Category Archives: Politics
We Lose Money on Every Car We Sell But Make It Up In Volume or The Accountant Ascendant
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 30th April 2009I was flabbergasted when I reread the following piece originally published in 1997. It outlines our current economic plan. I had no idea that our future president read Lubbock Magazine 12 years ago. But don’t impute any bitterness to my remarks. I’m perfectly willing to let him take all the credit for the plan I…
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Why Politicians Lie
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 7th April 2009Human nature being what it is, all men prefer a false promise to a flat refusal. At the worst the man to whom you have lied may be angry. That risk, if you make a promise, is uncertain and delayed, and it affects only a few. But if you refuse [to promise aid or a…
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Off With Their Thumbs
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 31st March 2009I propose that the top 2% of earners in the US have their left thumbs amputated under the direction of the Department of Health and Human Services. Of course, this would be done under the proper medical supervision and with all necessary anesthesia and post-operative analgesia. We are a humane country. Left handers would have…
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Adam Smith and the Current Economic Crisis
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 30th March 2009The following two quotations from Smith’s Wealth of Nations (1776) speak to our current economic malaise with magisterial prescience. They could be summarized as (1) nobody hates capitalism more than capitalists and (2) think carefully before you make a law to benefit a private enterprise. Asking the legislature to think under any condition is probably…
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Everybody Dies
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 5th March 2009The current economic crisis has elicited numerous responses declaring that we’ve been through worse and that we’ll get through this. Warren Buffet’s version of this combined caution and succor is this: Amid this bad news, however, never forget that our country has faced far worse travails in the past. In the 20th Century alone, we…
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The Insurance-Hospital-Pharmaceutical Complex
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 13th May 2008The naiveté of the press when it covers medicine is wondrous. There isn’t any cockamamie nonsense they won’t swallow whole. Katherine Q Seelye has a piece in the New York Times that is about politics. I don’t know much about politics so I can’t comment on most of it. But in discussing the positions of…
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Medicine Undefined
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 20th March 2008The purpose of medicine is twofold. First to prolong life, ie to prevent premature death from disease. The second is to relieve pain and suffering from disease. To many medical “experts” it also appears to include the alleviation of just about anything that can cause distress of any sort. War, murder, crime, and poverty are…
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Physicians and Execution
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 20th January 2008The New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) has an editorial with the above title. It takes the position that physicians should not participate in executions. This is hardly a surprising view; one which, I suspect, would be that of virtually all doctors in the US. It certainly is mine. So why write a piece in…
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The American College of Physicians and Health Care
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 7th January 2008The ACP just released a position paper on health care access. It’s a comprehensive analysis of our system compared to those of other developed countries. It’s a fair and sober as long as you start from the view that what’s needed in the US is a single payer system. It says it wants to learn…
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Alice Coote’s Brain
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 6th January 2008The aptly named Alice Coote, Hansel in the Met’s current production of Hansel and Gretel, was guest quiz master on yesterday’s Opera Quiz. She felt compelled to answer a question she had put to the other participants, namely what current topic would make a good opera. Her answer to her own question was a silly…
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