"Sugar Free" / "Sugar, Free"

I just submitted the following funny true story to Reader's Digest:

When I came to the United States in the 80's as a refugee from a war-torn country, I craved sweet things and did not have a lot of money. One day in the school's cafeteria, I noticed a small placard in front of cupcakes with these two magic words: "sugar" and "free". I grabbed a couple. The cashier charged me for both.

America Did Not Lose Vietnam. Vietnamese Did.

Regarding "America Lost Vietnam but Saved Southeast Asia" (by William Lloyd Stearman, WSJ Opinions, 1/28/2019), America did not lose Vietnam. The Vietnamese lost Vietnam. In 1975, with the fall of Saigon, the South Vietnamese lost South Vietnam. There was no more fighting American soldiers there for America to lose Vietnam. I am now a Vietnamese American; back then, as a South Vietnamese teenager, I had a good middle class life, was French educated, did not contribute much to the war effort, could not get out in 1975, learned what real communism really meant for four years, finally escaped in 1979 as one of the million of boat people who risked life for freedom. Over the years, I have been pondering about the "loss of Vietnam".
Winning or losing a war means that you have achieved your objective or not. The American objective in the Vietnam War was the containment of communism in Southeast Asia (the Domino Theory). Americans started to achieve that objective in 1972 with Nixon going to China. If Nixon could toast mao-tai with Mao Zedong, then communism was not so bad, in the sense that it was bad for the people living under the communist yoke, but not so bad that Americans could not make deals with those commies. By the early seventies, the domino countries of Southeast Asia such as Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, had mostly overcome communist insurgencies and could stand by their own. With that, America had achieved its strategic objective. America has won the Southeast Asia Domino Theory war. With China in the North acceptable, and ASEAN countries in the South strong enough, South Vietnam which was intended as the anti-communist buffer, lost its strategic tent pole role. What was left for Americans was to go home in muted victory, first with the withdrawal of troops via the Vietnamization effort, then the returning of POWs via the 1973 Paris Peace Agreement.
Between 1973 and 1975, the Vietnam War was truly Vietnamese, with North and South Vietnamese happily killing each other. The war material may be Soviet, Chinese or American, but the spilled blood was pure Vietnamese. The war for the South Vietnamese was now an existential war. But we, as South Vietnamese, did not know about it. We kept thinking this was still the Domino Theory war with the full support of Americans, not realizing that Americans had already won that war, inconspicuously and in full view. "Americans never abandon us" was the mantra in South Vietnam at that time.
I remembered living through the years of 1973 and 1974. The Second Arab Embargo hit South Vietnam hard. The pay of South Vietnamese ARVN soldiers could not keep up with the inflation; morale plummeted. Graft and corruption, which was endemic, now became epidemic in the army brass and all levels of government. As for the populace, the poor tried to survive, the rich tried to get richer, and the middle class tried to do both. Everybody tried to do something for himself, much less for the country. As for the nation of South Vietnam, we all waited for North Vietnam to attack, then resist a little bit and looked for Americans to come to the rescue. We heard that B52s were still at Guam and the Seventh Fleet was still somewhere in the South China Sea (which we called the East Sea).
December 13, 1974, the North Vietnamese attacked. The ARVN debacle was swift. Four months later, April 30, 1975, Saigon fell. People said that the ARVN did not stand and fight. ARVN soldiers were like any soldiers. They would stand and fight if convinced of the reason to do so, and led by leaders who believed in that reason. And that reason was the existence of South Vietnam. The crème of South Vietnam did not think that way. The elite and the rich who did well during the war, fled. Many top commanders who perfected the art of personal graft instead of war, ran. Why would the poor and poorly led ARVN soldiers stand and fight? But stand and fight, they did, just not enough of them to staunch North Vietnam's Spring Offensive. So it was us, the South Vietnamese -- for both who fought or those who skipped the fight, that lost South Vietnam. Saying it differently, like "America lost Vietnam", was a dishonor and insult to millions of ARVN soldiers who answered their duties for twenty long years, especially to over a quarter of million of them who paid the ultimate sacrifice.
Now it is the turn for the victorious North Vietnamese to lose Vietnam. Between 1975 and 1986, while the world moved forward, Vietnam moved backwards with its Marxist command economy. In 1975, South Vietnam got its military debacle; in 1986 the Communist Party of Vietnam got its economic debacle. Since the 1986 Doi Moi and subsequent market oriented reforms, Vietnam is doing economically much better, at times dramatically so. Ironically, this economy looks a lot like the pre-1975 South Vietnam economy - crony capitalism mixed with state capitalism, but now hiding under the socialist banner. Until responsible capitalism and representative democracy are prevalent in Vietnam, the full potential of Vietnam and its laborious and yearning population cannot be achieved.
How about America? After winning the communism containment Domino Theory war in 1973, America has been invited back by the Southeast Asia countries, including Vietnam, to contain another -ism from China. To be clear, the containment is not about to contain China, which deserves to become a super power on its own right, but about the policy of neo-feudalism espoused by the current Chinese leadership.
Godspeed for America and Vietnam.

Doodles :: Designated Firearm Carrier :: REFERENCES

1. Steve Chapman. False Answers on Mass Shootings. TownHall.com. Dec 06, 2015. (Accessed 2015-12-06).
2. Reena Flores, Kylie Atwood. Trump: San Bernardino victims "could've protected themselves if they had guns". CBS News. Dec 05, 2015. (Accessed 2015-12-06).
3. Jeremy Gerard. N.Y. Times Page 1 Editorial Caps Media Outrage Over San Bernardino Mass Murders. Deadline.com. Dec 05, 2015. (Accessed 2015-12-06).
4. Ammunition Regulation Policy Summary. Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence. (Accessed 2015-12-06). (Accessed 2015-12-06).
5. 49 U.S. Code § 44921 - Federal flight deck officer program. Cornell University Law School. (Accessed 2015-12-06).
6. Federal Flight Deck Officer. Wikipedia. (Accessed 2015-12-06).
7. Philip Bump. No, Really, Regulate the Bullets. The Atlantic. Dec 16, 2012. (Accessed 2015-12-06).

ODE TO LIFE - An Incentive For Organ Donation using ObamaCare

Start > SUMMARY
I am doodling a program that can increase organ donation via ObamaCare.

Funeral homes automatically deduct $1000 off the funeral expense of any person that carries an organ donation card. The funeral homes get reimbursed from the government. To fund this reimbursement, any person that needs an organ transplant pays $10,000 to be included in the waiting list. This inclusion fee is a medical expense and is covered by insurance. Under the Affordable Care Act (aka ObamaCare), everybody should have insurance. The healthcare insurance companies include the cost of the inclusion fee into the premium of all of their members (with a caveat below). With the cost such spread, the premium increment should be small. Low-income persons have their health insurance covered by Medicaid. To fund this Medicaid expansion, the government can raise the tax on funeral and other healthcare services, so that the program does not add to the budget deficit.

Individuals that donate an organ (such as bone marrow or kidney) do not pay the $10,000 inclusion fee if they later need an organ transplant. Living organ donations are still altruistic; however there is a small benefit for living organ donors: their healthcare premium can be smaller. Either by law or industry norm, healthcare insurance companies remove the inclusion fee increment from the healthcare premium of living donors.

I call this program Organ Donation Enrollment To Lessen Imminent Funeral Expense, or ODE TO LIFE.

Petition to the White House - "Conduct A Robust Peacemaking Strategy in Syria"

We believe the best outcome in Syria is a peace through a political settlement between the warring parties. To force such settlement, we petition that the U.S. government conduct a Robust Peacemaking Strategy using its military and political resources.

The Robust Peacemaking Strategy is based on the following points:

1.  The warring parties will not settle if they still think they can win on the battlefields.
2.  Nor will they settle if they fear of losing a civil war that veers towards sectarianism.
3.  The current territory under control by the government forces, the moderate rebel forces, and the Islamist groups more or less represents stalemate.
4. The "Peacemaking" part of the Strategy dictates that this stalemate be maintained. Without hope of winning nor fear of losing, the parties will cease to see war as the solution. When war becomes pointless, what is left is a political settlement.
5. The "Robust" part of the Strategy is to use the U.S. military might and political resources to enforce  the stalemate in the battlefields and give Peacemaking the opportunity to be realized

To enforce stalemate, we recommend:

1. The U.S. shall use its military and political resources to level out any advantage one warring group has over the other
2.  For the government forces, one of its advantages is the air force. The U.S. shall implement a you-use-it-you-lose-it no-fly policy. The government force is allowed to keep its air force but not to use it. Upon detection of a Syrian air attack, the U.S. will destroy the related Syrian air force infrastructure.
3.  For the moderate rebel forces, the U.S. shall send unlimited small arms for the fighters, and limited anti-tank weaponry to counter the government forces' advantage in armor.
4.  The U.S. shall actively monitor the battlefields using its satellites and drone resources. The U.S. shall make clear to all warring parties about the consequence of shooting at its drones: the U.S will destroy the shooting party's anti-aircraft and heavy weaponry. 
5.  The U.S. shall display the satellite/drone monitoring and subsequent analysis information on the Internet, as close in real time as possible. If the attacker knows that its enemy may know its plan, it will think twice about attacking. This transparency will not prevent small-scale skirmishes, but can deter any large-scale attack that can destabilize the stalemate.
6.  The U.S. shall implement Internet over the battlefields, and allows all warring parties to access the above information.
7.  The U.S. shall send chemical-detection monitoring devices to the battlefields. These devices can report back their findings using the battlefield Internet above. The moderate rebel forces are required to set up these devices as part of their arm shipment.
8.  Any party that uses chemical weapons shall have its artillery and other chemical-weapon-delivery resources targeted by the U.S. military.
9.  The U.S. shall use covert actions to limit the Islamist groups. It should be conceivable to have the government forces and the moderate rebel forces in a covert coalition against the Islamist groups, through U.S. facilitation.
10.  The U.S. shall work with the Arabic states and the European Union to maintain the moderate rebel forces so that they can neither win nor lose.
11.  The U.S. shall work with Russia to maintain the government forces, so that they can neither win nor lose.
12.  The U.S. shall approach Iran and Hezbollah to offer the Islamist groups a say in the eventual power-sharing government.

In conclusion, we believe that the Syrian conflict should not be resolved with a winner and other losers, since such resolution is unpredictable and can be detrimental to the U.S. interests; that the resolution of the conflict should come from a political settlement between the warring parties; that to force such settlement, there must be a stalemate in the battlefields; that only the U.S. can lead a world-wide coalition to enforce such a stalemate; that to lead such coalition, the Obama administration has to drop its "leading from behind" policy and conduct the Robust Peacemaking Strategy using all the military might and political influence of the sole world power.

Morphism Way, A Philosophy For A Complicated World

We, as humans, tend to make life complicated as we try to make things simple. We have either black or white, good or evil, rich or poor, straight or gay, pro choice or pro life, pro gun or anti gun, territory owned by this country or that country. Such clear-cut demarcation makes things look simple to understand, but complicates when we try to get a consensual resolution. There is a cliff that separates the two extremes, a chasm that is hard to cross. 

 Let's now replace the sudden demarcation by a gradual change where one extreme morphs into the other extreme. Between black and white, there is a multitude of shades of grey. The recognition of gradualism is the first tenet of the Morphism Way.

 The second tenet of the Morphism Way is the acceptance of a point in that gradual morphing process as the basis for conflict resolution. Instead of forcing either black or white, we will pick a shade of grey that all the parties can accept to live with.

The Conservative Consumption Economy

The Conservative Consumption economy gives the consumers the financial means to consume so that the producers feel confident to produce. There are two principles under this economic model. The first one is the emphasis of consumption over production. The second one is the source of the money that allows consumption to happen.

Current major economic models have a bias on production. This is the "Field of Dreams" of economics - if you produce, people will buy it. This may be correct for the longest time when human and physical resources are scarce, but not any more. Nowadays the increase in productivity, the discovery of ever new resources and the ability to offshore makes production an easier task. Not only we can produce a lot, but  used-to-be-third-world countries like China, can also produce a lot. The problem ceases to be the production side. The problem now is to find enough consumers to consume all that production. When we cannot find these consumers, producers are wary to produce. They sit on their money instead of investing. They do not hire workers, or worst, lay them off. This makes consumers leery to spend -- and the vicious cycle reinforces itself. Now if we can find enough consumers, the cycle reverses and becomes virtuous. When more people buy, producers invest and hire to produce more. The emphasis on consumption to drive the economy is the first principle of the Conservative Consumption economic model.

In order to consumer, consumers must have the money. There are only two ways for a typical consumer to get money --- they earn it or they borrow it. (Let's not count inheritance, gambling gains, stealing, and other untypical means.) In past decades, consumers borrow a lot. This allows them to consume a lot, which translates to a booming economy, and validates the first principle of the Conservative Consumption model. Eventually the Pied Piper comes a calling, and consumers cannot borrow any more. This is the current doldrums state of our economy. Any plan to help the producers (via tax cuts or regulations) will not help. Producers, as a general group, have lots of money sitting idle. They only need consumers.

If we cannot let consumers borrow more, we need to let them keep more of their earning. We do not necessarily advocate consumers to earn more since that may be inflationary, but to keep more of what they earn. Come to think of it, you can only spend the money you have in your pocket. This is where the government steps in. Our current tax system favors the production side, with investment gains being taxed at a lower rate than earned income. We should make them balanced, or even favor the consumption side by lowering the income tax and raising the investment tax. This puts more money into consumers to spend. Since this is earned money and not borrowed money, the consumers are financially conservative. The focus on earned money instead of borrowed money to support the consumption is the second principle of the Conservative Consumption economic model.

We mentioned above one way to implement the second principle is to raise the capital gains tax so that it is at least the same as income tax. If we can lower the income tax, then as a whole, the government does not tax more -- it is just a tax re-balancing to meet the structural change of the economy where consumers are more in demand than producers. This is not a soak-the-rich scheme since we do not raise marginal tax rates. If somebody is successful and earn more, we should not penalize success by taxing more. This does not mean that the "rich" will not pay more. If somebody mostly earns via passive investments instead of active income, their tax on the capital tax gains will be more. At the extreme case, we may have progressive tiers of capital tax gains, like we currently have for income taxes. From the perception of a common man on the street, the raising of the production-side tax and lowering of the consumption-side tax solves the "fairness" issue where the "Buffetts" are taxed at lower tax rate then their "secretaries".

Another way to implement the second principle is for the government, not to step in, but to step out. Any money that the consumers earn is shared with the government. The bigger the government, the more it needs to take. This reduces the money that the consumers keep, and thus reduces the money the consumers can spend. Unless a government can earn its own money via a different mean (such as by nationalizing industries), it should minimizes itself in order to minimize its take.

Currently we debate about supply-side economics and government-spending economics. Both miss the point of the current economy, since they either emphasize the production side or take away the money available to consumers. What the economy needs help now is on the consumption side, not production; and not consumptions based on borrowed money, but consumption based on earned money. And this is the Conservative Consumption economic model.