Vicious Rants of an Angry Yellow Man

Watched John Stossel on 20/20 last night. In a kind of take off from his "give me a break" segment, he talked about 6 things that would be politically incorrect to debate about. I'll give my take on these items.

The first one was about the law that protect pregnant women from being fired. Stossel says that it backfires on women because employers don't want to get sue so they are less likely to hire women who may become pregnant. As a business owner, I can understand his point. When a woman takes a maternity leave others in the company have to do more or employer has to hire a temp. If a woman is self-emplyed, she certainly can't take a maternity leave and expect her business will not suffer during her absence. The truth is if a woman is a good employee, the employer will hold the job for her until she comes back even without a law.

The second one is about irridiation of food. Stossel says that food poisoning kills 5 thousand people a year and irridiation prevents that and unlike what the fear-mongering activists say, irridiation is perfectly safe. I agree that irridiation is safe but I don't agree that we need to irridiate most of our food. There are 300 million people in the country and so 900 million meals a day are eaten. So 5,ooo deaths from food is hardly a high percentage. Most of the deaths are from old and sick people. I think if the general population is never exposed to germs in the food then they would be more likely to get sick if they go some place where food is not irridiated. So unless there is germ warfare against us, irridiation is not needed.

The third one is about people doing dangerous activities and need to be rescued, then they should have to pay for the rescue. I agree with that wholeheartedly. It is not just the money but this put the people doing the rescue in risky situations. So yes, charge these people or put them in jail for reckless endangerment of the rescuers.

The next one is about saving endangered species such as the tiger by allowing people to farm them. Since places like China want tiger bones for herbal medicine, there is an incentive to poach the tigers and driving them to extinction. The argument is that by farming them the tiger won't be extinct, just like chickens will not be extinct. If I am a tiger I wouldn't like that argument. I would rather be free in the wild and not be eventully killed for my bones. I think scientific studies need to be done to see if there is any medicinal benefit of tiger bones. If not, I think as China becomes more modernized, the demand will decrease, although I am not sure if that will be in time to save the tiger.

The next one is about steroid use in sports. Stossel argues that there is no evidence that steroid is dangerous and adults should be able to use them if they choose. I totally disagree here. There is no epidemiology studies on steroid use because nobody has been able to get enough subjects to study them. There are rumors that the former USSR and East German athletes are dying at a younger age. Obviously the truth of that is not revealed in this country. And we don't know which athletes used them in this country 30 or 40 years ago and see if they are dying at a younger age than expected. It is well known that erythropoietin used in increasing blood count and thus oxygen level can lead to congestive heart failure if used in excessive. Even if you argue that adults should be allowed to take chances with their lives, if steroids are legalize, you know that kids will use them even more than they are now because they will follow their sports heroes.

The last one is about medicare which is a benefit to all seniors regardless of income. Stossel correctly points out that even the ultra-rich seniors get this benefit and at this pace the young people will have nothing left by the time they are old. I agree with that although it is not the seniors' fault. The actuaries who calculated this for the government should have seen this before. The pay in should have been higher years ago. I agree that we need to raise the age of eligibility and decrease benefits for wealthy seniors. Of course instead of cutting benefit, the government added prescription coverage which also covered wealthy seniors and put us further in deficit!

All these topics can be discussed in much more detail. But the only one that is of great importance is the last one because we all will be seniors one day, hopefully. Add to that the deficits we are running as a nation and the cost of heathcare in general, we need to debate this topics more frequently and in greater depth.