Appreciating Memorial Day

Yesterday, I took the opportunity to tell Daniel why we celebrate Memorial Day. That despite what he saw around him, it wasn't about sales at the stores or barbecues. I told him that as Americans we celebrate Memorial Day to remember people that gave their life defending our country and all that we stand for. So we watched a couple of Memorial Day videos on YouTube and did some Memorial Day-themed coloring.

On Sunday night, Sarah and I caught on television the National Memorial Day concert in D.C. featuring Lang Lang and Katherine McPhee as well as a moving oral tribute given by Katie Holmes and Dianne Wiest. I am reminded that regardless of what your views of war or the particulars around why our armed forces are fighting in certain locales, all of us as Americans owe a debt of thanks for those who serve, and especially those who gave all.

Thanks to all of you who serve with pride.

Losing My Free Ride

I love credit cards. I love the convenience of not having to carry a lot of cash around. I love the fact that I don't even have to consider the humiliating prospect of carrying a man-purse to organize my loose change. As one of those responsible cardholders who automatically pays my balance in full each month (which also keeps me honest about my spending), I love the fact that I get a little bit of interest "float", since the time value of money means that I pay less than face value, plus I get a significant amount of cash back. It's what the credit card companies call a "free ride".

There's news that credit card companies are going to start cracking down on people like me, largely as a result of losing the ability to gouge people who traditionally have been wildly irresponsible with their credit cards. You see, the recent model was all about charging ridiculous interest rates and penalties for people who would either carry a monthly balance, or worse - fail to pay a minimum balance. Now that Congress is cracking down on such practices, the credit card companies are looking for another source of income - the responsible cardholders with good credit.

The article mentions that banks will  "look at reviving annual fees, curtailing cash-back and other rewards programs and charging interest immediately on a purchase instead of allowing a grace period of weeks." Ugh.

Here's my defiant retort to the credit card companies. I know that you're not simply making money off of credit card abusers - you're also making good amounts of money charging merchants a percentage of every purchase I make, an interchange fee, which averages around 2%. So credit card companies still make money of those with good credit, who are often people who are very large purchasers - important given that these interchange fees are a percentage of spend. 

Then it comes down to the prisoner's dilemma game theory. Who is going to blink? I won't hesitate moving from Citibank Dividend to AMEX Blue (which I did two years ago upon Citibank capping their rewards) to CapitalOne Rewards to PartnersFirst Cash Back (a useful table of reward credit cards is here) in order to escape the fees or caps on rewards. I suspect that the credit card companies are going to be very careful about rocking the boat too hard, lest they see some revenue sources walk away to other competitors.

We'll see. If I lose my free ride, it was nice playing the system while it lasted.

Preying on the Goodness of Others

About a year ago, my parents told me about a plight of family friend's son and daughter-in-law. Our family friends lived in Ohio, and I remember fondly a road trip that we had a taken for a few days to visit them when I was in the sixth grade or so. I was very sad, however, that our pet hamster was near-death when we returned, but I'm getting off track here.

The son, Phylip, was a few years older than I was, but was a nice guy who was pretty fun to hang out with. In my memory bank, I recall a typical Asian kid with a New Order poster over his bed and a laid-back demeanor. Nice guy, which I appreciated all the more since it went against the grain of some family friend older kids who treated me like dirt who didn't hide the fact that they had no interest in playing video games or wiffle ball with me. 

Flash forward decades later to 2008 when my parents told me of a situation where Phylip and his wife were under grave hardship, having been victims of identity fraud and cancer (which also ended up being a grave lecture to me about the dangers of identity theft). My parents had told me that Phylip's mother had written letters to a number of family friends appealing for financial help, and my parents wrote a generous check to them. 

As of late last year, my father shared with me that Phylip's sister had blown the whistle and was trying to alert people that the appeal was a scam. Things have gotten ugly, and many people within my parents' friends' church (Phylip's father and mother) were furious that they had been duped. In more recent news, prosecutors in Ohio have formally charged Phylip Chen and his wife Melanie with theft and receiving stolen property, while Phylip's parents (who as of now remain uncharged) are likely personae non gratae in the local Taiwanese community - as it's still unclear if they were knowing and willing conspirators. An even more recent update reports that Melanie Chen, who had fled Ohio, was captured in Utah, and Phylip has pleaded 'not guilty' to the charges.

It's terribly sad. I'm not going to try to get into the psychology or the motives of those who prey on people's charity, but the damage is immense. For everyone who opened their hearts and wallets to help somebody in need, how can they not help but be a little more cynical the next time someone needs a helping hand? For myself, I wonder to what degree stories like this either appropriately or inappropriately steer me away from personally helping people financially, instead only giving to faceless non-profits. It's probably this cynicism that drives me to prefer giving to the Goodwill Rescue Mission as opposed to the man sitting on the corner crying, "Can you please spare me some change so I can get something to eat?" So I need to be careful that stories like this are used as lessons that rightfully give wisdom to my charitable giving, as opposed to excuses for my own sin of not loving others as I should.

Interesting Points Made While Selling Out Your Colleagues

An interesting commentary on CNN.com made the argument that contrary to President Obama's claim that our country is not producing enough primary care physicians, the reality is that the root of problem would probably be served poorly, or even exacerbated by a push for more physicians.

The rebuttal is penned by Clayton Christensen and Jason Hwang, M.D. M.B.A., authors of "The Innovator's Prescription: A Disruptive Solution for Health Care", and argues that the the gaps in primary care would most cost-effectively be addressed by nurse-run clinics, as opposed to primary care physicians. For those primary care physicians, their plan would be to leverage expert software so they could do some work that medical specialists would normally do. As for the specialists? The plan would be for them "to do even more complicated work that merits their additional training."

I actually like the idea in theory. It's essentially built upon a theory that less-expensive resources can effectively do work "further up the food chain", so primary care gets cheaper and so does specialist-type procedures. What's not completely clear to me, is how this the change in the balance of supply and demand will affect the individual providers of those services.

Put another way, if you view healthcare services as pillar, which might be a pyramid. The base of the rock represents primary care, and salary per practitioner will decrease as will costs per patient. Assuming that primary care physicians remain the same in number but will now be pushed up to lower frequency specialist procedures, will there be a corresponding drop in revenue per doctor? And how many specialists will you need to do that aforementioned "complicated work that that merits their additional training"? I never got the sense that specialists were desperate to do primary-care work to pay the rent. Is there going to be sufficient demand for all of these specialists who now have primary care physicians doing some of their former work?

With the proposed influx of nurses and nurse-practitioners who will now focus on the former domain of primary care physicians, we may see lower salaries for physicians, both primary and speciality care. And unless medical schools restrict supply appropriately, you may see doctors without a chair to sit in. So Dr. Hwang, your brilliant ideas might not be the greatest prescription for your fellow physicians. 

Grace Under Fire at Notre Dame

I have to say that I'm pretty impressed by how President Obama handled the controversy surrounding his reception of an honorary degree at Notre Dame. As someone who is largely at odds with his stance on abortion, I appreciated the calls for Notre Dame to rescind his honor and invitation to speak to the graduates, but also felt that something largely redemptive could occur as mutual grace was extended. That is, the grace of a university to honor a man for the many excellent things has represents - while not at all hiding from the fact that it disagrees strongly with his view of abortion; but also grace on behalf of President Obama, to accept the invitation knowing full well that he would be jeered and demonstrated against and that his views would very much under scrutiny.

I'd like to think that in many ways, we saw some of those glimpses of redemption. I will hold out hope that President Obama is a praying man (as he says he is), a praying man who is open to the work of the Holy Spirit to change his views to those which are consistent with God's own. I will hold out hope that through constant engagement with those earnest "common ground" opponents to abortion - maybe even some people with whom he dialogued with over the weekend - he'll favor principle over political expediency and work diligently do partner with people across the spectrum to do what he says is the sweet spot: "work(ing) together to reduce the number of women seeking abortions by reducing unintended pregnancies, and making adoption more available, and providing care and support for women who do carry their child to term." Fine - let's see some results around this, but the actions that have been taken so far in the Obama administration have been less than promising. 

I hold out hope that he means what he says when he rants against the phenomena of "reducing those with differing views to caricature." and calls out those on the left-wing of his own party who marginalize people of faith as backward, evil and hateful. I hold out hope that his story about how he came to both the church and Christ interacting with Catholic mercy ministries in the south side of Chicago serves as a reminder to people of faith that our work which demonstrates our faith really does matter.

I hold out hope that my good feelings are justified, and not simply the fruit of remarkable political savvy from President Obama and his speechwriters.

Is One Man's Pride Another's Racism?

As an ethnic minority, I've always been very sensitive to matters of race. I recognize that there's a thin line between the pride in one's ethnic background and heritage and the marginalization of others. When one embraces a distinction of their race which is regarded as positive - let's say for example, "Asians generally have a strong focus on the family" - are we by implication slighting those who aren't Asian, implying that those ethnicities do not or at least are less so? Any attempt to deny this seems disingenuous, as the observation would be meaningless unless there was a true distinction between, in this case, Asians and others.

I have an an even stronger reaction for affinity for one's own ethnicity which translates into favoritism manifested by commerce or employment. Or specifically, a desire to patronize only those who belong to a specific ethnic group, as noted in a movement amongst some blacks to buy goods and services only from other blacks. I understand the rationale of those who say that this is an issue of self-empowerment and trying to give a helping hand to a segment of those who are under-represented in the small business world.

Yet it still gives me a gut negative reaction. Let's flip it - would it offend you at all if everybody outside of your own race would refuse to buy your goods or services or hire you for a job because everyone decided to abide by a intra-ethnic commerce code? Is it kosher for an Asian entrepreneur in, let's say, fashion, who owns his own business to hire only Asian people, even if they're less qualified, in an attempt to empower members of his own race?

My sense is that personal commerce, whether it be manifested in goods that you buy or hiring decisions, need to be driven by merit. While "merit" might be debatable, I'm still not understanding the logic of purchasing a inferior product or service at a higher cost simply because of the color of the skin of the manufacturer or store owner. Doing so simply fails to incentivize the right behaviors and qualities. Just look at the automobile industry which may have been improperly buttressed by a wrong-headed "Buy American" movement.

Engrossing, Yet Too Close To Home

A few night ago, Sarah and I watched what might be one of the most powerful and emotionally gripping and engaging movies (some enjoyable movies such as Mamma Mia can hardly be described as "powerful" and "emotionally gripping") I've seen in a while. Dark Matter, a film debut by Chinese opera director Shi-Zheng Chen, is a drama about the life of a Chinese doctoral student who comes to the United States to work as under a revered professor he looks up to, only to become entangled with academia politics and cross-cultural complexities.

The movie features outstanding performances by Ye Liu, Meryl Streep and Aidan Quinn, all who are extremely convincing in the roles that they play - Liu as the brilliant yet emotionally struggling graduate student; Streep as the earnest and warm cultural-exchange patron, and Quinn as the politics-playing-yet-not-overtly-evil professor.

One reason why I suspect I like the film so much is that I can appreciate, if not relate to the storyline. My father was a graduate student who emigrated from Taiwan to Canada to study microbiology and I'm sure had to struggle with isolation and was put in a position where he had to work his tail off as a foreign graduate student. My father was fortunate that his hard work was rewarded in time - he was given glowing recommendations which helped earn him placements at Stony Brook and to the Waksman Institute at Rutgers, eventually leading to a research position at a major pharmaceutical company.

Another extended family member has found, at least until this point, less success, having dealt with advisors who have been (in his eyes) less than forthcoming, honest and supportive. It seems that he may very well be dealing with the conundrum of the graduate student who is at the mercy of an exploitative professor: "Do a good job and I'll take all the credit for your work and I won't let you leave." or "Do a bad job, and I'll let you leave and give you a crap recommendation."

I definitely recommend the movie. But if you're a struggling foreign graduate student, you may want to wait until you're in a good place to watch it.