Longer Step: Ideas for Justice and Sustainability

 Sinclair Lewis said, "I love America, but I don't like it." He meant, of course, that the idea of America is brilliant but our execution of our ideals too often falls way short. Consider Southwest Airlines, the largest airline inside the US. Forty years ago, Southwest was a brilliant upstart that revolutionized the airline industry. Southwest uses a dispersed point to point system, unlike the "hub and spoke" system the other airlines use. This is great for fliers, because they get more direct flight choices, but it's harder to recover from a major disaster like the recent polar plunge, because flight crews have to be located (and rested) in more locations, under the Southwest model. And, Southwest's use of an antiquated (1990s!) software scheduling system, which is mostly a manual system, made this issue much worse, and resulted in Southwest's having to cancel most of its flights, days after the weather event had ended. The other airlines use more...

  BIG new study concludes that, for older folks, getting the latest bivalent Covid booster provides 84% less risk of hospitalization if you catch Covid (the boosters no longer help you prevent catching Covid, but they do prevent your getting really sick or dying). And yet only 14% of adults and older kids have gotten that booster. Which is free. I'm vaxxed and boosted; I've had Covid and didn't like it. But at least I could be sick alone at home, and I survived without needing to bother the healthcare system, which is overburdened now. I don't like others' doing things that overload the healthcare system, because that's bad for all of us, including h'care workers, who are struggling with overwork now.  And masking clearly helps slow the spread of Covid, but on our recent trip, where we wore our N95 masks everywhere inside unless eating, I would guess only about 5% (sometimes close to 10%) of adults inside were masked. The new Covid variants are highly conta...

 We're doing it wrong.  In our system, we have senior officers who too often don't deserve the multiples-higher compensation they're receiving. I've worked with my share of great senior officers, and it has been a real treat, but I've also seen many who aren't bright, aren't visionaries, aren't capable leaders, who made many avoidable mistakes, and yet were paid like they could walk on water. That is what's wrong with our system. Meanwhile, the employees (spanning the ranks from lower level to middle management) are the lifeblood of any company. They do the real work, and like as not, the best visionary ideas come from them. But they are not compensated in line with their contributions to the company's success.  I think changing the structure makes sense, perhaps to something like this: 1. After some "proving period" such as one year, an employee gets a significant fraction of the company's earnings each year. Shareholders and senio...