Let's broaden the options for dealing with underfunded public employee pensions.

As we look at options for public pensions (hopefully local and state politicians will look at this hard during 2011) the options discussed are always far too narrow.

Some cities are discussing putting new employees on 401k type programs with no pensions and leaving the older workers alone. Some cities are discussing breaking the contract, and telling their pensioners “we know we promised you a $2,000 a month, but we can’t do that anymore, so we are going to pay you $1,200 instead.”

But one concept that is never discussed is how the private sector segued from pensions to 401k programs. They rarely reneged on their pension program promises, but when they didn’t make sense anymore they said “no mas”. They said: "you get what you have been promised. But tomorrow, you will not get a penny more added to your future pension payment. Instead we will put dollars each year into your 401k program and it is up to you to manage."

Why isn’t this part of the discussion for underfunded and broke public pensions?

Estate Taxes: I differ from most Libertarians on this one.

It is hard to find those on the right or from the Libertarian movement that support an estate tax.

Those that hate the idea of the estate tax point to the fact that much of the income that created the estate has already been taxed at least once. And what right does the government have to tax an estate that has already been taxed? But there are plenty of other examples of double taxation. Federal, state and sometimes city income taxes are on the same income. And then if one buys a car after having paid the income tax, you will then pay sales tax on the purchase - this is clearly double taxation. And then you pay gasoline tax and annual license fees in the future. Not double taxation - at least triple or quadruple taxes are the norm.

Critics also point out that some inheritors must sell family farms or small family businesses in order to pay these taxes. I say “tough luck”. After all you are still getting an exemption of several million dollars and only then under the new tax you must pay 35% of the rest in taxes. So if Daddy left you a Gentleman’s club worth $10 million (and if this was his only asset) then you would have to pay $1.75 million in taxes ((10-5)*.35=1.75). So you are telling me that you can’t finance the $1.75 million on a business worth $10 million and still make a nice living?

If you can’t find a way to finance the $1.75 million then you may have to sell Daddy’s pride and joy, walk away with $8.25 million and find a way to eke out a living. And another entrepreneur probably more efficient and hardworking than you will buy the business and keep it humming and maybe even grow it.

The bottom line is that the federal government needs some (but far less than they are currently seeking) revenues. Something is going to get taxed.

But the three taxes that I favor over others are inheritance taxes, consumption taxes and higher gasoline taxes (a special component of consumption taxes). Forget the fairness issues (after all it only fair to tax everyone but me is the prevailing thought). But as a country we clearly need to consume less (while producing more) and we especially need to consume less gasoline. Gasoline (unlike electricity) is where we have a huge and growing dependence on the third world. We are at great risk of war if the oil spigots stop meeting our foreign oil addiction. And this is also a massive part of our foreign deficit and our country’s growing national debt. At 20 million barrels a day of imported oil (at $90 per barrel) adds up to about $650 billion dollars a year of money we are sending out of the country.

But back to inheritance taxes. By their very nature, wealth that is simply handed over to the next generation encourages the next generation to get softer, to consume more and is a disincentive for new generations to go and create their own wealth.

One inheritance tax exception that I support along with the vast majority is that there should be zero inheritance tax for a surviving spouse (and this has been the norm for most proposals).

The inheritance tax just enacted in Washington is actually a fairly reasonable compromise. The first five million is free from inheritance tax and then it is taxed at a 35% rate. Not bad.

Second and third generations on average tend to squander wealth that that has been created by their parents and grandparents. They tend to consume these estates rather than build them. This is clearly a generalization but you will find far more examples of this than where they have built on their parents wealth and generate more jobs than their parents would have done with the same money.

In general the more you tax something the less of it you get. But we will not have fewer deaths with an inheritance tax. But the more we tax consumption and gadgets and gasoline the less we will use.

On the other hand our taxes on employing workers (the employers share of social security and Medicare taxes and unemployment insurance premiums), and income taxes result in fewer workers being hired and fewer people working. There is no way to get around some of these taxes but they are by their very nature counterproductive.

So since we must have some taxes, I would start with the inheritance tax.

How do we bring manufacturing back to the US?

Since 2000, America has lost over one third of its manufacturing plants.
It is a cumulative problem, one issue after another, more and more regulation with no single law or regulation responsible for destroying it.

Once this manufacturing capability is lost, it is difficult to revive the sector. After we lose the expertise to build a prototype, it takes little time before designers even consider building a new product in this country.

In 1952, one third of US employees worked in factories, producing everything from makeup to televisions. Now no televisions are built in this country and Dell Computer just shut down their last US manufacturing facility in North Carolina. In 1965, manufacturing accounted for 53% of the US economy and in 2004 it accounted for only 9% - and it far less in 2010.

During the last couple of decades America got so good at building new homes, our energy, enthusiasm and innovation was mostly directed at this business. But we never exported any of these new homes overseas. We borrowed heavily from outside the country and built far to many McMansions rather than new factories to export goods to the rest of the world.

A lack of manufacturing is not only an economic issue, it is a security issue. The Allies might very well have lost World War II absent our ability to massively convert and scale up our manufacturing from autos and civilian goods into armaments, able to give us more airplanes, tanks and ships than the enemies had.

With reference to our college graduates, today only 5% of all graduates are degreed engineers. And of that measly 5%, half of those are foreign students that usually return home after their education.

Here are a few changes that would be a start to turning things around:

1) Outlaw unions in our manufacturing sector. Virtually no new plants start out unionized here anymore, but the threat of successful plants being unionized in the future is a deterrent to make the initial start-up investment here.
2) Do not require overtime until employees reach 50 hours a week.
3) Do not tax the profits on anything manufactured here and exported outside the country. Right now every industrial country in the world has a manufacturing tax advantage over the US. For all manufacturing here that produces products that remain here, reduce the corporate income tax to only 20%.
4) Do not make employers pay for unemployment insurance. The penalty for hiring someone is that if the world changes and you can’t afford to employ them anymore, often even if they are terminated for cause, the employer gets saddled with the costs of their unemployment benefits. This makes no sense to me.
5) Make all manufacturing employment "at will". If an employee is not performing, he or she can be replaced with a worker who can get the job done. Make it easier to hire, easier to fire, easier to manage and let successful and growing manufacturers better manage their labor costs.
6) Make all prototype costs for products built in the US free from taxes. If the prototype is built here, it greatly increases the chances of building the ultimate product here as well. Today most companies that need a prototype automatically send it to China with no thought of having it prototyped here.
7) Stop subsidizing silly college degrees (like Ethnomusicology, Sociology, Gender Studies) and narrow down the few college majors that government subsidizes to those supporting manufacturing.
8) Vastly simplify the regulations required to open and run a manufacturing plant here.
9) Do not mandate that manufacturers provide health insurance to their employees. Health insurance mandates are another penalty for hiring here and a good reason to open a new plant abroad.
10) Postpone for at least a decade acting on the emotions around the proposed cap & trade legislation. This legislation alone would take out another third of our manufacturing plants.
11) Change the tax incentive that makes the first $70,000 that Americans earn overseas tax free (there may still be overseas income tax). We don’t want to encourage Americans to work overseas any longer. They are welcome to do so, but what is the economic reason for the folks back home subsidizing it?
12) Change our immigration laws and put manufacturing entrepreneurs and professionals at the top of the list. Today an uneducated family member of someone already here usually gets priority. At the same time we put major limitations on engineers immigrating here and foreign graduating engineers staying here. This is nuts.
13) Stop subsidizing windmills and solar plants in this country. They either drive up the cost of electricity for our manufacturing plants or result in higher taxes. When the economics are right, then let's install them without subsidies.

Jeffrey Immelt, CEO of General Electric summed up the situation when he said: “We have become a pathetic exporter… we have to become an industrial powerhouse again but you don’t do this when government and entrepreneurs are not in synch.”

Get our wallets into gear?

For decades our entire economic policy has been geared towards getting Americans to spend more. This has worked so well that Americans individually (and collectively) are pinned down with record debt. This is most of the argument about extending unemployment benefits - the dollars given to the unemployed will be spent on average quickly and the multiplier effect will result in not one but multiple Xboxes being purchased. Of course the Xboxes are built in China.

But how much does it really help our economy to have the government borrow from China (the world’s leading producer and lender these days) in order to encourage Americans to buy another IPad or plasma television set?

Americans are already pretty darn good at spending - on houses, cars, gasoline, computers, cell phones and concerts. But Americans are not as good good at manufacturing and exporting goods to other countries. We used to be the king of manufacturing and exporting but no more.

When you are the wealthiest country (by some measures) and the biggest economy, the world grants you more credit than they give to Ireland, Greece or Nigeria. But even the big can fail and when they do it is louder, harder and messier.

Perhaps we should direct our entire focus on getting Americans to produce more. Let's expand our manufacturing to meet more of our own needs and to export to meet the needs of others. Let’s stop spending less on our own personal comfort and start producing to make the rest of the world a better place.

Let's have some good old fashioned trust busting in the banking sector

We haven’t done a darn thing about our US banks that are too big to fail. We would still have a massive problem if Wells Fargo, BofA, Citibank, JP Morgan or Goldman Sachs went bankrupt today.

Here is the answer. Let’s simply break all of the top five banks in two. Take all of their assets and all of their liabilities and split the baby. We would have Citibank A and Citibank B (and after four months we would make each of them bid on the underlying name and the other would have to establish a new name).

Three years later, let’s establish a system that any bank with assets that are greater than 600 billion will be split in two again.

We would have competition for checking and savings accounts again. We would have far more innovation and at this size we can allow these smaller institutions to take virtually any risk they want to take, because if they blow it then we can afford to let them go broke.

Labor mobility used to be a competitive advantage for America

Labor mobility has been a competitive advantage for America in the past. Workers were more willing to move their families for better work opportunities than in other parts of the world. This meant that it was possible to get the best workers where and when they were needed.

But three subsidies have made it far less likely for workers to leave one employer in one city (or even unemployment in one place) for a better paying job in another locale:
1) Homeownership. When your new home instantly went up in value, it was not hard to sell your old home and move up to an even nicer one in the new location. But it works as a disincentive when home prices have stalled or gone down. The worker has to either come up with cash to sell his old home at a loss or rent it out (probably at a monthly loss).
2) Company/government pension programs. If you work for a fire department and have 10 years with that fire district, you will take a major haircut moving to another fire department. When was the last time you heard of a public employee or a union employee leaving one pension program voluntarily?
3) Healthcare insurance. Granted you can get usually qualify for Cobra insurance where you pay for your former employer for insurance over the next 18 months but then what?

This is just another example of the unintended consequences of government interference in the marketplace.

Inviting entrepeneurs to immigrate

Just saw my cousin who has emigrated from the US to Scottland under an “Entrepenuers Visa”. The concept is that the UK makes it far easier to immigrate into their country if you are going to start, or expand a business and hire others in the process. Their structure may not be perfect but the idea is a winner.

We need more entrepreneurs in the US as well. We have a similar program in the US. However the program tends to be designed around "politically correct" measurements. As I have mentioned in other posts, not all jobs are created equally. A job that results in substantial exports abroad is far more valuable than one that make use a bit more comfortable at home. But that aside, entrepreneurs are a net plus for any economy.

The notion of allowing new immigrants based on their ethnicity, or a limit per country or if they have family in the US might garner votes, but it does not make us stronger economically.

Not everyone has the mindset to be an entrepreneur. But we are not running a charity here. We are talking about bringing in new blood to our country – and hopefully new thinking that will make us stronger, not more politically correct.

Find Lucky and Good: Risks, Decisions and Bets for Investors, Traders and Entrepreneurs at Amazon.

Diversity for fair weather sports fans

The advantage for fair weather fans of living (or rooting) in a large metropolitan area is that you have several teams from which to choose. In the Bay Area we have the 49ers, the Giants, the A’s, the Stanford Cardinal, the Cal Bears and the San Jose State Spartans (well they don’t really count). One of these has got to have a good season.

In the Atlanta area they have the Georgia Bulldogs (not much of a year so far), the Atlanta Braves who were in contention until the end, the Atlanta Falcons (who are doing well) and the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets.

So this is all about diversifying one’s emotional bets. But if you live in Eugene or Boise it is do or die. One team and one fate!

What do we do now?

So we now have a bit of stalemate in Washington (much better than where we were). So what should both parties agree to work on? Here is my list:

1. Establish a system for state bankruptcies.
2. Require that grossly underfunded public pensions to freeze benefits at today’s levels.
3. Cut unnecessary federal programs and expenses.
4. Cut unnecessary and wasteful federal regulation.
5. Finish up in Iraq and Afghanistan and get out of Dodge.
6. Start to close down Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

How are we doing with our reading?

“’We are doing a better job of teaching kids to read in elementary school.’ said one national expert. ‘But once they enter adolescence, they fall victim to a general culture which does not encourage or reinforce reading. Because these people then read less, they read less well. Because they read less well, they do poorly in school, in the job market, and in civic life… This is not a study about literary reading. It’s a study about reading of any sort and what the consequences are of doing it well or doing it badly are. In an increasingly competitive world, the consequences of doing it badly include economic decline…. What are the consequences if American becomes a nation in which reading is a minority activity?'”

From "The Five-Year Party" by Craig Brandon.

What do we do about the lies in political advertisements?

There are plenty of lies and exaggerations on both sides of the political isle in our upcoming elections. I am not talking about generalizations like (I believe in smaller government or I will work hard to get rid of waste in Washington). I am talking about statements about a candidate’s claim he served in the Marines or graduated from Yale or that his opponent was convicted of child abuse.

There are organizations like Factcheck.org that do a reasonable job of checking the facts and calling out the liars in these political campaigns. But they only check some of the ads and not enough people verify potentially deceitful ads with the fact checkers to make lying an ineffective strategy today.

What’s the answer? Perhaps a mechanism for a quick appeal to a new independent Fair Campaign Office (FCO). I make this suggestion as a small government advocate. A semi-judicial process would be established for a campaign to get a quick determination on the truthfulness of an ad.

For example, Harry’s campaign asserts in a television advertisement that Harry’s opponent Bill was convicted of distributing child pornography. Bill’s campaign lodges a complaint with the FCO. Both sides then post a bond with the FCO. The Fair Campaign Office can take a number of actions: 1) Require the ad to be suspended until it can be investigated by the Fair Campaign office (if it appears in the initial review as false) 2) The FCO investigates in more detail and determines within a few days if the ad is materially false 3) If the ad is deemed materially false then whatever Harry spent on television spots, he must pay three times that to the FCO (out of a bond previously posted) 4a) One third of these funds go to Bill’s campaign 4b) Another third of these funds would be spent by the FCO to immediately advertise that they have found the advertisement materially false and 4c) The FCO retains one third of these funds for administrative expenses.

The appeal process would be run like the challenge system in the NFL. You only get to throw the red flag twice unsuccessfully in a campaign. If a campaign challenges the truth of an ad and loses the appeal two times then they are done with appeals for the season. Each time a campaign loses an appeal they also must pay the Fair Campaign Office three times the advertising spent on the ads in dispute (out of their bond previously posted). If the appeal is unsuccessful (in other words the ad is deemed truthful), then the FCO keeps one third of this amount for their administration costs, spends one third of the funds to advertise that they found the ad materially truthful and hands over the remaining one third to the opposing campaign.

It would obviously be critical that the FCO had the ability to respond quickly and make fair and objective decisions. So when one of these disputes came up then both of the campaigns would have to provide their supporting evidence quickly as well.

But the two strike rule would apply to the liars as well. If a campaign was found to have broadcast two ads with material false statements then they could only run new ads after they had reviewed the prospective ads with the FCO and the opposing campaigns at least a week prior to running the ad. In these cases the opposing campaign could challenge the veracity of the ad prior to the ad being broadcast.

Finally, during the last few days of a campaign (let’s call it one week), if a campaign ran a new advertisement that was successfully challenged by the opposition as untrue, then the election results would be nullified (if the liar had won) and a new election would be held a month later. The cost of the additional public election would be borne by the lying campaign.

We have rules for compensating those damaged by liars in the general public via libel & defamation laws. These laws compensate the injured party for the injuries created by “liars” that go public with their lies. But in the case of lies in public elections there is no protection for the public and the public ends up with a liar representing them. The liars are rewarded with paid trips to Washington DC.

Historically the voters have relied on the media to independently investigate and expose lying campaigns. But this does not work very well today. Lies spread much faster than the truth and once the damage is done it is hard to undo. And political campaigns based on lies are a major distortion to our democracy.

Definition of an interception!

This is where the statistics lie (OK this is not unique).

On 3rd down when an incomplete pass will result in the offense punting the ball, a deep interception for 45 yards may be better than an incomplete pass. It should not count against the quarterback.

The other stat that needs revisiting is the interception. If the quarterback throws the ball right into the hands of the receiver and he pops it up and the ball is subsequently caught by the defense back, it is labeled an interception. The same interception as when the defensive back is standing all alone and the quarterback throws the ball directly to him as though he was the receiver.

Life is not fair, but we can do better than this.

The Agreement Ratio

I love it when someone disagrees with one of my posts on Facebook or on one of my blogs. But how much do I love it?

I also love it when my friends agree with me. I really don’t want you to agree with me all of the time and I find it particularly annoying if you disagree with me all of the time.

So let’s define a new dynamic called the “Agreement Ratio” as the percentage of times you agree with me. It is 10% if you agree with me 10% of the time and 90% if you agree with me 90% of the time.

Here is my hypothesis. I find it most interesting if this ratio is 50%. You disagree with me half the time and tell me what I am missing. The other 50% of the time you confirm the brilliance of my conclusions.

OK - do you agree with me on this one?

Should private companies control our most precious natural resources (water)?

Interesting article entitled “The New Oil - Should private companies control our most precious natural resources?”

The answer is an unequivocal YES. I am without a doubt a free market guy. I have seen free markets in action and have experienced the innovation and financial strategies that result in far more efficient use of our resources. I have seen this in oil, natural gas, electricity, copper, gold and shipping to name a few. And these free and competitive markets work.

When the government controls the supply then investments are based on politics and not rational economic supply and demand principles. Even though there is a natural monopoly on the last mile of distribution for telephone, electricity or water does not mean that we can not effectively deregulate the supply side. In Texas and much of Europe one can pick your own supplier and pay a transmission charge for the local utility to move the power over the last few miles to your home or business.
Some suppliers charge a simple index or market price for the commodity (kind of like a variable interest loan compared to a fixed price loan). Other companies might offer a fixed price for the commodity over the next few years. But competition in the supply-side of commodities means choice and almost always lower costs in the long run.

In California the biggest user of water by far is agriculture. But under the leadership of the Federal government during the 1930’s to the 1960’s water was contracted to large farmers in what is otherwise desert land. Much of this would have made no economic sense at all if the growers had to pay the market price for the water they were using. And based on these subsidies and below market prices many of these farmers got rich. I am all in favor of people getting rich without subsidies but hate the notion if it happening on the back of taxpayers.

One school of thought is that water is just too important to privatize. But this is where I differ sharply. The more critical the service the more important it is to privatize because it will be done more efficiently and less politically than the government can ever accomplish.

The real critical needs for water come down to clean drinking and cooking water, showers and perhaps a small amount to run our plumbing systems. This is probably less than 10% of all the water used in the US. Virtually all of the rest (agriculture, manufacturing, lawns and gardens, and car washes) are optional. Now I am a big advocate of the US increasing its exports to the rest of the world via agriculture and manufacturing but if we price the water in an open market we will build the most sustainable economy and won’t build it based on hidden subsidies that result in the wrong crop being grown in the wrong place. Perhaps a water intensive manufacturing process should be situated in Sitka, Alaska rather than in the desert outside of Phoenix, Arizona. But if we have open and transparent prices for water, electricity, and natural gas our economy will adjust where and how we do things in a way that is far more efficient than politicians deciding what kind of subsidy they should give to a powerful grower or employer in their community.

Critics of free markets point to the potential for high volatility that we see sometimes in commodity markets like fertilizers, oil and pork bellies. The public is fine when prices drop dramatically but hate it when they go up just as fast. But most free markets allow for suppliers to offer fixed prices that give certainty over a given period (just like one can pay a bit more for a fixed interest mortgage today and remove the risk of interest rates going through the roof). Norway has perhaps the most volatile wholesale electricity prices in the world because the vast majority of the electricity is generated from hydroelectric systems. So in wet years, prices are low and in dry years they can be quite high. Despite this they have an open electric market for every consumer (residential, commercial , agriculture and industrial) that offers plenty of price structures (including fixed prices that remain flat in dry years) and countless suppliers all vying for the customer’s business.

There are ample mechanisms for moving water around the world during those peak periods when one area is having a shortage. From hauling icebergs, using tankers to transport across the oceans, trucking across the country or installing mobile desalination units on the coast. These water peaking strategies are far more expensive than pumping the water from 50 feet below the surface in your back yard. But the free market will figure out a way to solve the problem most efficiently. Plus in a free market, it is far easier to price the payback on demand side investments (like more efficient toilets or energy efficient light bulbs).

Water supply should clearly be deregulated along with retail electricity and retail natural gas. We just can’t afford the inefficiencies of government run (or private utility monopoly) systems to manage these precious resources.

Going through the motions in trying to curb illegal immigration

Here is the letter that the Social Security Administration sent to Meg Whitman and her husband.

The real tragedy is the language in this letter. Last year the Social Security Administration sent out 9 million of these letters. How many of these letters were sent to the employers of illegal aliens? My guess is most of them.

But the letter says “This letter does not imply that you or your employee intentionally provided incorrect about the employee’s name or SSN. It is not a basis, in and of itself, for you to take any adverse action against the employee, such as laying off, suspending, or firing, or discriminating against the individual. Any employer that uses the information in this letter to justify taking adverse action against an employee may violate state or federal law and be subject to legal consequences.” In other words, we would never want you to fire an illegal immigrant.

Does the Social Security Administration cooperate at all with the INS? Our government is going through the motions in trying to curb illegal immigration. It would not be that tough for us to actually do something about it. This is really not rocket science.

Not all jobs are created equally

Not all jobs are created equally. But our politicians rarely differentiate between quality jobs that are result from the free market versus dead-end or over-paid public sector jobs. Few of the job “creation” proposals ever break down the types of jobs that will result. Although it is a fallacy that government can create jobs, they sure as heck can destroy them and make it more difficult for the private sector to generate real work.

And how about when our politicians try to "buy" jobs? Obama recently announced a $50 billion new government spending program to generate more jobs. But how many and what kind? What does each job cost? Will we see additional jobs or will Obama come back later and say that it would have been much worse if he hadn't taken action rather than being able to point to higher employment figures. Do we give the President the same kudos for a new government minimum wage job (I dare you to actually find one of these) as opposed to a recent $100,000 per year long-term job in the private sector that results in substantially more exports?

In general here is how I would size up and value new jobs created:

1) Those jobs that result in exports from the US are more valuable than those that simply make it more comfortable to live here. So a job that manufacturers and exports widgets to Europe from Indiana has more value than a new job for a massage therapist servicing yuppies in a seaside resort. America cannot continue to consume more than it produces. Our politicians give lip service to increasing exports but on the other hand they would never deny another subsidy to their local barber college either. Now the last thing I want is for the government bureaucrats and politicians to determine what we should invest in to increase our exports. They will always get it wrong. The private sector will sometimes get this calculus wrong as well, but when they do the actors tend to go out of business and lose their capital for the next bet.

2) A private sector job is more valuable than a government job. Some jobs like law enforcement need to be in the government sector, but if a job can be in the public sector or the private sector, the government job will always be more bureaucratic, more political, less customer responsive and far more expensive than if done in private industry. However, this is not what our politicians advocate. “Through the College Cost Reduction and Access Act of 2007", Congress created the Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program to encourage individuals to enter and continue to work full-time in public service jobs. Under this program, borrowers could qualify for forgiveness of the remaining balance due on their eligible federal student loans after they have made 120 payments on those loans under certain repayment plans while employed full time by certain public service employers. This encourages public jobs over private jobs. Plus a government employee is beholden to the politicians that create the government job for their pay and benefits. It leads to wages and compensation that are too high. Most government jobs are overpaid (by as much as twice when considering benefit plans). So for the same price of a new government job, the private sector can create two jobs.

3) A job that will last several years is superior to a short-term job. No job is “permanent”; it is just that some jobs are more temporary than others. But most of the make-work jobs of the Obama administration are very short-lived (except those union jobs in the government which once established are nearly impossible to eliminate).

4) A new non-union job is more valuable than a union job. Unions make the US less competitive and less adaptive than non-union organizations. Show me a union organization that is competitive long-term with non-union shops? The Obama administration was supported heavily in the latest election by unions and they were paid back handsomely in the bailout of General Motors (at a cost that is currently estimated at $80 billion). The normal bankruptcy procedures were set aside and the US taxpayers and the auto unions ended up owning the vast majority of the new company. Even in Cuba the public employee unions are screaming bloody murder about their government jobs being eliminated.

5) A job that reduces our imports is more valuable than one that is neutral or increases our imports. So yes “Green jobs” are nice, but if all the new photovoltaic panels are built in China and Americans are only installing these plug and play systems at minimum wage then we are not doing much for American competitiveness (especially if the systems have a 20 year pay back). On the other hand if American scientists and engineers create new patents and designs that actually make solar electricity less expensive than fossil fuel generated power then we have really done something. But while the private sector can differentiate between these differences your average Congressman is at a loss to understand the distinction.

6) A new for-profit job is more valuable than a new nonprofit job. The nonprofit sector does good work for America but some of them are really more advocate organizations frequently pushing for a liberal agenda. They fall into the category of making life in American more “comfortable”. Our politicians don’t agree with me here and also include college loan forgiveness for those working for 501(c)(3) nonprofits. Without the discipline of the free market nonprofits are also subject to substantial abuse. "We can see that tax abuse is increasingly present in the sector," and unless the government takes effective steps to curb it, such organizations risk "the loss of the faith and support that the public has always given to this sector," said Internal Revenue Commissioner Mark W. Everson in a letter to the Senate Finance Committee detailing abuses his agency has found. In fact 8 out of 10 of the largest non-government employers in Washington DC are nonprofits. In 2005 nonprofits including their pension plans totaled roughly 3 million entities controlling $8 trillion in assets. And these nonprofits can be every bit as politically motivated as the government. And who of course is regulating these nonprofits - you guessed it the IRS.

7) New jobs that subsequently result in other jobs being created are far more valuable than jobs that are created at the expense of existing jobs. A new manufacturing job in the US requires support from the transportation industry, the telecommunications industry and various other service industries. This manufacturing job invigorates the economy and generates prosperity widely around the country. This is not the case for new government and nonprofit jobs.

8) Higher paying jobs (based on market forces rather than union monopolies) are more valuable than minimum wage jobs. Again our laws do not support this notion. Under the new “Income Based Repayment” option for college student loans the “required monthly payment is capped at an amount that is intended to be affordable based on income and family size.” So the government encourages the Octo-Mom to go to college and then employs her questionable planning skills at a low-paying job.

9) I never ever want to see another public union job created (do you think Obama agrees?). They are impossible to eliminate and keep sucking the life out of our economy for decades to come. These public union jobs come at the expense of productive private sector jobs. Public unions’ traditional strength – the ability to finance their members’ rising pay and benefits through tax increases – has become a liability. “Although private-sector unions always have had to worry that consumers will resist rising prices for their goods, public sector unions have benefited from the fact that taxpayers can’t choose – they are, in effect, ‘captive consumers.’ “ The simple but idiotic solution would be to simply make every government employee a union-paying member. And then we would have no push back on government costs at all - other than the Chinese who will stop lending us money.

10) New jobs that result in longer work weeks are more valuable than jobs that are 35 hours a week (and are still considered full-time under the US federal job statistics). The French would clearly disagree with me on this one.

11) New jobs for US citizens are more valuable than jobs for illegal aliens in the US. The liberal left that is counting on getting votes from the illegal alien sector once they become citizens (and sometimes before they become legal) may disagree on this point. Our politicians and bureaucrats simply can’t fine tune the job creation machinery to differentiate between these groups. I challenge you to get Obama to even comment on this factor.

12) A new job that creates more value than it cost is far better than a make-work job that consumes more money, time and effort than is created (almost always a government sponsored job). If it is a private sector job we see if people are willing to pay for a specific job; in government, the value of what is being accomplished and who pays for it is all very nebulous. The easiest example is government-sponsored studies like those that found that “people who exercise are less fat than those that sit on the couch”, “young children are frightened by clowns”, and “women don’t like to be told they look fat”. All of these studies “create” jobs, just not jobs with any discernable value.

A new job that is actually created and filled is a fact that we cannot argue with. But Obama’s funny numbers for ”jobs saved” - those which would have been lost if he had not acted are subject to the manipulations and big assumptions of those paid to make him look good. So relative to jobs I vote for counting birds in the hand not birds in the bush.

To create the most valuable jobs, what does the government need to do? For the most part they need to get out of the way. They need to provide stability, reduce taxes, reduce regulations, and stop their “class warfare” rhetoric. If Obama would simply play more golf we would see entrepreneurs hiring more.

If you are in a hole stop digging! Stop digging the government pension hole.

How about this for an idea? For every city, state or federal government that has a substantial deficit (we can fine tune the cutoff point later) let’s simply suspend the increase in retirement benefits for those currently accumulating them. Let’s not break the promises we have already made but stop writing even more checks that will bounce in the future. These unfunded liabilities are growing fast and there is simply not enough money stashed away to meet the obligations.

The government employee gets her current salary and non-retirement benefits but her retirement pay is frozen until the government gets its act together (in other words achieves a balanced budget).

While California goes deeper into debt each day, their retirement hole continues to deepen. And when California is eventually placed into receivership, then the US government will after much consternation step in to make good on the promised retirement payments. Keep in mind that if I buy an annuity from anyone other than AIG and they go bust then I get pennys or nothing on the dollar. But this is not the case if it is a traditional pension program which is managed by government and has an implied or legal guarantee from the US government.
The holes that our governments keep digging are our government defined-benefit pension promises. These promises are easy to make but hard (or impossible) to deliver on.

The other major advantage of this approach is that it might bring the government employee unions to the table actually trying to re-engineer the compensation of public employees. In most cases the hourly pay is not far out of line with the private sector. The problem is the benefit packages of public employees compared to the private sector is way out of whack. This would do wonders for balancing these budgets and would also provide a new focus on how much these current pension programs are costing the taxpayers. The one exception I would consider is the pension programs for our military that are structured much more reasonably and have zero payout unless a soldier puts in at least 20 years.

Eventually we need to move all government retirements (including the military) from defined-benefit (annuities) to defined-contribution (like 401k and IRA) programs. This is much easier to manage and removes the risk of politicians promising payments 30 years out that they have no intention of saving for.

Five years after Hurricane Katrina.

Five years after Hurricane Katrina. Another reminder that big government will take on important tasks and then overspend and underdeliver.

"The hurricane protection failures in New Orleans prompted a lawsuit against the US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) the builders of the levee system as mandated in the Flood Control Act of 1965. Responsibility for the failures and flooding was laid squarely on the Army Corps in January 2008, but the federal agency could not be held financially liable due to sovereign immunity in the Flood Control Act of 1928." from Wikipedia - But alas the Federal Government became very much financially responsible for the damage - just not via lawsuits.

In these cases, politicians will then tell us that we need to try a little harder, spend a little more to get the job done properly.

Rarely is their a discussion about getting the government out of things they are poor at (most things) and leaving these activities to the private sector.

Let's put the seniors in jail

I received this from a friend......

Let's put the seniors in jail, and the criminals in a nursing home.

This way the seniors would have access to showers, hobbies, and walks,
they'd receive unlimited free prescriptions, dental and medical
treatment, wheel chairs etc. and they'd receive money instead of
paying it out.

They would have constant video monitoring, so they could be helped
instantly, if they fell, or needed assistance. Bedding would be
washed twice a week, and all clothing would be ironed and returned to
them.

A guard would check on them every 20 minutes, and bring their meals
and snacks to their cell. They would have family visits in a suite
built for that purpose.

They would have access to a library, weight room, spiritual
counseling, pool and education.

Simple clothing, shoes, slippers, P.J.'s and legal aid would be free on request.

Private, secure rooms for all, with an exercise outdoor yard, with gardens.

Each senior could have a P.C. a T.V. radio, and daily phone calls.

There would be a board of directors to hear complaints, and the guards
would have a code of conduct, that would be strictly adhered to.

The "criminals" would get cold food, be left all alone, and
unsupervised, lights off at 8pm, and showers once a week, live in a
tiny room, pay $4,000.00 per month and have no hope of ever getting
out. Justice for all.

This should make us think of what kind of world we created for ourselves.

Posted via email from John's posterous

How do we fairly label everyone?

With the increasing emphasis on affirmative action goals by the Obama
administration, I have a fundamental question about how we are going
fairly label everyone? I think it is usually easiest to label a
person a man or a women, but when it comes to race it is a far
different story.

Affirmative action historically allowed individuals to
“self-identify”. At Pacific Gas & Electric (where I worked for 13
years), if I identified with the Hispanic Culture I was a code 3. By
the way if I was from Spain I would be considered a White not a
Hispanic.

If I self-identified with the African-American culture I was a code 1.
If I self-identified with the White culture I was a code 0 (seems a
bit derogatory doesn’t it that my culture is called a bunch of zero’s)
but I will get over it. Those that were of Asian or of Pacific
Islander descent were code 2’s and finally those of Native American
ancestry were Code 4.

If I self-identified as a White but I was obviously of African
American ancestry, the Personnel Department would go ahead and label
me as a Code 1 because the company was always at risk for receiving
the wrath of the racial police if they were not adequately represented
with certain minorities in management and overall employment
statistics.

But as we see more and more economic set-asides and quotas established
(the left won’t call them quotas but that is what they are), it seems
to me that we need to ask the question how do we identify the
exact qualifications for these racial perks? Also we have more and
more marriages of mixed ancestry (I think this is great). Few
Americans that have been in this country for more than a couple of
generations are 100% of anything.

Obama is half African American and half White. So does he get half
the credit for the Women and Minority Business advantages when he
opens his laundry mat in his next gig.

Tiger Woods is frequently described as African American but his mother
is of a mixed Thai, Chinese and Dutch Ancestry. His father had a
mixture of African American, Chinese and Native American ancestry. So
all told Tiger is one-quarter Thai, one-quarter Chinese, one-quarter
African American, one-eighth Native American, and one-eight Dutch. He
has all the codes covered except Code 3.

If Tiger was not a golfer and instead had to work his way up a large
publicly traded corporation, he would have to self-identify his race.
You only get one choice here. It sounds like he would self-identify
as African American, even though he has twice as much Asian ancestry
as African. But in the racial quotas and affirmative action game,
being of Asian ancestry gets one virtually no advantages. He would
actually get the best treatment if he self-identified as Native
American because big companies have had the least success in filing
their senior ranks with Native Americans.

And how about Tiger’s children with his Sweedish ex-wife? These
wealthy kids (Sam & Charlie) are 1/4 Asian, 1/8 African American, 1/16
Native American and 9/16 White. Should they qualify for a racial
preference when they apply to Stanford or Harvard?

I recently heard an African American leader say that because they are
perceived as “African American” because the way they look, that they
should qualify as “African American” in the racial perks department.
So is he suggesting a skin pigmentation test to determine
qualifications for racial set-asides? Many Asians from the Indian
Subcontinent and Fiji for example are of Asian decent but have far
darker skin than many African Americans have. Heck, my darkest
freckles have more average dark pigmentation that the average African
American.

Are we going to continue with this “self-identification” system which
is so open to inaccuracies and games to drive the distribution of the
racial quota and affirmative action spoils?

What if we required a DNA test to determine the racial profile of the
individual? These tests now show the breakdown of individuals based
on what part of the world their ancestors were from and should provide
a more independent and analytical method for spreading the racial
perks. But even if we used this scientific method, we would still
have to decide if one would have to be 1%, 10%, 51%, 90% or perhaps
100% of any ethnicity in order to qualify for the racial bonus.

Certain groups get no racial perks at all – in fact they have to score
higher on entrance exams to get a job or get accepted to Medical
School than the disadvantaged categories. If a high school student is
trying to get into the UCLA School of Engineering being of Asian
decent doesn’t do a darn thing for the poor kid. It helps an
applicant about as much as being a Jew when applying to Law School.

And when we broaden the discussion to those that are protected classes
in employment (in other words we can not discriminate against them in
hiring, firing, pay and promotions because of a certain factor) we can
not discriminate based on sex, race, age (if you are 40 or older),
religion or sexual preference. So the only poor schmuck that you can
mess around with is the heterosexual white man under 40 with no
religious affiliation. In the US the White population is about 66%;
men make up roughly 50% of the population, my estimate of the
percentage of the population between 18 and 39 (not protected by age
discrimination laws) is about 25%, the heterosexual population is
perhaps 95% (Wikipedia reports it anywhere from 2% to 13% are
homosexual), and the number of men in this group with no religious
affiliation is perhaps 50% (my estimate). This means the percentage
of Americans that have no special laws to protect them against
discrimination is 66% X 50% X 25% X 95% X 50% = 4% So all of these
laws are designed to protect everyone against this minority of 4%.

Actually here is a better idea. Let’s forget about these factors
altogether. Let’s shut down all the quotas, set-asides, government
contract "programs", affirmative action programs and hire, promote,
accept for college and give contracts to the ones that are most
qualified. Let’s stop this institutional “racial, sexual and
religious profiling” and treat all people based on their own
individual merits.

Posted via email from John's posterous

The new Chevy Volt electric vehicle looks like a loser!

I find the new Chevy Volt electric vehicle quite annoying. Expensive
even after huge tax-subsidies from a big union company that borrowed
massive sums from the Federal government. So Obama - please leave the
auto industry alone and get back to the golf course.

But the most time-consuming aspect is trying to uncover how many miles
per unit of electricity (kwh) the darned thing will travel. The
equivalent of mpg for a gasoline vehicle. I challenge you to find
this at Chevy’s web site on this car
(http://www.chevrolet.com/pages/open/default/future/volt.do).

Chevy shows average US electricity costs of less than $.12 per kwh.
But even this is not definitive on their site. It says for users that
drive less than 40 miles per day the cost of electricity is about
$1.50.

My principal residence is in Lake Tahoe, Nevada and there I pay a flat
rate of about $.12 per kwh. But less than a 100 miles away I have a
second home in California where I pay as little as about $.10 per kwh
during the winter. But during summer peak period I pay as much as
$.60 per kwh (five times Chevy’s assumption) and even during the
summer nights and weekends my marginal cost for electricity averages
about $.38 per kwh (a little more than three times their assumption).
So obviously this car makes no sense for me in California.

The price of electricity really matters in the economics of this new
vehicle. And when I am accelerating from 0-60 mph in an extremely
slow 9 seconds, I want to make sure that I am at least saving some
money.

If one assumes that you are going to drive your vehicle 30 miles per
day (10,950 miles per year) then I will be spending $411 (at my Nevada
home). Using Chevy’s assumed $2.95 per gallon price for gasoline I
would spend $1,077 per year on an equivalent 30 mpg gasoline vehicle.
So in this typical case (at my Nevada home) I would save $666 per
year.

Even after the $7,500 tax credit I would be spending at least $10,000
more for this electric vehicle than I would for a comparable slow and
small vehicle. So the payback would be $10,000/$666 = 15 years (plus
a US government that is another $7,500 towards its next trillion
dollars in Chinese debt).

This is the problem when we get politicians that can’t balance a
budget and can’t efficiently allocate resources deciding what kind of
cars their government-sponsored companies are going to produce.

Posted via email from John's posterous

Management by “Chaos Theory” concept

“Selective prosecution”. This is the government’s selective
prosecution of certain individuals and companies based on the politics
of the moment (The Arizona border issue, voter fraud, immigration
fraud, Medicare fraud, government waste).

The difference is that an enemy of the administration has 100 FBI
agents on the case. A friend of the administration has one
semi-retired agent on the case.

Part of the solution is to simplify the law. Make it more consistent.
Remove the exceptions. Make the law more common sense.

And then make the Senate approval of the US Attorney General based on
a random length. You get confirmed and then we roll the random number
generator to decide if f you have a 3 year term or a 7 year term.
This is my management by “Chaos Theory” concept.

Posted via email from John's posterous

Not all jobs are created equal,

Not all jobs are created equal. The government could hire every
unemployed person in the US tomorrow for $25 per hour and end most of
the unemployment in the US would disappear. I say “most” because some
people would still refuse to “work”.

But a “government” job tends to be a bureaucratic job that does not
grow jobs in the private sector – in fact these jobs destroy private
sector jobs on average. On the other hand, a private manufacturing
job generally can result in products being exported outside the US.
These jobs can create and reduces our balance of payments and create
other indirect private sector jobs.

So don’t trust the creation of government job s – these jobs destroy
more jobs than they create – more bureaucrats than doers.

Posted via email from John's posterous

Are you a Libertarian or a Progressive?

(I received this from a friend and made a few edits)

Are you a Libertarian or a Progressive?

If you ever wondered which side of the fence you sit on, this is a great test!

If a Libertarian doesn't like guns, he doesn't buy one.

If a Progressive doesn't like guns, he wants all guns outlawed.

If a Libertarian is a vegetarian, he doesn't eat meat.

If a Progressive is a vegetarian, he wants all meat products banned
for everyone.

If a Libertarian is homosexual, he quietly leads his life.

If a Progressive is homosexual, he demands legislated respect.

If a Libertarian is down-and-out, he thinks about how to better his situation.

A Progressive wonders who is going to take care of him.

If a Libertarian doesn't like a talk show host, he switches channels.

Progressives demand that those they don't like be shut down.

If a Libertarian is a non-believer, he doesn't go to church.

A Progressive non-believer wants any mention of God and religion silenced.

If a Libertarian decides he needs health care, he goes about shopping
for it, or may choose a job that provides it.

A Progressive demands that the rest of us pay for his.

If a Libertarian reads this, he'll forward it so his friends know how
to vote in November!

A Progressive will delete it because he's "offended".

Well, I forwarded it.

Posted via email from John's posterous

The politically correct term for a non-working illegal allien?

“Undocumented Slacker” - we have slackers out there that were born in
the US. We have illegal aliens in our work force (euphemistically
called “undocumented workers”).

Even though I think we need to restrict illegal immigration into the
US I do respect those willing to work. But is there a class of
illegal aliens in the US that aren’t working.? I have to think there
may be some “Undocumented Slackers” out there soaking up the benefits
but not actually working. What is the politically correct title for
these non-working illegals?

Posted via email from John's posterous

The NAACP does not support child abuse or child abusers say leaders.

The NAACP does not support child abuse or child abusers say leaders.

The National Association for Less Government has approved a resolution
calling on all child abusers within the National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People to "repudiate child abuse activities"
within their political movement.

Organizers say child abuse does not have any place in their
activities. Critics have pointed to a few members that look like
child abusers (poor posture and shifty eyes).
"Self-policing is the right and the responsibility of any movement or
organization," a leader said on "Face the Nation" on CBS. "I denounce
any child abuse acts and I don’t think I am alone."

It is time for change!

(The above is satire and is a reaction to the activities and lies of
the NAACP. They have no proof of racism in the Tea Party movement but
their attacks continue.)

Posted via email from John's posterous

NAACP allegations

There is a higher standard of conduct for those in power compared to
those that are out of power. A lie from those in power is usually
more harmful than a lie from the disenfranchised. The same with an
exaggeration or an unfounded allegation.

The NAACP is not without power. They get plenty of media coverage.
Virtually all their press releases get broad coverage and our
President and Attorney General are of course of African-American
decent. So this is not a group without “power”.

The NAACP’s web page states: “Today, NAACP delegates passed a
resolution to condemn extremist elements within the Tea Party, calling
on Tea Party leaders to repudiate those in their ranks who use racist
language in their signs and speeches.
The resolution came after a year of high-profile media coverage of
attendees of Tea Party marches using vial, antagonistic racial slurs &
images.”

What did the resolution actually say? We don’t know because it is not
available on the website as of today. What evidence does the NAACP
actually have? We don’t have any idea.

Being labeled a “racist” is not quite as horrible as being labeled a
“child molester” but it gets almost the same kind of media play.

So in this instance the NAACP got plenty of coverage for their
allegations, without having to show any evidence.

This stinks.

Posted via email from John's posterous

Equal pay for equal work

I am fine with gay marriage.  But outside of the moral issues (which folks will disagree about for years), it comes down to equal financial treatment.  Why should you get substantially more benefits at work (health care being the big one) if you are married and have kids than another person that is gay and has a life-time partner?

 

But I think the issue is actually far broader and represents discrimination against a larger group – singles.  Why should one person get a benefits package and sometimes pay that is higher than his/her coworker that is single?

 

I have two sons in the Navy.  One is single and the other is married and has four kids.  The service actually pays more if you are married, provides a bigger housing allowance if you are married and provides health care for your entire family (which is much greater than for a single person).  All for the same work.  I am not advocating compenating my married son less, but adding benefits for the single son so he gets equal compensation (assuming the same rank, and other factors that affect military pay).

Posted via email from John's posterous

Feedback on my view about college!

“You are an idiot.  Your poor grasp of English grammar and spelling show just how incompetent you really are.  To try to convince others to eschew an education in favor of so-called "better" post-high school alternatives, is both misguided and a misrepresentation of reality.  Your guidance, while perhaps pertinent to you (I assume your intellect would not thrive in the University environment) should not be used to discourage others from making what is almost always a worthwhile investment.  I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.”

Claude Kemble   claudekemble@yahoo.com This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
B.A. Latin, Greek, Archaeology, University of Michigan
M.Phil. Medieval German, Oxford University
Ph.D. Medieval German, Harvard University

Posted via email from John's posterous

Let' stop building new homes for awhile

If the US economy doesn’t figure out something else to build than new houses we are in deep deep trouble.  For decades we fooled ourselves on the health of the economy as we kept building more and bigger homes.  And we ended up with far more than we needed.

So let’s follow the age-old advice - “when you find yourself in a hole - stop digging”.  The last thing this economy needs to invest in for the foreseeable future is more houses.  Let’s reduce the subsidies for new home construction (and maybe add a tax or two on them).  Let’s declare our economy the post-home-building economy and let entrepreneurs (not the government) find ways to invest our resources in ways that will generate exports to the rest of the world.   Little Johnny will just have to share a bedroom with his big brother.   And Johnny will be shipping widgets off to China in a few years rather than becoming a carpenter.

Posted via email from John's posterous

Is Helen Thomas guilty of “Hate-speech”?

The latest incident when reporter Helen Thomas’s commented that the Jews in Israel should “get the hell out of Palestine” might subject her to “Hate-speech” prosecution in many western Democracies like Canada and Australia.  But not in the US  – at least for now.

And that is great – no matter whether you agree or disagree with her we need to protect our freedom of speech.  Totalitarian governments in Iran, Russia and Venezuela shut down this basic freedom early on as they took over absolute power.

The biggest problem with “Hate-speech” prosecution is that it is always selectively enforced depending on the politics of the party in power and what the underdog group is.  It shuts down honest debate.

Helen Thomas got the full wrath of the media for these comments, she lost her job and that is enough if you disagree with her. 

Posted via email from John's posterous

Are you tired of the phrase “undocumented worker”?

Are you tired of the phrase “undocumented worker”?  Let’s use the terms “illegal immigrant”, “illegal alien”, “criminal border crosser”.  The left is trying to humanize the plight of the people breaking our laws through their kinder gentler language.  They also distort the English language with the term “immigration reform” which is code for amnesty.  Talk about bait and switch - this is it.  70% of Americans want tougher border control and enforcement of our existing laws not amnesty for 20 million illegals that have broken into our country illegally.

We need legal immigrants; we need immigrants that respect and will follow our laws. 

Posted via email from John's posterous

Why did the flotilla need so many thugs to bring in humanitarian aid into the Gaza strip?

How many of these Hamas whackos that want to destroy Israel want the US to survive and prosper?

I’m waiting.

Why did the flotilla need so many thugs to bring in humanitarian aid into the Gaza strip?

My hypothesis is that there are two types of people in the world:  1) Those that support Israel defending its border and also support Arizona defending its Mexican border and 2) Those that support the Flotilla’s right to run through the Israel naval blockade and those that hate the new Arizona immigration law.

Please speak up if you are not in one of these two camps.

Posted via email from John's posterous

Do you believe Joe Sestek or the White House?

In a February, 2010 interview Joe Sestak was asked if he had been offered a high level position by the Obama administration to drop out of the Senatorial race against Arlen Specter in Pennsylvania.  He immediately said “yes”.  When the media asked the White House the same question they took 15 hours to say “no”.  But the White House then changed its story on May 28, 2010 when they released an official report that Bill Clinton, on behalf of the Obama administration had offered an unpaid gig to Sestak.

 So who do you believe? The US Naval academy graduate that has had an “honor code” drilled into his decision process or the White House that has had “political expediency” drilled into its DNA?

This is the transparency that Obama promised - unfortunately transparent lies. 

Posted via email from John's posterous

The other 30%

70% of Americans support Arizona’s illegal immigration legislation.

 

How about the other 30%?

 

What are the major sub-categories of this 30%?  I suggest these six groups?

1)     We need to do a better job at our borders but we need to leave the state and federal identification system alone.

2)     We need to enforce our borders but we also need to improve our state and federal identification system.

3)     We need to allow anyone into the US.

4)     We can’t allow everyone into the US but we need far more new immigrants so we should leave the existing system alone.

5)     We need to keep the situation "as is".  These illegal immigrants provide a valuable and cheap labor pool for America.

6)     We need to keep the situation "as is".  These illegal immigrants are future voters and they are far more likely to vote with the left than the right.

 

Unfortunately the 30% tend to be lumped together.  But my guess is that there are radically different views within this 30%.  What sub-groups am I missing?  If you are one of the 30% how do you describe your position?

Posted via email from John's posterous

We are so thrilled that Johnny got accepted to Brown to study Gender Studies

A story about college student loans abused, misused, wasted and ultimately paid for by taxpayers.

The article is wrong about it being difficult to walk away from student debt.  Under the recent health care legislation a new provision allows former students to walk away from their student debts if they have not paid them off in 20 years.  And then it is up to you and me.  However even before this legislation the number of defaults on these loans was growing steadily and you and I picked up the tab anyway.

But here is the most glaring void in this article.  There is no mention of what this former college student learned?  What did she study?  It really does matter if one gets a degree in sociology, ethnomusicology, gender studies or in electrical engineering. 

There are no jobs for psychology graduates.  And no one wants to talk about it.  You might land the same job at Home Depot that you could have gotten prior to college (but there are times that it will actually be harder to land a basic job with a non-practical degree).  The world is not hiring anyone today based on their Medieval History degree. 

Parents are so thrilled that Johnny is heading off to college that they do not want to “discourage” the poor lad from studying an obscure subject for six years even if it almost certainly means he will end up living back at home and unemployed.  It is simply not polite to ask Johnny’s parents what they are thinking.

Posted via email from John's posterous

You belong here!

We expect you to show us proof of car insurance before you drive, proof that your car is registered when the police stop you for running a stop sign, and proof of a driver’s license. We need to see your proof of homeowners insurance when you get your government guaranteed mortgage, proof of your SAT scores in order to receive your government sponsored scholarships, proof that you live in Northern California in order to get your lowest price for a round of golf at the Harding Park golf course in San Francisco. And please show us your proof that you bought a home in order to get the tax credit from the federal government, proof of income, proof of birth when you get your social security number, and proof of state residence to get in-state tuition at the University of California.

Most importantly, please show us your proof of vaccination to get your dogs kenneled, proof of membership to shop at Costco, proof of address to enroll your child in the neighborhood public school. And you will be harassed unmercifully unless you can show your proof of installation to get your tax credit for your tax credit on your new solar panels. Of course we need your proof of the value of your donation to satisfy the IRS for your tax deduction and proof that you are old enough to buy cigarettes or alcohol at the store.

Don’t bother showing up unless you have proof that you are old enough to join the US military. And the owner will get shut down if he does not demand proof that you are old enough to play in a Nevada casino.

We require proof of your identification in order to fly on a commercial flight in the US. You must show an ID to check into a US hotel. You need to give your zip code when you try to use your credit card to buy gasoline.

And now we need proof of health insurance under Obama’s new health care legislation. We need a US passport to gain entry into Canada, proof of vaccination to enter grade school. And don’t think you will get to bat if you don’t have proof of age to play little league in the US.

We don’t trust you to tell the truth on these things but we are going to take your word that you are in the US legally.

You belong here and we don’t want to trouble you to show your identification.

Sanctuary advocates not only tolerate illegal immigration they encourages it

In the debate about Arizona’s illegal immigration law, there are three general view points:

1)     The “all for Arizona” crowd who want this country to be far more aggressive in solving the problem.

 

2)    The “we have a problem but Arizona’s solution is wrong” camp.  They hate the notion of giving police such great power to use “reasonable cause” to require someone for proof of citizenship or their right to be here.

 

3)    The “Sanctuary” advocates feel it is inhumane to keep people out of this country - no matter what the law is, what their fellow citizens want or what the economic consequences are.  They feel a special duty to “help the downtrodden” - the poorer the immigrant the harder they fight for their right to sneak in here.  The San Francisco city council is a prime example for this movement.  They want to provide a home and shelter for illegal immigrants in the name of humanity.  They pass laws that flatly obstruct the state and federal governments from managing immigration.  The San Francisco Board of Supervisors first declared San Francisco a "sanctuary city" in 1989. The designation, which many U.S. cities across the country took on during the 1980s.    San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom said “I will not allow any of my department heads or anyone associated with this city to cooperate in any way shape or form with these (immigration) raids. We are a sanctuary city, make no mistake about it."

 

I happen to be in the first category but I understand the arguments of the “solution is wrong” gang.

 

What I don’t understand is the Sanctuary advocates and how they get a pass from the general media and the federal government while breaking the law.  This third group will use any argument that works to stop effective immigration control at the border.  They assist illegal immigrants in breaking our immigration laws.  In most areas of the law, the act of assisting someone break the law is itself a crime - but in this case they are never prosecuted because the base crime (of crossing our border illegally) is only a misdemeanor not a felony.    This group fights against additional funding for border control, any requirement for restricting the rights of illegals, and are an impediment to reducing the expenditures that government spends to feed, house, school and provide medical treatment to illegal immigrants.   And then these Sanctuary advocates are the loudest critics of all about Arizona taking the problem into its own hands.

 

The Sanctuary clan not only tolerates illegal immigration it encourages it.

 

The vast majority of Americans are in the first two categories.  As a member of the first group, I ask the second group to find an effective and not too expensive way to get the job done.  As for the 3^rd group it is time to make illegal immigration a felony and start prosecuting those that assist these criminals.

Posted via email from John's posterous

Ranking the states on corruption

Interesting but disturbing article that ranks the states from most corrupt (Tennessee) to least corrupt (New Hampshire).  A very important subject no matter if one agrees with their specific ranking methodology.

I would use a different ranking system because certain kinds of corruption are just more threatening than other types.  I am suspect of any ranking that shows Illinois as only the 47^th most corrupt state.  I would rank corruption from most dangerous to least dangerous in these six major categories:

1.       Judicial corruption.  It doesn’t get any worse than when judges are taking kickbacks (think of the dirty judge in a John Grisham novel).  There is no place to turn in most cases because these folks have so much discretion and most of their decisions can not be appealed at a reasonable cost or in a timely way.  The case in Eastern Pennsylvania where two judges have been indicted for sending kids to a private juvenile hall for far longer than normal and then receiving kickbacks from the owner of the facility is particularly scary.  Another form of judicial corruption is when prosecutors determine whom to prosecute based primarily on political considerations or when they withhold evidence in discovery because it is inconvenient to their personal goals.   Think back to the county prosecutor, Mike Nifong, who withheld evidence that would have helped proven the innocence of the Duke Lacrosse players.

 

2.       The second worst kind of corruption is when the police are dishonest.  If these “enforcers” plant evidence, knowingly arrest and investigate the innocent or abuse the warrant system by lying to judges the system really looks far more like a KGB type operation.   If the police are getting kickbacks from one drug gang and putting the clams down on the rival gang, the net result is they are not working against gangs in general.  If you are arrested simply because you are disliked or are a minority, trust in the system absolutely breaks down.

 

3.       Political and regulatory corruption.  This by far the most common kind of corruption in our system.  Politicians sell their votes for campaign contributions all the time and get away with it. But too often politicians actually accept cash bribes (like former Massachusetts state senator  Dianne Wilkerson).   Illinois has had seven governors arrested or indicted for corruption since the 1850s.  When a politician lies about what legislation includes (think back to the recent health care bill) or plugs in something entirely unrelated to the legislation on page number 2050 this is pure deception.  When Alaska senator Ted Stevens was indicted for lying on his Senate financial disclosure forms how many times do you think he lied to the public or stole from the government and never got caught? In cash-strapped California, San Bernadino County District Supervisor Bill Postmus and his aide were arrested on charges of accepting $100,000 each to induce the Board of Supervisors to pay $102 million in 2006 to settle a dispute with a private developer.  That is expensive.

 

4.       Fraud by government workers.  Harriette Walters plead guilty in 2008 to issuing fraudulent property-tax vouchers (which generated cash for her and her friends) and stole $48 million from the city of Washington DC. 

 

5.       Fraud by the public against the government. From Medicare fraud where health care providers submit false claims or contractors that pad their invoices for work done on a public road project.  These are serious matters, but to the extent that we move more services from the government to the private sector and shrink government, this category becomes less significant.  When that happens, the private sector can use more common sense and intuition to sniff out when they are being defrauded.

 

6.       Fraud by and against the private sector.  At least in this segment, the buyer has civil remedies and can use common sense to fight it.  So even though I support more prosecution of private fraud, it is far less devastating to society than the public sector corruption above.  It is far harder to defraud a small businessman than a state government (although the consequences to the perpetrator are usually not nearly as severe).  Business is far more likely to keeping an eye on the details and looking for ways to make their businesses more profitable.  So the private sector  catches the scams far more frequently and far sooner than government bureaucracies. 

 

In the first three categories, the corruption rots the core of our society.  These services can generally not be outsourced or performed by the private sector; there is no alternative.  For fraud against the government by the private sector, this can be reduced dramatically by privatizing more services and getting the government out of our lives when we can.  And finally private fraud is a smaller problem and if the judicial and police functions are honest and efficient then they can sometimes assist the victim recover damages.

Posted via email from John's posterous

Illegal immigration

My father immigrated into the United States before I was born. But he
entered the country legally and took the test to get naturalized as a
US citizen.

I am all in favor of legal immigration. It adds hard working people
into the country. My belief has nothing to do with the race,
religion, or language of the immigrants (although I think they need
to learn English before their second generation).

I also think that immigrants add vibrancy to our country. I happen
to think that immigrants work on average harder than the average US
born citizen.

But I feel strongly that we need to stop illegal immigration into this
country. In Arizona, in Texas and in California especially. Either
we decide to manage our borders or we allow the rest of the world to
bring the US down to the economy of Ghana, North Korea or Bolivia.

Posted via email from John's posterous

In celebration of getting away with not paying your bills.

In 1861, Mexican President Benito Juárez stopped making interest payments to its creditors (France, England and Spain). England and Spain cut a deal with Mexico but France attacked Mexico to force payment of their debt. France also had hopes of taking over and occupying Mexico (imperialism was still in vogue).

Cinco de Mayo is a celebration of Mexico's unlikely defeat of the French at a time when the French army was considered the finest in the world.  Mexico beat the larger French forces in the Battle of Puebla on May 5, 1862.  Some will argue that this was a David and Goliath story (and it is) but I prefer to characterize it as a celebration of Mexico not paying its debts.  And getting away with it (for awhile).

The Mexican victory didn't hold up for long. A year later, thirty thousand French troops defeated the Mexican army, captured Mexico City, and installed Emperor Maximilian I as ruler of Mexico. However, the French victory was also short-lived.  After the end of the U.S. Civil War in 1866, Napoleon III, facing tough Mexican guerrilla resistance, the threat of war with Prussia, and concerned about a conflict with the United States, started retreating from Mexico. On June 5, 1867, Benito Juarez finally entered Mexico City where he installed a home-grown Mexican government.

But alas, the holiday is not celebrated as "Cinco de Junio".  

Arizona State Senator Sylvia Allen explanation of the AZ law

This is one of the best explanations of why

the AZ legislature passed the law.

I'm Arizona State Senator Sylvia Allen. I want to explain SB 1070
which I voted for and was just signed by Governor Jan Brewer.

Rancher Rob Krantz was murdered by the drug cartel on his ranch a
month ago. I participated in a senate hearing two weeks ago on the
border violence, here is just some of the highlights from those who testified.

The people who live within 60 to 80 miles of the Arizona/Mexico Border
have for years been terrorized and have pleaded for help to stop the
daily invasion of humans who cross their property . One Rancher
testified that 300 to 1200 people a DAY come across his ranch
vandalizing his property, stealing his vehicles and property, cutting
down his fences, and leaving trash. In the last two years he has found
17 dead bodies and two Koran bibles.

Another rancher testified that daily drugs are brought across his
ranch in a military operation. A point man with a machine gun goes in
front, 1/2 mile behind are the guards fully armed, 1/2 mile behind
them are the drugs, behind the drugs 1/2 mile are more guards. These
people are violent and they will kill anyone who gets in the way. This
was not the only rancher we heard that day that talked about the drug trains.

One man told of two illegal's who came upon his property one shot in
the back and the other in the arm by the drug runners who had forced
them to carry the drugs and then shot them. Daily they listen to gun
fire during the night it is not safe to leave his family alone on the
ranch and they can't leave the ranch for fear of nothing being left
when they come back.

The border patrol is not on the border. They have set up 60 miles away
with check points that do nothing to stop the invasion. They are not
allowed to use force in stopping anyone who is entering. They run
around chasing them, if they get their hands on them then they can
take them back across the border.

Federal prisons have over 35% illegal's and 20% of Arizona prisons are
filled with illegal's. In the last few years 80% of our law
enforcement that have been killed or wounded have been by an illegal.

The majority of people coming now are people we need to be worried

about. The ranchers told us that they have seen a change in the people
coming they are not just those who are looking for work and a better life.

The Federal Government has refused for years to do anything to help
the border states . We have been over run and once they are here we
have the burden of funding state services that they use. Education
cost have been over a billion dollars. The healthcare cost billions of
dollars. Our State is broke, $3.5 billion deficit and we have many
serious decisions to make. One is that we do not have the money to
care for any who are not here legally. It has to stop.
The border can be secured. We have the technology we have the ability
to stop this invasion. We must know who is coming and they must come
in an organized manner legally so that we can assimilate them into our
population and protect the sovereignty of our country. We are a nation
of laws. We have a responsibility to protect our citizens and to
protect the integrity of our country and the government which we live under.

I would give amnesty today to many, but here is the problem, we dare
not do this until the Border is secure. It will do no good to forgive
them because thousands will come behind them and we will be over run
to the point that there will no longer be the United States of America
but a North American Union of open borders. I ask you what form of
government will we live under? How long will it be before we will be
just like Mexico , Canada or any of the other Central American or
South American countries? We have already lost our language,
everything must be printed in Spanish also. We have already lost our
history it is no longer taught in our schools. And we have lost our borders.

The leftist media has distorted what SB 1070 will do. It is not going
to set up a Nazi Germany. Are you kidding. The ACLU and the leftist
courts will do everything to protect those who are here illegally, but
it was an effort to try and stop illegal's from setting up businesses,
and employment, and receiving state services and give the ability to
local law enforcement when there is probable cause like a traffic stop
to determine if they are here legally. Federal law is very clear if
you are here on a visa you must have your papers on you at all times.
That is the law. In Arizona all you need to show you are a legal
citizen is a driver license, MVD identification card, Native American
Card, or a Military ID. This is what you need to vote, get a hunting
license, etc.. So nothing new has been added to this law. No one is
going to be stopped walking down the street etc... The Socialist who
are in power in DC are angry because we dare try and do something and
that something the Socialist wants us to do is just let them come.
They want the "Transformation" to continue.

Maybe it is too late to save America . Maybe we are not worthy of
freedom anymore. But as an elected official I must try to do what I
can to protect our Constitutional Republic . Living in America is not
a right just because you can walk across the border. Being an American
is a responsibility and it comes by respecting and upholding the
Constitution the law of our land which says what you must do to be a
citizen of this country. Freedom is not free.

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Posted via email from John's posterous