19 December 2011
Libertarian Chimera Hurt More Than Help
To follow through on the cry for removing government regulations and thereby allowing a free market to restore America's commercial primacy and eliminate unemployment, consider the Presidential aspirants' discussion of nuclear waste storage. As a viable energy source, private industry certainly could build a nuclear power plant without government "controls," "regulations," and other labelled 'deterrents' to free market capitalism. Individual companies would build, operate and sell electrical power at prices that provide the return on investment required to their owners/stockholders desired increase in the capital worth of the businesses.
Additionally, the individual power companies would be left to market forces to determine the most economically viable means--if any--to dispose of the nuclear waste from their operations. What better way than to sell it and recover operating costs?
There are no market mechanisms, no "guiding hand" inhibiting their options regarding the handling of nuclear waste or, for that matter, for managing their nuclear rod inventories.
Experiences demonstrate how real the risks of deregulation are:
- I ask you to look at Fairchild's contamination of San Jose, California, by operating its microchip and disc manufacturing under the banner of "a clean industry" and no effective health and safety oversight by that city.
- The absence of government oversight enabled the economic devastation of the Gulf Coast from BP's contractor's inadequate oil rigging and operation. Millions of people were affected in the coastal regions, thousands of businesses interrupted possibly never to resume, and thousands of acres of arable land mass was rendered useless due to contamination or poisoning of the resident eco-systems of birds, animals and plants?
Cf. Greg Palast documentary on LinkTV.org "The Vulture's Picnic," based on his book by the same name, in which he explains "why we occupy" to a UC Berkeley audience.
- The nuclear power plants in the US were built a long time ago. How confident are we that these facilities, built under a set of standards amended several times since, operated or maintained as if forgotten by the general public. I wonder how many of the residents within a 200-mile perimeter of the Hanford, Washington, nuclear facility know that it was built using the same design as was the plant in Chernobyl, Ukraine?
- Remember when all of the CEOs of the domestic tobacco products companies testified under oath to Congress that cigarettes did not pose a health threat in America? How many of those men have been prosecuted for perjury for their testimony?
- The heads of the domestic-based petroleum corporations and the heads of the U. S. automobile industry testified under oath that they had done nothing wrong. At least the oil companies did not ask for more federal funding support; they already had it. These men were all there, I have to point out, to support federal interference in their market economies through subsidies, capital loans, tariffs, whatever would keep them in their market positions for a predictable period of time.
How could the heralded, Free Market have improved the outcomes or have prevented those disasters in the first place? No one from the media or from within the political parties is calling the libertarians and pseudo-libertarians on this problem with Adam Smith's version of unfettered capitalism. Without some legislated consequence for remedy when a collateral disaster happens in an unregulated economy, where is the incentive for taking responsibility for safety of employees, customers, and others directly or collaterally affected by an owner's actions? Personal morality? Please, this is business.
None of these ideas are new.
None have brought enough votes to elect a conservative Republican candidate. Since the 1950s, the same, tired platitudes have been repeated, but every new President has discovered that the real world is controlled by forces never debated in their campaigns. Poor Newt is just ignoring that his own personal life decisions resulted in his losing the Speaker office and his House seat due to his 1998 censure by his peers for unacceptable conduct (vote was 375-50), his decades of lobbying for K Street clients, and his hypocrisy about family values by his several marriages.
None have brought enough votes to elect a conservative Republican candidate. Since the 1950s, the same, tired platitudes have been repeated, but every new President has discovered that the real world is controlled by forces never debated in their campaigns. Poor Newt is just ignoring that his own personal life decisions resulted in his losing the Speaker office and his House seat due to his 1998 censure by his peers for unacceptable conduct (vote was 375-50), his decades of lobbying for K Street clients, and his hypocrisy about family values by his several marriages.
Perhaps the real problem is that the people who may be most qualified to be President are too busy living their lives with integrity, empathy, happiness, spiritually rewarding situations and wisdom. If this is the case, then we have one more reason for the widening gap between Washington and the public. If the qualified men and women of the Republican Party have withdrawn from the candidate pools, then the federal government has become even less relevant to business and consumption within our economy.
09 December 2011
WHEYE-IZ-IT?
I have been thinking about some nagging questions about issues with federal and local government agencies, some of which I have had for some time. The following items describe my gripes and frustrations with the status quo. I also think these issues could offer some common ground for the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street participants to challenge their elected representatives and public agencies at all levels of government.
1. There have been no federal or state special prosecutors investigating personal involvement/culpability/conspiracies in the banking industry, the financial services industry, and the regulatory agencies regarding the manipulation of our economy--and the world economy--between 1990 and 2009 that resulted in the current, Great Recession?
Were there agreements among lenders to raise revenues in an unregulated, retail credit market? Since 2009, have there been collusive agreements or practices within the banking industry to maintain standardized, underwriting rules on new mortgage loans that have resulted in the sharp decrease in available home mortgage or small business operating loans?
My experience was that all the bankers looked at their daily calendars to see what other lenders were charging mortgagors or small business owners and then would adjust theirs to conform to "industry practices."
2. Across the nation, foreclosed residential properties can remain unoccupied for months or years after the mortgagees/lenders kicked out the mortgagors/homeowners.
Why do local governments allow empty, usable housing stock to exist more than 90 days before taking over the ownership using eminent domain?
Local housing authorities, veterans housing contractors and active duty military individuals and families could use the increase in inexpensive housing stock without having to have their residence costs underwritten by public funding programs or housing allowances.
Note: Would create jobs for carpenters, plumbers and electricians to rehabilitate vacant housing to qualify for occupancy. Provides incentives for local small business to become property management firms. Increases job opportunities for additional office personnel to support increased business activity.3. Local, state and federal planning boards and their legislative bosses do not require developers to install all power utilities, such as power and telecommunication cables, underground, and to include this in their project concept proposals for residential housing, commercial buildings and inter-city grid connections.
How much money has been spent restoring power after ice storms, heavy snow storms, hurricanes, tornadoes and electrical storms? How would the total amount expended over the past 20 years compare with a one-time cost of eliminating overhead power lines throughout our districts, neighborhoods, rural areas and commercial buildings?
Currently, to retro-fit utilities from above-grade to below-grade, utility companies assess individual homeowners thousands of dollars each to bury existing electric power lines in the public easements between properties. Why should customers pay for the supplier’s ability to provide underground utility services? Local planning and use codes could be changed to support constituent property owners and aesthetics value, rather than the utility companies’ costs of operations.
After all, the utility suppliers have real incentives to pay the cost of supplying services to each property line, such as cost avoidance from restoring power interrupted by weather phenomena; avoid liability for building above-grade improvements that are potentially hazardous to drivers, small airplanes, birds, surface vegetation and persons; and fully cost the products they provide to their customers.
Note: Would create jobs for removing electrical junction boxes, telephone poles; for digging up ground, placing conduits, sub-contracts for job phases, fiber optic cable manufacturing and distribution, technicians for installing, testing and certifying power and other utilities installation and ongoing quality control of grids; for connecting individual consumers (residential and commercial) to utility grids.
[Memo to local municipalities and authorities: tap into federal stimulus funding for small business grants to spur contractors to hire more people.]
[Memo to Readers: This post may become a repeating theme, especially if readers supply their own issues or send me ideas for bringing common sense to such imponderables.]
26 October 2011
An Old Maxim of Free Market Capitalism Runs Into Government Transperency
Health care insurers in New York are objecting to the state's plan to publish their rate justification documents because they are trade secrets and must not be released to the public. 'Pricing' is one of the most closely held information by vendors in a competitive market.
A good part of the reason for not allowing pricing algorithms, elements of cost and profit margins that a business uses to put a price on its products comes from the 19th Century abuses of capitalism by the "robber barons" and others who formed trusts and interlocking directorates to prevent competition in the markets. The public's reaction to such abuse of free markets resulted in a series of federal anti-trust legislation beginning under Grover Cleveland. After Teddy Roosevelt's progressives left the Republican Party in the 1914 elections, anti-trust legislation did not expand until the Taft-Hartley Act focused on labor in 1948.
I recall, while working for Mobil Oil Corporation in the 1970s, how the corporation put safeguards on its pricing practices similar to the military's Top Secret safeguards. Some of you may recall that Regular grade gasoline sometimes fell to 17¢ per gallon in a price war among dealers in a micro-market. Even with the job title of 'pricing accountant', my authority extended only to compliance and payments according to published price schedules. All pricing policy and price determinations were made at corporate headquarters' equivalent of Langely, VA for government intelligence operations.
To have published the details of pricing retail and wholesale petroleum products would have exposed Mobil and the other petroleum corporations to charges of anti-trust violations. So, I can understand the rationale of the insurance companies in New York. I believe, however, that they will lose in favor of the public's call for transparency in the bureaucracies of government. The issue may result in litigation by the insurers that could cause some significant changes in the private health insurance industry as the companies try to compete when all aspects of their strategies are visible to their customers.
By the way, the November 2011 edition of Money, a publication of CNN, has an excellent and elegant decision-making graphic for choosing the best Medicare options for 2012. [cf. Amanda Gengler and Matthew Hollister (Graphics)"Medicare in America: Special Money Series Part 2 of 3, internet: www.cnnmoney.com, November 2011.] I now have to recalculate my own choice by the December 7, 2011, deadline, but now I know what data I will need to compare plans.
All of this issue would go away, along with an estimated 40 percent of bureaucrat paperwork by every provider of health care, if we had a single-payer system that was not predicated on how poor one is. Just saying….
A good part of the reason for not allowing pricing algorithms, elements of cost and profit margins that a business uses to put a price on its products comes from the 19th Century abuses of capitalism by the "robber barons" and others who formed trusts and interlocking directorates to prevent competition in the markets. The public's reaction to such abuse of free markets resulted in a series of federal anti-trust legislation beginning under Grover Cleveland. After Teddy Roosevelt's progressives left the Republican Party in the 1914 elections, anti-trust legislation did not expand until the Taft-Hartley Act focused on labor in 1948.
I recall, while working for Mobil Oil Corporation in the 1970s, how the corporation put safeguards on its pricing practices similar to the military's Top Secret safeguards. Some of you may recall that Regular grade gasoline sometimes fell to 17¢ per gallon in a price war among dealers in a micro-market. Even with the job title of 'pricing accountant', my authority extended only to compliance and payments according to published price schedules. All pricing policy and price determinations were made at corporate headquarters' equivalent of Langely, VA for government intelligence operations.
To have published the details of pricing retail and wholesale petroleum products would have exposed Mobil and the other petroleum corporations to charges of anti-trust violations. So, I can understand the rationale of the insurance companies in New York. I believe, however, that they will lose in favor of the public's call for transparency in the bureaucracies of government. The issue may result in litigation by the insurers that could cause some significant changes in the private health insurance industry as the companies try to compete when all aspects of their strategies are visible to their customers.
By the way, the November 2011 edition of Money, a publication of CNN, has an excellent and elegant decision-making graphic for choosing the best Medicare options for 2012. [cf. Amanda Gengler and Matthew Hollister (Graphics)"Medicare in America: Special Money Series Part 2 of 3, internet: www.cnnmoney.com, November 2011.] I now have to recalculate my own choice by the December 7, 2011, deadline, but now I know what data I will need to compare plans.
All of this issue would go away, along with an estimated 40 percent of bureaucrat paperwork by every provider of health care, if we had a single-payer system that was not predicated on how poor one is. Just saying….
Another Old Guy Agrees with Me about the Economy
I wonder when the President and his economic strategists will hear the OWS and other plainly upset people about the cause and effect of the banking industry's malevalent, greedy and short-sighted push for profits over long-term economic viability. In todays NYTimes, a guest opinion by history professor James Livingston echoes my last blog entry "It's the Banks, Stupid, It'sJobs, Dummy."
According to a New York Times/CBS News poll in May, a majority of Americans believe that increased corporate taxes “would discourage American companies from creating jobs.”
But history shows that this is wrong.Professor James Livingston (Rutgers University) contradicts public perception by explaining the historical function of tax increases and decreases during the 20th Century. He draws the following conclusions:
… [C]orporate profits do not drive economic growth — they’re just restless sums of surplus capital, ready to flood speculative markets at home and abroad. In the 1920s, they inflated the stock market bubble, and then caused the Great Crash. Since the Reagan revolution, these superfluous profits have fed corporate mergers and takeovers, driven the dot-com craze, financed the “shadow banking” system of hedge funds and securitized investment vehicles, fueled monetary meltdowns in every hemisphere and inflated the housing bubble.It's time for Timothy Geitner to change his spots or to leave the economic policy of the nation to a non-banker.
Labels: Bank, James Livingston, May, New York, New York Times, Reagan, United States
23 October 2011
It's the Banks, Stupid! It's Jobs, Dummy!
The primary obstacle against reviving of our nation's economy is the banking industry's control of credit. I could get behind that slogan. Calls for reducing or eliminating regulatory controls on banking and other financial services are, at least in the public political arena, split between the haves and the have-nots.
Why are so many people pushing for less regulation when they do not have sufficient savings or other forms of wealth (land, inheritance, stocks, bonds, etc.) to have a worry-free retirement or to pay for their own health care? Why are there poor-White Republicans and second-generation Latinos embracing the ways and means that benefit only the wealthiest people in the country?
Why are some financial commentators lauding politicians who are proposing radical changes to the federal tax code such as a flat tax? Most people already pay flat taxes or sales taxes in their home states? Cities also levy flat taxes through additional sales taxes. Why don't the sales taxes fund government sufficiently? When I buy a box of bandaids for $4.00, the retailer collects an additional state sales tax of 34¢, so I pay $4,34 out of pocket. No one escapes the sales tax on most retail goods. If the customer did not pay the extra 34¢, the retailer would still have to pay 34¢ to the state. State tax code allows the seller to collect sales tax from the customer, but the state says that the tax is levied on the amount of the seller's price. Sales tax revenue is not the customer's responsibility.
When filing California state income tax forms, there is a place for the taxpayer to enter the sales tax amount avoided by purchasing goods on the internet for which the internet seller did not charge California sales tax. Essentially an honor system, if the internet retailer has no business presence in California other than the Internet, there is no basis for the state to impose a sales or use tax on the seller. If the seller does maintain a business presence, has a license to do business, then the internet seller must report the sale and pay the sales tax to the state. Amazon.com is currently contesting this policy. Should Amazon.com win, then the State has to revise the tax code to place the sales tax burden on the internet customer rather than on the vendor.
Another form of flat tax is the property tax. In California, county assessors use 1.3 percent of the property's market value (reset whenever property changes owners to the selling price), which can be adjusted within a 2 percent range without voter approval. In addition, cities and special voting districts ask voters for additional taxes to repay bond issues, to pay for additional public fire services, to pay for anything the local government sees itself unable to pay for out of their existing revenue streams. The result is a flat tax amount added to the property tax assessment. When I owned a condo in Oakland, California, one third of my property tax payments were flat tax add-ons resulting from voter approvals that had nothing to do with the assessed value of my property.
Watching CNN-TV this morning, I noted that the invited guests were very enthusiastic about a flat tax, referring to Steve Forbes' proposals during his unsuccessful run for the Republican nomination. Following that discussion was another pair of invited commentators opining on the OWS movement and sit-ins around the country. Each commentator took a very conservative financial viewpoint for describing this popular phenomenon. "What do they want?" "Are they more favorable to the Democrats?" "Who are they?" were questions raised but not answered. Not answered because to date no one voice from these groups of protestors has told the press why they were there--except that individuals all seem to have different reasons for being there. Poor media.
I wonder if this growing physical statement of dissatisfaction can be rendered into a single agenda. Some protestors seem to be calling for equal opportunity while others are advocating equal outcomes. A common theme is their perception of the current American way of life is unjust, that neither equal opportunity nor equal outcomes are possible. What could this mean?
In employment, salaries are stagnant except at the highest echelons of an organization. If middle and lower echelon job salaries were to rise at rates deemed "fair" vis à vis senior managers' and executives, the companies would move their operations overseas or to a non-union state so that costs would be lower. So how is a person supposed to find a job with a better wage? If in their current jobs they have vested retirement benefits, health care insurance cost-sharing, or tenure, the risk of changing jobs becomes complex and stressful, especially because of their partners' job status and location, their children's schooling, and the first-in-first-laid off status on the new job.
Even if one can go to school part-time online or at a local college while working full-time, the required physical and mental effort to become more marketable in the higher paying job markets is very high. I cannot put into words how much I admire the single parents who manage to work one job, be a parent and go to school at the same time.
I've heard there are 45 million unemployed persons today in the US, but there also are 3.1 million jobs employers are unable to fill from native American applicants. So, there are calls for changing the Immigration Law to attract and hire foreign nationals to fill these jobs. So, among the OWS are the unemployed who see the Immigration Law as unjust because it is not being enforced, as evidenced by the number of illegal immigrants working in the US. Of course, who is employing undocumented workers and for what wages and kinds of jobs is lost in the overall emotion of injustice toward those who have played by the rules and are being ignored. If the current Immigration Law were adhered to by US employers, I really wonder how many legal residents would leave their present location, where they cannot find a job, and relocate to work in jobs now filled by undocumented workers. People did move in the Great Depression, but we have not seen comparable migrations in the Great Recession. Why?
Others among the OWS believe that the Immigration Law is unjust when families are split up due to some members being documents and others not, when children of undocumented persons are allowed to attend public schools and receive private funding for attending post-high school educational institutions. The term "anchor babies" has currency in today's political discussions, especially in our southern states, that I find offensive and racist. The Constitution accepts de jure and de facto full citizenship to anyone born in the United States, but Immigration Law and state laws denigrate and punish such citizens should one or both parents be undocumented residents at the time the child is born.
[Side note: As more and more states begin to define the biological status of personhood as "at inception" or "at conception" (I fail to know the difference) will Immigration Law require all women of child-bearing age to take a pregnancy test before obtaining a visa to enter the United States, Puerto Rico, or the other U.S. territories? Once in the US, what if that woman becomes pregnant? Even if she leaves the US, would not her child be born a US citizen by reason of birth? Just asking....]
Free, public education has enabled America to aspire to being a nation of literate citizens, providing an informed electorate, a knowledgeable working populace, and the dream of social and wealth advancement undeterred by lack of access to the skills needed for achievement. At different times in our history, the age-guaranteed education supported agriculture and basic working skills for boys, basic housekeeping skills for girls; then, the addition of at least two years of high school provided the skills for the industrial revolution and the expansion of America's industrial base. Now kindergarten-12th grade is the norm. Many states have built extensive community college systems for those who want to acquire better knowledge of some high school curricular subject so they can meet the entrance aptitude requirements for a college or university. Other community colleges offer certification in specialized trade skills for men and women who either do not want to go to college, who want to pursue a crafts skilled career, or who want to bring current skills acquired before there were significant technological changes in their chosen employment or who wish to become part of the workforce.
In high school, it seems that most of the teaching effort is predicated on an assumption that every student wants to go to college. Indeed, many public service jobs now require or give hiring preference to candidates with college degrees: police officers, clerical and secretarial positions, and most public employment openings. Ten or twenty years out of high school, I wonder how many students believe they are better off with a 4-year college degree that their classmates who became electricians, plumbers, other skilled trade members. Even those students who went directly into an unskilled job such as an assembly line worker, steel worker, longshoreman job can become as wealthy and achieve socially upward mobility for their children, especially if their initial job required joining a union.
This brings up a question for me: Who is better off? Who is achieving the mythical American Dream?
Why are so many people pushing for less regulation when they do not have sufficient savings or other forms of wealth (land, inheritance, stocks, bonds, etc.) to have a worry-free retirement or to pay for their own health care? Why are there poor-White Republicans and second-generation Latinos embracing the ways and means that benefit only the wealthiest people in the country?
Why are some financial commentators lauding politicians who are proposing radical changes to the federal tax code such as a flat tax? Most people already pay flat taxes or sales taxes in their home states? Cities also levy flat taxes through additional sales taxes. Why don't the sales taxes fund government sufficiently? When I buy a box of bandaids for $4.00, the retailer collects an additional state sales tax of 34¢, so I pay $4,34 out of pocket. No one escapes the sales tax on most retail goods. If the customer did not pay the extra 34¢, the retailer would still have to pay 34¢ to the state. State tax code allows the seller to collect sales tax from the customer, but the state says that the tax is levied on the amount of the seller's price. Sales tax revenue is not the customer's responsibility.
When filing California state income tax forms, there is a place for the taxpayer to enter the sales tax amount avoided by purchasing goods on the internet for which the internet seller did not charge California sales tax. Essentially an honor system, if the internet retailer has no business presence in California other than the Internet, there is no basis for the state to impose a sales or use tax on the seller. If the seller does maintain a business presence, has a license to do business, then the internet seller must report the sale and pay the sales tax to the state. Amazon.com is currently contesting this policy. Should Amazon.com win, then the State has to revise the tax code to place the sales tax burden on the internet customer rather than on the vendor.
Another form of flat tax is the property tax. In California, county assessors use 1.3 percent of the property's market value (reset whenever property changes owners to the selling price), which can be adjusted within a 2 percent range without voter approval. In addition, cities and special voting districts ask voters for additional taxes to repay bond issues, to pay for additional public fire services, to pay for anything the local government sees itself unable to pay for out of their existing revenue streams. The result is a flat tax amount added to the property tax assessment. When I owned a condo in Oakland, California, one third of my property tax payments were flat tax add-ons resulting from voter approvals that had nothing to do with the assessed value of my property.
Watching CNN-TV this morning, I noted that the invited guests were very enthusiastic about a flat tax, referring to Steve Forbes' proposals during his unsuccessful run for the Republican nomination. Following that discussion was another pair of invited commentators opining on the OWS movement and sit-ins around the country. Each commentator took a very conservative financial viewpoint for describing this popular phenomenon. "What do they want?" "Are they more favorable to the Democrats?" "Who are they?" were questions raised but not answered. Not answered because to date no one voice from these groups of protestors has told the press why they were there--except that individuals all seem to have different reasons for being there. Poor media.
I wonder if this growing physical statement of dissatisfaction can be rendered into a single agenda. Some protestors seem to be calling for equal opportunity while others are advocating equal outcomes. A common theme is their perception of the current American way of life is unjust, that neither equal opportunity nor equal outcomes are possible. What could this mean?
In employment, salaries are stagnant except at the highest echelons of an organization. If middle and lower echelon job salaries were to rise at rates deemed "fair" vis à vis senior managers' and executives, the companies would move their operations overseas or to a non-union state so that costs would be lower. So how is a person supposed to find a job with a better wage? If in their current jobs they have vested retirement benefits, health care insurance cost-sharing, or tenure, the risk of changing jobs becomes complex and stressful, especially because of their partners' job status and location, their children's schooling, and the first-in-first-laid off status on the new job.
Even if one can go to school part-time online or at a local college while working full-time, the required physical and mental effort to become more marketable in the higher paying job markets is very high. I cannot put into words how much I admire the single parents who manage to work one job, be a parent and go to school at the same time.
I've heard there are 45 million unemployed persons today in the US, but there also are 3.1 million jobs employers are unable to fill from native American applicants. So, there are calls for changing the Immigration Law to attract and hire foreign nationals to fill these jobs. So, among the OWS are the unemployed who see the Immigration Law as unjust because it is not being enforced, as evidenced by the number of illegal immigrants working in the US. Of course, who is employing undocumented workers and for what wages and kinds of jobs is lost in the overall emotion of injustice toward those who have played by the rules and are being ignored. If the current Immigration Law were adhered to by US employers, I really wonder how many legal residents would leave their present location, where they cannot find a job, and relocate to work in jobs now filled by undocumented workers. People did move in the Great Depression, but we have not seen comparable migrations in the Great Recession. Why?
Others among the OWS believe that the Immigration Law is unjust when families are split up due to some members being documents and others not, when children of undocumented persons are allowed to attend public schools and receive private funding for attending post-high school educational institutions. The term "anchor babies" has currency in today's political discussions, especially in our southern states, that I find offensive and racist. The Constitution accepts de jure and de facto full citizenship to anyone born in the United States, but Immigration Law and state laws denigrate and punish such citizens should one or both parents be undocumented residents at the time the child is born.
[Side note: As more and more states begin to define the biological status of personhood as "at inception" or "at conception" (I fail to know the difference) will Immigration Law require all women of child-bearing age to take a pregnancy test before obtaining a visa to enter the United States, Puerto Rico, or the other U.S. territories? Once in the US, what if that woman becomes pregnant? Even if she leaves the US, would not her child be born a US citizen by reason of birth? Just asking....]
Free, public education has enabled America to aspire to being a nation of literate citizens, providing an informed electorate, a knowledgeable working populace, and the dream of social and wealth advancement undeterred by lack of access to the skills needed for achievement. At different times in our history, the age-guaranteed education supported agriculture and basic working skills for boys, basic housekeeping skills for girls; then, the addition of at least two years of high school provided the skills for the industrial revolution and the expansion of America's industrial base. Now kindergarten-12th grade is the norm. Many states have built extensive community college systems for those who want to acquire better knowledge of some high school curricular subject so they can meet the entrance aptitude requirements for a college or university. Other community colleges offer certification in specialized trade skills for men and women who either do not want to go to college, who want to pursue a crafts skilled career, or who want to bring current skills acquired before there were significant technological changes in their chosen employment or who wish to become part of the workforce.
In high school, it seems that most of the teaching effort is predicated on an assumption that every student wants to go to college. Indeed, many public service jobs now require or give hiring preference to candidates with college degrees: police officers, clerical and secretarial positions, and most public employment openings. Ten or twenty years out of high school, I wonder how many students believe they are better off with a 4-year college degree that their classmates who became electricians, plumbers, other skilled trade members. Even those students who went directly into an unskilled job such as an assembly line worker, steel worker, longshoreman job can become as wealthy and achieve socially upward mobility for their children, especially if their initial job required joining a union.
This brings up a question for me: Who is better off? Who is achieving the mythical American Dream?
- Is it the high school teacher earning $40,000 with guaranteed benefits, nine-month work years or the independent owner of a plumbing shop able to charge $75/hr for labor plus retail for parts bought at wholesale. who has his own home, an at-home spouse who is raising the children and seeing that they can achieve their own ambitions, or whose spouse is a manager of an office, earning a substantial wage with comparable benefits?
- Is it the college professor who, as an associate professor on a tenure track, earns $55,000 teaching History of Renaissance Europe, not finding much opportunity for additional income except from book royalties, guiding private tours in Europe, and loves his students and his teaching. How just does she see her profession as a highly ranked scholar and teacher when her counterpart in Bio-engineering or Computer Science earns $65,000 and has access to additional income and increasing academic status through research grants and contracts with public and private funds, from consulting fees with private enterprises and from patent royalties?
- Is it the entrepreneur high school-educated person who invents a new technology, who creates a unique software system and licenses it exclusively?
- Is it the financial wizard who accrues tremendous personal wealth by working 12-16 hours per day, but lacks a personal life, a partner with whom to share the fortune or whose wealth could disappear in a market crash?
- Is it the person whose values, personal ethics are not necessarily matched to the social position, personal earning power or inherited wealth, and values free time to help others achieve their immediate or long term needs?
- Can it be a person who joins a religious order and forgoes all personal assets to pursue a spiritual path?
- Is it the person who just doesn't care what other people think or who lacks ambition or who doesn't think about such things as social status, wealth or education? Lots of people just want to live their lives unbothered, hassle-free and enough money to feed, clothe and watch television without someone telling them what they should do or what they should want.
16 October 2011
Long Ago and Still to Come
I cried today after watching a film of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech in August 1963. My emotions were a mixture of sadness, frustration and anger as tears welled up. So much of his dreams came true, yet there are so many parts still unfulfilled. In the 48 years since that speech, our generation spawned two more. We inherited the institutions and culture of the so-called "Greatest Generation" who, following World War 11 and during the Cold War, created The Great Society. Ironically, it was this "Greatest" Generation who legislated the federal and local programs that the Tea Baggers and other ultra-conservatives want to get rid of today. Programs supporting anti-discrimination in public education, housing, health care, short-term income loss due to unemployment, ending and correcting the effects of pollution, and regulatory systems of financial transactions and currency reflect the perils of American living before 1965.
The "Greatest Generation" had experienced two world wars, the totalitarianism of Franco, Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin and Mao Tse Tung, the Great Depression, and the Berlin Blockade with the subsequent Cold War of fifty years. Why else would they have voted for local, state and federal representatives who advocated and produced programs intended to help Americans have lives that were better than theirs had been? The "Greatest Generation" set up these programs for their children (the Boomers) and their children's children's benefit.
Those in the Tea Party mind-set must think their parents did not know the realities of life! Certainly there was vehement opposition to the New Deal, but one has to wonder where the bitterness and disgust of government comes from today. With a few exceptions, the voices of Retro-Conservatives and its Tea Party are Boomers and their children who grew up with the social programs, with the absence of conscripted military service, and with institutional safeguards against poverty and starvation. What disasters have they experienced that are comparable to those Americans born before 1946?
Perhaps the "Greatest Generation" went too far in its attempts to create an America that would never have to suffer the pains of their and prior generations' lives. Or, perhaps, the "Greatest Generation" did not understand how fundamentally different social norms grew out of the 1960s.
Did the Boomers who approved the rules and regulations hold different ethical norms because they rejected those of their parent generation in the domestic civil war of 1967-1973? Have Boomer efforts become tantamount to a rejection of a radical change in the domestic perception of the American Dream from Equal Opportunity to Equal Outcomes for All? Does change in the contemporary, perceived purpose of government mean that only personal success through greed [no longer a negative norm?] can free the individual to achieve one's best life possible?
Have the children of Boomers, after seeing effects of the social revolution of Question Authority,-Don't Trust Anyone Over 30-Hell No, We Won't Go! [disintegration of nuclear families, recreational drugs and alcohol for stress, and abuse of program privilege], as kids of the 1970s and 1980s, grown to view personal privilege as better than community well-being?
In 1963, I had a dream, too. My tears today reflect my sadness, frustration and anger that my parts of a dream, articulated so well by Martin Luther King, Jr. 48 years ago, remain a dream.
The "Greatest Generation" had experienced two world wars, the totalitarianism of Franco, Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin and Mao Tse Tung, the Great Depression, and the Berlin Blockade with the subsequent Cold War of fifty years. Why else would they have voted for local, state and federal representatives who advocated and produced programs intended to help Americans have lives that were better than theirs had been? The "Greatest Generation" set up these programs for their children (the Boomers) and their children's children's benefit.
Those in the Tea Party mind-set must think their parents did not know the realities of life! Certainly there was vehement opposition to the New Deal, but one has to wonder where the bitterness and disgust of government comes from today. With a few exceptions, the voices of Retro-Conservatives and its Tea Party are Boomers and their children who grew up with the social programs, with the absence of conscripted military service, and with institutional safeguards against poverty and starvation. What disasters have they experienced that are comparable to those Americans born before 1946?
Perhaps the "Greatest Generation" went too far in its attempts to create an America that would never have to suffer the pains of their and prior generations' lives. Or, perhaps, the "Greatest Generation" did not understand how fundamentally different social norms grew out of the 1960s.
Did the Boomers who approved the rules and regulations hold different ethical norms because they rejected those of their parent generation in the domestic civil war of 1967-1973? Have Boomer efforts become tantamount to a rejection of a radical change in the domestic perception of the American Dream from Equal Opportunity to Equal Outcomes for All? Does change in the contemporary, perceived purpose of government mean that only personal success through greed [no longer a negative norm?] can free the individual to achieve one's best life possible?
Have the children of Boomers, after seeing effects of the social revolution of Question Authority,-Don't Trust Anyone Over 30-Hell No, We Won't Go! [disintegration of nuclear families, recreational drugs and alcohol for stress, and abuse of program privilege], as kids of the 1970s and 1980s, grown to view personal privilege as better than community well-being?
In 1963, I had a dream, too. My tears today reflect my sadness, frustration and anger that my parts of a dream, articulated so well by Martin Luther King, Jr. 48 years ago, remain a dream.
05 September 2011
Trying to Keep Washington Politics in Historical Perspective
Image via WikipediaFor those of you readers unfamiliar with the elected representatives to the House of Representatives by district or by name, my experiences conform to the old real estate saw: location, location, location. When voting for the first time in 1966, the incumbent for my Beverly Hills and Birmingham area was a Republican, Bill Broomfield. He had been our district's representative for as long as I could remember. My parents liked him, along with most other local Republicans.For the 1968 General Election, I voted by absentee ballot from Ft. Belvoir, VA because I was at the Army Corps of Engineers Officer Training School. By this time, I had come to the conclusion that I was born a Democrat into a Republican household. I have to confess a fondness for Barry Goldwater, however, and still have his book The Conscience of a Conservative written in 1964. I volunteered for indefinite active duty status, rather than the draftee's 2-yr. normal active duty time, because Richard Nixon had just been elected President. I reasoned if the war was still going on in late 1971, with the 1972 elections approaching, Nixon would want to have ended the war. It worked out for me, because Nixon did announce a reduction in the need for combat engineer officers in Viet Nam in July 1971, so I remained in the Frankfurt-am-Main and Hanau bases for the subsequent 18 months.
Meanwhile, our President Nixon was creating a new model for the Chief Executive, the Imperial Presidency. Remember the new uniforms for the White House guards? Recall his sense of omnipotence that caused him the scandal of Watergate and forced his resignation? Lyndon Johnson had been the consummate power manipulator on the Hill, but failed as President. Nixon used the Hill to put in place most of the Great Society programs that LBJ could not get through Congress. Nixon saw himself above the law and that is how he did a lot for America and that is how he destroyed himself. The Imperial Presidency.
One attribute of an imperial President is that he is the ultimate problem solver [the Decider] for the nation. Issues would boil up to the White House staff and the Executive would take action despite or without regard to Congress.
Gerald Ford just tried to hold everything together, a nice enough guy, a regency reign.
Jimmy Carter was a micromanager and, as intelligent as he was especially in matters scientific, he was unable to rise to a stature of Head of State that he seemed desperate to want. It says something about him when the Ayatollah announced, after booting out the Shah, that he would not talk with President Carter as long as he was in office. A weak reign.
As President, Ronald Reagan actually reigned. By 1984, the Republicans had taken control of Congress and Speaker Newt Gingrich had issued his Contract for America, the ultimate Republican strategy statement for the balance of the 20th Century. His erstwhile Chancellor Dick Cheney still waxes nostalgic for the Gipper.
So, ten years after Richard Nixon resigned in disgrace, imperial President nonetheless, the nation and its Congress began to adjust to having a strong, ideologue man as President and who better to carry it off than Ronald Reagan (1980-1988). In the reigns that followed: Bush I, Clinton, Bush 11 and now Obama, Congress finds fault whenever a President acts less than imperial.
What is your plan, Mr. President? How can you criticize our [viz. Congress] plan when you have none of your own? It almost seems as if Congress is asking for another FDR or that other Roosevelt to oppose. There is little a President can do other than through the Administration's responses to legislation. There's the rub: Congress has broken all of the mirrors in its hallowed halls and we, the electorate, have to worry about shards all over again amid the farce of palace games.
Labels: Gerald Ford, Imperial Presidency, Jimmy Carter, Lyndon B. Johnson, Newt Gingrich, Republicans, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, Vietnam War
Gordon Gecko Gets to YouTube
Unfortunately, YouTube/Google has decided to prevent anyone from downloading any videos from its site. When I first began using DARPA, internet's predecessor, in the 1970s, the purpose of free communication media was the betterment of everyone through sharing among academics, not just those who could afford the time and money to purchase a book, attend a convention or write a letter using distribution lists that were wasting paper, postage and time.
For the past several years, YouTube functioned in the same manner, i.e., without boundaries, enabling millions of people to expand their knowledge of the world beyond what television and films allow. As of Saturday, anyone trying to compile a video database using downloaded YouTube videos is out of luck. Further, trying to find the content owner presents quite a challenge on a public media forum that suddenly decides that downloading equals stealing of intellectual property. No one forced individuals to upload any videos, so it seems obvious that anyone wanting to protect copyrighted material would not upload it to YouTube. Are subscriptions for full access to Wikipedia next?
Of course, there probably is some stolen content in some of the videos uploaded to YouTube, but to banish downloading from YouTube seems a bit late in the property protection game.
Many videos are advertising for subscription site owners, for movie trailers and other vendors who haven't thought how Google might react to their complaints that "their" copyrighted media was being stolen off of YouTube by downloading.
As of September 6th, once you delete your YouTube account, you can never open another YouTube account using the same username. Did I hear a tear drop softly? It wasn't my tear; I feel rather liberated that Google has one less point of access to me and about me.
Now I am looking for an alternative blogging site, since Google owns blogspot.com, too.
For the past several years, YouTube functioned in the same manner, i.e., without boundaries, enabling millions of people to expand their knowledge of the world beyond what television and films allow. As of Saturday, anyone trying to compile a video database using downloaded YouTube videos is out of luck. Further, trying to find the content owner presents quite a challenge on a public media forum that suddenly decides that downloading equals stealing of intellectual property. No one forced individuals to upload any videos, so it seems obvious that anyone wanting to protect copyrighted material would not upload it to YouTube. Are subscriptions for full access to Wikipedia next?
Of course, there probably is some stolen content in some of the videos uploaded to YouTube, but to banish downloading from YouTube seems a bit late in the property protection game.
Many videos are advertising for subscription site owners, for movie trailers and other vendors who haven't thought how Google might react to their complaints that "their" copyrighted media was being stolen off of YouTube by downloading.
As of September 6th, once you delete your YouTube account, you can never open another YouTube account using the same username. Did I hear a tear drop softly? It wasn't my tear; I feel rather liberated that Google has one less point of access to me and about me.
Now I am looking for an alternative blogging site, since Google owns blogspot.com, too.
Labels: DARPA, Google, Intellectual property, Uploading and downloading, Wikipedia, YouTube
14 August 2011
The Palin Presence in Iowa
Image via WikipediaLast November 10, I suggested that Karl Rove decided to mold Ms. Palin into an icon of Middle America so that she would not involve herself in Presidential politics again. Wise move, Karl. It seems that Sarah Palin likes the role. First, she has celebrity stature, she's in the right generation and is a crowd pleaser. She is able to raise significant money for the Republicans and will be quite an asset for local and state races. Fmr. Gov. Palin has the campaign trail experience to endear her to conservatives and she could be a significant force to get Republicans and Independents out of their chairs and into the voting booth. Now, if she just doesn't blow it by becoming a national spokesperson for the Party. That's what the candidates are for.
The Republicans seem to have rallied behind the most attractive men even while Bachwoman gets the most votes in Iowa. I think Michele strikes fear into the Republican establishment who want to attract more Centrist voters. And, BTW when did the job of Texas Governor become a sufficient qualification for Presidential candidates? The governor is not supposed to run the state, as opposed to New York, but to keep the Texas legislature on track with their part-time jobs and two-year budgets.
Sarah Palin will be the Republicans' symbol of common sense, not a font of knowledge, but nice to look at and to have a conversation about where and how much money the big donors will give her for the Party. I don't think the media get it.
Labels: Iowa, Karl Rove, politics, Republican, Sarah Palin
29 July 2011
Saving the Grand Canyon from Unfettered Capitalists
Image by Getty Images via @daylifeI am calling to your attention a current piece of legislation that is against the Conservative philosophy of maintaining and protecting of basic parts of what America is. The Interior Department's Appropriations bill threatens the Grand Canyon and other national parks and I urge that you oppose this bill. This Appropriations bill contains other provisions that threaten our national parks and the authority of the President to designate national monuments under the Antiquities Act.
Please vote "No" on this bill as written and on all legislation that would take away these means of protecting what America is built upon and that remind us of the Divine blessing of this diverse environment.
The Grand Canyon is a very special place in the world that deserves to be treated as such. Increased mining in the area surrounding the Grand Canyon would threaten the integrity of this special place for the Navajo Nation and the US.
The water passing through the canyon is a vital water resource for 25+ million people downstream. The US Chamber of Commerce has the data to show that the Grand Canyon, the four surrounding states and the Navajo Nation are tremendous tourism draws for domestic and international visitors. Any diminishing of tourism threatens an economy of hundreds of local businesses and vendors whose livelihoods depend on the Grand Canyon as one of the great wonders of the world.
I also cannot abide this bill's allowing for giving away national assets without requiring commercial users to pay significant royalties to compensate the American people and the Navajo people for such a fundamental change in this area's land use.
Please oppose the contents of the Interior Department Appropriations Act concerning Grand Canyon uranium mining provision and any provisions limiting the President's authority in the Antiquities Act.
[Sent to Darrell Issa, (R-CA) 28 July 2011]
