>How did you guys get like this?
Great question.
I don't mean that we should yearn for the halcyon days of yore- my parents went through hell during the depression of the 1930's and millions of young men died in WWI -. but we should be asking what brought us here and where we are going.

As I see it, the health care mess, Harvey Weinstein and Donald Trump are symptoms.

I just spent several days at a family event in Austin, Tx.
Everyone I spoke to praised Austin and from my hotel room overlooking the Colorado river, it certainly glistened beautifully.
Dell has been joined by Oracle, Google, Indeed, Ebay, and a host of other tech companies.

I learned that the population of Austin increases by 100 souls each day. Booms on cranes creating new building are ubiquitous.

It was also my first experiment with Uber, a smashing success. I'll never rent another car, and I quickly learned that the Uber drivers in Austin love to chat.

I met Caitlin, a 20 something ICU nurse, who was Ubering in order to pay for a replacement tire for her Camry (a nasty nail punctured the old one) . She doesn't like credit car debt so she started Ubering, using the new tire to generate the money to pay for itself.

I met Pedro, who works for a large tech company in customer service, has gotten 2 promotions recently, but the cost of living in Austin is so high that he doesn't make enough money to put anything away for retirement, so he Ubers.

I met Maria - a retired health care worker - she puts 1K miles/week on her Volvo Ubering. Her retirement income doesn't cover her cost of living, so she Ubers. She's worried that the Volvo might die before she does, but she has an upbeat, sunny outlook and keeps on going.


After my visit to Austin - I recalled the phrase a Virginia legislator used to describe a bill before his house:

"it's like mackerel by moonlight - it shineth, but it stinketh"