Managing Your “Time Estate” – By Ted DeCorte, M.A.
March 31, 2009
Time is valuable, like a commodity, and once it has passed, well . . . it’s gone. Valuing that commodity at all times becomes important, not just when an employer “pays” for your commodity, but at every increment of that commodity.
Managing your “Time Estate” commodity is essential; yes to accomplish what those who pay for that commodity want, but also for what you want or need. Using your “Time Estate” wisely leads to maximum fulfillment in life – economically, spiritually, professionally, socially – in whatever “Time Estate” increments you commit.
A good exercise is to ask yourself if you had only 5 minutes more to live, or 5 hours, or 5 days, what would you do? How would you use your Time Estate? Now, expand that to 5 months, 5 years, or 50 years. Your Time Estate is still as valuable to YOU at 50 years as it is for 5 minutes. You may chose to do different things in 5 minutes than you would in 50 years, yet your Time Estate’s importance should remain of the same value – to you.
We only have a finite time on this planet. And in the great cosmic scheme of the Universe, it is infantesimal. We spend on average 30% of that time on this planet sleeping. We spend approximately 18% working. Then there is 8% eating, 8% watching TV, 8% traveling to get somewhere, 4% grooming, which leaves us 24% of our time on this planet fixing things, cleaning things, preparing things, playing with things, and shopping.
Horace proclaimed, “Carpe diem, quam minimum credula postero.” Seize the day, put no trust in tomorrow.
Life happens in the moment, and the next, and the next. Meditation teacher Pema Chodron states, “Start where you are.”
To paraphrase Emerson, “One of the illusions of life is that the present hour is not the critical, decisive hour. Write it on your heart that every moment of your Time Estate is the best moment of your Time Estate.”
We must remember also Emerson’s prescription to life, “Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.”
Inspiration without action is mere entertainment. And the action may be spending time with your daughter or a friend, or enjoying a painting at the local museum, or planning your next project.
“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then is not an act, but a habit.” – Aristotle.
Jim Croce sang of Time, about truly valuing it.
What do you value? What could you accomplish if you valued and managed your “Time Estate” more?
Seize your Time Estate, each and every incremental moment.
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By Merrill Matthews, CAHI Executive Director
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| I participated in a health care reform panel yesterday, sponsored by Rep. Michael Burgess (R-TX), who has created the Congressional Health Care Caucus.
Joining me on the panel were Grace-Marie Turner of the Galen Institute and Karen Davis of the Commonwealth Fund, who lavished praise on one of the more contentious issues to emerge so far in the health care reform debate: the “public plan.” The president has described it as a Medicare-like health insurance program that anyone could join. It doubtless would be run by the government and largely subsidized by taxpayers, just like Medicare. And because Medicare imposes price controls on both hospitals and physicians, you can bet the public plan would, too. But the president has also said the plan would provide coverage benefits similar to the plans covering members of Congress, which means it will be comprehensive and expensive. Representative John Shadegg (R-AZ) says that his Democratic colleagues defend the public plan by claiming that it will increase competition, forcing the private sector to keep its prices down and efficiency up. So he has been asking those colleagues, if that’s true then why shouldn’t the government also create a public plan for, say, life and auto insurance? Good questions. Or how about a “public car,” owned and manufactured by the government to compete with private sector- manufactured cars. (Oh, wait, maybe we already have a public car: Chrysler and GM). I have some reservations about all this support for competition from people who never seemed to like competition before, and who constantly want to regulate it. One of two things will happen with the public plan. If Congress were to create a well-structured, but price- controlled, plan that was attractive to people and employers, people would begin dropping private coverage for the public plan. At least for a while, until the providers began pushing back because of low reimbursement rates and access began to decline, whereupon the public would start looking to switch back to the private sector — if there were any private sector plans left. Alternatively, Congress could make a mess of the public plan — the more likely option — and only the sickest or poorest would choose it. In that case, Congress would complain that the private sector was attracting all the good risks, sticking the government with all the expensive people. And so Congress would have to make changes. We know that’s what would happen because that’s what happened to Medicare+Choice, and Congress began ratcheting back on its reimbursements, driving M+C carriers out of the market. Either way the private sector loses — again. |
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Avoid Getting Reorganized Out of Your Company – WSJ.com
March 31, 2009
By EILEEN GUNN
Reorganizations grab fewer headlines than job losses, but they are common in a recession, and often precede or follow layoffs. And they can be as just as disheartening. It can be difficult to figure out where you fit in as management changes are made, new work groups are formed, and you find yourself working for a new boss. To survive, youll need to adapt, while also assessing the future of your job.
via Avoid Getting Reorganized Out of Your Company – WSJ.com.
Center-Left America? / Brookings Institution
March 31, 2009
, Senior Fellow, Governance Studies
The Republican Party’s center of gravity has shifted to the right in recent decades. And notwithstanding the “post-partisan” style of President Obama, the Democratic Party has sidled leftward. Among most objective analysts of American politics, there is not much dispute about these trends. They are well documented in a comprehensive study titled Red and Blue Nation? co-published by Brookings and the Hoover Institution at Stanford University.
On the substance of the issues, if not the demeanor of the presidential candidates, last fall’s election plainly reflected the polarized parties—contrary to an impression, or hope, held out by numerous commentators. As several of the Brookings-Hoover scholars quickly noticed, the respective party platforms, for example, had actually drawn farther apart in key respects.
Consider the Republican plank on immigration, which not only stepped conspicuously away from the Democrats in 2008 but from the GOP’s own consensus in 2004. Whereas that earlier platform had stressed “humane” reform of the nation’s dysfunctional immigration system, the emphasis in 2008 was on the “grave risk” posed by illegal immigrants, and the need for federal legislation to bar them from obtaining such things as driver licenses.
The Democrats of 2008, if anything, repositioned themselves on even more fronts. In 2004, the party had vowed to “win the peace in Iraq.” Four years later, that pledge had given way to insistence on a rapid timetable for “ending this war.” On trade, the Democrats now spoke not of “open markets” (the 2000 plank) but of amending NAFTA. With respect to health care, “covering all” was elevated to a “moral imperative.” Such stances were all well to the left of where the party had stood in the previous two presidential elections.
An End to False Globalization | Mother Jones
March 31, 2009
It’s time to put fair trade on the front burner again—or we’ll never rescue our economy.
By Leo Hindery Jr. and Donald W. Riegle Jr.
“The Obama team is hardly likely to make trade a priority,” reports a recent article in the National Journal. “Their inclination is to let sleeping dogs lie,” Ed Gresser, director of the trade project at the Progressive Policy Institute, told the magazine. Well, those sleeping dogs need to be awakened, because the results of globalization for the United States, and for many other developed nations, have simply not turned out as advertised.
It is not globalization’s underlying premise that is flawed. Rather, the problem is that the US and many countries in Europe are on the receiving end of unfair (and sometimes illegal) subsidies, inhumane labor standards, poor environmental practices, and currency manipulation that are skewing outcomes and overwhelming our open competition approaches to trade. And our nation and our workers have been greatly harmed.
Obama’s Prime Time Pitch / FactCheck.org
March 31, 2009
- He said his budget projections are based on economic assumptions that “are perfectly consistent with what Blue Chip forecasters out there are saying.” Not true. The average projection by leading private economists is now for substantially less economic growth than the administration’s forecast assumes.
- He said he is reducing “nondefense discretionary spending” to less than it was under the past four presidents. Not true. His own forecast for the final budget of his four-year term puts this figure higher than in many years under Reagan, Clinton or either Bush.
- He said he was “angry” about “inexcusable” bonuses paid to AIG executives. But he glossed over the fact that his own aides insisted on watering down a Senate-passed amendment that might have prevented payment of such bonuses.
- He repeated that his budget is projected to cut the federal deficit in half by the end of his term. That’s true, but deficits also are projected to shoot up again later unless big policy changes are made.
One of the most dramatic claims came not from Obama but from a reporter who asked about children “who are sleeping under bridges and in tents across the country” and who said 1 child in 50 is “homeless.” The truth is far less dramatic. The study he cited doesn’t just count children with no roof over their heads. It also includes those whose families are staying with friends or family members, in hotels and motels, in trailer parks or in housing deemed to be “substandard.”
CQ Healthbeat (3/31) reports, “Several leading Senate and House Democrats are trying again to pass legislation that would create a national insurance program to help adults who need long-term care.” The legislation (S 697 ), introduced by Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee Chairman Edward M. Kennedy (D-MA); House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Health chairman Frank Pallone, Jr. (D-NJ); and former Energy and Commerce Chairman John D. Dingell, (D-MI), “would impose payroll deductions on working Americans to pay for the program, which would provide services to adults who become severely functionally impaired. Workers who do not want to contribute could opt out.”
Letter seen as insurance industry’s first sign of resistance to health reform / NAHU.org News
March 31, 2009
In its Health Care report, the Washington Times (3/31, Lengell) reports, “The health insurance industry, which initially held its tongue from criticizing President Obama’s push to overhaul the nation’s healthcare system, is beginning to speak out against the administration’s proposed reforms.” America’s Health Insurance Plans and the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association sent a letter to “four key senators responsible for overseeing health care reform on Capitol Hill,” warning “against implementing a proposed government-run health-benefits program — a critical component of the administration’s reform plans.” They argue that “such a move would damage the private health insurance sector and ‘thwart the ability of the health care sector to implement meaningful delivery system reforms.’” The letter was sent to Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, Montana Democrat; ranking Republican Charles E. Grassley of Iowa; Senate health committee Chairman Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts; and ranking Republican Michael B. Enzi of Wyoming.
By Joseph Tartakoff
Microsoft will discontinue both its MSN Encarta reference Web sites as well as its Encarta software, which have both been surpassed by rising competitors, like Wikipedia.
In a message posted on the MSN Encarta Web site, Microsoft says, “Encarta has been a popular product around the world for many years. However, the category of traditional encyclopedias and reference material has changed. People today seek and consume information in considerably different ways than in years past.”
via Victim Of Wikipedia: Microsoft To Shut Down Encarta – Forbes.com.
Defining ‘Health Care Reform’ – Economix Blog – NYTimes.com
March 31, 2009
By Uwe E. Reinhardt
Uwe E. Reinhardt is an economics professor at Princeton.
In his news conference Tuesday night, President Obama stated that he was willing to be flexible on negotiating with Congress on the budget for the 2010 fiscal year, but that he would stand firmly by his commitment to “health care reform.” It sets off the question of what he and others mean by that term.
Here is a brief explanation of what he’s probably referring to.
As a horizontal economist lying in a hospital bed, I, like most patients, tend to think of health care as a caring human activity in which I repose my trust.
via Defining ‘Health Care Reform’ – Economix Blog – NYTimes.com.
By Marilyn Weber Serafini
What must happen for employer mandates to be enacted?
Employer mandates, a staple of Democratic health care reform proposals, require employers to either offer insurance or pay into a fund for worker coverage. But some stakeholders and Republicans fear that the mandates give government too much power to increase the burden on employers later on, and leverage low prices from doctors and hospitals that make it hard for private plans to compete.
What is the biggest mistake that policy makers could make when it comes to employer mandates? What have we learned from the employer mandates in Massachusetts, and what could make these mandates a deal-breaker for reform?
via National Journal Online — Health Care Experts — The Do’s And Don’ts Of Employer Mandates.
Medicare vs Social Security: The Untold Story / InsureBlog
March 31, 2009
Check out the PBS Frontline special, “Sick Around America.” It airs Tuesday, March 31 at 9 PM and will follow individuals & families across the US as they recount their successes and failures with our health care system.
via A Healthy Blog » PBS Frontline Series: Sick Around America, Tuesday 9:00 pm.
By BRIAN KLEPPER
America’s health plans are floundering. If their job has been to provide the nation’s mainstream families with access to affordable care (let’s leave quality out of it for the moment), they have failed miserably, though they were very profitable along the way, at least until Q1 2008. In 2008, the Milliman Medical Index – an estimate of the total cost for health coverage premium and out-of-pocket costs for a family of four – was $15,609. Now it is almost certainly above $17,000, more than the total income of more than one-third of American households.
via The Health Care Blog: Will CIGNA Remake The Health Plan Marketplace?.
Oberlander: Health Reform Likely To Depend On (Budget) Reconciliation / Health Affairs Blog
March 31, 2009
by John Iglehart and Chris Fleming
Whether comprehensive health reform passes this year is likely to depend on whether Senate Democrats are willing to use the so-called “budget reconciliation process,” which would allow them to pass health reform with a bare majority of 51 votes, Jonathan Oberlander said in a March 25 interview for the Health Affairs Blog. Oberlander, an associate professor of social medicine and health policy and management at the University of North Carolina, recently published an article in Health Affairs examining the history of the State Children’s Health Insurance Program and the lessons SCHIP offers for today’s health reform debate.
via Health Affairs Blog.
