You incompetent little fuck, etc., etc.” Then I glance around the office and try not to have a heart attack. All because of some heartless, selfish man who decided to get intestinal cancer on my watch.

My job isn’t all doom and gloom. I have won awards at industry dinners. Health Insurers’ Insider® magazine even called me a “scrupulous professional fund manager; one of the best in the biz” in their 2006 “Health Industry All-Stars” issue. I take comfort in the fact that my company is a major American business that employs over 5,000 people from coast to coast. I also take pride in the fact that we provide competitive coverage in the private health insurance market that helps people lead healthy, productive lives. My work earns me a great salary. I have a beautiful home and two great kids. Private health insurance did this for me. There are some moments in which I am truly grateful for my job. And I wouldn’t have it if America didn’t trust private enterprise to handle health.

Still, most of my life is a battle. I live my days worrying about whether some lucky insured will hit the care jackpot and get a lifetime of free medical treatment after paying a measly monthly premium. I will say it now and forever: I hate high-priced insureds. They make my life miserable and they hurt my company. Kids are the worst. When some kid gets cancer, you’re looking at decades of high-dollar care at clinics, sanitoriums, hospitals, rehab centers and university laboratories. Then there’s surgery, therapy and all the fucking doctor visits. Then you’ve got specialty examinations, referrals, CAT scans, diagnostics, blood tests and every imaginable MRI test. This shit adds up like a bar tab from hell. Chronically sick kids are the bane of my existence. They cost billions of dollars to keep alive. And for what? So they can weakly breathe through a tube while sobbing relatives crowd around the bed and miss work? What is the fucking point? I wish these expensive little shit-sprouts would just hurry up and die. They are costing way too much, and no one is happy about the situation. I mean, for Christ’s sake, the kid ain’t getting better. He’s just going to keep wasting away until he finally croaks. Why make me pay billions of dollars to prolong the inevitable? You selfish cocksucking assholes. AAAAAAAHHHHHHHH! I just want to pull my hair out when I think about it. And to think that the company is slipping down the Fortune 100 list because of these greedy dying kids…it’s just a disgrace.

I am in the health care management business. It’s not easy. It’s stressful. It’s agonizing. It’s difficult. When you deal with other peoples’ money, life is tough. And I deal with billions of investor dollars every day. Investors don’t want excuses. They want profits. That’s where the anxiety comes in: How am I supposed to generate a profit when people get sick for years and don’t die? Do they realize how uneconomical that is? No, they don’t. Sick people sit around and expect care while our investors grimly foot the bill and wait for them to kick off.

As a health fund administrator, I think about people differently. I have no personal stake in people’s lives. I don’t care about their pain, dreams, hopes, emotions, fears and aspirations. I just want to know whether they represent a company liability. If they do, they force me to make tongue-tied explanations to the Board. If they don’t, God bless them, because they bring in profits. The Board likes profits. It doesn’t like liabilities. You figure it out. Die, you sick fucks. You’ll make my life so much easier when you stop racking up those monster medical bills.

So here’s what I really feel. I confess that I don’t like sick children, sick old people, women who experience pregnancy complications, people who require unanticipated surgery, people who require long-term hospitalizations and anyone who costs more to keep alive than to let die. Here’s my message to all of you: You are selfish, lucky money-grubbers. You make my job difficult. And you can all go to hell.

Having said all this, if you are in the market for affordable, reliable health insurance, call your local Coordinated Care Systems agent. Because it’s your health—and you matter™.

I'M GLAD I'M NOT A COMEDIAN

OESTERHOUDT STRIKES

I don’t envy comedians. I respect their craft, but I know I could never be one. That’s not to say that I do not admire them. I have idolized many comedians in my life, especially George Carlin and Richard Pryor. But behind all the mirth and jest, you could just sense that something was gnawing at them. Carlin and Pryor dwelled on troublesome issues beyond jokes. In finding humor, they also laid bare our world’s deep flaws. On some level, that must have made them unhappy. Not all comedians address large social issues; some just keep it simple and silly. As artists, however, they can never show unhappiness. They can never be “down” or “in a bad mood.” In that light, I think comedians face a tremendous challenge: They must always seem upbeat, happy, energetic and “amusing” in order to entertain their audiences face-to-face. There is no room for error. Comedy performances are startlingly immediate. The audience is there and wants to laugh. If the comedian can’t deliver, he is personally ridiculed off the stage. Imagine how that must feel. And they face that risk every day. They put their fates in the audience’s hands.

Good comedians always seem to get laughs. They make it look effortless. Their material sounds conversational and natural, even though they meticulously rehearsed it. They smile and move about cheerfully. In provoking laughter, they must at least appear to be “having a good time.” We don’t generally laugh unless something “funny” or “amusing” happens, and to be “funny” and “amusing” you must be energetic. We laugh when we sense a certain energy from another person’s actions or words. In that light, comedians must find the energy to amuse their audiences—every day. That is a substantial skill. Look at Jim Carrey. Can he possibly be that energetic every moment, every day? When he performs, he is a walking caricature. He moves his body spastically. He alters his voice constantly. To delight his audience, he works his energy into a frenzy. He wants to get laughs. And to get laughs, he turns up the energy. After a while, the audience begins to think that the comedian—whether Jim Carrey or anyone else—must always have high energy. They associate the man with the act. The man becomes a “high-energy caricature." His own identity means nothing next to his distinctive “performance art.”

I can only imagine what this does to a comedian’s self-image. It is hard to muster up frenetic energy every day. I know from experience that I can’t do it more than a few times a week. My moods naturally brighten and darken depending on my circumstances. Sometimes I don’t feel like laughing. In fact, sometimes I really want to be serious. I might be sad or morose. There is nothing wrong with this. We humans are emotional creatures and our feelings change with our stimuli. Sometimes we have energy. Other times we want to loaf around and do nothing. This is all perfectly natural.

Yet comedians do not have the luxury to be natural. They must be cheerful and amusing even when they don’t feel like it. They must be “up” even when they feel “down.” Even if they are contending with the worst personal circumstances, they cannot convey their negative emotions to the audience because that wouldn’t be funny. After all, audiences don’t pay to sit there and not laugh at a comedy show. They want energy and mirth, not sadness. They have enough sadness in their lives; they don’t want more sadness from a comedian who is supposed to be funny. I can only imagine how hopeless a comedian must feel when he has to do a show knowing he just “isn’t in the mood to laugh.”

Nonetheless, people do not understand that comedians are not the people they see on stage. They are human beings with all the flaws, foibles and emotional weaknesses as themselves. When comedians make the news in some “non-comedic” way, people can’t understand it. For example, Owen Wilson tried to commit suicide a few years ago. People were flabbergasted. They said: “Owen Wilson? Why would he want to kill himself? He is always so happy and cheerful in his movies. He was so funny in The Wedding Crashers. He never seems sad, etc…” Here, we see a marked divergence between the “personae” that comedians adopt in their “art” and the people they actually are. Who knows what kind of emotional turmoil Owen Wilson faces every day? Unlike most, I understood immediately why a successful comedian like Owen Wilson might want to kill himself. It’s a lot of pressure being funny all the time, especially if you don’t feel like being funny. And audiences are ruthless. They don’t want excuses. They want performances.

Comedians face pressure and judgment from all sides because they depend on the audience for approval. Actors face pressure from the audience, too. But comedians face it more acutely. When watching an actor in a dramatic performance, the audience does not always expect to laugh. They want to see believable action and hear believable words from the actors. Yet when an audience comes to a comedy show, they want to laugh. The performer faces a much tougher challenge in this situation. He faces immediate, specific expectations from the audience: “Make me laugh or I will boo you off the stage. Worse, if I boo you off the stage, you lose your job and you’ll feel like a failure, too.” Comedians, then, must meet the audience’s specific expectations or suffer immediate consequences. Actors, by contrast, do not face such immediate demands. Audiences might brand an actor “bad” in an ensemble performance, but that is not as brutal as being booed off the stage for an individual performance. And the psychic damage is worse for a comedian because he alone is responsible for the bad performance. It’s his show. If he fails, it’s his failure alone. In that sense, the emotional stakes are always high for a comedian. It is no wonder they suffer self-esteem problems. And it is no wonder—at least for me—that some may want to commit suicide after dealing with such pressures over a prolonged period.

Comedians must make the audience laugh to survive. That is no easy task, because laughter reflects approval. In essence, then, comedians seek audience approval. But who is the audience? To some extent at least, comedians are shameless sycophants. They must bow down and “give the audience what it wants” in order to win their approval through laughter. Yet laughter is a perplexing commodity. Not everyone laughs at the same things. It is nearly impossible to predict whether a given person will laugh at something. Some people are dumber than others and they don’t understand certain jokes. Others want to hear classic jokes. Some want “amusing stories.” Others just want silly sound effects. Some want wit. Others want unbridled vulgarity. Some like celebrity impressions. Others like political humor. Put simply, audience tastes are as varied as the sands. And even if a comedian manages to tap into an audience’s “comfort zone,” it still rests with the audience whether to laugh. The audience has all the power. Perhaps an audience really likes fart jokes. But even if the comedian tells his best fart joke, the audience is not required to laugh. Audiences are fickle; and their fickle judgments control the comedian’s fate. They laugh when it suits their tastes. The comedian cannot control their tastes. Whenever a comedian steps on stage, he takes a risk that his act will appeal to those tastes. He cannot know for sure whether it will. Thus, he lives in a world of uncertainty. If he wins approval, he feels elated. If he does not, he feels crushed. Every performance is a gamble and a leap of faith. It is a life filled with pressure, expectations and uncertainty. Against this background, it should hardly surprise us that many comedians suffer from anxiety. And they must summon the nerve to gamble again every single day, no matter how anxious they feel. Maybe this explains why Richard Pryor turned to drugs, Buddy Hackett had a nervous breakdown, George Carlin suffered several heart attacks and Owen Wilson tried to kill himself. Maybe this explains why Jerry Seinfeld just gave up on the craft after a good run, just as a smart gambler quits after a winning streak. In a word, comedians’ lives aren’t funny at all.

Who doesn’t like to laugh? Everyone likes to laugh. When we laugh spontaneously, we feel better, even if our circumstances are terrible. If we happen to make another person laugh with a comment or story, we feel good about ourselves because we know the other person approves us. That boosts our self-esteem. We get an even bigger boost when we amuse a large group of people, because we know that many people approve us all at once. But this quest for self-esteem through laughter causes problems. Once we experience how good it feels to “make others laugh,” we start “intentionally soliciting” laughter. We place expectations on ourselves. And when our targets don’t laugh, we feel dejected, not elated. Comedians experience this emotional cycle on a grand scale. Moreover, they do not “intentionally solicit” laughter merely to win individual favor; they do it professionally for large numbers. Money and emotional stability ride on the joke. This is a dangerous mix. People go into depression simply because they do not succeed financially. When you add lost self-esteem to financial worry, it becomes strikingly clear that comedians face harsh emotional challenges. When they don’t make the audience laugh, they not only feel worthless; they lose their money, too.

I am glad I am not a comedian. If my words make others laugh, I am grateful for their approval. But I do not stake my emotional stability on their reactions, nor do I purposely set out to win their favor. Rather, I simply try to “be myself,” which is not easy. I have always found it strange that people admonish distressed friends to “be themselves” when they face emotional hardship. What does it actually mean? Don’t we spend our whole lives trying to figure out who we are? And if “being ourselves” is so difficult and so exceptional, who are we in the usual case? Are we constantly just playing roles? Is it really so extraordinary to find our own identities? Apparently it is. Yet comedians never even get to “be themselves.” They must always step into their roles, muster energy and perform for the audience’s approval. They do not have the liberty to feel tired, lazy, apathetic, sad, downcast or even neutral. Rather, they must put on their “performance persona” and gamble that their act will please their unforgiving judges.

I am glad I do not have to do this. I will try to find my place in the world without learned artistry or dazzle. If I generate some laughter, so be it. If not, I will not feel like a failure. After all, I cannot control others’ tastes. In my view, it is a losing battle to even attempt to do so. For people have the strangest values; it is impossible to please them all. No one finds everything funny. Some people find nothing funny. Others find many things funny with a few bizarre exceptions. You just don’t know, and you drive yourself crazy trying to figure them out.

We are not really free if our self-esteem depends exclusively on external judgments. Ask yourself how happy you would be if you could never comfortably speak without trying to make your listener laugh. Or you could just ask a comedian.

WHY WE FEAR DEATH

AN ESSAY

Everyone fears death. The word alone strikes fear in us. It is the worst thing that can befall us. When we die, we are no more. No one can talk to us; no one can hear us tell our stories. We see nothing more. We hear nothing. We taste nothing. We touch nothing. We smell nothing. When we die, we can no longer experience anything. Pain no longer terrifies us. But nor does pleasure beguile us. Death cuts off our ability to experience the earthly world with our senses. And we humans are overwhelmingly sensory creatures. When we die, our bodies cease to be—along with all our senses—leaving our flesh to slowly decompose and turn to dust. No one wants to die. No one wants to leave the world of earthly experience.

Or do they? If we assume that death merely cuts off our ability to experience the earthly world with our senses, then death is not a bad option to someone whose earthly experience is unbearable. Because death and experience intertwine, our attitude toward death should depend on whether our experience in life is largely good or largely bad. Yet very few people consider death with such measured detachment. Death is an intellectual roadblock. It befuddles us because we really do not know much about it, at least metaphysically. No one can tell us “what it is like.” We can only speculate. We cannot plan our response to death because no one can provide us with accurate information about it. Death casts us into uncertainty. Human beings always fear things they cannot know.

Beyond uncertainty, we always think that death deprives us of something. Death makes it impossible for us to see our loved ones again. Death takes away our ability to experience joy and contentment. Even if our lives have little joy, we always hold out hope that one day our fortunes will change. Death, however, robs that hope. It completely precludes us from future joy. No matter how bad our lives may be, if we die, we deny ourselves the possibility of a “dramatic turnaround.” Once we die, it is all over. Again, death terrifies and stultifies us because it drives us into uncertainty about our own decisions. Even if our lives truly will bring us no further joy, we cannot certainly know that at the moment we die.

We also associate death with pain. We live our lives to avoid pain. By avoiding pain, we necessarily try to avoid death. When it comes to pain, our fear increases with the quantum of pain we believe we will face. In other words, we fear serious pain more than minor pain. Similarly, we fear terrible anguish much more than serious pain. We know only what we see, and when we see others die, we typically see them experiencing pain before death. We cannot talk to them after they leave us. We cannot know whether that pain continues after death. Again, uncertainty plays a role in our fears: We associate death with pain, and we cannot certainly know whether death ends that pain. Thus, while it appears that death brings peace to the writhing body, we fear the “undiscover’d country, from whose bourn/ No traveler returns.” Hamlet, Act III, sc. i.

But are our fears about death entirely reasonable? Can we use our reason to stay our fears about death? I think we can, at least to some degree. Let us begin with Hamlet. Hamlet’s speech about death provides an excellent overview of the issues a reasonable man confronts when contemplating death. It also reveals that uncertainty plays a central role in any assessment about death.

Hamlet analogizes life—with all its “slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,” “thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to,” “heart-ache,” “whips and scorns of time,” “[oppressors’] wrongs,” “pangs of despised love,” and “the law’s delay,”—to “waking.” “Waking life,” in other words, exposes our senses to bad experiences, from sheer “bad luck” to every imaginable health problem, emotional hardship and degrading personal insult. Against “waking,” however, Hamlet contrasts the “sleep of death:” “To die,--to sleep;--/ To sleep! perchance to dream: ay, there’s the rub;/ For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,/ When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,/ Must give us pause.” Hamlet agrees that “sleep” metaphorically puts an end to all the evils that can befall us while we are “awake.” But uncertainty about “the dreams” that lurk in that “undiscover’d country” checks his enthusiasm for death. His uncertainty about death forces him to choose life, remarking that “conscience does make cowards of us all,” prompting us to “bear those ills we have rather than fly to others that we know not of.” See generally, Hamlet, Act III, sc. i, lines 56-90.

Hamlet decided against death based on an assumption. He used his reason to understand why he feared death. He allowed his fear to conquer him and he preferred to suffer the “ills we have” in life rather than accept “others we know not of” in death. I argue that his assumption was not entirely correct. While Hamlet understood that human beings are sensory creatures who experience pain, joy, humiliation and the “thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to” while they are awake, he did not grasp that their senses also function while they are asleep. We know from common experience that we are alive while we are asleep. We do not experience as much while we are asleep, but no one will dispute that our senses still function. We can still smell things. We still awake when a bug lands on our foreheads because our nerves transmit the stimulus to our brains. We still feel heat and cold. And we still see things in our sleeping minds, even if our eyes do not register them. Our dreams reflect our senses, even if they are not working at “full speed.” Put simply, we must be alive in order to dream.

But when we die, our senses completely cease to function. They do not function at “half speed,” or even residually. We cannot dream when we are dead. To dream, the body requires living brain tissue, living nerves and a living circulatory system. If we are dead, we do not have these things. In that sense, Hamlet is wrong to fear “dreams in the sleep of death.” Death may look like sleep to the outside observer, but the outside observer possesses his senses. The dead man does not. We cannot speak for the dead man, because we do not know what it is like not to have senses, nor has a dead man ever reported to us what it is like. Hamlet could well argue that we do not certainly know what awaits us when we die, so perhaps we truly can dream without the literal sensory capacity to do so. But this is pure speculation. Applying reason alone, we can say with some certainty that dead people sense nothing, and sensory capability is necessary to dream. Now, this does not completely resolve the question about “what awaits us when we die.” Still, it does provide us a reasonable foundation upon which to temper our fears about death. Hamlet’s reasoning only works if we assume that there is some otherworldly “sleep of death” that completely eludes human sense and inference. That requires some faith and speculation. Reason rejects such entreaties. A reasonable man may still fear death, but he certainly can rule out “dreaming” while he is dead.

So what is death like? And if we cannot dream “bad things” when we are dead, why do we fear it? I think that death is probably very much like dreamless sleep. When we sleep or fall unconscious, our sensory capacity drops to a minimum. Time loses all meaning because our senses convey nothing to us, nor does our brain transmit memories, impressions, emotions or impulses. We are essentially “inert matter” awaiting a sensory recharge. Dreams reflect at least some activity in the brain while we are unconscious. But if we do not dream while we are unconscious, we are truly “out of it.” Nothing frightens us. Nothing moves us. Nothing troubles us; nor does anything please us. All these emotions require functioning senses and living tissue. Sleep temporarily stays the senses and tranquilizes the tissue. Death does this permanently. Dreams may interrupt sleep because the senses and tissue reactivate in a reduced way. But death blocks all sensory function. In that light, we can safely infer that, as a matter of common experience, death and sleep reflect states of unconsciousness. We know what it is like to be unconscious. From a reasonable perspective, then, death only differs from sleep in the sense that we will never come to.

This is what we can reasonably fear: We will not wake up. In fact, this is less fear than bitter disappointment. If we know that we will never wake up from death, we will never get to experience all the good things life can offer us. Our fear stems from the certain knowledge that we will no longer experience anything with our senses. After all, death cuts off our ability to experience the earthly world with our senses. The earthly world can delight our senses as long as we are alive. Death eliminates that possibility. That disappoints us, because we like to delight our senses with earthly stimuli. It gives us joy. When we are asleep, we cannot see our loved ones or go on vacations. Neither can we see our loved ones or go on vacations when we are dead. Nonetheless, who really minds sleeping? People all enjoy peaceful sleep. Perhaps they enjoy it more knowing that their senses will reactivate in the morning. But when they are asleep they are not complaining about anything, especially if they are not dreaming. In a word, sleep—like death—cuts off our ability to experience things, both good and bad. This is not entirely a bad thing.

In past satires, I stressed that we should not fear death because eliminating our ability to experience earthly life with our senses rules out a lot of horrible things. First and foremost, death defeats pain. As mentioned, human beings fear death because they associate it with pain. But pain—like Hamlet’s “whips and scorns” and “the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to”—depends upon functioning senses, nerves and living bodily tissue. When the senses no longer function, pain disappears. Death cuts off the ability to experience everything, including the pain that flows from tortured nerves. Death defeats pain because pain depends on the senses, and death shuts down the senses. We can rightly fear pain if we know we will live to experience it. But we should not think that death is painful, because death precludes our ability to experience anything, including pain. In my view, anything that rules out our human capacity to experience bodily suffering is a good thing. While we might permanently forgo the opportunity to positively stimulate our senses when we die, we also permanently lose our ability to suffer negative sensory stimulation. If our lives are full of pain, worry, anxiety, agony, humiliation and hopelessness, death will deny our bodies the sensory capacity to continue tormenting us. In that sense, death is actually an outcome to be wished, not an end to be feared. Sensory experience is a two-edged sword. It can both delight and torture us. Death denies our ability to experience both. If sensory experience in life tortures us more than it delights us, then why should we fear death?

Reason tells us that death is a neutral event. Applying our senses, we can reasonably infer that death looks like sleep. We can also infer that we must be alive to dream. Thus, we can rule out any suggestion that we dream when we are dead. Continuing this reasoning, we also know that we must be alive—with functioning senses—to experience both positive and negative sensory stimulations, from inexpressible ecstasy all the way down to unimaginable agony. Similarly, we can infer that we can experience neither positive nor negative sensory stimulations when we are dead. We can conclude that death cuts off our ability to experience the earthly world with our senses. If reason is our guide, we are left with only two real reasons to fear death: (1) We permanently forgo the chance to experience positive feelings later in our lives, even if current circumstances are bad; and (2) Something happens after we die that eludes all reasonable explanation.

Ay, there’s the rub. Here we encounter the real problem; here we see the real uncertainty. Unless we truly believe that reason answers all our questions, we can never say with certainty whether anything exists or happens beyond reason. Some people believe we must choose between faith and reason. Personally, I believe in reason to the extent that human sense can answer a particular question. My senses tell me that corpses do not possess any sensory capacity. Medical science confirms that a dead brain has no function. My senses also tell me that the senses do not function without a functioning brain, and functioning senses are necessary to experience the earthly world. But my senses cannot tell me whether something happens to us after death, just as my senses cannot tell me whether God exists, or whether my life was fated to move down a particular path. There are unexplainable things in the world. Sense cannot grasp them. We fear them precisely because we cannot know them. Still, I am prepared to trust reason on all questions in which it provides a valid way to answer them. From an abstract perspective, that helps me cope with death.

But we can reasonably fear death if we posit that reason does not give us the whole picture about life. How can we know whether there is a state of consciousness beyond the senses? No living person has ever told us about it. When we die, perhaps we enter some hitherto unknown dimension in which our understanding about experience and sense no longer apply. I don’t know. I just don’t know. Nonetheless, now I am speculating. On this point, I take comfort. When it comes to pure reason, I can prepare myself for death. It is mere sensory shutdown. When it comes to faith, however, I am as lost as everyone else. If there is existence beyond sense and experience, I cannot comment about it. All I can say is that I do not know about it.

WHY IT IS GOOD TO HAVE MONEY

AN EDITORIAL

By : Mr. Arnold F. Silver, Esq., Partner, Gold, Diamond, Silver & Greener, P.C., Attorneys Specializing in Commercial Paper, Finance, Banking & International Currency Transactions.

I was asked to write an essay about our law practice. I decided, however, that it would be much more appropriate merely to explain why it is good to have money. Legal questions and money questions generally go hand in hand. For that reason, writing about money is the same as writing about legal practice. Suffice it to say, when we practice law at our firm, we talk about money—whether directly, indirectly, figuratively, literally, symbolically, by implication or by insinuation—all the time. And it is certainly our goal. Put simply, we do not get up in the morning thinking about helping clients with our unique legal knowledge. We get up in the morning thinking about how much money the firm will make each day. Having clarified why I am writing, I will now discuss why it is good to have money.

I have money. You don’t. I like the way I feel. You don’t. I can buy a car and a house without anxiety. I can make all my payments every month, plus have money left over in all my accounts. I can drive to work and drive home, then comfortably watch television before going to bed on a very soft mattress. You worry all the time whether you will have enough cash at month’s end to stay in your apartment. I send my laundry to be cleaned and pressed every week. I can afford it. You can’t. You live in rumpled clothes because you don’t have the money or time to wash them regularly. I can go on long vacations with my wife because I have a lot of extra money. I can sit on the beach for several weeks knowing that my house and car will be there when I get home. You can’t go on vacation. You can barely buy groceries. You can’t go anywhere. You have to think about getting money to eat. In essence, it is better to be me than you. It is good to have money.

I run a business and I get all the proceeds. You work for someone and get a few dollars in return. I feel perfectly normal each day giving instructions to my employees. You feel awful each day taking peremptory commands from your bosses. At the end of each quarter, my partners and I divide up the surplus revenue, giving me a large cash bonus. You get an insulting paycheck. I make a lot more money than you because I own more than you do. You make a lot less money than I do because you own nothing. You don’t have the money to own anything, either. I will keep my money and stay the way I am. You will keep making a few dollars and stay the way you are. I am doing better than you because I have money. You are doing worse than I am because you don’t have money. This again proves that it is good to have money.

I have investments because I have extra money to spend on them. You can’t make investments because you have no extra money. I make a lot of extra money from my real estate investments, money markets and stocks. You do not have any real estate investments, money markets or stocks because you can’t afford them. I feel good knowing that I have profitable investments. You feel panicked and terrified that you have almost nothing in the bank. I have a portfolio that generates income each month without any effort on my part. You do not have a portfolio and you generate no income if you don’t work. I own property and I can do what I want with it when I want to. You own no property and you have to listen to your landlord. You wish you had what I have. But you don’t. Money gave me what I have, so it is good to have money.

I can help people like you because I have money. You want to change your life. You want to make money. But before you can, you need a loan. I can give you a loan because I have money. You need money to pay for your necessities and go to school. You need me so you can finally make more money. I don’t need the money; you do. I am doing fine. You aren’t; that’s why you need a loan. If I give you a loan, you will have my money. But I want my money back—plus more. You might have my money for a while, but in the end, I will have my money back, plus a lot of yours. You need my money. But in the end I will have yours. I don’t really need your money. Yet no one gets my money without giving me theirs. That wouldn’t be fair. No one gives away money for free. And you need a loan, don’t you? I don’t have to worry. You do. I have money. You don’t. You wouldn’t be asking for a loan if you did. In a word, it is good to have money. You don’t have to ask for loans when you already have money.

I do not have many problems because I have money. You have a lot more problems than I do because you have no money. Life is better when there are fewer problems. Life is worse when there are more problems. Money eliminates many problems. That is why I have fewer problems than you. It is better to have only a few problems than many problems. We both might have problems with relationships. But I do not worry about rent, food, gas bills, air conditioning costs, loan debt, my job, medical care, my credit score or my bank balance. You worry about all these things and relationships. I only worry about relationships. So you have lot more problems than I do. That means I have a better life because I have money. You have a worse life because you don’t.

I can make my money work for me. I can charge interest. I can open trust accounts. I can diversify my funds. You don’t even have funds, so you can’t diversify them. You can’t open trust accounts or charge interest, either, because you don’t have any money. Money can’t work for you if you don’t have any. It feels good to know that your money is working for you, because then you don’t have to work as hard. But you feel terrible now because you have to do all the work. After all, your money isn’t working for you because you do not have any money. You wish you were me because I have money. You can’t be me until you have money. And you don’t. My money works for me and I feel good about it. You have no money at all and you feel bad about it. For that reason, it is good to have money. In any event, it is better to have money than not to have money.

In my opinion, my life is better than yours. Typically, I do not make moral judgments. Rather, I make financial judgments based solely on figures and potential profitability. In some cases, however, I can make moral judgments based upon financial considerations. In this case, I can say that I am happier than you. I am happier because I am less anxious, nervous, angry, scared, upset, stressed, depressed, resentful and desperate than you. Furthermore, I experience more bodily comfort, pleasure, delight and enjoyment than you because I do not worry as much about money matters. You occasionally experience bodily comfort, pleasure, delight and enjoyment. But more often you are nervous, angry, scared, upset, stressed, depressed, resentful and desperate because you do not have enough money to pay your bills. You live in uncertainty. Uncertainty makes it impossible to relax and feel good. By contrast, I feel certain every day that I have more than enough money to pay any bill that comes my way, even a bill for unexpected dental work. That certainty eliminates any negative emotions I might feel. I do not feel resentful; why should I? I do not take instructions; I give them. I do not have to be somewhere everyday at 7 AM; my employees do. I do not wait until someone tells me I can leave my desk; I tell my employees when they can leave. I make my own hours, I go where I wish and I don’t suffer for it. Why? Because I have money. Money makes me free and happy. You don’t have money. You are not free and you are unhappy. You would rather be free and happy. But you can’t be either free or happy until you have money. I have money. As a financial and moral matter, that gives me a better life than you.

In conclusion, it is good to have money because it brings freedom, happiness, certainty, power and self-determination. By contrast, it is bad not to have money because it leads to bondage, powerlessness, debt, unhappiness, uncertainty, indignity, shame, contempt, resentment and anxiety. I have money. You don’t. I am happy and free. You aren’t.

I am glad I live in a country that lets me have money. You live in the same country, so what are you whining about? Stop sulking. Go make some money. Make yourself happy and free.

Remember: You can always get a loan from me.

RUNNING LOW ON CASH? NO PROBLEM : JUST WRITE BAD CHECKS AND LET YOUR CREDITORS FIGURE IT OUT

PRACTICAL TIPS FOR TOUGH TIMES - VOL. 1

Are you caught up in middle class hell? Do you make about $550 per week from three jobs to pay $1900 per month in rent, plus the electric bill and a low-grade health insurance premium? Are you responsible for several children? Do you budget out your money months in advance to avoid falling short? Will one day off work lead to your eviction? Have you pleaded with your gas company not to turn the heat off because you could not quite pay the January bill? Do collection agents hassle you about car notes and past due amounts? If you are feeling sick, do you refuse to visit the doctor because you can’t afford it? Are you stressing out about money? You are not alone. In this economy, money is hard to find. But there are ways to overcome the crisis.

As a struggling middle class earner, you have a right to feel desperate. You are doing all the right things. You are working, you are paying your taxes, and you are responsibly budgeting your money. You are even saving when you can. You are taking care of your children. You are acting responsibly. Yet in your eyes, it all seems a cruel joke. You barely make enough to pay your basic expenses, leaving you in constant anxiety that one day you will not make enough. At one time in our Nation’s history, the middle class sustained our economy. Middle class earners worked hard, saved, sent their children to school and slowly advanced to affluence. Yet today, the middle class cannot advance. Crushing expenses devour every dollar they earn, creating a desperate cycle that never seems to end. Middle class earners rightly feel betrayed: Is this what responsibility leads to? A life of constant apprehension whether your paycheck will barely cover life’s most basic necessities? You learned that responsibility was good. You expected that it would bring you rewards. Yet you see now that it brings only desperation as you struggle to appease creditors, landlords and grocery sellers.

Never fear. You can prevail against your creditors. As a responsible person, you obviously have a checking account. You carefully balance your income against your expenses in a daily log. You write graphs to plan how much you will make so you can meet the monthly bill blizzard. Your checkbook and your responsibility will help you overcome your creditors. How? Simple: Write bad checks and let your creditors figure it out. If you owe $1400 per month in rent but you only have $1300 in your account on the due date, write a check for $1400. Act like you have money. Show that you are honoring your obligations, even if you do not have the financial resources to do so. After all, you are a responsible person. You want to honor your obligations. It is not your fault that you are caught in middle class hell. It is not your fault that your son got sick and required a $725 doctor visit. If your son had not gotten sick, you would have been able to fully pay your rent. But he got sick. There is nothing you can do about it now. He saw the doctor. Just write a bad check. Stop letting creditors get over on you. They have created enough misery in your life. Let them squirm a little bit, too. After all, do they really need all your money? They do not work; they just sit at home and open envelopes containing checks. What will they do with all your money, go on vacation? Here you are, struggling to keep your children healthy, and there they are, driving around in Hummer trucks. And they want even more from you? Send them a bad check; let them sort it out.

But “No,” you say, “I can’t write a bad check because that is dishonest.” You need to stop insisting on honesty. What did honesty get you? A dog’s life shuffling between three insulting receptionist’s jobs, insomnia and hungry children whose cries keep you awake all night. A lot of good honesty did you. You did all the right things. You made all your own money. You showed up to work every day. You refused to take public assistance and you never asked anyone for help. You honored your creditors and you cared for your children. You never pole-danced at a strip club and you never sold drugs for easy money. You made your money the decent way, the American way. Now what? Do you like the way you feel? Do you feel good knowing that your creditors can take away all your property if you so much as catch a cold next week and miss a day at the office? Do you feel good knowing that you have expenses totaling $2500 per month, yet you are lucky to make $2700 per month? You aren’t getting anywhere. Honesty landed you in a hole and you are not getting out. It’s time to take measures against your cursed creditors. Send them bad checks.

Bad checks fulfill two fundamental purposes. First, they show that you actually care about your creditors. Second, they allow you to voice your power in a critically unfair relationship. They show you care about your creditors because you are sending them an acknowledgement that you know you owe them money. You may not have the money, but you are not ignoring them, either. In that sense, when you send a bad check, you say: “I do not have enough money to pay you, sir, but I know you hold superior power over me and I acknowledge your power. In a perfect world, this check would give you what I owe. Unfortunately, I do not have the means to pay everything. Therefore, I am sending you a check that tells you I am paying everything, when in fact I have less than the required amount in the bank.” Creditors appreciate your bows and scrapes. Although they would prefer to get your money so they can live more luxurious lives, they still like it when a pathetic debtor like you kneels and acknowledges his meager station. Bad checks allow you to acknowledge your inferior, debtor status while temporarily appeasing your creditor’s demand for cash. They soothe your conscience by allowing you to make a “charade payment,” when in fact you know you have no money to pay it. There is honor in this: You did all you can to make money for the bills. Your efforts failed. Why, then, should you bear the burden for it? You simply followed the path you were taught, and you should not suffer for that.

Bad checks also voice your power in a critically unfair power relationship. When you send a bad check, you force your creditor to pursue all kinds of legal and administrative remedies against you. This takes time. It takes effort. It also causes consternation, frustration and annoyance to your creditor. Best of all, it denies your money to his use for at least a few weeks. That means he may only be able to stay in Aruba for 30 days instead of 31. By impacting his enjoyment of life, you show your power. True, your creditor will beat you legally. Eventually he will use the law—which protects him, not you—to forcibly seize the money you owe him. But what do you care? You have no money to seize. A legal judgment means nothing if there is no property to attach. In this sense, it helps to be a destitute middle class job-juggler; without money in the bank, there is nothing the law can do against you. After all, the law is all about property. Without property, the law has no power. You have no property, so the law has no power over you. Although you cannot go out and murder someone without consequence to your liberty, you can easily write a bad check and let your creditor go through the administrative square dance to hunt you down for a few lousy hundred. In so doing, you will cost him more in legal fees that he can hope to wring from you with unwieldy garnishments, levies and liens. With you, he will lose money, even if a small amount. That is power.

For these reasons, do not worry about writing a bad check once in a while. You are doing all you can to live a decent, responsible life as a middle class earner. You are doing everything you were told. You are not a criminal; you are caring for your children. You are paying your rent and all your bills. You are not living beyond your means. In fact, you are living for your means. No one told you that middle class life would devolve into a cruel joke. No one told you that life would devolve into a frantic contest to make at least $2600 every thirty days. No one told you that you would have to worry about getting sick and receiving $400 one week instead of $480. No one told you it would be this bitter, desperate and hopeless. Yet you can fight back with bad checks. Your creditors are living fine. Yet their obligations reduce your life to an unsatisfying, anxiety-ridden hell. Your efforts give them luxuries, while your reward is to live in a modest apartment without fear of eviction. A fair trade? Of course not. But this is middle class life. This is our system.

You will never make it out of the middle class. But while you are there, you can prove that you exist by sending a few bad checks if you can’t hack the bills one month. You have already enriched your creditors enough over the years. Why not stick it to them once in a while, just to show that you are a person, too? You may be a pitiful debtor who never goes on vacation, but you have the power to force them into exhausting legal procedures that will end up costing them money and annoyance. Let them have it. Send a bad check next month.

LIVING IS OVERRATED--BELIEVE ME, I KNOW

By : Mr. Daniel G. Foster, B.A., Formerly Married Man and High School Superintendent, East Rutherford High School; Deceased 1995

Everywhere you look these days, you see images that make you want to live. You see bronzed women laying on black sand beaches. You see youthful men drinking beer and smiling with their friends. And you see men, women and children grinning as they play an electronic gaming system or watch a huge flat-panel television. In short, it seems that everyone wants to live. After all, according to these images, there is so much to live for: You can go on vacation, you can drink beer, you can find beautiful bronzed women on beaches and you can play electronic gaming systems to your heart’s content. There is so much to do. And it is all so fun.

But these images are deceiving. Living is much more difficult than these images lead us to believe. We might fantasize about bronzed women on beaches or buying huge Hummer trucks with wheels that do not rotate when they turn. Yet how many of us really accomplish our dreams? Unlike the strapping youths in beer commercials, we may be obese, nerdy, unattractive or some combination of all three. There is no way we can make witty comments to bronzed women. These women will not come within 70 feet of us. We may dream about landing a high-paying job with excellent benefits and buying a luxurious home. Yet more often we compromise, work in retail, schlep to work every day in crowded commuter buses, go home, eat Chinese food, watch television on a small screen, look at internet porn, go to bed and repeat the process every subsequent day until our physical or mental health fails.

No one ever told us how hard life is before we started really living it. No one told us about jealously, betrayal, deceit, deception, lying, stealing, disappointment, mockery or dissatisfaction. We all thought we would date beautiful women and live in huge houses. Instead, we wind up having relationships with mildly overweight secretaries who steal from us and cheat on us. Meanwhile, we develop various physical ailments over the years that give us pain, discomfort, anxiety and despair. We might suffer from gout or kidney stones. We might develop kidney cancer or gall bladder infections. We might even suffer a tragic accident that paralyzes us from the waist down, rendering us impotent invalids for the rest of our lives.

And that is just physical pain. Often, too, we cultivate loving relationships with our families, friends and spouses, only to watch them suffer and die, leaving us alone and heartbroken. Pain comes in many forms. And life is full of it. From day to day, you never can know what card life will deal you. You may have a successful insurance career and a loving wife one day, then be bankrupt, alone and forgotten the next. It happens all the time. That’s life. This is not the life you see in beer commercials. It isn’t fun. It isn’t carefree. And by God, it hurts a lot.

Living is overrated. Take it from me—I died in 1995 and I have been doing great ever since. Well, I haven’t really been doing anything at all, but that’s better than being betrayed, hoodwinked, deceived, beaten, humiliated, hurt, injured, ridiculed, abandoned, or fired from a job. Dying solves many of life’s most difficult problems. When you get out of the race, the race can’t hurt you anymore. True, you lose the opportunity to live a sprightly, youthful existence like the young men in the beer commercials. True, you lose the opportunity to seduce bronzed women on beaches and to buy 100” home theater systems. True, you lose the opportunity to invent lawnmowing equipment and to get rich from patent and licensing royalties. But very few people ever achieve these things in life. And for the chance to win these rewards, you expose yourself to life’s whipping winds. More often than not, those winds will whip you much harder than you ever thought possible. And for what? The chance to seduce a bronzed woman? The chance to patent a new sliding door? The chance to buy a beachfront home in Florida? These are chances, not guarantees. Chances are, you will end up far from your dream. Ted Williams said he wanted to be the greatest hitter who ever lived. He achieved his dream. But you are not Ted Williams. And that is just a sappy myth intended to inspire children before their inevitable disappointments in life. Do yourself a favor: Do not expect so much from life. And do not be so afraid to die. It really is not all that bad.

When I was alive, my first wife bickered with me constantly. She blamed me for losing money on the stock market and she blamed me for my erectile dysfunction. Then she divorced me and took half my savings. You have no idea how horrible that was. But after I died in 1995, I could care less about my first wife. When I was alive, I used to work at a steel wholesalers’ warehouse. My boss told me if I worked hard, I could be a shareholder in the company and own a stake in the business. I worked hard for 14 years, then a new owner bought the warehouse and fired me. Then I started working in a public school. It was dreadful and it dashed my dreams. But after I died in 1995, I felt neither disappointment nor regret. I felt nothing at all, and that was a lot better than opening myself up to further insults. When I was alive, I suffered from rheumatoid arthritis, skin cancer and intestinal inflammation. I used to fear going to the doctor and hearing what he would say about my health. I underwent numerous surgeries and argued with my health insurer about coverage. They said I had intestines before I developed intestinal inflammation, so that meant I could not claim full benefits on pre-existing organs. Ultimately I spent about $75,000 on surgery, wiping out my savings account. After I died in 1995, I stopped worrying about my health and my money. It was simply revolutionary.

Looking back on my living days, I do not know why I approached things with such anxiety. To some extent, I always thought life would get better and that I would be rich, famous, have a beautiful wife and raise a family. Along the way, I went to work, saved money, and met friends. As time went on, it became clear that I would not be rich, I would not be famous and I did not have a beautiful wife. Yet in the back of my mind, I felt that I had failed. Every time I took a test or started a new job, I felt that my life was on the line: Either I did well or I would not reach my dreams. But that was all unnecessary. I should have just enjoyed myself that whole time rather than struggling to attain the unattainable. I would have spared myself so much anxiety and uncertainty. Well, now I know. I'm dead, but at least I know.

I say to you: Death is not all that bad. Of course, the beer commercials do not want you to think this. They want you to believe that being young and having fun is the most important thing in life. No one wants to be dead because when you are dead you cannot buy things or experience pleasure. Yet these are all transient goals. No one tells you that you often experience extremely negative emotions and events as you strive to buy things and experience pleasure. Take it from me: We rarely experience more pleasure in life than pain, and when we try to obtain property, we face insuperable obstacles from those who already have it. In life, people fight for everything. Fights are not fun. They cause anxiety and disappointment. Only the winners feel good, and even then they only feel good until the next fight comes along. Life is an endless race for illusory happiness. To participate in the race, you must expose yourself to pain, suffering, disillusionment, betrayal, discomfort, humiliation, shame, failure and fatigue. Why? For the chance to seduce bronzed women and live in a large house? Ultimately your body will decay and you will die. What good will your success do you then?

Since dying, I have not gotten into a single argument. I have not felt disappointed when a date does not show up, nor have I lost a single dollar on the stock market. I do not feel anxiety before exams. In fact, I do not take exams at all anymore because I am dead. I do not feel bad when people scold me or give me negative performance reviews. Nor do I pay taxes or feel bitter when I receive a bill larger than the one I expected. After all, the dead owe nothing. It is a great feeling to know that you do not owe anything anymore. I make only one concession for my great feelings these days: I no longer have the opportunity to experience pleasure. The bottom line is that dead people do not have living nerves to experience pleasurable sensations. On the other hand, they also do not have nerves to experience all the terrible things that the world flings their way. If that is the only price for my tranquility, I am more than prepared to pay it.

I am dead. I cannot be disappointed, humiliated, taxed, injured, punished or insulted. I cannot seduce bronzed women, but neither can most living people. On the whole, then, I am ahead of the game. See you on the other side. You’ll be happy you’re here. And you’ll kick yourself when you think how much energy you wasted on things that meant nothing at all when you were alive.