Smear merchants lie through their teeth about people like me who want
to help others so their bosses can stay in power to help themselves.
Partisan bickering will not solve our problems. We need outside-the-box
ideas that help liberals, conservatives, and everyone else get more of what
they want. Requires pixie dust? Impossible? No. Read an example of how
we could make government affordable without penalizing anyone.

Kevin Pezzi, MD

The Singing Surgeon™
I'm part Native American and revere natural health,
so should I also call myself a Medicine Man, too? :-)

Iconoclastic views on economics, politics, technology, science, and life

I'm a PBS mind in an MTV World

Disagree with something I wrote? So do I! Read more

“To avoid criticism, do nothing, say nothing, and be nothing.”

— Elbert Hubbard, American editor, publisher, and writer (1856–1915)

Trivia: He and his wife, Alice Moore Hubbard, the noted feminist and writer, died aboard the RMS Lusitania, which was torpedoed and sunk by a German submarine on May 7, 1915, when they were heading to Europe to cover the war and interview Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany.

If you disagree with something I wrote, feel free to challenge it. Some of my viewpoints are the antithesis (exact opposite) of what they once were. That isn't flip-flopping; that is changing opinions with scant evidence to support them into convictions with a firmer foundation of facts.

My political philosophy is an amalgamation of libertarian, conservative, and liberal principles. My opinions have changed so significantly that my conservative friends might be horrified by how I strongly believe that liberals are correct on certain issues. I've previously written about some of them, but to make this more fun, I will present others as challenges in which I offer $100,000 to the first person who can refute the logic I used in forming that opinion. Please note that due to my limited time and difficulty using my hands after I broke my neck, I cannot quickly update my previously published opinions. However, now that I am balancing the promptings of head and heart, I strongly disagree with many opinions I expressed in my writings.

I like finding people who make me think, not necessarily those who agree with me. Genius Robert Heinlein said, “I never learned from a man who agreed with me.” If you can educate me, I'm all ears.

“Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions which differ from the prejudices of their social environment. Most people are even incapable of forming such opinions.”
— Albert Einstein

“Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.”
— Albert Einstein

“The ultimate ignorance is the rejection of something you know nothing about and refuse to investigate.”
— Dr. Wayne Dyer

“If everyone is thinking alike, then somebody isn't thinking.”
— General George Patton

“Man's mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimensions.”
— Oliver Wendell Holmes

“A lot of people risk their lives in a brief act of heroism, which is kind of cool, but Jill has what I call slow heroism. She is risking her professional life on something that her own calculations show may not work for a thousand years—may not ever. So I like to support people that are risking their lives.”
— ex-Microsoft billionaire brainiac Nathan Myhrvold speaking about Jill Tarter, who inspired the character played by Jodie Foster in the movie Contact. It takes a brilliant person to see that others who go against the grain of conventional wisdom may be sages although lesser minds often ridicule their ideas.

“I am not young enough to know everything.”
— Oscar Wilde

“You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life.”
— Winston Churchill

“Talk sense to a fool and he calls you foolish.”
— Euripides, Greek tragic dramatist (484 BC - 406 BC)

“It is socially unacceptable to be right too early.”
— Robert Heinlein

“I'd rather stand alone on the truth than with millions on a lie.”

“The most distinctive mark of a cultured mind is the ability to take another's point of view; to put one's self in another's place, and see life and its problems from a point of view different from one's own. To be willing to test a new idea; to be able to live on the edge of difference in all matters intellectually; to examine without heat the burning question of the day; to have imaginative sympathy, openness and flexibility of mind, steadiness and poise of feeling, cool calmness of judgment, is to have culture.”
— Arthur H. R. Fairchild

“It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.”
— Theodore Roosevelt

“It has been my experience that folks who have no vices have very few virtues.”
— Abraham Lincoln

This reminds me of something stressed by one of my psychology professors, who said that society imposes rigid boundaries for what behavior is acceptable, and applies tremendous pressure trying to force people to conform to the behavioral expectations. Some of the most brilliant and productive outside-the-box thinkers led unconventional lives. One of the side effects of forcing people to think inside the box is that by lopping off outside-the-box behavior, potentially great outside-the-box ideas are lost, too.

“We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. When the loyal opposition dies, I think the soul of America dies with it.”
— Edward R. Murrow, American journalist (1908-1965)

“You will not do incredible things without an incredible dream.”
— John Eliot

NOTE: Several family members were brutally slaughtered recently, so I will take a break from writing. Their deaths erased my affinity for writing about politics or the economy, thus I'll later limit myself to health and brainpower in addition to completing my book on rapidly overcoming racism and bigotry. BTW, the two men who murdered my father are still on the lam; I am offering up to $100,000 for information leading to their arrest and conviction.

Meet a pigheaded CEO who is fettering our economy

I previously believed that pure, unadulterated capitalism was the ideal catalyst to expand our economy. However, once I began interacting with certain capitalists, I saw how their human foibles hampered their success, and therefore the success of their businesses and our economy.

Here's an example: While speaking with the president and CEO of a lawn equipment manufacturer, he said that he wanted his company to begin manufacturing tractors. However, he did not want to be just another “me, too” producer of mediocre tractors because that market is already flooded with umpteen ones from many manufacturers who compete on price because they can't develop tractors that would truly stand out from the crowd—tractors that people would gladly pay more for, and hence tractors that would be more profitable to manufacture.

Dr. Laurie Roth, the entertaining and insightful host of The Roth Show, suggested that America could successfully compete with cheap labor around the world if we became “first in quality and innovative ideas again.” She is correct.

I have many ideas for improving tractors, from a tire that can quickly and reversibly morph into a track to improvements that would allow a small tractor to do jobs that now require huge tractors, bulldozers, or even a heavy equipment front-end loader. Currently, manufacturers rely upon brute size and mass to give their products more powerful abilities, but this reliance upon more weight to do more work is an egregious waste of resources. I can make a 600-pound garden tractor do things that tractors weighing ten times as much cannot do, proving that bigger is not necessarily better.

“Any fool can make things bigger [and] more complex. It takes a touch of genius—and a lot of courage—to move in the opposite direction.”
— Albert Einstein

I told this CEO that I had several ideas that would enable his company to manufacture superior and more profitable tractors. I know that corporations are usually resistant to pay independent inventors for their ideas, so I offered to give him one idea free, or for a nominal sum ($1). I also explained that I would sign any contract he gave me; a contract written by his legal staff prohibiting me from suing them for patent infringement. What did I ask in return? Only that he consider my other ideas—inventions that I would also supply to them without obligation. If he thought my inventions were valuable, I would accept any payment that he, in his sole discretion, deemed to be adequate compensation. Furthermore, I wouldn't just give him ideas; I would give him fully functional products that I developed at my own expense and proved to work.

I was willing to make that offer because I don't have one good idea; I have so many that I can afford to give away some to get my foot in the door. However, when manufacturers won't accept free inventions that could give them a huge competitive edge, you must question if they’re doing everything they can to improve their products and hence the American economy. The answer is obviously no!

Did he jump at the chance? Hardly. He said “no,” explaining that he would continue to rely on innovations generated within his company.

“What innovations?” I wonder with exasperation every time I use the snowblower his company produced. I have at least 14 inventions pertaining to snowblowers that would make snowblowing faster, easier, more effective, and more comfortable. If he utilized my inventions, he could dominate that market and the tractor market. But no, he'd rather stagnate. Now I understood what President Hoover meant when he said, “The only problem with capitalism is the capitalists."

So why did he say “no”?

Once he found out I am a doctor, he told me that he is on the board of directors of a hospital, and snidely said every doctor he knows is knowledgeable about medicine but, other than that, can barely screw in a light bulb.

While docs often like to kid about that extreme level of specialization, that stereotype obviously does not apply to everyone in medicine. I have a real knack for inventing, but also a flair for building things. Thus, I can turn an idea in my head into a working device. I've done this for so many projects for so many years that I am very confident about my inventing ability. If I meet someone who might benefit from it, I will matter-of-factly mention it.

Bragging is useless, but so is false modesty. Many people hide or deliberately minimize their talents to avoid being accused of bragging (speaking with excessive pride), but if the pride is proportionate to the accomplishment, it isn't excessive, and therefore isn't bragging. It's fact.

However, such facts can annoy people with fragile egos. He undoubtedly would have liked me better if I told him how wonderful his snowblower is, but what's the point in lying? It's not wonderful. It's OK, but at over twice the price of other snowblowers in that class, it should offer better features and performance. I straightforwardly explained that I could help him make better snowblowers, tractors, and other lawn & garden equipment. I think this rubbed him the wrong way because he inherited the company and therefore became president and CEO because he was born in the right family. Many people who benefited from nepotism have egos that are necessarily fragile or just filled with hot air and bluster. When you accomplish something on your own, it helps to build healthy self-esteem that no one can take from you. On the other hand, when you're president and CEO because you happened to slide down the right birth canal, you have good reason for doubting your qualifications.

During our long conversation, he said something that substantiated my supposition about his ego. When we discussed the first season of American Inventor, he emphatically told me how much he hated one of the judges on that show, Doug Hall, who he termed a “know-it-all.”

I was taken aback by his caustic remark because Doug Hall is a very successful inventor and engineer who actually knew what he was talking about—unlike some of the other judges, who based their votes on emotion so often that contestants soon realized they could increase their chances of advancing in the competition by giving a sob story.

Spare me the melodrama; just explain the invention's merits. Doug felt the same way. In my book, that's good. Doug also gave opinions based on his years of experience to explain why an invention either wasn't truly an invention, or otherwise wasn't destined for commercial success. That's also good; feedback from a knowledgeable person is beneficial. I wondered why anyone would object to that, but Mr. Fragile Ego obviously did. I think that he wanted to be revered as The Man Who Knows Everything, so others who know more, or are more talented, are a threat to his ego.

This experience changed my opinion about the inheritance tax. I previously believed that people should be able to leave their assets to their family without limitation. There is no legitimate reason to tax modest estates, but I can now understand how great wealth passed from generation to generation can perpetuate a business dynasty that can outcompete other companies not because they have better ideas or better products, but because their inheritance gave them such a huge head start that they can rest on the laurels of their ancestors and still roll in the dough—like the Ford family. Society is benefited when companies produce the best possible products; society is harmed when a glut of lackluster companies dominate the market so much that they crowd out startup companies that could offer better products.

I've met people who grew up sheltered in such wealth they didn't even know people got up in the morning and went to work! One man didn't realize this until he was drafted into military service. Imagine that: Becoming an adult without seeing a single person go to work!

Notes:

CEOs who look the part earn more but do not perform better.

Comments (1)

Bobcat could benefit from your invention

My two sons and grandson work for the Bobcat company in Gwinner North Dakota and I bet they would be interested in your ideas. They were started by two innovative brothers here and they were sold a few years back to a South Korean company. It would be great to see them come up with some new inventions as my son tells me they are always working on something.

REPLY FROM DR. PEZZI: Bobcat could easily dominate the tractor market, and substantially boost their profits, if they used my hybrid wheel/track that can instantly switch from a wheel to a track, or a track to a wheel, or anything in between. It can do things that neither wheels nor tracks can do.

It provides a MUCH smoother ride than tires or tracks, and is MUCH safer, too. It provides improved ability to ascend or descend hills and enormously greater sidehilling ability. It gives operators the power to do things with attached implements (such as a front-end loader or 3-point blade) that otherwise are not feasible.

Compared to a track, it is lighter, quieter, less costly, requires less maintenance, offers less rolling resistance, lasts much longer, and is less damaging to the ground.

Compared to a tire, it provides greatly improved traction, freedom from punctures, and reduced ground compaction and damage.

Manufacturers are always looking for a big idea that will give them a huge competitive advantage. My hybrid wheel/track would do that. Consumers would LOVE it. Rinda, if you can get Bobcat to contact me and license my invention, I'll give you a robotic chef once they go into mass production.