Tag: Value

Principles of Value – More Chronicles From the VA

Millstone of Designed IncompetenceValue is a term many think they understand and, more often, barely grasp.  Ralph Barton Perry is the seminal author on all things related to value.  As value is an aspect of functioning society and contributes to the wickedness of government, it is only fitting to delve into this concept with a discussion on value, using more examples from the Department of Veterans Affairs – Office of Inspector General (VA-OIG).

Value – using only the American Heritage (5th Edition) Dictionary, a person would consider themselves learned to know that value is a price or return, monetary or material worth, possessing worth in importance, merit, or utility.  Due to specialization, some would know value as the quality of a letter or diphthong, the darkness or lightness of a color, the duration of a tone or rest, or numbers or quantities expressed in algebraic terms.  None of these are wrong, and each has direct application to the fields of study, but they do not encapsulate the essence of value.

Ralph Barton Perry expressed a sentiment I support wholeheartedly in his book “General Theory of Value” (1967, Harvard University Press):

“… Bridging the gap between common sense and science.  Believing that philosophy must face the facts of life and nature, taking them as both the point of departure and the touchstone of truth, one can never be comprehensive enough.”

In reiterating and describing value, especially as it applies to government, I begin firm in the knowledge that a blog cannot capture all that needs to be said.  As noted by Mills, quoted by Perry (p. 35), “The word value, when used without adjunct, always means, in political economy, value in exchange.”  It is on this value in exchange we focus our attention, provided we keep a second thought firmly in mind, society at its most basic element is cooperation.

In “Common Sense,” Thomas Paine made this distinction, and Perry elaborated in his books on value.  Cooperation in a society is the division of labor mediated by a common purpose.  Hence the value in exchange is labor for mutually beneficial specialized tasks that promote society working more efficiently.  Or, to better illustrate the point, you do not hire a diesel mechanic to conduct open heart surgery.  The mechanic has value in their sphere, and the cardiac surgeon has a different value in their sphere, but society flourishes in the exchange of labor through cooperation.

?u=http2.bp.blogspot.com-fGEUjJsJ2h4VcJgswaisnIAAAAAAAABcsoFqEewPF_E4s1600quote-if-the-freedom-of-speech-is-taken-away-then-dumb-and-silent-we-may-be-led-like-sheep-to-the-george-washington-193690.jpg&f=1&nofb=1Consider the role of the master builder in building a major building.  Each specialized task, drywall, foundations, painting, plumbing, electrical, etc., must all be done on a schedule and the master builder is ultimately responsible for the entire building once complete.  The building is completed promptly and efficiently through exchange and cooperation.  But is the master builder responsible for the actions of those specialists; as it pertains to the functionality of the building, the answer is yes!  Thus, if a plumber is stealing, an electrician is cheating, or a painter is not using the approved paints, the master builder is responsible to the owner for failing to monitor and closely supervise the subordinate contractors exchanging their skills for political and financial gain.

We must never forget that a reputation is a political title, appointed and maintained over time, and from the experiences of others.  The relationship governing issuing reputations, which helps to promote or demote the master builder in society, has value, which is more than monetary remuneration for services rendered.  Our reputation is not ours but was granted by others and must be maintained through careful action repeated across life.

Consider the following scenario:

“The Office of Inspector General (VA-OIG) conducted an inspection to assess a safety concern with the new electronic health record (EHR) that resulted in patient harm.  The VA-OIG found that the new EHR sent thousands of orders for medical care to an undetectable location, or unknown queue, instead of to the intended location.  In December 2021, VHA assessed the risk of the unknown queue as “major severity,” “frequently occurring,” and “very difficult to detect.” Immediate mitigation was needed, but Oracle Cerner (creators of the EHR) failed to inform VA end-users of the unknown queue, placing the burden on VHA to mitigate the problem.

Beginning in June 2021, VHA staff found that the new EHR’s delivery of orders to the unknown queue caused 149 patient harm events.  In late 2021, VHA staff provided the Deputy Secretary and the Executive Director for VA’s EHR modernization effort with information on the unknown queue safety concern and identified patient harm.  However, after finding over 200 orders in the unknown queue in May 2022, the VA-OIG has concerns with the effectiveness of Cerner’s plan to mitigate the safety risk.”

The EHR contractor designed a problem, blamed the customer, who is also, in this instance, the owner for the problem, and then placed the onus for fixing the contractor’s failure on the owner’s employees to find and mitigate.  Using the context mentioned above, one can clearly deduce that this is a negative value not aligned with societal cooperation.  The result will be a taxpayer nightmare creating patient harm to veterans.  Since Oracle Cerner is being paid with taxpayer dollars, do you, as a taxpayer, feel valued in this transaction?VA 3

Consider another example, recalls of products happen.  Mistakes occur frequently enough that since we are all humans, we accept that humans are going to make mistakes and move on.  In the following example, the manufacturer made a mistake, owned it, took decisive action to rectify it, and honored their commitments.  The problem arises in the VHA’s processes and procedures that govern employee actions in response to a manufacturer admitting a mistake was made.

The scenario:

“The VA-OIG determined that the VHA medication recall process generally met VHA requirements and identified potential vulnerabilities related to the monitoring and reporting of medication recall adverse drug events and variations in the software used to record medication lot numbers.  Adverse drug events resulting from recalled medications are not identified as a category or required to be reported in the VA Adverse Drug Event Reporting System.  Therefore, the OIG could not determine if VHA monitored all adverse drug events from recalled medications.”

Did you catch that; established procedures lack a category to report and track medication recalls.  A quick Internet search concluded that, per the FDA, in 2022 alone (data current as of November), 55 medical devices and 59 drug recalls have occurred.  Yet, the VHA has a tracking system that doesn’t categorize drug recalls as adverse drug events.  Why?  Imagine getting both erectile dysfunction and antidepressants in the same pill bottle.  Would not this potentially cause patient harm; of course.  Shouldn’t this patient harm event be tracked as an established drug recall event, so all the evidence and information are in a single place, properly labeled, and recorded?  Yet, the VA-OIG cannot declare how long the adverse patient drug tracking system has been tracking and recording events related to drug recalls and report similar to the legislative bodies for accountability.

Tell me, is a lack of information socially valuable in understanding the size and scope and adequately understanding the positive and negative aspects of adverse drug event tracking?  Variations between VHA facilities open the door to patient harm and increase the risk of veterans going to a VHA facility.  Yet, the VA-OIG constantly finds variations in processes and procedures between VHA facilities, recommending reducing variation, and the variation never reflects improvement.  Where is the value?  Why?  Isn’t it amazing the processes and procedures are mostly sufficient, but the processes and procedures did not catch that information was properly being collected and labeled for tracking and reporting purposes?VA 3

If all your neighbors relate XX contractor is horrible to work with, do you hire them to work on your house?  Is society growing with cooperation and building value if the contractor is always making a mess and ruining property?  Why is the government allowed to harm society, stop cooperation, decrease value, and never be held accountable?  Since all elected officials are expected to represent their entire geographical district instead of catering to their political base, do not all of the politicians suffer for the misbehavior of a few?  Why are these elected officials not taking action to clean up the government?

Repeatedly the procurement officers, highly specialized contracting officials who work for the VA, fail a VA-OIG audit and use the same excuses constantly, namely the following factors contributing to non-compliance:

      • Officials not understanding their responsibilities
      • Heavy workload
      • Ineffective oversight
      • Prioritization of awarding contracts

Where is the value to society when employees use the same excuses, shirk responsibility for errors and mistakes, and maintain their employment at taxpayer expense?  Does this reflect value to the taxpayer for their investment; of course not.  So why is this behavior accepted by the officers and investigators of the VA-OIG?  Society has self-correcting features that preclude the incompetent from continuing to abuse the customer; why have elected officials designed this abusive and deleterious department?VA 3

David Case, Deputy Inspector General, testified before Congressional Committees (SVAC) on VA’s electronic health record modernization program and stated the following:

“Proper governance and transparency will be necessary to get it right.  Failures in these areas risk cascading problems that jeopardize the entire program.”

Great words, but what actions are you taking to reign in the cost overruns, the failed EHR which put patients in harm’s way, and is so convoluted that many employees cannot do their jobs efficiently and productively?  The VA-OIG has supported through in-depth investigation that the existing EHR and the new EHR are abysmal failures, are expensive to maintain, install, train, and produce no value to society.  Why are we continuing to allow Congress to invest in this EHR madness with American taxpayer dollars and debt?  David Case’s testimony covers none of these fundamental questions, and the SVAC elected members never asked these questions as follow-ups to the testimony provided.

Interestingly, review all the testimony on the new EHR by the VA-OIG before Congress, and elected officials ever make accountable the government employees for success or failure.  Those testifying never discuss the fundamental problems, those listening elected officials never express disgust (forget outrage) over the core issues, and the taxpayer is left holding an expensive, dead albatross.  How does escaping responsibility improve the value of government in society?  The government is duty-bound to help enhance cooperation for the growth of society; this is a primary duty of government.  Do you see the government as improving or hindering cooperation in American society?VA 3

Repeatedly throughout the last decade of covering the VA-OIG reports, the VA-OIG discusses failed audits, improvements to governance processes and procedures to protect personally identifiable information, how the VA processes are inadequate and cause patient harm, and the list continues.  The same problems, the same recommendations, and the same testimony before Congress.  Wash, rinse, repeat, ad nauseum ad infinitum.  I repeat in words of soberness, and with the conviction of someone who knows, the actions of the VA are unacceptable, and the politicians elected to correct executive branch misbehavior are failing their US Constitutional duty to scrutinize the government.  These are millstones we can sunder from the neck of American society.  All without violence, using the existing laws on the books, and concrete action can, and needs to, begin immediately!

LinkedIn ImageWe conclude with an insight from Perry (p.515):

“The master builder of social justice oversees all the diverse social activities and takes account of their relative importance in the community.  But unless those who build know what they are building and are motivated by that rather than by their wage, the unifying purpose is the exclusive prerogative of the master builder.”

Because the elected officials placed in authority by the electorate are not motivated by building society, only by how much money they can squeeze, American Society is suffering.  The self-perpetuating machine of doom continues chugging steadily, and until the citizens understand the principles of value and change the elected officials, then holding them personally accountable for powering the destruction of American society and accountable for breaking the trust invested by the people for the people, the course of American society is doom bound.

© Copyright 2022 – M. Dave Salisbury
The author holds no claims for the art used herein, the pictures were obtained in the public domain, and the intellectual property belongs to those who created the images.  Quoted materials remain the property of the original author.

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“That’s Crazy!!!” – More Chronicles from the VA Chapter 7

Oh, how I wish and long for, and am working for, the day when the VA is cleaned up, cleaned out, and corrected completely!  The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) – Office of Inspector General (VA-OIG) has been busy reporting more on the failures of the VA to act.  Yet, where is Congressional action in scrutinizing the executive branch’s actions?  Honest question, repeated only for emphasis; we elected you to do two jobs, write fair and equal legislation for all citizens, and scrutinize the executive branch; when are you going to do your jobs?

Let’s begin with some softball issues repeated from previous VA-OIG comprehensive healthcare inspections (CHIPs), specifically how employees report feeling morally distressed while working at the VA.  Moral distress is a leadership failure and is widespread enough to reflect the problem is not limited to a single VAMC/VAHCS.  From Virginia to California, Maine to Florida, and Montana to Arizona, too many VA facilities are poorly led, poorly administered, and poorly executed.  The VA is actively abusing the veterans for political gain; some have asked why I consider the VA is actively abusing veterans; let me see if additional disclosure can explain the problem.

“VHA Directive 1004.08.  VHA defines an institutional disclosure as “a formal process by which VA medical facility leader(s), together with clinicians and others as appropriate, inform the patient or personal representative that an adverse event has occurred during the patient’s care that resulted in, or is reasonably expected to result in, death or serious injury, and provide specific information about the patient’s rights and recourse.”

The above quote is from the regulations governing VA care.  The VA-OIG quotes this directive, which has been published and is openly available, yet repeatedly the VA-OIG finds directors.  Hospital administrators who are informed and able to repeat this directive.  Who repeatedly refuse to follow this directive or train their staff to follow this directive.  When sentinel events occur (death, permanent injury, non-permanent injury, disability, etc.), the families report having no idea what to do because the disclosures were never provided to the veteran or designated caregiver.  Is this not abuse of the patient?  Is this abuse not driven by ideologues who gain from the harm they cause others?  Should this abuse not be scrutinized until it is eliminated?  Please feel free to read some of these comprehensive healthcare inspection reports from the VA-OIG, see the resulting injuries and problems caused by the failures of government medical providers, and then tell me whether these atrocious actions need more or less scrutiny and qualify for the title abuse.

North Carolinian veterans, VISN 6 is all yours, and would you be shocked to learn that even with newer leadership, moral distress remains a persistent problem in the VA employees throughout VISN 6, which just happens to include Durham, Asheville, Fayetteville, Hampton, Richmond, Salem, and Salisbury North Carolina?  Probably this is not unfamiliar as the patient experience survey scores remain persistently below VA averages, reflecting that new leadership is akin to putting lipstick on a pig.  Interestingly, medical staff credentialing remains a significant concern in North Carolina.

Western New York veterans, especially those receiving patient services in the Buffalo VAHCS, do you agree with the VA-OIG report?  The Buffalo VAHCS includes Buffalo, Batavia, Jamestown, Dunkirk, Niagra Falls, Lockport, West Seneca, and Olean, and the comprehensive report is mystifying to me.  For example, the VA-OIG reports that “Patients generally appeared satisfied with their care.”   At the same time, “Employee survey data revealed opportunities for leaders to improve workplace satisfaction and reduce feelings of moral distress.”  This is a combination not generally found in these CHIP inspection reports.  Something is definitely off, and I would love to know what, especially since the leadership needs significant improvement in identifying and reporting sentinel events.  Do you agree with the VA-OIG findings?  Please let me know your firsthand experiences, for the double-talk in this CHIP report is above what I usually observe.

With almost identical findings and recommendations in the Syracuse NY VAMC’s comprehensive healthcare inspection, covering communities of Syracuse, Auburn, Freeville, Potsdam, Rome, Binghampton, Watertown, and Oswego, NY., I am concerned that the veterans in New York are in as bad or worse shape than Phoenix’s veteran community.  Hence, I have to ask the VA-OIG, has something changed in your measurement and analysis tools to report such disparate findings as “Employee survey data revealed opportunities for leaders to improve servant leadership and decrease employees’ feelings of moral distress.  Patients generally appeared satisfied with the care provided?”  The double-talk level is higher in these CHIPs from NY, which is rarely observed outside of Phoenix and VISN 22.  Two final thoughts on the CHIPs, staff training, continues to be a high-risk finding, and this continues to be a leadership failure for every VAMC/VAHCS/VISN in the VA; why has progress not occurred?  Training is a system, and leadership and organizational risk, system redesign, and improvement is a quality, safety, and value problem of the highest importance; why is action never taken by leadership or the congressional representatives who are expected to scrutinize the executive branch?

28 March 2022, the VA-OIG released their long-awaited annual “Comprehensive Healthcare Inspection Summary Report: Evaluation of Medical Staff Privileging in Veterans Health Administration Facilities, Fiscal Year 2020.”  I have been interested to see what, if anything, the VA had accomplished in improving their medical staff privileging.  If I were a congressional representative, knowing that medical staff continues to harm and kill veterans, I would have been anxiously awaiting to see if the repeated hits from past years had finally been rectified.  Unfortunately, the VA continues to live down to expectations (digging the hole ever deeper), suffers from failed leadership, and the veterans continue to die or suffer abuse.

What did the VA-OIG discover?  Understand, “The OIG conducted detailed inspections at 36 VHA medical facilities to ensure leaders implemented medical staff privileging processes in compliance with requirements.  The OIG subsequently issued six recommendations for improvement to the Under Secretary for Health, in conjunction with Veterans Integrated Service Network directors and facility senior leaders.  The intent is for VHA leaders to use these recommendations to help guide improvements in operations and clinical care at the facility level.  The recommendations address findings that may eventually interfere with the delivery of quality health care.”  The OIG identified deficiencies with focused and ongoing professional practice evaluation, provider exit review, and state licensing board reporting processes.  Specifically:

    • use of minimum criteria for selected specialty licensed independent practitioners’ focused professional practice evaluations
    • inclusion of service-specific criteria in ongoing professional practice evaluations
    • completion of ongoing professional practice evaluations by other providers with similar training and privileges
    • recommendation by executive committees to continue licensed independent practitioners’ privileges based on professional practice evaluation results
    • completion of provider exit review forms within seven business days of licensed independent practitioners’ departure from a medical facility
    • the signing of exit review forms by service chiefs, chiefs of staff, and medical facility directors if licensed healthcare professionals failed to meet generally accepted standards of care
    • initiation of state licensing board reporting within seven business days of supervisors’ signatures on exit review forms to indicate licensed healthcare professionals failed to meet generally accepted standards of care.

The OIG found ongoing issues from the fiscal year 2019 CHIP summary report that warranted repeat recommendations for improvement.  The OIG issued three repeat recommendations related to the following:

    • inclusion of minimum specialty criteria for focused professional practice
      evaluations
    • inclusion of service-specific criteria in ongoing professional practice evaluations
    • recommendation by executive committees of the medical staff in continuing licensed independent practitioners’ privileges based on professional practice evaluation results.

Boiling the findings of the VA-OIG down, essentially, the administrators and leadership are not weeding out poor and horrible practitioners, reporting these underperforming practitioners, and not acting in the best interests of the veterans seeking care at VAMCs and VAHCSs across the country.  I repeat, only for emphasis: Is this not abuse of the patient?  Is this abuse not driven by ideologues who gain from the harm they cause others?  Should this abuse not be scrutinized until it is eliminated?  Please feel free to read some of these comprehensive healthcare inspection reports from the VA-OIG, see the resulting injuries and problems caused by the failures of government medical providers, and then tell me whether these atrocious actions need more or less scrutiny and qualify for the title abuse.  The link to the full report is available; please feel free to make your conclusions and post your thoughts in the comments section.

On a final note for today, consider with me the problems of the Atlanta VAHCS with pallets of unopened mail containing patient health information, community care provider claims needing payment, and a plethora of other unopened mail.  Understand that when community care providers cannot obtain compensation from the VA, they go to the veterans, who then send in correspondence, which is unopened, thus causing more problems, concerns, and issues for an already abused veteran community!  Want your head to explode?  Look at the pictures the VA-OIG helpfully sent along with this VA-OIG report, and ask yourself if any other business or organization could get away with this type of abuse of the customer.

What did the VA-OIG find?  Well, prepare for your head to explode, again:

    • VA Leadership should have established a formal agreement explicitly detailing each office’s responsibilities.
    • VA HCS leaders did not include responsible managers in decision-making discussions and lacked a clear understanding of the volume of mail processing work they were accepting.
    • Atlanta VA HCS did not ensure mailroom staff was adequately prepared or trained to handle or sort the influx of mail. POM (Payment Operations Management) officials were later reluctant to help, citing the verbal agreement.

Buried in the report is this tidbit, “POM is implementing similar transitions at sites across the country; POM and medical facilities need to ensure adequate staff with sufficient training to handle the mail processing workload.  VA concurred with the OIG’s five recommendations.”  Meaning that in a VAMC/VAHCS near you, unopened mail due to verbal agreements will soon add more distress and disgust to the veteran experience.

I have documented in these articles how verbal agreements, verbal standards of work performance, and verbal processes and procedures are the problem and way of life in too many CHIPs and observed practices at the VA.  Yet, these verbal shenanigans are more apparent than in the dilemma Atlanta faces due to unopened mail.  Payment operations to community care providers are on a controlled and fixed timeline.  Failure to process these payments according to the required timeline leaves providers unpaid, which diminishes the community care provider pool of providers.  Talk to a community care provider, and they will discuss the risks of doing business with the VA and the real possibility of not being paid timely enough or being caught in sufficient red tape never to receive payment.

I know of a provider who called me three years after receiving care and was still trying to appeal and correct the paperwork to receive payment.  A provider recently contacted me who wanted to ruin my credit for failing to pay the balance due from care received, and they are charging interest.  Correcting this problem cost me 48 business hours, 20 calls, and frustrations galore.  By the way, the problem still has not been rectified, an appeal is in process, and we have to wait for the VA to make a decision; this incident was caused by the VA changing the process and the paperwork.  The provider told me they are not accepting any more veterans seeking care, the risk is too significant, the timeline to receive payment is too long, and the VA never pays what is charged.  For example, I recently received a declaration declaring payment to a community care provider.  The VA sent me to this provider, which means they knew the prices beforehand and agreed to the fees.  The declaration declared the VA was charged $2,000 and paid $120, not actual amounts, but close enough to communicate the problem.  With inflation, or without inflation, if you were paid less than 1/10th of what you billed (invoiced), would you continue to conduct business with that company or organization?  Now add the unopened mail problem to the mix.  Would you continue to conduct business with this entity?

America, the Department of Veterans Affairs is sick.  All of the other alphabet agencies in the Federal Government are sick.  We continue to elect people who actively refuse to care enough to act according to their mandated duties.  We cannot afford the government we currently have, which is part and parcel of the problem with inflation in America right now!  Debt is entered into to pay for this bloated feckbeast called government; from the city to the federal government, the bloat is too great to be sustained!  Why is the VA able to skirt responsibility, accountability, and improvement?  They can hide behind the size of their convoluted and twisted organizational shield.  Why can the Post Office and the IRS get away with deplorable, at best, customer service?  They are protected by the congress refusing to scrutinize and hold people accountable.  When your head is done exploding, please remember and act in the ballot box to hire better representatives!

© Copyright 2022 – M. Dave Salisbury
The author holds no claims for the art used herein, the pictures were obtained in the public domain, and the intellectual property belongs to those who created the images.  Quoted materials remain the property of the original author.

Economic Warfare – Your Liberty, Rights, Freedoms are at Risk!

Bobblehead DollMany pundits have made the following statement, in one form or another, driving a car is the ultimate expression of freedom in America.  Yet, your freedom to drive a vehicle is endangered by the political left and the neo-socialists who want to steal and destroy your freedoms.  Mention economics, and most people’s eyes gloss over, brains disconnect, and they hope the pain will end shortly.  Please, fight this impulse.  I will attempt to make a highly complex topic simple and easily understood.  While I might not get all the specific details correct, I aim to communicate economics to a general audience that is free and empowered to further research the topics for themselves.  My links are reflected in the article for more information.

What is Money?

Money was discussed in a previous article and found here.  In simple terms, money is the tool used to transfer goods from one entity to another, showing a legal purchase was made to change ownership, hence opening the first crucial role of money, legally transferring ownership of goods and services from one person to another.  Unfortunately, legal ownership transference is where the government exercises its first controls, regulating cross-border commerce.  When the government went on a growth spurt in the 1930s, ballooning into the behemoth, we have right now, the government used the excuse of maintaining cross-border commerce to steal products grown by farmers, regulate prices, and set up means and methods to ensure the government was the only winner.TOP 25 QUOTES BY JOAN ROBINSON (of 54) | A-Z Quotes

The 1930 legal battles that wound up in the United States Supreme Court over price controls saw the citizen’s first attempt to reign in the government and failed miserably.  Worse, these first moves by the citizen were the first exchanges in an economic war that has raged ever since—money stores value.  Think of the money found when you do laundry.  You have no idea how long that money was lost, but the value of the money has not changed, you presume, and you celebrate finding the money.  Except, the value of that money has changed through inflation, and the government’s hidden tax (inflation) has robbed you of value.

Let’s say you found $20 in the laundry.  When you first lost that $20 bill, it had more value, e.g., you could purchase more with that money than you can now.  Sure, the value printed on the money still has $20 worth of goods or services, but the cost of those goods and services went up, restricting your ability to purchase.  Hence the economic warfare being waged by your government.  The government essentially said we would not worry about inflation.  Meaning they will devalue the money you hold for their own political purposes.Steve Keen Quote: "Economics is too important to leave to the economists." (12 wallpapers ...

An idea was floated by an economically challenged person to print a $5 trillion bill and use this to pay off the Chinese debt.  The problem is the devaluation of the money printed will capsize American citizens due to the hidden taxes of inflation.  Making that $5 trillion bill or bills would devalue the dollar and crash the American economy.  The stored value in the printed bill would not stand up to and be accepted, as a medium of stored value sufficient to pay the debts incurred.  Is the problem more clear; when money is printed, each dollar, pound, euro, etc., devalues the stored purchasing power of the money you currently hold in hand.Economics Funny Quotes. QuotesGram

Stored value is the second tool for waging economic warfare by the government against its citizens.  Consider all the money printed to pay for the supposed Coronavirus Tax Relief and Economic Impact Payments the world’s governments made to their citizens.  If you had $100,000 in savings when these monies were printed, your savings were devalued by the inflation rate, which is currently at a 40-year high in America.  The government is reporting inflation at 7.9%, so your $100,000 in savings lost the equivalent of $7900.  But, the government does not ever report inflation at the actual level, and the actual level of inflation is ranged between 8% and 45% depending upon the purpose or product you are trying to purchase.  Meaning your $100,000 could have a value of $92,000 to $55,000 in real value.  A hefty tax indeed!

Stored value, the number printed on different bill faces of currency, is static.  The actual value, e.g., the number of goods and services purchasable, is not fixed, and the government allows an annual inflation rate of 2% as “normal and acceptable.”  Thus, your $1 will have a purchasing power of $0.98, which is compounded year-over-year.  Thus, over a decade, that 2% inflation rate is now reducing your $1 to $0.80.  Multiply that for the $100,000 and a decade of saving, receiving interest that does not equal inflation to compensate means your money in your savings account has lost $20,000, just from the government allowing inflation at 2% annual growth.  Let’s say your bank is generous for savings account holders and provides a published interest rate of 3%, subtract the inflation taxes of 2%, and you are only earning 1% interest on your money.  Is this the bank’s fault or the government’s?Amartya Sen quote: Economic growth without investment in human development is unsustainable...

Do you see how the government is robbing you through economics?  Your 5% raise is only 3% once the inflation devaluation has been factored into your budget.  Play the lottery; the taxes alone might kill you, but the devaluation of the money reduces the actual purchasing power of your winnings.  If you do not understand the economic warfare being waged against you by your government, you will lose more than you ever gained in winning the lottery.  Yet another reason why lotteries are a tax on stupid people, for even when you win, you lose!

Cash has another problem beyond inflation, money supply.  The money supply is the technical term for ensuring banks can replace worn-out, ripped, and damaged money.  Money supply plays a role in how much money your local store has on hand to provide change and cashback to customers.  For employers who pay employees in cash, the money supply is a significant problem with extremely high costs.  The government regulates those costs and passes them onto consumers through banks and lending institutions.  Are you struggling to get a loan; this is another by-product of money supply woes.  Paying higher fees to change money to another currency for your trip is another money supply product.  Money supply remains another weapon of the government to affect economic warfare, and many people do not understand this principle, making the government’s policies more effective.Mahatma Gandhi quote: Economics that hurt the moral well-being of an individual or...

Have you noticed the decline in the availability of $10 dollar bills?  I asked for two $10.00 bills when I broke a $20.00 at a Walmart recently, I was denied because Walmart has instituted a policy to only accept $10.00 bills, not give them.  Albertson’s, Staples, the in-store bank in Walmart, and the local credit union, all have a similar policy.  What is the government doing forcing a reduction in $10.00 bills in circulation?  In researching this single policy, I can find no written information on this issue; yet the evidence is clear, there is a manual currency reduction in process and the government needs to explain why.

Before 1980, the basic money supply was measured as the sum of currency in circulation, e.g., cash, traveler’s checks, and checkable deposits.  Currency serves the medium-of-exchange function but denies people any interest earnings.  However, as discussed, interest earnings are not all they are cracked up to be due to inflation.  Cash under a mattress, lost in pockets of clothes, stuck in a book in your library is black money; it is as dead as yesterday’s fish and constantly devalued by inflation.  The money supply tries to regulate the cash on hand to lend as a tool to protect your money from inflation.  Except, the government constantly allows a 2% inflation rate, negating a lot of savings accounts and other interest-earning propositions.

Want a new car, consolidate your credit card debt, or try to buy a house; all of these loan products are an extension of the money supply and the regulation of money supply by the government.  Important to note that your credit cards and bank-issued or employer-issued debit cards are not affected by the money supply, and this is another reason why credit cards and debit cards are so dangerous.  These tools are agreements between you and the issuer, where money is transferred when the tool is used, and the consumer is responsible for all the fees the government insists upon to help pay for the money supply.Economy has frequently nothing whatever to... - Quote

Conclusion

In waging economic warfare, it remains imperative to know about economics, identifying what money is, its role, and the fiduciary controls the government exerts to attack its citizens.  Some may call my language inflammatory, but tell me, do the inflationary costs right now not feel like your taxes have skyrocketed?  Inflation is a hidden tax, a tax fully controlled by the government, and the value of your money decreases yearly because the government says 2% inflation is acceptable.  Who made this decision, an unconstitutional entity called the Federal Reserve Bank.  Since its inception, Congress has tried to obtain transparency and accountability from the Federal Reserve Bank to no avail.  Do you understand why I take umbrage with the Federal Reserve Bank?LIC

The governors of the Federal Reserve Bank decided your money could be taxed at 2% inflation annually as a normal condition of doing business.  These people set the interest rates you pay for your credit cards and are not paid for your savings accounts.  Looking into the history of interest rates since 1900, there is always volatility; the Federal Reserve’s actions have since the 1980s to not allow savings rates over 5%.  When adjusted for inflation, that’s a 3% interest rate for those trying to save money.  What does this mean; fewer people are saving money.  Look where those trying to beat the 3% have invested their money, the stock market, where volatility is a minute-to-minute occurrence, higher risks against less interest, where your money remains subject to taxes, fees hiding other taxes, government fingers, and inflation.

Your government did that to wage economic warfare against you, to empower them to steal your rights, freedoms, and liberties.  There is no other way to describe what is happening globally in all governments.  China plays games with the value of its currency to power trade deficits.  This, in turn, changes prices and increases costs.  These actions are taken to “compete,” when in reality, the activities cover massive debt problems in China.  If the CCP cannot keep the tap turned wide open on trade deficits, their money supply drys up, and debts come due in a bankrupting tsunami!Milton Friedman: The Most Quotable Economist - Capitalism.com - Create the Change

The European Union has never been fiscally sound because the various members of the European Union are taking advantage of the productive members to cover the costs of the fiscally useless members.  France cannot survive as a country without the European Union’s largesse; Greece, Portugal, and several other countries are all in the same boat.  Their governments did this intentionally as political games to stay in power.  When these countries run out of other people’s money, they will be forced to change socially, and the tsunami of debt to the World Bank and other nations will not be pretty.

Knowledge Check!Economics drives these problems mainly due to the lack of knowledge of the lines of congruence between economics and the psychology of governing.  The enemies of freedom understand economics, and this is why these tools have been so successful in waging war and stealing freedom, rights, and liberties through monetary policy.  Until we, the rightful owners of government, understand what is happening, we will all be at the whims of our enemies.

© Copyright 2022 – M. Dave Salisbury
The author holds no claims for the art used herein, the pictures were obtained in the public domain, and the intellectual property belongs to those who created the images.  Quoted materials remain the property of the original author.

Flashes – The Law of the Harvest

Exclamation MarkConsider a well-known truth that never appears to be fully understood, does a man sow thistles and reap strawberries?  Leo J. Muir’s book, “Flashes from the Eternal Semaphore,” lists this as the fifth semaphore, and of the six semaphores, this one is probably my favorite to discuss.  Not because I am sowing rocks and reaping corn and beans, but because I often sow rancid vegetables and reap garbage, then wonder why I cannot improve my harvest.  As the writings on flash four stated, “Thy speech betrayeth thee,” I am a slow learned and generally only really grasp things after experiencing some consequences that would kill others.  As we discuss the Law of the Harvest, please note I am not here to convince or convert, merely to help myself.  If you find value in this topic, join me, teach me, that we may both then learn more perfectly.

The law of the harvest is straightforward; many farmers know this law cold, “You reap what you sow.”  If you sow lima beans, you do not raise grapes.  If you are sowing carrots, you cannot harvest apples.  No matter how many times you plant them, Cheerios do not sprout a doughnut tree; I know as I planted a LOT of Cheerios.  Bubble gum, when planted, never grows into a bubble gum tree; my mother lied!

Yet, with this mindset, many people, myself included, become depressed, disconnected from reality, and mentally unstable.  Thinking, oh, I can sow gossip and truth, and equity and justice will be shown to me.  I can tell lies, cheat, steal, then become rich, famous, and never have any negative consequences.  I can take and plant some cocaine, heroin, methamphetamines, etc., in my body and remain healthy, strong, active, and never suffer mentally, emotionally, or spiritually.  The law of the harvest doesn’t work like this, yet, this remains the greatest living lie.Quotes About Reaping What You Sow. QuotesGram

From the eternal semaphore comes the following:

“Be NOT Deceived!  [emphasis mine]”

Now, consider how many people drink alcohol and expect not to suffer a hangover.  Consider the people consuming vast amounts of sugar, in all its various forms, who think they will never suffer diabetes, become overweight, or suffer any consequences from all that sugar.  My aunt is a great woman, fantastic artist, amazingly kind and generous person, and a chocoholic.  She never thought about the consequences of consuming chocolate because the research shows chocolate is healthy; she never could overcome the mental illness she suffered from that the chocolate was a comforting influence.  Her family mourns her passing!

The law of the harvest is a stern warning and an incredible promise.

“He that soweth to the flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; he that soweth to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting.”

The pattern is evident for those struggling who sow goodness, kindness, and happiness.  Hold on; your harvest WILL come, and it will be glorious.  In the same breath, those sowing hate, envy, strife, malice, greed, and so much more, your harvest is also coming, and I feel awful for what your harvest will be.  For the law of the harvest comes with a profound sentiment:

“God will not be mocked.”Frederick William Robertson Quote: "You reap what you sow - not something else, but that. An act ...

I promise, there is a God, an atonement IS available through His Son, and the Holy Ghost is real and powerful.  The enclosed sentiment in the Law of the Harvest remains my comfort when harvesting the bitter fruits my heart grows.  Yes, many times, I quake for the thought that I desperately need to find a way to raise a better crop on the stony ground of my heart.  Long have I prayed for a change of heart, for a line from Stephen King’s “Pet Sematary” rings forever in my mind:

“The soil of a man’s heart is stony ground.  A man grows what he can, and he tends it.  ‘Cause, what you buy is what you own.  And what you own… always comes home to you.”

If you get nothing more out of this flash than the need to change fertilizers and seeds, all with an eye to improving your harvest, I have accomplished my goal.  Confucius is quoted as saying, “Our headstrong passions shut the doors of our souls against God.”  What great counsel, our passions are the seeds, the consequences are the fruit, and the law of the harvest governs whether we will have a harvest to enjoy or curse, and we choose how to value that harvest.

Bear with me a moment; I might have lost a few of you.  Let me explain.  As a kid, we often had gardens, and I was regularly on the working end of a hoe killing weeds.  I cursed those weeds; I despised every second I wielded that hoe in the garden.  My cherub-like demeanor was nowhere to be found working those garden rows!  Then came the endless days of harvesting, canning, storing, and eating that which could not be stored; I still was NOT a happy person.  Ever eat zucchini for weeks on end because that horrible stuff reproduces like rabbits in perpetual heat whose water is full of Viagra?You reap what you sow. #bible #liveBigly #life #affiliate #quote #inspiration #message #world # ...

That is the point; when the harvest comes, and a harvest always comes, we choose how we value that which is being harvested.  My father tried hard to teach me this lesson, but all I ever saw were the endless hours sweating in a kitchen preparing jars for canning, the blisters from hoeing the weeds, and the time spent doing that which we would eventually purchase in cans as winter dragged on and on.  I could not see any value in gardening, so the blessings of the harvest were lost on me.  Headstrong passions blinded my eyes to the blessings of the harvest, and I cursed the day I was conceived.  Confucius is correct, and I have witnessed the problems with headstrong passions interfering with the Law of the Harvest many times since.

I am also experiencing the truth from Cicero:

“A youth of sensuality and intemperance delivers over to old age a worn-out body.”

I would add, an intemperate youth also yields a worn-out mind!  Having observed this as a youth, I thought I could escape the problems of being intemperate, and I can honestly proclaim, I was wrong!  Since my youth, I lifted objects heavier than practical; I gloried in the strength of my body and pushed it to the absolute limit many times.  What am I reaping; I was disabled by the time I was 30.  I am now older but not wiser.  I still want to push my boundaries without regard for consequences and wind up on the floor, in hospital, or mentally unable to think properly for weeks on end.  As a kid, when my parents were told of one of their kids being punished (a not infrequent occurrence), they regularly said, “Well, he brought that on himself.”  To quote Ray Stevens, “Yeah, I Did!”  I did bring on myself the harvest of intemperance and am delivering a worn-out body and mind to old-age.  There are lots of seeds we plant and many different types of harvests we reap.  When valuing the harvest, choose wisely how you evaluate the crop.#everything #you #do #say #choice #soon #later #quote #lessons #learned #life | Lessons learned ...

Pliny, more famously known as Gaius Plinius Secundus, also known as Pliny, the Elder,” was a Roman author, naturalist, philosopher, and naval and army commander.  He is quoted as saying:

“Lust is an enemy to the purse, a foe to the person, [a] canker to the mind, a corrosive to the conscience, a weakness of the wit, a besotter of the senses, and finally a mortal bane to all of the body.”

Lust is regularly only thought of as an intense sexual desire.  This type of lust definitely fits what Pliny is warning about; however, lust is also an overwhelming craving, unassailable desire, and intense eagerness or enthusiasm.  Yet, many might not fully grasp the semaphore Pliny is flashing; Henry Wordsworth Longfellow might be easier to understand:

“The blossoms of passion, gay and luxuriant flowers, are bright and full of fragrance, but they beguile us and lead us astray, and their odor is deadly.”

Henry Giles and John Howe are both flashing the same message, trying to capture our attention and teach the same lesson:

“The passions are at once tempters and chastisers.  As tempters, they come with garlands of flowers on brows of youth; as chastisers, they appear with wreaths of snakes on the forehead of deformity.  They are angels of light in their delusions; they are fiends of torment in their afflictions.”

“Sensual delights soon end in loathing, quickly bring a glutting surfeit, and degenerate into torment.”

What do you regret from your youth as the first tastes of passion’s deadly fruits?  Let me speak plainer; of course, you remember your first time in love, the rush of passions start, and the heartbreak of closure.  Do you see the seeds of passion and the harvested fruits as beneficial or deadly?  I know my answers to this question and understand more fully why modesty, chastity, and virtue are to be honored, respected, and cherished.  You choose how you evaluate your experiences.You reap what you sow | Everyday quotes, Peace quotes, One word inspiration

I currently work with a person who curses their ex-wife in the vilest language imaginable, yet, they praise their child in the same breath and bless the day they came into their life.  What seeds are being planted in the child, the co-workers, and society?  Will the bitter fruit be understood and evaluated as good?  Time will tell.  Byron summed this semaphore perfectly:

“Vice digs her own voluptuous tomb.”

Of all the advice given, I wish I had observed the following more perfectly, and while I do not know the author, many have semaphored the following message in one form or another:

“Shun the obscene!”

A long time back, exactly when escaped me, I watched a comedian who told some off-color stories for the audience’s amusement.  Those seeds bore some of the most pernicious weeds in my mind, choking out life and pleasure, goodness, and all things clean and kind.  Killing those weeds is a constant exercise, some would classify as futile.  But, I have chosen differently and fought those weeds desiring something better, and the fight continues.  I do not find swearing, debauchery, lewdness, immorality, perversion, and such amusing anymore.  When I came to myself, I cleaned out a LOT of entertainment, removing books, magazines, music, movies, and more in an effort to cling to the good and shun the obscene.  I had to re-learn lessons from childhood.

Now I look back on those mistakes, those seeds planted carelessly, and the bitter and thorny weeds I now fight and wish I could help others understand the same lesson I learned.  Not shunning the obscene leads to problems immeasurable.  In the US Navy, I had a good acquaintance who went to a party, was slipped a mickey, and woke up having been raped by another female.  I counseled my friend to report this event and get tested.  My friend declined because she “did not know if she liked it or not.”  I mourned my friend that day and many days after as she experienced what happened after not shunning the obscene.  Before she revealed her true self, her rapist was a person I respected and who was removed from military service for other actions.  But the crime of rape went unreported, a sad commentary indeed!  John Howe was absolutely correct:

“Sensual delights soon end in loathing, quickly bring a glutting surfeit, and degenerate into torment.”

Quotes You Reap What You SowMy friend’s experience in the US Navy always brings a poem to mind courtesy of Alexander Pope:

“Vice is a monster of so frightful mien
as to be hated needs but to be seen;
Yet seen too oft, familiar with her face,
We first endure, then pity, then embrace.”

The truth of the matter remains permanently etched upon our souls or consciousness, “You reap what you sow.”  We inherently know this truth, and then become sidetracked by temptation, which comes in the forms of misery, depression, beauty, emotions, and more; wrapped in shiny foil, the fruit inside is always bitter, but the first bite is a temptation that over time becomes that which we would have died to avoid.  Robert Southey, the English poet, semaphored this message thusly:

“They who engage in iniquitous designs deceive themselves into thinking that they will go so far and no farther.  One fault begets another; one crime makes another necessary.  Thus downward they go into the depths of guilt, which at the commencement of their career they would have died rather than incurred.”

QuestionCan you relate to your experiences with planting and harvesting?  What are you teaching and semaphoring?  Dr. Johnson adds a comment worth remembering: “The chains of habit are too weak to be felt until they are too strong to be broken.”  While Dr. Johnson is correct, there is a “Balm in Gilead,” there are chain cutters available through repentance and a path back.  There is a reason to hope!  Not speaking religiously, nor am I here to convert anyone to any religious flavor, merely to alert those needing it that there is a way to clean your mind and heart, that your future may produce a better harvest.  Even if you might have to harvest garbage for a while as the ground cleans itself of the impurities dumped into it.  Mr. Muir quotes Simons, a reference unknown, regarding the path:

“Impure thoughts awaken impure feelings, lead to impure expressions, and beget impure actions, and these lead to imbecility both of body and of mind, and to the ruin of all that is noble and pure in character.”

We who have survived youthful transgressions understand this path perfectly.  Note, we live in an age of severe iconoclasm, where every day, we are bombarded by attacks on established beliefs by institutions built for the sole purpose of tearing down others.  Who cannot replace their depravity and destruction with anything wholesome, good, pure, or worthwhile.  Where beliefs of religion, societal norms, and institutions representing the living and breathing were destroyed for the wanton pleasure of the iconoclasts.  The age of the iconoclasts began with the 1960s, and nothing built since is worth the pain and suffering we are experiencing now.  Worse, those iconoclasts from the 1960s are now teachers and professors, elected leaders, and their legacy of destruction stares them in the face while they laugh and take pleasure at your suffering.Quotes About Reaping What You Sow. QuotesGram

With each successive generation of iconoclastic behavior, the succeeding generations are a factor of 10 worse than their parents.  Think of how many generations have come and multiplied this abhorrent behavior into society.  Is it any wonder as a society we are in the mess we are in, where criminals get off, the victims are repeatedly punished, good is heralded as evil and evil for good.  But, I promise there is a “Balm in Gilead,” there is a path forward that leads back to life, growth, happiness, goodness, and a morally upright society.  Shunning the obscene is the first step!

Knowledge Check!We must be the generation that begins the repair job from the iconoclast’s destruction.  The ravages inflicted upon us will require re-learning, embracing hope, building faith, and acting charitably through faith and hope to act charitably first to ourselves, then to our families and friends, and then to the broader societies we all live in.  Whether you embrace a religious community or not, the imperative to “Shun the obscene:” the need to sow better crops to reap a more desirable harvest valued by others is universal.  Not to create fervor and fanaticism, but to create a people dedicated to improving ourselves and after improving ourselves to improve the world around us.

May we all enjoy a better harvest is my hope!

© Copyright 2022 – M. Dave Salisbury
The author holds no claims for the art used herein, the pictures were obtained in the public domain, and the intellectual property belongs to those who created the images.  Quoted materials remain the property of the original author.

“That’s Crazy!!!” – More Chronicles from the VA Chapter 4

Last week, my primary care provider informed me that the VA is no longer responsible for providing my prescriptions as an outside provider that the VA Community Services team sent me to has increased my dosage.  My primary care provider pulled a Pontius Pilot and washed her hands, and I am swinging in the wind with more bureaucracy and less service.  The best part of the news delivered this last week, the fallacious, seditious, and felonious attack on my character, the behavior problem flag, is controlled by the primary care provider.  Boy, I am sick of the bureaucracy of the VA; if only this were the worst of the bureaucratic baloney, the VA is pushing out.

From many VA-OIG reports during COVID, the following, or something close, was a regular statement:

“During COVID-19, VHA’s Office of Community Care (OCC) took steps to ensure veterans continued to have expanded access to health care in the community, as required by the VA MISSION Act of 2018.  OCC issued policies to VA facilities to postpone non-urgent appointments and offer alternatives to in-person care, such as telehealth.”

The VA-OIG inspected to see how closely this statement was adhered to during the height of the COVID pandemic.  What surprises no one is how badly the VA managed community care during the pandemic.

Findings:

    • The VA-OIG found that routine community care consults were unscheduled, averaging 42 days, not meeting VHA’s timeliness goal of 30 days.
    • Community care staff faced significant challenges beyond their control that contributed to the scheduling delays, such as the lack of availability of appointments in the community.
    • Some patients were hesitant to schedule appointments during the pandemic, failed to return phone calls, or declined care once it was offered. – While some of this is definitely patient-driven, what is not discussed is the abrupt shift, the lack of trust, and the confusion about the need to pay the community providers, among other things, faced by veterans forced into community care. As a reference point, it has been 24-months, and I am still facing requests to pay several community providers due to the VA not paying the bill due to a technicality.  The VA claims the provider has to “eat the costs,” but I keep getting statements and calls from collection agencies.  Guess the direction of my credit score, the direction of my insurance costs, and how happy I am with community care providers.
    • The VA-OIG found community care providers and staff did not consistently comply with requirements to manage routine consults, and leaders lacked tools to sufficiently monitor program operations that could have identified the problems.
    • Deficiencies emerged in documenting when patients were contacted about scheduling appointments, designating patients eligible for alternative care, and ensuring staff was trained in ways that would address those weaknesses. – Not to mention that pertinent medical records still haven’t been transmitted, received, and alerted the primary care provider. I had gallbladder removal surgery; no records ever made it to the VA.  I have MRIs, CT scans, and ER notes that, even after being hand-delivered, have not been added to my VA electronic health record and presented to the primary care provider to discuss, dating back to 2010.

How’s that community service program working for you?  In any other industry, this performance would represent an abysmal failure; but community care represents a healthy opportunity for improvement at the VA.  The findings listed are a mere drop in the conclusions discussed in the report.  I have a suggestion for the VA, stop overpromising and underdelivering.  How about you under-promise and then over-deliver?

The following VA-OIG inspection report focused on the Veteran Health Administration facility’s adherence to guidelines for medication management, and the following explanation is quoted from the report:

“This report describes medication management findings from healthcare inspections initiated at 36 VHA medical facilities from November 4, 2019, through September 21, 2020.  Each inspection involved interviews with facility leaders and staff and clinical and administrative processes reviews.  The results in this report are a snapshot of VHA performance at the time of the fiscal year 2020 OIG reviews.”

Before we get into the findings, let me elaborate on that statement.  The VA-OIG cherry-picked/hand-selected call it what you will, the facilities to inspect.  No criteria discuss how these facilities were selected.  More, the processes chosen for review were also cherry-picked/hand-selected.  Appearing to represent that, the VA-OIG stacked the deck to obtain success, and the VHA still failed, or rather showed weaknesses.

Generally, the VA-OIG rated the VHA facilities as “compliant.”  But “weaknesses” were identified; read that as the VHA cannot follow established guidelines, protocols, and processes, even though they wrote and established these guidelines and medication protocols.  I call this designed incompetence of a criminal nature, but I am not half as lenient and politically astute as the VA-OIG!

Findings:

    • Aberrant behavior risk assessments
    • Concurrent benzodiazepine therapy
    • Urine drug testing
    • Informed consent
    • Patient follow-up
    • Quality measure oversight.

The following, also from the medication’s adherence inspection, remains significant:

“The OIG examined the following indicators of program
oversight and evaluation:

      • Performance of pain management committee activities
      • Monitoring of quality measures
      • Following the quality improvement process”

For the weaknesses represented in the findings to be prevalent, the “Pain Management Committee activities” represent a general failure of the committee to function!  For quality processes to be a finding, monitoring quality signifies that the bureaucrats are NOT doing the jobs they were hired to perform!  A quality process fails when the humans tasked with oversight refuse to engage, and the VA-OIG findings testify to the truth of humans actively refusing to do their jobs individually and collectively!

Having read and written about the VA-OIG reports for almost ten years, I swear sentences containing the following represent a majority stake in why the VA-OIG cannot be trusted.

“VA-OIG inspections… underscored the value of independent oversight of care received in these settings to help VA make continuous improvements.”

Really?  Are you sure the VA-OIG inspections provide “independent oversight” and spur “continuous improvement” at the inspected VA facilities?  I have significant doubts the inspections do anything more than highlight the problems as the VA-OIG inspectors have no teeth, and lying has zero repercussions for the humans defrauding the taxpayer!  How do I know this; the VA-OIG reports generally go on to make a claim similar to the following:

“The OIG’s findings show that immediate attention is needed in several critical areas….”

Do you, the dear reader, understand better the frustration of veterans and their families?  When the Office of Inspector General (OIG) for the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) covering the National Cemeteries, Veterans Benefits Administration (VBA), and Veterans Health Administration (VHA), can be deluded, distracted, and duped by conniving and conspiring people, what else can the veterans and their families do BUT become frustrated?  This is behavior unacceptable in every industry.  In fact, legislation overseeing non-government healthcare is strict in outlawing the conduct observed in government-provided healthcare, but somehow the VA is exempt.  Yet, the VA continues to make claims such as the following:

“This is how the VA is delivering on its promise to care for the veteran who has borne the battle, his widow, and his children.”

But don’t take my word for it; the VA-OIG conducted several more Comprehensive Healthcare Inspections (CHIPs), resembling cookie-cutter inspections.  Staff training continues to be a major delinquency labeled as “High-Risk.”  Behavior Committee continues to be a central sticking point and inspection problem.  Cleanliness, tagged under “Quality, Safety, and Value,” continues to represent an area for growth and development.  Nurse-to-Nurse communications remain constant as a problem, and electronic medical records are not helping to improve on this problem.  Inter-facility transferring of patients, policy, and documentation also resemble a constant issue.  I feel like I could summarize a CHIPs report with my eyes closed; tell me, when does the “independent oversight” spur “continuous improvement?”

On the topic of “independent oversight” spurring “continuous improvement,” the VA-OIG conducted a VHA inspection of mental health activities for FY 2020.  Declaring:

“This report describes mental health-related findings from healthcare inspections initiated at 36 Veterans Health Administration medical facilities from November 4, 2019, through September 21, 2020, and electronic health record review at five additional facilities.  Each inspection involved interviews with facility leaders and staff and clinical and administrative processes.”

Again, how the facilities were selected and the items reviewed appears to have stacked the deck in the VHA’s favor.  The VHA is still failing, showing weakness while generally being compliant.

Findings:

    • Completion of four follow-up visits within the required time frame
    • Appropriate follow-up of veterans with high-risk patient record flags who do not attend mental health appointments
    • Suicide prevention training
    • Completion of five monthly outreach activities.

Under these four categories, recommendations for improvement included:

    • Registered Nurse Credentialling – Source verification of licenses.
    • Staff training on Suicide Prevention
    • Care Coordination – Especially in transferring the patient, form completion, and evaluating transferred patients
    • Medication list transmission during transfers
    • Staff Training
    • Patient notification
    • Attending the Disruptive Behavior Committee

For anyone else keeping record, most of the list above is a repeat from the last several years the mental health inspection has occurred.  Color me shocked that the VA would still have issues remaining year-over-year, and if you cannot hear the sarcasm in that statement, I have some suggestions for you!

I am thoroughly sick to death of the VA failing in its mission, then bragging they are providing “Excellence in Healthcare.”  If the staff is not trained, they cannot perform their jobs, representing a leadership failure.  This is a truth for all industries, occupations, businesses, organizations, etc.  Nobody is exempt from this statement of fact, yet the VA-OIG keeps on swallowing this excuse year-over-year, and NO PROGRESS is EVER made!

America, are you aware of what the various government agencies are doing with your money, on your time, and with your consent?  If your neighbor took your checkbook and wrote checks you are legally responsible for paying, would you want better services rendered?  Elected officials (yes, I am including those at the city, county, state levels of government), why are you NOT scrutinizing the government more effectively and rigorously?  You, the elected officials, are the neighbor writing checks; why are YOU NOT doing the job we hired you to perform?

Elected officials, did you know that VA is not required to maintain records of returned bills, as a matter of policy, but those returned bills mailed to veterans are causing hardship for veterans.  I cannot recount how many times I have changed my address and my spouse’s address with the VA, on the VA-approved websites, and in-person with VA representatives, and still have had mail not delivered for months due to a wrong address in a legacy system.  Yet, the VA is not policy mandated to check returned mail, track that mail to a veteran, and check the different legacy and non-legacy systems for address veracity.

Elected officials, do you read the VA-OIG reports?  Honest question, as the following is directly from a VA-OIG report.

“[VHA primary care] providers did not consistently

        • Identify a surrogate should the patient lose decision-making capacity
        • Address previous advance directives, state-authorized portable orders, and/or life-sustaining treatment plans
        • Address the patient or surrogate’s understanding of the patient’s condition.”

The VA designed the PACT Team to improve care and deliver on the VA’s mission, yet the primary care provider has the following failures weaknesses showing.  The VA-OIG can do nothing to improve this glaring oversight, but you were elected to force change and spur “continuous improvement” in the executive branch officers and employees.  Well, where are you?  The VA-OIG substantiated that a failure in the PACT team led to a delay in a cancer diagnosis, causing increased pain, problems, and resource loss for a veteran; where are the elected officials, and the media for that matter, in raising a holy rhubarb on the PACT Team failing this veteran?

Elected officials, did you catch that statement in the VA-OIG report on the cancer diagnosis?

“Facility leaders have an unwritten expectation that primary care providers conduct a thorough historical review of the patient’s electronic health record starting with the most recent annual note; however, the OIG found that not all of the patient’s providers conducted historical reviews, but instead focused on current issues and problems identified by the patient.”

Having transferred between PACT teams inside the VHA and state-to-state, I can affirm this is exactly what is transpiring in the PACT team; the second most important player, behind the patient, is the primary care provider.  When the primary care doctor fails in their job, like dominoes falling, the care of the patients rapidly cascades into a dynamic failure of healthcare in a VHA facility.  What are YOU doing to stop this madness and demand accountability?

The electronic health record has a section near the top of the record for “Problem List.”  Guess what; when providers fail to keep this section updated, current, and accurate, the healthcare of the patient borders on malpractice requiring only a slight push to arrive with a dead veteran.  The VA-OIG found providers and nursing staff failures to update the problems list accurately, keep the problems list current, and regularly discuss the problems list with the most critical member of the PACT team, the patient!  Providers failed to comply with sound science, good business practices, and act appropriately for the patient’s health; do you think this might be a slight problem in the PACT team?

I have offered the VA several suggestions for plotting a path forward.  Yet, the VA cannot and will not take advice without stern and reproachful measures taken by Congress.  Elected officials, it is time for you to act and groundswell the changes needed in every government agency, even if it means reducing the size of government!

© Copyright 2022 – M. Dave Salisbury
The author holds no claims for the art used herein, the pictures were obtained in the public domain, and the intellectual property belongs to those who created the images.  Quoted materials remain the property of the original author.

Cost, Value, and Manufacturing

Does anyone else remember when Walmart was first breaking onto the scene as a competitor against K-Mart, they advertised “Proud to sell ‘Made in the USA’” merchandise?  Then shortly, Walmart faced its first scandal, being busted selling cheap junk boasting “Made in China” on the label.  The “pride” was pushed to the side, the “Made in the USA” disappeared, and the price was all Walmart was going to compete on, “Prices are falling.”  K-Mart is gone, Walmart is still selling, “Prices” are still “supposedly” falling, but where is questionable, quality is all but gone, and who has benefited?

I remember when my town got a Payless shoe store.  I plunked my money down for a nice pair of shoes; they lasted less than 30-days of wear; I was told, “You get what you pay for.”  The next pair of shoes I bought at Walmart turns out they were probably made on the same manufacturing line in China.  Payless sold them for $20.00; Walmart sold them for $30.00.  Neither lasted long enough for the new shoe smell to evaporate.  Payless Shoes is gone, Walmart is still here, the quality has not improved, and I am still asking, who has benefitted?

I purchased some tools the other day; I was mystified at the following label on the tag, “Made in the USA, of parts configured mostly in the USA but manufactured in other countries of origin.”  It turns out, if the assembly of parts is done inside the US, a finished product can be labeled as “Made in the USA.”  If some of the sub-assemblies occur outside the USA, the manufacturer might, or might not, be legally responsible to declare such, depending upon the industry, the finished goods, and the lawyers and labor unions involved.

Country of origin labeling is real sketchy, full of hungry lawyers and fascinating self-interest, as well as enough political grandstanding to satisfy forests of trees being slaughtered for centuries to come.  All in the name of, yes, you guessed it, transparency.  I am oversimplifying the problem here to make a point.  Your child’s pencils in school have to declare Made in China due to some lead poisoning issues in the yellow paint, but crayons can hide the country of origin because a lawyer said the transparency issue does not cause harm.  This convoluted logic is rampant throughout the entire mess of country of origin labeling.  Unfortunately, this is but the tip of the iceberg in manufacturing, cost, and value.

By the way, I guarantee, there are hordes of lawyers plotting ways and means of overturning country of origin labeling to hide or overturn legal decisions they find onerous, mainly to further remove any hint that “Made in China” could be traced to problems with poisoning to China.

Taking us to the first point in this article, when did America stop manufacturing?  Why did America stop manufacturing?  Why did stores stop selling American manufactured goods?  In Home Deport today, I made a point of looking for “Made Proudly in the USA” stickers on tools, products, and other items for sale.  There were no official statistics, no actual counts, just browsing shelves, looking for products, and I was not pleased.  Walmart has long been turned into a proud repository for Chinese manufacturing; to see anything other than “Made in China” on their shelves would be a significant accomplishment.

Having ventured into a Hobby Lobby recently, I was again amazed at the incredibly talented people worldwide and wondered again, “When did America stop manufacturing goods?”  Dollar Tree is another place where Made in China flourishes, and one has to wonder, “Why did stores stop selling American manufactured goods?”

Before anyone jumps to the conclusion that I am China-bashing or Big-Box Bashing, please note that I am sick to death of the excuses that “Manufacturing in America is too expensive to be profitable.”  I detest hearing excuses that “Manufacturers cannot find enough unskilled laborers to work the machines, without illegal labor.”  I am through listening to supposed experts declare that “Americans cannot compete with Chinese labor due to American expectations for benefits, job expectations, the cost of safety, etc.”  The other day some ignorant putz declared that the “American worker is just plain lazy compared to workers even in Europe, which is why Americans can never work fast enough to meet production goals.”

Bringing us to the cost and value topics of this article.  Long have cost accountants and operations managers had a professional love/hate relationship.  We love to hate each other for one reason; we do not see eye to eye on basic fundamental reality.  To a cost accountant, everything has a cost, but the difference between cost and value is not found in green money losses alone unless you are a cost accountant.

We have discussed the different types/colors of money previously.  Green money is cold hard cash, and cost accounting is only, ever, concerned with the end of the day totals of cold hard cash!  However, reality always has other types of money involved, relationships that cannot be qualified in monetary means, and humans are more than dollars and cents in a ledger.  Value is always different than cost.

Simple explanation; a hammer costs your great-grandfather $1.00.  With that hammer, your great-grandfather built a home and a cradle.  That cradle rocked your grandfather, father, and you to sleep.  Upon reaching the age of accountability, each, in turn, was taught how to swing a hammer, driving nails, and learning carpentry.  That hammer holds four generations of value, beyond the cost of $1.00.  Green money costs, that hammer has depreciated in value until it is worthless to the company and should be scrapped for a new hammer; but the value of that hammer is not measured in dollars and cents.  Thus the disconnect between operations and cost accounting.

What does all of this have to do with retail establishments, manufacturing in America, and “Made in China?”  What is the value of manufacturing in America; self-sufficiency in the time of trouble, pride of accomplishment, value in production, and upward economic mobility of dreams for employees. Why does America need retail establishments that will sell “Made in America;” to remind Americans who we are, why we are neighbors and provide an outlet for manufacturing in America to compete.

Ask yourself, why did President Bill Clinton pave the way for China to join the World Trade Organization and actively push to move manufacturing to China?  Why did President Richard Nixon push so hard to “Open China?”  What has been the cost, and where is the value in either or both of these decisions?  Sufficient time has passed to evaluate both of these decisions without political rhetoric and bombastic bloviations from either political extreme.  Both presidents possessed more reasons and desires than they admitted while in office for these decisions and actions; the consequences are the focus, and you can judge the consequences yourself.

Consider cost versus value, consider the toll on hometowns across America where factories lay idle, homes lay vacant, streets lay silent, and poverty is so thick generations of destitution have lived and died in its shadow.  Consider how some towns have tried to restructure themselves and succeeded, others have failed, some shipped their children to schools far away, others have turned their towns into “sleeper communities” for cities 2-6 hours away.  You decide!  Think!  Investigate!  Talk to people laid off by unions and forgotten.  Then remember when politicians discuss taxes, labor union special interest projects, and social spending.  Remember the next time you, a citizen with a brain, are reduced to “Human Infrastructure.”

© Copyright 2021 – M. Dave Salisbury
The author holds no claims for the art used herein, the pictures were obtained in the public domain, and the intellectual property belongs to those who created the images.  Quoted materials remain the property of the original author.

Dollars and Sense – Inflationary Spending and Fiscal Insanity

Bobblehead DollThese articles have discussed money, monetary policy, fiscal sanity, and government spending several times this year.  Some have called me alarmist for raising fiscal sanity during a “Global Health Crisis.”  While COVID-19 (Sars-COV-2) is undoubtedly a viral disease with a 98%+ survival rate, I cannot in good conscience call this a “Global Health Crisis.”  The pandemic declaration was a political move, the mask mandating, business closures, and every other hysterical move have been carefully formulated to present a problem where none exists.  Has Sars-COV-2 mutated; absolutely, but the emotional hysteria has mutated far faster.

Dollars and SenseApathy

When you pass paper to a store clerk, are you spending money; no, you are spending confidence.  Your confidence in the dollar’s strength, as represented by a check, cash, money order, credit card, etc., is what is being spent.  Why was the Great Depression so lasting and detrimental; a lack of confidence in the US Dollar.  People who saved their money formed sane fiscal policies personally and acted logically lost their confidence in the US Dollar, and the dollar went into a great depression.

Since President Clinton, the US Government has been on a drunken spending spree and does not appear to be stopping unless the citizens demand they cease and desist!  What does this mean for you and me; everything costs more for two reasons inflation and interest.  When the government prints money, too much money increases prices, and too few goods chase too much money, resulting in people suffering.  When the government borrows money, the interest must be serviced; the interest will increase prices and usually absorb some of the extra capital on the market to bring down inflation.Lemmings 2

Except, Quantitative Easing (QE) is hindering the absorption of money on the market.  Hence America is witnessing something truly remarkable for the first time in financial history, the debt (principal), the interest, and the extra capital, all of these storms are combining into a major conflagration economically speaking.  Usually, at this point, a country begins to look for a place to go to war, which explains China and its expansionist policies in Southeast Asia and the Pacific Ocean.  Too much debt, too much interest, a military needing worked, and assets need to be stolen from other countries.  Typical historical thinking, war truly is grand larceny on a massive scale!

Where are America and China headed; let’s ask Czarist Russia, USSR, Nazi Germany, East Germany, China, North Korea, Italy, Venezuela, Greece, France, and who knows how many other economically unstable countries historically and presently.  Going to war will not solve this economic crisis, though some may try that solution.  The only solution worth advancing at this critical juncture economically is reducing the size of government, placing a firm halt on all government spending, and refusing the politicians to get into debt for at least two decades!  Yes, this means changing Social Security, Welfare, Medicaid and Medicare, and every other government benefit program to fit a reduced budget and smaller government model.  Failure to tighten belts for the next two decades will bankrupt America, and most of the world, making the Great Depression look like a summer picnic.Lemmings 4

Gold and Oil, real estate, Gross Domestic Products (the goods manufactured in America for sale), trade, all of these wealth tools and more cannot support the debt incurred, the money printed, nor the size of the government from the city and county to the White House.  As this trend continues, Wall Street will continue to be tumultuous, at best, and the confidence in the US Dollar will continue to slide.  But, as the dollar slides, which global currency will begin to take up the slack?

The Euro has discredited itself and is not worth the paper it is printed on.  China thinks they will step into the void and take up the slack with the Yuan, except their financial situation is almost as bad as Venezuela’s and Cuba’s, but their size and government type keep this hidden from the public.  Even though the Yuan is in junk status, the Communist government hides these facts; the truth is leaking out in higher trade tariffs and other global trade and finance costs.  Russia’s economic situation still has not stabilized with the fall of the USSR and will probably need another two to three decades until it can compete on the global economy again.Gravy Train 2

I heard a postulation that the Arabian Oil Rich nations of the Middle East would produce an OPEC-backed currency if the US Dollar fails.  I highly doubt this as a solution, but the potential is there.  Another person claimed the lack of confidence in the US Dollar would lead to the World Bank/International Monetary Fund (IMF) issuing currency for the world; boy, would that be a significant problem!  Yet, the American Dollar is being purposefully destroyed by the current crop of politicians, and nobody is standing up and declaring ENOUGH!

Inflation

The US Government, and many others globally, have increased their drunken spending since Jan/Feb 2020 to incredibly extensive levels and used a “Global Health Crisis” as the excuse.  Except when Ebola was sweeping the world, we did not have this level of insane spending and government intrusion.  Ebola is far deadlier, easier to spread, and yet the Ebola disaster is barely remembered.  Bird Flu, Swine Flu, SARS, MERS, all these viruses have had their time in the media hysterical spotlight, every single one of them is deadlier than Sars-COV-2, easier to spread, and they were never a cause for a global pandemic.Gravy Train

Inflation is caused by poor economic policy, where the government grants itself the ability to print money.  Inflation is not just money and monetary policy; inflation is also confidence, faith, and trust.  Inflation is how the government acts, thinks, and behaves.  Inflation is as real as COVID-19 and just as deadly as Ebola while being more problematic for everyone.  From Dec 2020 to the end of July 2021, inflation has increased the price of goods and services by 3.8%, seasonally adjusted, or 5.4% non-seasonally adjusted, which means that prices go up as a seasonal adjustment in the summer.

Fiscal Insanity

Consider with me an analogy; you live in a community of houses and pay a Homeowners Association (HOA) Fee.  Your neighbor has decided they can write checks on your checking account, and the HOA has granted them legal protection to write checks on your bank accounts.  Because your neighbor has legal protection, you sell off assets to provide the funds for your neighbor.  You sell to other neighbors letters of credit that you promise to pay interest on, provided your other neighbors hold those letters of credit for specific amounts of time.  Except, your neighbors stop buying those letters of credit over time because they do not like how your neighbor keeps writing checks and spending your money.  How do you keep this house of cards from blowing over and losing everything?

Tax BurdenAmerica is in this position right now!  Trend lines show a steady downward trend in the value of the US Dollar.  Inflation will keep increasing prices as too much money is chasing too few products on the market.  Debt needs to be serviced and interest paid.  But, when the interest payment is the only thing being paid, and the principal will also need to be serviced, where and how does the principal get serviced when the interest is absorbing all the monthly payments?  Simple economics, money once created and put into the money market, cannot just be absorbed or disappeared.  Just like food doesn’t disappear once consumed, the offal must come out and be handled responsibly.  Well, the dollar is in an offal position and needs responsibly handled!

© 2021 M. Dave Salisbury
All Rights Reserved
The images used herein were obtained in the public domain; this author holds no copyright to the images displayed.

Buzzwords and Canned Phrases – More Tyranny From Plastic Language

Stretched WordsPlasticized words make the most trouble.  Unfortunately, public education in America does not appear to care; public educators are some of the worst abusers of words, disconnecting words from meanings to achieve an agenda, which is practicing mental terrorism.  Poerksen (1995) discusses this phenomenon in some detail, and the need to be more cognizant of the problem is a small part of the solution. For example, Poerksen (1995) brings up the term ‘strategy’; the context might not be clear. Without specifying the intention and meaning, the audience becomes lost quickly but lost with confidence and lost doing what they understand.

Hitler’s Germany was famous for plasticizing words to make socially unacceptable actions acceptable with no negative consequences. For example, consider how cattle cars were used in the transportation of Jewish Citizens and other humans deemed useless, by plasticizing the term “cattle,” the Jews could be eliminated, society could believe what they were doing as acceptable, and the political agenda of Hitler was pushed forward, because a human of different religion, handicap, and so forth has been dehumanized to the level of cattle.Non Sequitur - Plasticity of Language

Poerksen (1995) is correct in labeling those who intentionally destroy language through plastic words as tyrants and tyrannical actions.  Mao was an excellent speaker, but his deceiving methods included making words plastic to cover abuses of people, destruction of lives, and to help his followers feel good about what they were doing. Likewise, ex-President Obama used a TelePrompTer because extemporaneous speaking is not his forte and because of the plastic words which were bent, twisted, and molded to deceive.  We all remember the promises of Ex-President Obama where ObamaCare is concerned.  However, what is fading from the collective public memory are the plastic expressions lauded upon Bergdahl to justify nefarious actions.  Bergdahl is a tiny example of how Ex-President Obama manipulated language to hide, obfuscate, denigrate, and deride the American People.

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI)3-direectional-balance

If you are going to work in a department with such an auspicious title as “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Department (DEI), one might imagine that you have a clear and present understanding of the power of words. But, apparently, those working in DEI either have an agenda and desire to be tyrants or are uneducated in the power and ability of words.  Draw your own conclusion, but I present in totem an email received earlier this week while I was out of the office.

12 Things You Should Never Say… And What To Say Instead

It’s easy to say the wrong thing when you’re under stress or a problem arises. Take a pause to reframe your response:

        1. That’s not my problem. ‘I recommend you speak to_____’
        2. But we’ve always done it that way. ‘That’s a different approach, can you tell me why it’s better?’
        3. There’s nothing I can do. ‘I’m a bit stuck, can you help me find other options?’
        4. This will only take a minute. ‘Let me get back to you on a timeframe.’
        5. That makes no sense. ‘I’m not sure about that one – can you give me some more details on your thinking behind it?’
        6. You’re wrong. ‘I disagree and here’s why ______ what do you think?’
        7. I’m sorry, but…. ‘I’m sorry about that… next time I will _____’
        8. I just assumed that. ‘Could you clarify what your expectations are for me?’
        9. I did my best. ‘What could I do better next time?’.
        10. You should have... ‘It didn’t’ work – here’s what I recommend next time…’
        11. I may be wrong, but... ‘Here’s an idea…’
        12. I haven’t had time. ‘I will be able to get this done by…’

And if you have said something you regret, here are three steps to quickly recover:

        1. Apologize. Be sincere for any upset or confusion you might have caused
        2. State what you didn’t mean. Admit your error, explain what you did not intend to do or say.
        3. Say what you actually meant. Explain what you really intended to say or do.

Please note, no grammar changes were made in copying and pasting this email; I changed the format to emulate the original. So now, let us carefully examine, without judging the grammar, the canned phrasing presented here along three lines: applicability, usefulness, and value.

ApplicabilityDetective 3

When discussing applicability, we are looking for situations where the canned phrasing offered is better than being natural, admitting error honestly, and moving forward from the current position in a constructive manner.  I fully appreciate that the 12 bolded phrases might not be the best way to state something.  However, the lack of applicability for the canned replacement phrases does not improve the situation.  Imagine a situation where the offered canned phrase would work, and I will show you a real-life scenario where it was tried and failed miserably.

Drawing upon more than 20 years of experience in and around call centers as a subject matter expert, as a customer relations expert, and published author, I can certify that canned phrases do not improve situations, nor can they cover mistakes.  Canned phrases stick out like a red dot on a white cloth!  The customer can hear the canned phrases, and the canned phrases will result in negative consequences!  Hence, this information from DEI fails the smell test before ever launching as a potential solution.

UsefulnessLook

When discussing the usefulness of a tool, the first aspect to always note is that any tool should feel comfortable, almost as if it was an extension of yourself.  Tools are intention incarnate; we select tools to perform tasks we cannot perform without the tool.  For example, hammering nails into house framing requires a hammer.   Not just any hammer, but a framing hammer, specifically designed for the job, framing, and because all framing hammers are not manufactured equally, should feel like an extension of your arm and hand.  The same is true for words; words are tools employed to communicate and should feel like an extension of yourself, be personal, and be helpful for the intent of delivering a message.

Again, we find the DEI email and canned phrases not passing the smell test.  Take any single item in the list above and try to use the exact phrase in a sentence with a friend or co-worker, and you will find yourself struggling to personalize that phrase.  Worse, saying it aloud makes you struggle with the offered grammar. So again, try personalizing that phrase; can you find any variation that feels natural to your method of speaking?  If so, you have used the offered phrase, but does it add or detract to the conversation when applying that phrase?  Herein lay the problem, some of the proposed phrases might work with individual variation but still cannot be used for a positive result.

ValueAndragogy - The Puzzle

Value is the sum of the application and usefulness of a tool to create opportunities to advance the situation to a solution positively.  More to the point, the value remains in the hands of the tool user, not the suggester of canned phrases. Thus, the tool’s value is not found in what has been created but in the usefulness and application to the tool’s user.

For example, while working in a call center, the agents were instructed to fit as many “keywords” into a conversation as possible.  The Quality Assurance Department (QA) was counting how often these keywords were used, so the pressure to perform was on the agent.  QA found that the offered words were often used in a single sentence to begin or end the call, and more often than not, when used during a call, led to call escalation.  Hence, the value of the terms was lost on the customer and worsened customer relationships.  Instead of releasing the agent from using keywords, the business managers doubled down.  The management team had no clue about the usefulness of the words as tools for communication and disregarded the need for tool personalization.  When negative results occurred, they compounded their error.  10-years after this disastrous decision, the agents are still forced to use tools that do not fit, the customers have continued to leave in droves, and the management team still struggles to understand why.

Knowledge Check!Application, usefulness, and value are how you measure tools, any tool.  From a tape measure to a hammer, from a computer to computer software, from words to headsets, the tools must meet these three criteria. Unfortunately, buzzwords and canned phrases do nothing to build value, enhance enthusiasm, or build cohesion into an impetus to motivate.  Often, buzzwords and canned phrases do the exact opposite, and failing to understand applicability, usefulness, and value is the problem of those insisting upon terminology, not the audience.  It cannot be stressed enough, plastic words lead to mental terrorism, and terrorism always leads to tyranny!

Reference

Poerksen, U. (1995). Plastic words: The tyranny of modular language (J. Mason, & D. Cayley, Trans.). University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State University Press.

 © 2021 M. Dave Salisbury
All Rights Reserved
The images used herein were obtained in the public domain; this author holds no copyright to the images displayed.

NO MORE BS: Hope, Faith, Confidence, and Your Money

Life ValuedImagine you are going about your daily duties and visit the grocery store.  Where for a specific amount of confidence and hope, you complete an exchange for a product groceries.  Another trip sees you investing hope and faith in retirement using confidence to help protect against the vagaries of the future.  April 15th is fast approaching, where confidence in the government is measured through tax revenue, and government officials then spend your confidence on various projects where you hope the investment will be rewarded by improved roads, better economic conditions, and safety inside defensible and sovereign boundaries.

What is Hope?

Hope, according to Webster, is a feeling of trust, as an extension of an expectation, and desire, that something will occur.  For example, I hope for my diet to work, as I desire to lose weight, an expectation that exercise will aid in losing weight, and trust that my weight will reduce over time.  Does this make sense?

Wasting TimeI ask, because too often, when hope is mentioned, people immediately tie religious expectations and connotations to the word, then plasticize hope into being something it is not.  Hope is not an end goal but the journey to an expectation born of desire and bounded by trust in a system that supports a person’s hope.

What is Faith?

As detailed by Webster, Faith is both an expression of religion’s doctrines and complete trust or an expression of confidence.  Faith is the launch process of hope.  Going back to my desire and expectation to lose weight, I have trust that the doctor was correct in ordering me to lose weight.  Hence, my conviction in the doctor’s words is an expression of faith, and my action is putting faith and hope to work actually to lose weight.

Never Give Up!Complete trust is observable all around us daily, from inserting the key into the car ignition to start a car to the hours spent working where we trade our time (a precious resource) for a tangible item (paycheck) and in so many other ways and means.  Consider grocery shopping; we make selections using our best judgment, with complete trust that the products purchased will not make us sick from food-borne illness or the ignorant or malicious actions of other people.  Why does spitting in a police officer’s cup of coffee make us mad; because it breaks that complete trust that the same will not happen to us.

What is Confidence?

Detective 4Confidence is a unique term, and Webster spends an inordinate amount of time trying to capture the power of, and reality is confidence.  Confidence is “a feeling of self-assurance arising from one’s appreciation of one’s own abilities or qualities; firm trust, a specific feeling  regarding the truth of something, a feeling or belief upon the reliance of someone or something.”  The key to confidence is your own self-assurance.  For example, you are assured through past transactions that your employer is not kiting paychecks.  Your confidence in receiving a salary drives you to be motivated and return to work each day.  When that trust is broken, you will leave and find new employment.  Hence, people do not work for companies, but for managers and leaders, they like.

Confidence is a reality when many people all have trust in the same thing, which creates societies, social standards, and governments.  Confidence in the government is expressed using the government’s monetary system to trade for products and services you would not have if you had less confidence in the government system.  Firm trust in the “value of the US Dollar (insert your own currency here)” leads to gains and losses in economic values.  Consider the events of the Christmas Holiday, which is fast approaching.  The individual expresses confidence, faith, and hope in holiday shopping.  The government uses the data of the volume of trades of confidence as a measuring stick in how well they are doing in government to improve a person’s return on investment.  Shopkeepers, stores, and others selling products and services represent a two-way street of faith, hope, and confidence as they trade with customers and with other suppliers, government, and stakeholders in conducting business.

ResilienceConfidence is never an unconscious decision!  One cannot have firm trust, faith, or hope, in something without being consciously aware and possessing experience and knowledge in that someone or something.  Hence, confidence is the conscious use of trust as a destination in the journey of hope, launched by faith.

What is spent when money exchanges hands?

Confidence, faith, and hope.  But, you claim, “That was my money.”  Really, what value does your money have?  The answer is nothing!  If I give you a piece of cloth/paper stamped with a 20 symbol on it, you interpret this as a $20 bill, having the value of 20 dollars, pounds, euros, etc.  That which we call money is nothing but faith, hope, and confidence in a governing system where products and services are exchanged for time and faith and hope through our individual confidence in the government.  But the reality is that the piece of paper/cloth is nothing, has no value, and can do nothing without the express faith, hope, and confidence of the one trading services or products for that value statement.

Dane-GeldBy removing the Gold Standard from money, we stopped trading in a fungible and tactile substance (Gold, Silver, Grain, Salt, Animal Hides, etc.).  We began trading in a measured system of confidence as provided by the government.  Your “money” is nothing but your faith and trust in the government sponsoring your system of confidence be that confidence called a US Dollar, a Rial, a Pound Sterling, a Euro, etc., you deal in nothing but confidence.  Raw products with tradable value, grain, precious metals, oil, etc., are all injected into the monetary system through investment and speculation markets, not the individual farmer, rancher, miner, etc.  Who receive their wages not through trading their products but by trading their efforts and time with their confidence in an employer-supported by a functioning government system.

Your Money!

I love this phrase!  Rather, I like asking the question, “What does ‘Your Money’ mean to you personally?”  The answers never cease to amaze and horrify me.  I asked a 20-something this question and was told it was what they spent on college.  So, I wondered does your education and academic success provide the value of the investment of money?  To which, the 20-something had no coherent answer.  Let me be clear, the value of an academic gamble is not found in the money made with an employer but in the power of changing how you think and approach the world. Educational costs have far exceeded the value of the academic experience.  The connection between the value and cost of education is warped and twisted, and the only people winning are governments, unions, and the controllers of educational experiences.

Detective 4If I hold a piece of paper/cloth with 100 stamped upon it, I could claim I have money.  Except, I do not have money; I have a bit of cloth/paper with ink declaring that piece of cloth/paper had value, but only if I trust that government.  Consider the trouble Venezuela is currently in, the thin ice of economic problems Mexico, Greece, France, and so many other countries exist presently.  The confidence in those government systems is shaken.  The value of that currency is weak compared to other currencies.  If a blacksmith in Ohio produces a sword, and similarly skilled blacksmiths create the same sword in Saudi Arabia, China, Vietnam, Peru, and Cuba, why does the value of that sword change?  Are the sweat and efforts of the blacksmiths different; no!  Does the value of experience change; no!  Did the cost of gaining that knowledge, experience, and talent change; no!  Is the steel cost to mine different; only because the governments’ currencies are different.  Does the value of the sword adequately represent the value of the currency exchanged; more than likely, No!

What is “Your Money?”  For when we lose confidence in the government, the value of the currency slips, which leads to expressions of fear, a lack of faith, and a refusal of the citizens to hope and trust.  Recently, I had a statement arrive declaring I had XX thousand dollars in a retirement account.  Is the value of those funds found in the report received; no!  The value of those “retirement funds” is located in the government system’s future, invested with faith, on a journey of hope to the time that I can remove those funds without being taxed to death.  If the value of the dollar goes down, those retirement funds are useless.  If the dollar’s value goes up, more faith, hope, and confidence are being invested in the government operations over time.

LinkedIn ImageA “Liberty FIRST Culture” understands their money relationships to government, is engaged in preventing government abuse as that leads to lower values of currency, and the lower the value of a currency, the more expensive products and services become.  Kate, the blacksmith from the (2001) movie “Knight’s Tale,” is absolutely correct, “Each drop of sweat has a price!”  But the price of that sweat is not always competitive with the currency used to remunerate that effort, all because of hope, faith, and confidence in the government managing the currency.  Think about that the next time you are asked to vote!

© 2021 M. Dave Salisbury
All Rights Reserved
The images used herein were obtained in the public domain; this author holds no copyright to the images displayed.