Guest Post: Death Is Simple Pt. 1

A friend of mine has written a multi-part piece explaining the concept behind the the name of this blog. Here is Part 1:

in·flec·tion point:

Noun: The point of change on curve: a point on a curve at which the arc changes from convex to concave or vice versa.

 Encarta Online

"An event that changes the way we think and act." 

-Andy Grove, Founder of Intel

An inflection point refers to the locus of major change within a system. When applied to a business context it refers to an invention or paradigm shift that disrupts entire companies and industries. It is a reminder that no matter how secure a position may be now, market disruptions are always a risk, if not an inevitability.

To minimize this risk, we must be able to conceive of change beyond our immediate views and perceptions. In doing so, we remove the blinders that may cause us to miss threats beyond the immediate event horizon.

Why Health Care Reform Won't Work

This post was difficult to write for a number of reasons. First of all, any topic touching on current political issues is immediately distorted and shoehorned somewhere onto the Republican/Democrat spectrum. The linguistic judo required to escape such juvenile binary categorizations are beyond my meager abilities as a writer.

Secondly, the problems that health care reform (HCR) is attempting to solve are very real. Medical costs contribute to almost half of all personal bankruptcies, our population is aging, and wages have not kept pace with the rise in costs. It is therefore clear that some sort of reform is necessary, probably just not the kind we're going to get. Here's why.

Basics of Climate Change Economics via Paul Krugman

I tend to keep Paul Krugman as a columnist at arm's length, but his recent long-form piece in the NY Times Magazine caught my attention for the quality and comprehensiveness of his analysis and the simplicity of his writing in summing up the climate change issue:

Let’s be clear. We’re not talking about a few more hot days in the summer and a bit less snow in the winter; we’re talking about massively disruptive events, like the transformation of the Southwestern United States into a permanent dust bowl over the next few decades.

He clearly explains the economics behind pollution, cap and trade, and carbon taxation in layman's terms and lays out some workable ideas for policy changes.

He also gets a shot in at the conservative troglodytes in office who oppose any climate action by railing against government regulations of business in principle:

This reaction — this extreme pessimism about the economy’s ability to live with cap and trade — is very much at odds with typical conservative rhetoric. After all, modern conservatives express a deep, almost mystical confidence in the effectiveness of market incentives — Ronald Reagan liked to talk about the “magic of the marketplace.” They believe that the capitalist system can deal with all kinds of limitations, that technology, say, can easily overcome any constraints on growth posed by limited reserves of oil or other natural resources. And yet now they submit that this same private sector is utterly incapable of coping with a limit on overall emissions...

Its good to see Krugman can still think like an economist, I've not been impressed with his column since he morphed into a reactionary Keynesian cheerleader during the stimulus debates.