United States of Bureaucracy

It has been with a combination of great amusement and severe annoyance that I’ve experienced US bureaucracy these past two years. While no system is perfect, I’m constantly astounded at how the system manages to survive the countless internal contradictions that should logically have caused it to implode ages ago.

Allow me to elaborate on a few examples.

Americans always regard the Canadian system of socialized healthcare with skepticism. Surely, they say, you can’t expect decent healthcare from a system that’s free to use? What if you need a transplant? Or special surgery? No no no, they say, I will pay for healthcare myself, and that way I’ll be certain that I get the treatment I require. The problem, of course, is that the system has been designed (either with extreme forethought, or the extreme lack thereof) to do everything it can prevent access to healthcare.

One co-worker related to me how she had badly hurt her knee on a ski trip in Lake Tahoe. Rather than seeking emergency care at the ski hill, she insisted on waiting until she returned home so she could have her own physician review the damage and handle the problem. Unfortunately for her, waiting meant that her case was no longer deemed an emergency, and she ended up having to “prove” the injury with two years of “preventative care” (a bastardization of the term if I’ve ever heard one) until her insurance company would allow her to have the surgery. Had she chosen to have the surgery performed right after the accident, it would have been performed immediately.

Cue brain aneurysm…now!

The United States portrays itself as the protector of individual choice, but everything about the bureaucracy it creates for its citizens seems specifically designed to limit choice. Healthcare insurance, for example, will only allow you to visit specific facilities and eliminates the very advantage that most Americans believe they are paying to obtain. While the argument for privatization is strong (e.g. greater efficiency, lower costs), the reality stands in stark contrast to the expected results. I find this hardly surprising, given the sheer volume of paperwork I receive from my insurer anytime I go to the dentist or hospital: I routinely get two “this is not a bill” statements in the mail for each visit, followed by another statement showing that my insurer has paid the bill. It’s no wonder the US is paying three times the amount of Canada on healthcare administration – they send three times as many bills!

This is a common theme in the US: provide the illusion of choice, while making the choice so painful or confusing as to prevent the individual from making any meaningful choice whatsoever.

Consider another healthcare example: The US has a concept called a Flexible Savings Account which is supposed to allow an individual to save funds to cover their medical expenses for the year on a tax-free basis. The idea is that you have part of your paycheck set aside to before taxes to allow you to pay for medical expenses, thereby lowering your taxes. Unfortunately, FSAs are subject to a number of caveats: you can’t change the amount you want to contribute halfway through the year, and you have to forfeit any amount you don’t spend by the end of the year. Pay too much into the FSA and you lose it. Pay too little into the FSA and you don’t get the benefit of reducing your tax bill in the event of an unforeseen medical emergency. It’s a tool to reduce your tax bill, but it only works if you’re a clairvoyant (“I foresee a terrible car accident in June of next year – better put away some cash now!”).

The same is true of 401(k) plans. The idea of a 401(k) plan is to allow you to save for retirement. Unlike RRSPs in Canada, your employer is responsible for administering the 401(k) plan. What this means is that your choice of investment vehicles is limited to those offered by your employer. And if you’re doing outside investing, you can’t consult your financial advisor on how to invest your 401(k) money because they’re not allowed to advise you on funds they’re not managing. Again, it’s a system disguised as a reasonable method to encourage people to save money when, in actual fact, it’s actually an extremely effective instrument of torture for anyone with half a brain.

It’s these kinds of exercises in doublethink that make tax time in the US a fairly stressful affair. The system is designed to keep as much money as possible in people’s hands throughout the year, and as a result it’s more than likely that an individual will have a tax bill come April 15th. Contrast that with Canada: not to sound like an accountant, but I’ve always felt Tax Day to be an occasion for celebration. Unlike our American cousins, Canadians are usually getting money back. Pay up your RRSPs from post-tax dollars, pay your medical bills with post-tax dollars, and then submit a heaping pile of tax credits on your T1! Cha-ching!

Not to sound conspiratorial, but I have a theory why the US focuses on keeping money in people’s hands and undermining their ability to plan their finances effectively. It’s all about keeping people either spending money or giving it to the government. Save too little in your FSA? Well, Uncle Sam will claim additional tax revenue, thank you very much! Save too much in your FSA? Well, you can either spend it on stuff right before the year ends (i.e. stock up on Advil for next April) or forfeit it to Uncle Sam! Need to set up a 401(k) for your employees? Well, you’ll need to pay a company to administer it!

It’s all about keeping the wheels of commerce turning in the short term and ignoring the long term. With savings rates hovering around zero, it’s only a matter of time before the music stops and someone is left without a chair. One can only hope that those residing outside the US won’t be the ones to suffer when that happens and US consumer spending dries up.

Skype + Telephone Scams: A Love Story

Ashley‘s lately been getting a huge number of calls from someone who appears to be running a “government grant” scam, phoning her cell phone constantly and asking for different person each time. It appears that the attacker is trying to phish for her real address and real name. It’s been so infuriating. Today, the attacker was so brazen as to claim that he was from the US Government, despite the thickest of Mexican or Indian accents. Unbelievable.

Of course, Ashley is going to report this to the police as well as the FTC.

This got me thinking: who’s to say this person or persons is located in the US? One of the inevitable side effects of the plummeting costs of international long distance is that it enables phone to be subject to the same problems as email: the cost of an attack is minimal, and hence the return on investment for any scam or telemarketing campaign is enormous. Mix VOIP, SkypeOut to the mix, along with absurdly inexpensive labor in the international labor market it places with decent Internet connectivity (like India), and you’ve got a telemarketing machine that’s extremely cheap. And mobile. And outside the borders of the victim’s legislative protections.

Now I’m not certain that’s what’s happening in this case, but I have to wonder: why not? Has anyone heard of telemarkers or phone scam artists operating internationally using Skype?

Dinner with Richard Clarke

The Scorpion's GateI had the unique opportunity on Wednesday day to have dinner with Richard Clarke, former counter-terrorism adviser to the past for the past four US presidents and current member of PGP Corporation’s Business Advisory Board. I had thought this was going to be part of a rather large and informal gathering as part of Richard Clarke’s speech at the Commonwealth Club, but instead it turned out to be a small gathering (about two dozen people in total, including PGP creator Phil Zimmermann and famed Silicon Valley marketer Bill Cleary) at Postrio to celebrate Richard’s new book, The Scorpion’s Gate, where everyone got a chance to sit with Richard and chat.

I’d had a recent experience that I thought would provide an interesting topic of discussion with Richard. On our recent vacation in Hawaii, Ashley and I had the unfortunate bad luck to end up sitting down at a table at Benihana stuck between a very nice young military couple at one end of the table, and a Vietnam-veteran Marine and his wife at the other. The Vietnam-vet opened the meal on a bad note (“So, who here is a Republican and who here is a Democrat?”) and just went downhill from there. The vet quickly sniffed out that I was soft on unilateral military action (“Freedom isn’t free!”), but graciously allowed me to have an opinion he didn’t like (“You can say that because guys like this fight to protect your right to free speech”). I thought this was an especially curious opinion to have, especially in light of the fact that the greatest threat to citizens’ rights these days seem to be originating from their fellow citizens and their own government, not terrorists or militant foreign governments.

Richard A. ClarkeI asked Richard how he felt it was possible for the government to diffuse both the external and internal threats to our civil liberties, especially given that the root cause of these threats (non traditional, distributed militant terrorists) that were promoting these behaviors could only be solved on a timeline that outlived any given legislator’s term in office. From his point of view, the only way to effectively combat these threats over the long term was to have lifelong civil servants in government capable of working on initiatives that could diffuse these threats across the boundaries of legislative terms. The unfortunate problem with that solution is, according to Richard, that 50% of the government will soon be eligible to retire and there are fewer university graduates choosing to enter the civil service. This problem is compounded by the fact that most civil servants, especially those working within Washington DC and the surrounding area, are poorly paid. This offers little incentives to graduates to forgo a career in the private sector, and will only prolong these threats.

On a lighter topic, Richard later revealed that he had been somewhat bewildered that people on the street recognized him. He’d been especially amused when a taxi driver in New York had turned to him and asked him, “Aren’t you Richard Clarke?” – the taxi driver was from Equatorial Guinea. I thought this was kind of funny, especially given the increasing prevalence of digital cameras, photo-sharing sites, and other distributed media. The world’s getting smaller – why would Richard Clarke not expect people to recognize him when he’d been on TV repeatedly, as well as at the center of a particular widely publicized condemnation of the government’s failure to prevent 9/11? Who needs to be worried about a centralized Big Brother, when we’re all willing to play Little Brother against each other?

No, I Said Do Not Call!

I’m constantly amazed at the sheer audacity of companies that call people at home at all hours of the day with absolutely no forethought or consideration. Even though our number appears on the National Do Not Call Registry, we still get calls at all hours hawking one thing or another. While the registry restricts calls from telemarketers, there are a number of exceptions that allow political or charity organizations to continue to call. Now, if I were a charity, I think I’d be asking myself if someone who went to the trouble of putting themselves on the Do Not Call list is interested in being contacted by political or charity organizations.

That is, of course, not the case at all.

Every day, our answering machine bristles with a half-dozen “hang ups” from organizations whose automated systems call us each day and then hang up when no one answers the line. I don’t mind those calls – they’re screened, and I don’t have to deal with them. I do, however, mind the calls at 10:00 on a Saturday morning (a dignified snoozing hour, I might add) for Tom and Jerry’s Charity Organization for the Preservation of Something or Other. I don’t care. No one I know would call me at this hour. They’ve all learned to know better.

This phenomenon is not limited to anonymous charity callers, but to regular business that probe and intrude in the interest of the upsell (legitimate business contact is allowed even if you’re on the Do Not Call list). Our bank, in fact, called three different times inside of two weeks to try to upsell Ashley to a Visa Gold Card. We already have a Visa Gold Card. With our bank! A hospital in Charlotte called at 5:45am today to discuss billing for a recent hospital stay. Given they know me inside and out (literally), why didn’t they notice that I live three time zones away? Argh!

Yes, I’m feeling grumpy. But come on, this isn’t that hard to figure out.

Bravo, Mr. Homer. Bravo.

The Simpsons - The Complete Sixth SeasonPer tradition, Ashley gave me The Simpson’s Complete Fifth and Sixth Season DVDs for our sixth wedding anniversary. Does she know me, or does she know me?

Imagine my shock and horror when I opened the sixth season DVD, only to find the box shaped like Homer’s head instead of a regularly-shaped box. A regularly-shaped box that would, naturally, be suitable for stacking under the coffee table (or, should the urge strike me, using to build a tiny little fort).

Apparently, I’m not the only person in the world that’s anal-retentive enough to want all of the DVDs to come in the same form factor – inside the box, I found the following instructions:

For all those that fear change…

For all those anal retentive nerds who like their DVD boxes to line up perfectly on the shelf…

For all those who dislike storing their digital media inside a hollowed-out human head, have we got a deal for you: Just call 1-800-223-2369 for a very derivative, old-style, just-like-before box with almost nothing new or creative to annoy or terrify you. Enjoy!

The really sad part? Anal retentive nerds are the core demographic for The Simpsons! How the hell could they not expect a non-threatening throng of nerds to rush the studio gates and demand redress? The recovery, however, almost makes me think they just did it to yank their customers’ chains. I mean, just listen to Homer’s message at the customer service phone number (that number again: 1-800-223-2369):

Welcome, disgruntled consumers! You have reached The Simpsons’ Season Six replacement box hoax…uh, I mean number. Don’t worry, this is not a hoax…or is it?

No, it is not!

Most likely.

Anyway, for more details on how you can receive an old boring style box, totally free of charge…except for stupid shipping and handling…I hate handling…just buy a computer and go to www.simpsonsbox.com. The web site will tell you exactly what to do to take advantage of this hoax. Ohhh, why do I keep saying that?

Or do I?

Actually, I think the box you already have is totally cool. But what do I know? I mean, you’re the customer, so I guess you know best. Oh, let’s not get into this.

If you still need help, stay on the line. If you don’t, then stop calling here, this is my home.

Love you!

Heck, the website even stipulates that you’ll need to provide a “solemn promise to stop your whining” in addition to proof of purchase to get a replacement box. It’s clever.

Almost too clever.

Bravo, Mr. Homer. Bravo.

Fracking Censorship

Anyone who’s been following the new Battlestar Galactica has undoubtedly crinkled their brow at one particular bon mot invented by the show’s writers: frack. The genius of this move is indisputable: take a gibberish word, add context, and let that off-color dollop of yogurt between your viewers’ ears transform it into an obscenity with a minimum of training.

Observe:

“The cylons look like humans now? What the frack?!?”
“This mission is a fracking nightmare!”
“Frack you!”

Ta-da! You can now enjoy primetime television programming, complete with actual adult conversations, cursing and all!

Let this be a lesson to the FCC that no matter how you try to regulate obscenity, the human brain can make anything into a dirty word. Until the time when they figure that out and implant us all with thought monitors, perhaps it’s time to update the classic treatise on the versatility of the human language?

WordPress Migration Complete

The blog has been a bit stagnant for the moment, but I was dealing with transitioning from MovableType to WordPress. I’ve met Matt Mullenweg on a couple of occasions and I figured it was time I give his team’s software a shot. One word describes my reaction to WordPress: wow.

Matt’s tag line for WordPress has been “Code is Poetry”, and after seeing the software in action it is an apt motto. In the past, I spent a fair amount of time cobbling together a solution that would address not only my blogging needs, but also my resume and portfolio of personal projects. The combination of MovableType and server-side includes gave me a consistent look, but not a consistent way of working with my site. I edited the blog via the MovableType interface, and individual project pages with a text editor. Ugh.

With WordPress, all of that has changed. Now I can manage blog posts and pages all from within WordPress, all with the same look and feel. Not only that, but with the new K2 theme (still in beta) I don’t have to spend a lot of time mucking about getting a clean look-and-feel. A couple plugins here and there, and poof!, a nice looking website.

Now, that said, it wasn’t all easy. The script to import MovableType entries was a little shakey – I ended up having to whip together a script to explode the file exported by MovableType and import entries individually. I also had a bunch of non-XHTML cruft I needed to clean up in my old blog entries, as well as write a bunch of redirects in my .htaccess to ensure a smooth transition. Of course, there’s still work to be done – I’ll still have to tweak the CSS over the next little while to adjust the color scheme (but it’ll be way less work than I had to do before). And I’ll be installing the new version of Gallery to allow me to start hosting all my photos.

So, kudos again to Matt Mullenweg, Michael Heilemann, and Chris Davis. They have produced a truly beautiful combination.

Dear Dumbass…

Some jerk is currently submitting poker comment spam, so I’m battling to clear the crap out of my blog. The funny thing is that whomever is doing it has an improperly formed comment submission script – it’s adding comment entries to non-existant posts (a hole in my old version of MT I guess), and hence their spam will never be seen by my readers. Dumbass.