Ranking States by Race

When we think of racial issues in the United States, we often focus on certain parts of the country.  This is more about our conditioning than reality.

Diversity

Most diverse states.

Hawaii has the fewest "Caucaoids" (as a friend calls those of mostly northern European or white origin).  Growing Hispanic populations push the other four states into the top five most diverse list.  All four of them are in the southwest.

Least diverse states

Four out of the five least diverse states are in the north sharing borders with Canada.  Most of the least diverse states are rural with large farming, ranching or wilderness areas.

None of these homogeneous states is from the rebellious southern states, although two (West Virginia and Kentucky) were border states with shifting allegiance during the U.S. Civil War.


Black Heritage

Most self-identified black states

States with the largest percentage of self-identified African or Black heritages are largely on the Confederate side of the U.S. Civil War, with Delaware being the lone stand out.







Self Identified Other

Top 10  other states

Strong concentrations of native people make up the "Other" racial category.  The concentration of indigenous peoples in the Indian Wars led to several of these states falling into this category.

New York, Washington, California, and Hawaii also have large populations of Asian descent.




This data was complied from our latest census.  Below, sorted by density of whites  is the state-by-state rankings.

Wham BAM Thank You, Man!

We now have the technology to make a digital model of the human brain. We need but to will it to happen. If we do not, someone else will. Sooner than you may think. Scientists have devised a practical plan to do accomplish this amazing feat. We must fund them.

From humble beginnings in 1987, scientists began to model the human genome. They wanted to make map of the entire sequence of genes that make a human being. With government funding starting in 1990, the project was expected to take 15 years. They accomplished the project in 2003 with international assistance from scientists in the Europe and Asia.

Calling the project Brain Activity Map (BAM) the scientists propose to step-by-step build models of the human brain using software. They would start with a simple worm brain and work up through increasingly complex creatures until they can model a human brain. Brain mapping is sometimes also know by the term “connectome”.

The Science

Imaging techniques would be used to see what is happening with individual molecules in the brain's cells. This imaging technology already exists. Computer manufactures believe they can continue their decades long exponential growth in machine processing power using Moore's Law. This means the hardware to run the imaged brain models will be available before the brain model is completed.

Existing technology to image the brain at the molecular level

The well understood C. Elegans

The plan involves five major stages. Each stage attempts a more complex brain. The plan allows five years for each stage in order to image and model larger and larger brains. Several “brain observatories” would be constructed to allow for competition between research teams.

The first phase would start with C.Elegans, a simple worm that has already been under study for decades. The worm has 302 neurons with about 7,000 connections between them.

The humble Fruit Fly

Scaling up from the worm brain model, the scientists would then attempt a Fruit Fly (Drosophila) next. The Fruit brain has about 135,000 neurons. Current computer hardware is capable of this feat already, the scientists need only do the imaging to make the model.

Depending upon what is learned with the first two phases, the third phase would attempt either the common home aquarium zebrafish brain, a section of the human brain called the hippocampus or perhaps both. Both of these brains have just under a million neurons to image, model, and put into software.

The fourth stage would be to model the entire brain of an awake mouse. This would provide a brain model that could be tested in real time against live beings. Then the project would go on to the fifth stage to map and model an entire, working human brain. The 25 year estimate to finish this entire project is very conservative.  If structured smartly, competition could work for like it did for the human genome project and results could be achieved even sooner.

Costs

The plan calls for a mix of private and public funding in the order of about $300 million a year. Over the proposed 20 years of of the project it would cost about $6 billion to accomplish. This is on the same scale as was the Human Genome project. Even if the real costs double, it will be cheap at the price.

A billion dollars seems like a lot. To understand the scale of this investment, consider that just to build a single aircraft carrier costs almost $27 billion. We have 11 of these ships. The Transportation Security Administration has a budget of $8 billion annually. The Hubble Space Telescope costs $10 billion over its lifetime.

Putting in the Golden Spike

The Payoff

The human genome project has had staggering economic benefits. The under $4 billion invested over 13 years on research returned $796 billion in economic activity. The genome investment generated 310,000 jobs. It also launched a revolution in the bio-sciences that will be felt for generations to come.

The return on investment for mapping the human brain could be much, much greater. There is no accurate way to predict just how many jobs or how much new economic activity this project could generate. Even if the Brain Activity Mapping project were to only break-even in financial terms, the benefits to our knowledge, medicine, and computers will be far reaching.

A man, a plan, a canal: Panama.

Knowledge of how the brain works will have many impacts we know about and more we can only guess at. Understanding how mental illness works. Scientists believe that they can model the effects of Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s, schizophrenia and autism in the brain leading to better treatments and perhaps even cures.

Advances in artificial intelligence could boost our information processing capabilities. Understanding how consciousness emerges from the brain would allow to understand what we humans are even better. We may even be able to build our own new kinds of minds.



Just Do It

As when we decided to put a man on the moon, connect the Pacific Atlantic oceans by rail, and build the interstate system; this project must be done. The benefits to our country and mankind are too great to turn away from.

Already the European Union is funding similar research in Switzerland. We should not give up on this research like we did with the Superconducting Super Collider.  We should lead the world, not follow it into this new frontier.

We should ensure our children and grandchildren benefit. It is a small investment. We should fund this now.

No Congress Left Behind

We test our students to see if they are knowledgeable enough to become citizens.  We should test the members of our Congress to see if they are fit for duty.  A basic understanding of law, economics, military arts, and science should be required in order to govern.  Those that can not pass such a basic skills and knowledge test should either be given remedial instruction, or be denied office.

A broken institution?

We Think They Stink

In the House of Representatives, our 112th Congress read the U.S. Constitution aloud.  It was a symbolic way to show the people that Congress was aware of the rules they governed under.  It was a statement that we are a nation of laws, not men.

In the reading, they claimed they would not fall short.  They claimed they would not kick the can down the road.  They claimed they would end business as usual and carry out the people's instructions.  Most of us think they failed. Miserably.

Congress has an abysmal rating among citizens.  82% of us think they are doing a rotten job.  Maybe if we had more knowledgeable people in Congress, we could get their approval rating to a stellar high of 50%?  You need about a 65% rating to graduate from high school.  Our standards for Congress have sunk so low.

Congress's behind is the butt of jokes.

No Child Left Behind

In 2001 Geo. Bush the junior signed his proposed bill into law called “No Child Left Behind Act”.  This law required states to test children in order to receive federal funding for schools.  Each state was to create and administer an annual test to its students. Each year the students must do better than the year before on their tests.

The goal of “No Child Left Behind” was to increase accountability of schools.  Since most of us do not think our government is being held accountable, perhaps a dose of their own medicine would help Congress be better?


What To Test?

How many of today's Congress people
could measure up to these standards?

The issues that confront us today require leaders who know the details.  Not all of Senators and Representatives need to be experts in every subject.  There should be some minimal baseline of knowledge that each and every member has.

Knowledge of the Constitution is a starting point.  Being able to identify the various governmental departments, their budgets and mission would be another.  An understanding of the law would not hurt.  I'm not as worried about this part of the test as about a 40% of them are lawyers.



A basic understanding of the scientific method is crucial in this modern age.  Some questions on basic biology, chemistry and physics wouldn't be bad either.  How can we have leaders able to cope with our high tech world if they don't understand the fundamentals that make it up?  Among the 435 members of the House there is one physicist, one chemist, one microbiologist, six engineers and nearly two dozen representatives with medical training.

Economics is another area that seems lacking in today's Congress.  An understanding of basic accounting, micro and macro economics seems essential to having good government.  We may not need Nobel laureates, but the basic understanding that budgets have to balance would be nice.  Each and every member should know that the government has to pay its bills on time or we all lose our credit rating.

How many leaders have even been
on an aircraft carrier?

In high school, I was required to know all 50 states and capitals by heart.  Perhaps our Congress people should know all 200+ countries, their leaders, location, capitals, and basic political structures?  As the leaders of the world, our Congress should be very knowledgeable about it.

Few who join the armed services want to let loose the dogs of war.  Veterans tend to be more cautious with use of military force.  Perhaps we should require all Congress people to go through basic training?   Baring that step, they should at least have a good understanding of military doctrine, weapon systems, and the weaknesses our military has.

There are more things we could test for, but these might make a good start.

Time out for ignorance.

Expect More

There are of course details to work out.  Who would write the test?  Who would administer it?  Should we test before they can declare candidacy?  What if they fail the test after they are in office?  These kinds of questions did not stop us from expecting more from our schools.  They should not stop us from expecting more from Congress.

Perhaps the Supreme Court can create the test?  Perhaps the President can administer it?  Perhaps states that keep electing people who fail the test should be put on probation like college athletic programs when they have scandals?

I will acknowledge my intent is a bit satirical.  There may, however, be some grain of wisdom in the idea that we need to objectively measure Congress's performance.  Starting off with measuring individual members might not be a bad way to begin.

Model, Market, and Monopoly

Markets are rarely, if ever free. Truly free markets are a theoretical concepts like zero or infinity. We can imagine them, but they may not actually exist. Monopolies form. Government interferes. Supply can be cut off. New technologies can violently disrupt society. Imbalances in other markets can interrupt distribution.

Markets occur whenever we sell a product or a service. 

Markets are many and diverse. Markets can be found in the parking lot swap meet or a professional trading floor.

Free markets are thought to find the optimal price and best distribution of goods and services.

Free markets are uncontrolled by government.

Free markets have no monopolies. 

Mark the monopolist wanna-be

Managing Markets

I once was manager of products and services in markets. My job was to find out what people's wants and needs were, find a solution, then deliver it to them. For several years I specialized in the real estate industry providing technology and processes. The real estate markets spanned multiple countries and cultures.

I worked for corporations. Corporations are a legal tool owned by people. I was labor. I worked for other people. Someone else owned the capital and resources. If I did well at my job, owners made millions in profits. If I failed, owners lost millions. A salary was my compensation for pieces of my life's time.

We built databases of properties for sale. We had databases of transactions. We created and maintained records of government property tax roles. Marketing materials to help sellers find buyers. Catalogs to help buyers find sellers. Accounting software to optimize costs. Estimating software to predict individual transactions, local markets and national trends. Tools and training to automate business processes. Information about the market and where the best deals where. Software to help local governments predict revenue.

Modeling market data

Finding out what peoples wants and needs are is the hard part. What people say they need and what they actually need often don't match up. Of course I would listen to what people said and ask many questions. I also followed people, watching them. Observing their behavior and taking notes often revealed unexpressed needs. Watching closely provided deeper insight to the nature of their activity. I studied their suppliers and customers. I followed the paths of their resources from creation to destruction.  I came to understand the structure and flows of each market I competed in.

Designing solutions is more my suit. Doing studies and creating graphs. Designing structure and process .  Long arguments in front of white boards building models of market behavior.  Taking those models “out into the field” for testing to see if they worked. Revising and editing the models until the product or service became as profitable as they could be.

Controlling local supply  of resources

Building Monopolies

Designing a product is by definition an anti-free-market activity. One must engage in thinking like a socialist dictator in order to control a market. Every day I tried to figure out how we could monopolize markets. Corporations want high, steady income. Getting a monopoly on a market is the best way to ensure that.

Finding a resource to control helped build a monopoly. If you can control a fundamental resource in one market, you can monopolize many markets. Being the entry point for the supply of a resource is a common method. Data about the market is one of the best resources to conquer.

Dreams of monopoly

We spent a lot of effort making the best data entry systems possible. The easier it was to put data in our system, the more the market did it. The more data they gave us, the greater the control we had in the market. At one point, well over half of the U.S. property market came into systems we controlled.

My labor was not in a free market. I had signed away my right to compete with the owners. They wanted my labor as a steady, high resource. The corporation had a monopoly on my labor. Luckily the market for my labor was made free. I could wait a year and the contractual provision would expire. Signing a new contract with a competitor was a good move for my income. It still cost me a year of my life to buy that market freedom.

Monopolies typically maximize their profit. A corporation with a monopoly wants to produce fewer goods and selling them at higher prices. Monopolies destroy free markets.

In a free labor market
children are a resource

The Real "Monopoly"

Real estate brokers have taken control the market data since I left the industry. Real estate brokers are “middle-men” standing between the buyer and the seller. They have an effective monopoly on the information about the supply of goods in that industry. Claiming they provide a better service, they have built up barrier to entry requiring you to belong to their trust (monopoly). You must sign away your free market rights to be able to participate in the property market.

It is possible to use For Sale By Owner (FSBO) methods to sell or buy houses. This is a small niche of the market however. Individual experience may vary, but it is generally more difficult to sell your house. Real estate brokers will typically not work with FSBO. Real estate brokers work hard at keeping FSBO to a minimum through laws and the control of information.

A home is the single largest purchase most people make in their life times. Most middle class citizens buy two or three homes in their lifetimes. Typically we buy a home when our children are born or we retire.  Most real estate market transactions go through the broker's monopoly. One group or another has monopolized the real estate data market for so long, we accept the monopoly as normal and are unaware of how much it costs us.

Cheating unbalances markets

Free Market Myth

The idea that we can just “free” our markets and they will we will all prosper runs against my experienced in business. Free markets are often more myth than reality. Many of our markets are operated by or as monopolies.

Disruptive technologies like the printing or the internet have broken information monopolies. A wise owner looks for such technologies and tries to monopolize them before they disrupt the market. With the financial power coming from the monopoly, this happens frequently and the monopoly continues on.

Trade associations are often used for groups of owners to control markets. The National Association of Realtors is a very powerful organization that does this for real estate. They have been actively involved in keeping control of the data about real estate for over a century now.

Government is One Answer

We can use our government to break up monopolies. The power of government is used to force those who would control a market to let go of it.  Government is often the proper tool to keep markets free from monopoly.  

Teddy is still rock solid

Teddy Roosevelt was a progressive Republican who had his face put on Mount Rushmore because he broke up monopolies. Teddy was known as the “trust buster”. He offered a “Square Deal” that regulated the business practices of monopolies to guide markets toward more freedom. He facilitated negotiations between labor and owners to break up monopolies on labor.

There are those among us today who think “markets should be free”. They operate under the idea that perfect competition can exist. My experience of reality indicates this is not so. The people who want this may well just be trying to monopolize markets. I can not prove that all business people want to have a monopoly. I have met enough of them to believe many do.

Mapping Healthcare (Part 2)

Healthcare is getting more expensive.  From my personal experience it also seems inefficient.  I have been investigating public data about what is going on in the United States with healthcare.  Here and in the previous post are what I've found.

Life expectancy

Live Long

States with high insurance rates are more likely to have citizens with longer life expediencies.

It could be argued that better healthcare helps people live longer.  It may also be that those who live longer take better care of themselves.

Other factors at play are education and wealth.

Where money flows

Medicare Spending

Those states with the highest spending per person on Medicare tend to be uninsured.  This places a great burden on the state and nation in caring for them.

These federal and state transfers of wealth between citizens subsidize those in the greatest need.

Weighty matters

Obesity

Obesity is high in states with the most uninsured. Obesity-related conditions include heart disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes and certain types of cancer, which are some of the leading causes of preventable death.

In 2008, medical costs associated with obesity were estimated at $147 billion; the medical costs for people who are obese were $1,429 higher than those of normal weight.

Those who place themselves at the greatest health risks cost us the most.

Coughing it up

Smoking

Smoking takes a large drain on our healthcare resources.  Adult smoking rates vary across the US, but the states with the most smokers are in the Midwest and Southeast regions.

Cigarette smoking has been identified as the most important source of preventable disease and illness.

About 8.6 million people in the U.S. have at least one serious illness caused by smoking. For every person who dies of a smoking-related disease, there are 20 more people who suffer from at least one serious illness associated with smoking.

Working for insurance

Unemployment 

Our standard in the United States is to have health insurance through our employment.

Unemployment seems to be a factor in healthcare rates, but is not necessarily the determining factor everywhere.  These short term fluctuations in prosperity may only have marginal effects on the ability to obtain care.

The elderly especially are often not employed and therefore more reliant on government for care.


I will not pretend to have an answer for our healthcare challenges.  My experience is that our system is inefficient.  It is clear that healthcare costs are rising at the same time that access to care is decreasing.

More personal responsibility for our actions is required.

I believe we have a moral obligation to help those who can not help themselves.

Finding a balance that reduces expenses while improving care and access is good for the country.

Part 1 here.

Mapping Healthcare (Part 1)

Having become employed by Pfister Waggen (an industrial scale maker) I was inducted into the German national healthcare system.  Early after starting my job, a physical was required in order to establish a health baseline.  Stripped to my underwear, I stood in a long line of men slowly plodding from station to station having my blood pressure taken, my ears examined, my body prodded and poked.  While the experience was dehumanizing, it seemed to me the very symbol of notorious German efficiency applied to universal healthcare.  It was a very similar to the process used by the U.S. Army on new recruits.

Efficient and dehumanizing medical exam.

In America today, my lovely lady has several health issues requiring her to see many different and expensive specialists.  Hours are spent waiting in rooms, moving from one clinic to the next at great cost.  The doctors are kind, helpful and the experience is as pleasant as it can be.

There appears however, to be much time and resources dedicated to the infrastructure of care rather on than on the care itself.  Each professional specializing in one narrow area with staff and resources duplicated in many places.  Each office has separate records and billing to support their independent, decentralized infrastructures.  The inefficiency of the system stands in stark contrast to that of the German experience I had.  It is humane but wasteful.

In these two posts are the results of my exploration of public data about what is going on in the United States with healthcare.  I wanted to know how states compare with cost, access, and need for healthcare. Note you can click on map captions to see the source of my data.

Health Insurance Rates

Who is Insured?

About 1 in 6 United States citizens have no health insurance.  This represents about 54 million people who rely upon charity for accident, disease and routine care.

The rate of non-coverage is growing at  about 1% a year, meaning that over 3 million people a year lose their insurance and are at greater risk.

The elderly and the rich are are actually gradually improving their access to health insurance, while the  poor and women are losing their access.  This is happening despite the Affordable Care Act (Obama-care) allowing 18-25 year-olds to remain on their parents insurance plans.


Costs are Rising

The current trend in healthcare expenses is not sustainable. Costs of healthcare are increasing much faster than the number of people requiring healthcare.  These costs are robbing the United States of our ability to compete globally by diverting money from savings, investment, retirement, and diverting more and more of our labor pool.

Access to healthcare

Sickness Sucks

No one wants to die.  No one wants to be sick.  Given enough resources, we would all do what ever it takes to help ourselves live as long as we can.  We also want to stay as healthy as we can.

This implies that demand for health will remain high, no matter the level of the supply.  When supply and demand do not find a balance, markets fail.


Government or Private?

Since healthcare demand may always be greater than healthcare supply, using a purely market solution to find a balance is probably not practical. Some kind of intervention to keep the market in balance seems prudent.

A pure government solution has an associated bureaucracy.  Bureaucracies tends to grow when civil servants are not tied directly to economic outcomes.

Neither an all government or all private system will find balance and get the greatest bang for our buck with healthcare.

Conservative Identification 

Conservative Identification

Our uninsured are concentrated in the southern states and sparsely populated mountain states.  While not universally true, self identified politically conservative states are more apt to have people without health insurance.

This map displays the "conservative advantage," defined as the percentage conservative minus the percentage liberal in each state.  When compared with the other maps here, it generally appears that conservative states have more need for healthcare and less of it available.

Here is a good overview of the differences between conservative versus liberal views on healthcare.  In simple, over-generalized terms, conservatives view self-responsibility to be the driver for whom should get healthcare, while liberals tend to view healthcare as a social safety net to be provided to all in need.

In the next post here, I will investigate some of the demand issues with the U.S. healthcare system at a state level.

Fearing the Reaper

You are going to die. Eventually. You do not know how yet. But you will. 

Life is pleasant and dying is it's end. Most people fear death or least want to put it off as long as possible.  The reaper, in the end, comes for each and every one of us. 

Human nature alarms us about some causes of death more than others. 

We are more apt to fear flying in airplanes more than car accidents. Yet car accidents are far more likely to kill us. 

% Chance you will die of particular cause
(click graphic to expand)

We fear gun violence more than falling, yet falling is twice as prone to do us in.

The National Safety Council has estimated your chances of dying from various causes based on death certificates and the census data. 

The results should inform us on what we really need to worry about.

There is a higher chance you will die from suicide than from a gun.  Yet how many of us have guns to protect ourselves from some perceived potential threat?

More detail on the smaller risks
(click graphic to expand)

The odds are low you will ever need a gun for self defense.  Do you ever think about how to protect your loved ones from suicide?

We sit transfixed to our televisions watching weather disasters, yet walking across the street has a better chance of killing us.

Clearly our bodies break down from disease more often than accident or violence. Eating too much, smoking, and excessive salt take their toll on us. Natural disaster, fire and drowning may scare us, but are relatively not a threat.

Media shows us fiery plane crashes, crazy people shooting up schools, cataclysmic storms and we watch these dramatic events unfold with terror. Yet their actual threat to us is very, very small. The images and sounds we hear skew our opinions and voting patterns out of proportion to the reality of the threats.

As mature adults, we should have a more accurate view of the threats to our persons and those we love. What we fear should be what is apt to kill us. These real threats deserve our attention.

Here are some odds by cause of death to consider:

Cause of Death	Odds (1 in X)
Heart Disease	6
Cancer	7
Stroke	29
Auto accident	98
Poison	126
Falls	163
Firearms	321
Smoke/Flame	1,344
Airplane	7,178
Storm	29,196
Earthquake	97,807
Death Penalty	111,779

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