Feel the Pain

This financial crisis can get you thinking what things cost and what they're really worth -- and how we've been insulated from having to deal with pain.

Let's take housing. In California, it's very expensive in some markets, thought not what it used to be. The price of a home was driven up in the Bay Area by a lot of factors  -- fear being one of them. Prices got bid up because folks felt that if they didn't get into something ASAP, the price would go even higher, and they'd be out of luck. Plus, the dot-commers out there, many of whom made their money on products just as ephemeral as today's investmnent bankers, had money to burn. The rest couldn't afford to compete unless they got a banker to give them a loan they weren't qualified for to buy a house that probably wasn't worth the zillions being charged -- or shouldn't have been -- but that was what the market bore. You find out what something is really worth when the market collapses  -- but we're insulated from those things, most of the time.

Take insurance. No one living could afford to pay the out-of-pocket costs for health care these days, so you have to have insurance to insulate you from that level of pain. So the hospital charge for a toohbrush is $40. Your insurance company pays it because it's "reasonable and customary." OK, so maybe they only pay $25, and you get the bill for the rest. Then you get angry, because you wonder why they're charing that much for a toothbrush in the first place. If you -- and everyone else --  had to pay for it totally out of your pocket, would the hospital be able to charge that much for it? 

There's another thing about insurance. It's like one of those bulletproof vests the cops wear. They're great as long as you don't get shot in the legs or the head. That would hurt! Folks are finding out that they're really not insured against all that much.

Take the Iraq War. Lots of people thought that was a good idea -- a lot more people than those getting blamed for it now. Most Americans were insulated from sacrifice. The cost of the war wasn't really part of the federal budget. There were no war bond rallies, like during World War II, to raise money for it. And instead of a draft, the government just called up National Guard and reserve units to take on multiple tours of duty. Many of these have been some of the top prfofessionals in oucr communities, not kids just out of college. But unless you are part of a family that lost a loved one, you probably haven't felt very much, because your daily life hasn't been interfered with at all. If there were a draft, do you think there would have been an Iraq War?

Sometimes it's better to feel the pain, to have to pay the real cost of something.  Feeling pain often protects us from real harm. Maybe this financial crisis will strip off the insulation and make us sit up and pay attention.

There, now I've said it.