I was going to try to write a clever lyric based on Led Zeppelin's "Tangerine," but I couldn't get past "Histamine." Ah, well.

Yesterday, I had one of the worst allergic reactions that I've had in a while. My face didn't swell up that I noticed, but I did have itchy and burning eyes, runny nose, congested sinuses, sneezing, coughing, the works. I had to run to the pharmacy to pick up some Claritin, it was so bad.

Look, I'm not one to take medications—I don't even like to take Tylenol for a headache. My thinking is that the headache will pass given time, and is usually a symptom of something else: dehydration is a big causing factor of headaches in my experience; lack of sleep is another. Taking a Tylenol won't solve these problems but will rather mask it. I would much prefer to drink plenty of fluids and get some rest until the symptoms go away on their own.

In my lay opinion, too often we treat the sniffle not the cold.

But this goes far beyond medicine: it is the same way in politics as well. Poverty is a continuing problem that has a feedback loop that is incredibly difficult to get out of. Throwing money at poor people would be like taking Tylenol to cure a headache caused because you just didn't drink enough water the day before—it will cure the headache, but it will not cure the underlying issue that caused the headache in the first place.

Poverty has many root causes, and we may never agree on what those root causes may be, and we may never agree how to solve the problems we do agree on. Now we can't even agree to give them at least some monetary assistance until they can get back on their feet.

What we need is a comprehensive study on the most common causes of poverty, and address these problems. This is important because I believe that we as a nation are only as wealthy as the poorest among us, and in the US right now, for every Bill Gates or Warren Buffett, there are millions who are struggling just to get the bills paid on a monthly basis.

Where will this lead? I can only see one way it could lead: if people can't pay their bills, the bills don't get paid. If a company has too many debtees, they can't pay their bills, and so on. It is a house of cards that only takes a small gust of wind to set the whole thing tumbling down.

And that will be a sad day.