Back in “the good old days”—you know, the days when my whole future was in front of me, my body was trim and healthy, my mind was pure, and Bear Bryant was still alive and coaching the University of Alabama to the Sugar Bowl almost every year—any way, back then there was CBS news and "our" most beloved news anchor, Sir Walter Cronkite.
I didn’t know much back then, but I knew that if Walter Cronkite said it, IT MUST BE TRUE. Walter narrated the news for me and my family, beginning in the days of black and white news footage. Things like John Glenn’s first earth orbits, JFK’s assassination, the Apollo moon landings, and the attempted assassination of George Wallace--we could count on Walter to tell us what we needed to know in south Alabama.
The concepts of right and wrong were, like night and day, a given in network TV news back then...we thought. The idea of the highly respected national media taking sides on a given issue, let alone partisan sides, was a totally alien concept.
How things have changed today, relative to the public’s (and especially my own) perception of the media, in general, and the height of the pedestal that 87 year old Walter Cronkite sets on today, specifically.
In an interview with Larry King on CNN last evening. Larry played the latest Osama Bin Laden tape. Then he asked Mr. Cronkite for comments. Walter had this to say:
“So now the question is basically right now, how will this affect the election? And I have a feeling that it could tilt the election a bit. In fact, I'm a little inclined to think that Karl Rove, the political manager at the White House, who is a very clever man, he probably set up bin Laden to this thing. (bold emphasis mine-VRRIII) The advantage to the Republican side is to get rid of, as a principal subject of the campaigns right now, get rid of the whole problem of the al Qaqaa explosive dump. Right now, that, the last couple of days, has, I think, upset the Republican campaign.”
To his credit, Larry King completely ignored the reference to Karl Rove planting the Bin laden tape. Yet one has to wonder why, since this revelation was a major part of the first few dozen words out of Cronkite’s mouth. Then, not suprisingly, King gives “old man Concrete” a pass--not only on the insinuation of potential foul play, but also on the follow-up blithering where he indicates that his rationale for this statement was the mean old Republicans who were trying to get rid of the Al Qaqaa missing explosive story; a story, by the way, that just so happens to be highly suspect and to have been trumped up by the New York Times and Masseur Cronkite’s beloved CBS News show "60 Minutes" against Mr. Rove’s candidate, President Bush.
I’m sorry, but I'm distraught. There is nothing left to believe in any more. No Santa Clause, no Easter Bunny, no Great Pumpkin, and now we find that Walter Cronkite has signed on with the naked, unabashed, run around in your stocking feet, roll your eyes back in your head,wear-a- funny-hat-with-Dan Rather's Bush-bashing-campaign as a card carrying, publicly outspoken, bleeding heart liberal.
Even worse, maybe Walter started it all decades ago and I just didn’t know about it until now.
Oh waiter, check please....
Saturday, October 30, 2004
Tuesday, October 26, 2004
Liars Figure and Figures Lie
I took a bunch of math in school – three years of algebra, a year of trigonometry, a year of geometry, and a year of calculus. Then came college--five quarters of calculus, a quarter of differential equations, and then practically every other class was calculus based. Would anyone care to watch me solve a second order differential equation with nothing but a #2 pencil and a very large eraser today? You might be waiting a while as those brain cells have been reprogrammed over the past 20 or so years.
In the middle of studying vectors, differentials and integrals came a math class called “Statistics.” Some people spend an entire four years of college learning statistics. A class lasting one quarter was enough to tell me that I didn’t want to be a statistician. There was a positive side to taking statistics, however. Statistics is what keeps me from being a gambler. I don’t play poker, I don’t like to roll the dice, and I don’t, except on rare occasions, buy lottery tickets. I guess that you could say that that one statistics class has saved me a lot of money over the years.
The American public could benefit from a small dose of statistical education. If they understood statistics, I believe that most newspapers and TV stations would go out of business or at least be forced to make substantial changes in their reporting. They could make some attempt to put things they write about into perspective with supporting data that gives their readers more information than “someone died” or “someone screwed up.”
For instance, if you followed the news back in the late 1990’s, you could be convinced that air bags were the biggest threat to the lives of children and small adults since the Bubonic Plague. Every single time someone was killed by an air bag, the local press and the national news blared the story in their headlines and the public demanded reform. In this CNN article they state that:
“From 1996-2000, 191 people died from air bag-related injuries, including 116 children, according to government statistics. The children were either not wearing a seat belt or were improperly restrained in the front seat.”
So what was actually doing the killing, the air bag--or bouncing off of the first hard surface encountered by the kid’s body during impact? And did the article bother to mention that there were 41,945 total people killed (710 under the age of 5) in the year 2000 alone? I don’t want even one mothers’ precious child or grandfathers’ grandchild to meet an untimely fate in an automobile, but let’s get a grip on the sensationalism.
Or how about shark attacks? Every spring, commencing with the first documented shark bite, the smiling talking TV heads and the bold news headlines convince the citizens of middle America that those of us living here on the coast are literally walking on a sea of shark fins every time we hazard to wade into our local waters. In reality, you have a greater chance of being one of the 90 people struck and killed by lightening than being bitten by a shark. Notice I said bit, not killed.
And how many people do you know whom refuse to fly on a commercial airliner? I have had endless conversations about how so-and-so refuses to ever get on “one of ‘em thangs.” Gimme a break, pluu-ease! Between 1982 and March 2001, only an average of only 120 persons per year were killed in commercial aviation accidents. You have an infinitely better chance of dieing on the way to the airport in your car than you do once you get on the great silver bird.
So, I’ll cut to the chase now.
All of the above rantings bring me to my real point in writing this post. This New York Times article makes an ominous political issue for President Bush out of the apparent “loss” of 380 tons (760,000 pounds) of HMX and RDX explosives in Iraq. The article actually mentions some numbers that could add to the reader’s perspective but, as usual, they bury the information well past the first three paragraphs the average reader scans through.
You see, a total of 243,000 tons (486,000,000 pounds) of munitions have already been destroyed by coalition forces and an additional 163,000 tons (326,000,000 pounds) have been secured and are scheduled for destruction.
Cracking out my extensive mathematical education, this means that 0.0935% of the total munitions discovered in Iraq have been misplaced. Less than one tenth of one percent. I did this calculation with math I learned in the first 6 years of my education. I didn’t need calculus, but I did need to calculate a statistical percentage--sixth graders call it a ratio.
Forgetting, for a moment, that there is a high probability that the explosives were removed from the Al Qaqaa complex months before US forces arrived, why is it that a whole building full of college graduates at The New York Times, not to mention a whole country full of people who are at least in theory the products of 12 years of free government education-- are not able to see the insignificance of this non-event?
I've got to go outside and scream now...
UPDATE October 26, 2004
Just as I suspected, the odor I smelled earlier was that of Dan Rather's stinky stocking feet as he tiptoed around behind the scenes of this story. It has been reported that the NY Times beat CBS's 60 minutes to the draw with the repackaging of a story first reported in April 2003.
CBS wanted to wait until Sunday night. Good thing for the free world that it came out early so the Bush campaign, Fox News, Drudge, Limbaugh, and the Blogosphere can do some fact finding and get the truth out. The initial contradiction came from an surprising source, NBC News, that actually had a reporter imbeded with the Army unit that went into the Al Qaqaa compound on April 10, 2003.
The reporter, Lia Ling Jew, has started a bit of soft backpeddling in an interview on MSNBC. She stated "that the 24-hour visit by elements of the 101st Airborne Division was "more of a pit stop." U.S. troops did not conduct a detailed search of the compound nor did they try to prevent looting, she said." So I guess she is now implying that our troups were sitting around scratching their privates while the local thugs ran willy-nilly through the compound?
CNN reports that the October 10th Iraqi letter to the IAEA "identified the vanished explosives as containing 194.7 metric tons of HMX, or "high melting point explosive," 141.2 metric tons of RDX, or "rapid detonation explosive," among other designations, and 5.8 metric tons of PETN, or 'pentaerythritol tetranitrate.' " One question I have personally is what the context of the Iraqi provisional governments' letter to the IAEA was, and why was the letter written 18 months after the fact? Was it simply a formality or were they reporting something that they thought was new?
Regarding Mohamed ElBaradei, the director general (why does every leader outside the US have to have the word "general" in their title?) of the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency, he is "very concerned." Mr. El Baradei, who was born in Egypt, is in fact a lawyer, not a nuclear scientist. Like Hans Blix, he has a long history of foot dragging on behalf of the Iraqi's and Iranians and holding opinions contrary to those of US anministrators.
Watch this story spin and spin and the Kerry Campaign keep on yelling. They already have a new campaign ad out and Kerry mysteriously mentioned "missing explosives" in the second debate.
Was he in on this story before hand? Could be...
In the middle of studying vectors, differentials and integrals came a math class called “Statistics.” Some people spend an entire four years of college learning statistics. A class lasting one quarter was enough to tell me that I didn’t want to be a statistician. There was a positive side to taking statistics, however. Statistics is what keeps me from being a gambler. I don’t play poker, I don’t like to roll the dice, and I don’t, except on rare occasions, buy lottery tickets. I guess that you could say that that one statistics class has saved me a lot of money over the years.
The American public could benefit from a small dose of statistical education. If they understood statistics, I believe that most newspapers and TV stations would go out of business or at least be forced to make substantial changes in their reporting. They could make some attempt to put things they write about into perspective with supporting data that gives their readers more information than “someone died” or “someone screwed up.”
For instance, if you followed the news back in the late 1990’s, you could be convinced that air bags were the biggest threat to the lives of children and small adults since the Bubonic Plague. Every single time someone was killed by an air bag, the local press and the national news blared the story in their headlines and the public demanded reform. In this CNN article they state that:
“From 1996-2000, 191 people died from air bag-related injuries, including 116 children, according to government statistics. The children were either not wearing a seat belt or were improperly restrained in the front seat.”
So what was actually doing the killing, the air bag--or bouncing off of the first hard surface encountered by the kid’s body during impact? And did the article bother to mention that there were 41,945 total people killed (710 under the age of 5) in the year 2000 alone? I don’t want even one mothers’ precious child or grandfathers’ grandchild to meet an untimely fate in an automobile, but let’s get a grip on the sensationalism.
Or how about shark attacks? Every spring, commencing with the first documented shark bite, the smiling talking TV heads and the bold news headlines convince the citizens of middle America that those of us living here on the coast are literally walking on a sea of shark fins every time we hazard to wade into our local waters. In reality, you have a greater chance of being one of the 90 people struck and killed by lightening than being bitten by a shark. Notice I said bit, not killed.
And how many people do you know whom refuse to fly on a commercial airliner? I have had endless conversations about how so-and-so refuses to ever get on “one of ‘em thangs.” Gimme a break, pluu-ease! Between 1982 and March 2001, only an average of only 120 persons per year were killed in commercial aviation accidents. You have an infinitely better chance of dieing on the way to the airport in your car than you do once you get on the great silver bird.
So, I’ll cut to the chase now.
All of the above rantings bring me to my real point in writing this post. This New York Times article makes an ominous political issue for President Bush out of the apparent “loss” of 380 tons (760,000 pounds) of HMX and RDX explosives in Iraq. The article actually mentions some numbers that could add to the reader’s perspective but, as usual, they bury the information well past the first three paragraphs the average reader scans through.
You see, a total of 243,000 tons (486,000,000 pounds) of munitions have already been destroyed by coalition forces and an additional 163,000 tons (326,000,000 pounds) have been secured and are scheduled for destruction.
Cracking out my extensive mathematical education, this means that 0.0935% of the total munitions discovered in Iraq have been misplaced. Less than one tenth of one percent. I did this calculation with math I learned in the first 6 years of my education. I didn’t need calculus, but I did need to calculate a statistical percentage--sixth graders call it a ratio.
Forgetting, for a moment, that there is a high probability that the explosives were removed from the Al Qaqaa complex months before US forces arrived, why is it that a whole building full of college graduates at The New York Times, not to mention a whole country full of people who are at least in theory the products of 12 years of free government education-- are not able to see the insignificance of this non-event?
I've got to go outside and scream now...
UPDATE October 26, 2004
Just as I suspected, the odor I smelled earlier was that of Dan Rather's stinky stocking feet as he tiptoed around behind the scenes of this story. It has been reported that the NY Times beat CBS's 60 minutes to the draw with the repackaging of a story first reported in April 2003.
CBS wanted to wait until Sunday night. Good thing for the free world that it came out early so the Bush campaign, Fox News, Drudge, Limbaugh, and the Blogosphere can do some fact finding and get the truth out. The initial contradiction came from an surprising source, NBC News, that actually had a reporter imbeded with the Army unit that went into the Al Qaqaa compound on April 10, 2003.
The reporter, Lia Ling Jew, has started a bit of soft backpeddling in an interview on MSNBC. She stated "that the 24-hour visit by elements of the 101st Airborne Division was "more of a pit stop." U.S. troops did not conduct a detailed search of the compound nor did they try to prevent looting, she said." So I guess she is now implying that our troups were sitting around scratching their privates while the local thugs ran willy-nilly through the compound?
CNN reports that the October 10th Iraqi letter to the IAEA "identified the vanished explosives as containing 194.7 metric tons of HMX, or "high melting point explosive," 141.2 metric tons of RDX, or "rapid detonation explosive," among other designations, and 5.8 metric tons of PETN, or 'pentaerythritol tetranitrate.' " One question I have personally is what the context of the Iraqi provisional governments' letter to the IAEA was, and why was the letter written 18 months after the fact? Was it simply a formality or were they reporting something that they thought was new?
Regarding Mohamed ElBaradei, the director general (why does every leader outside the US have to have the word "general" in their title?) of the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency, he is "very concerned." Mr. El Baradei, who was born in Egypt, is in fact a lawyer, not a nuclear scientist. Like Hans Blix, he has a long history of foot dragging on behalf of the Iraqi's and Iranians and holding opinions contrary to those of US anministrators.
Watch this story spin and spin and the Kerry Campaign keep on yelling. They already have a new campaign ad out and Kerry mysteriously mentioned "missing explosives" in the second debate.
Was he in on this story before hand? Could be...
Monday, October 25, 2004
Robbing Peter to Pay Paul
Suppose that I go into the fish bait business. Not too smart of an idea, some of you might say, but suppose I don’t listen to unsolicited advice and as of tomorrow afternoon I am the proud owner of “Ronnie Redneck’s Bait and Tackle Emporium.” I’m so excited…
The business consists of a small building on a parcel of land adjacent to a county road within a quarter mile of the local marina and public boat ramp. What a great location--I'm gonna be rich. In addition to the building and land, I also purchased the complete store inventory from the prior owner; including a large cage full of chirping crickets, boxes and boxes of night crawlers (worms—for those of you not from the southern US), and an aerated tank full of Shad Minnows. There is also the obligatory assortment of beer coolers, assorted snack displays, artificial lures, bamboo poles, and other fishing paraphernalia.
After spending half a day at the bank and in the lawyer’s offices filling out forms for the real estate closing and eating a celebratory lunch, I finally get back to my new business and begin the task of contacting my suppliers in anticipation of opening for business.
The first thing I am hit with is bad news. The recent bout of cold weather has resulted in a shortage of both crickets and night crawlers. To make matters worse, the local supplier of shad minnows has legal troubles and has had his commercial fishing license revoked for a few weeks. After making several frantic phone calls to the previous owner and some additional suppliers, I finally locate crickets, worms, and minnows. The cost, including extra shipping, is nearly double what I had paid previously. I reluctantly place an order for next week. What do I do now?
The first thing I do is raise my prices. My present inventory consists of over one thousand crickets that sold previously for $1 a dozen. The new price will have to be $1.75. The hundreds of pounds of night crawlers that used to sell for $2 a tub will now cost $3.50, and the hundreds of dozens of minnows will go up from $1.50 a dozen to $3.25. I change my signs accordingly.
When I arrive to open up for business at 5:30 AM the next morning, three pickup trucks full of my first customers are already waiting in my parking lot. I introduce myself, explaining that I purchased the shop from “Ronnie Redneck,” and excitedly unlock and open the front door to the stampede of fishermen.
What ensues is nothing short of a riot. “Price gouging” cry my prospective customers. “We won’t stand for it,” they protest. “Ronnie didn’t charge us these prices” the say as they stomp out of the front door into the parking lot. What a rude awakening to the retail bait business.
As the trucks bearing the angry fishermen spin their tires out of my gravel lot, I pause to reconsider my pricing policies. Let’s see, I only have about three thousand dollars in the purchase of the live bait that was included with the “Bait Emporium.” But, when I sell what I have, I am looking at paying nearly six thousand dollars to restock my store. And I’m already short on cash after putting $25,000 into the down payment. What do I do now?
Am I guilty of price gouging because I want to sell my existing inventory at prices based on the replacement cost rather than the cost I originally paid for the crickets, worms, and minnows?
OF COURSE NOT. What kind of moron would sell their inventory knowing that at the end of the day they wouldn’t have enough funds to replace it in order to stay in business? It is, after all, a business, not a CHARITY, isn’t it?
Now I will get to my point (with my apologies for making you read my bait shop story.) What is the difference between fish bait, hurricane supplies, gasoline, or flue vaccine?
N-O-T-H-I-N-G, that’s what.
This whole concept of the government stepping into the free market and arresting lawfully licensed, reputable businesspersons for adjusting the pricing of any given commodity (regardless of whether it floats, f**ks, farts, or flys) based on market conditions, is insane.
Just because people “NEED” flue vaccine during our current government produced vaccine shortage or “NEED” plywood after the roof of their house decided to obey the laws of physics and disassemble itself into a pile of kindling in their neighbor’s yard doesn’t mean that anyone has to sell you anything at any price.
I needed 42 gallons of gasoline to fill up the tank on my Chevy Suburban this afternoon, but I settled for $25 worth (about 13 gallons) and I didn't blame the station owner.
I hear that people in Hell want ice water, too. Quick, call the government!
The business consists of a small building on a parcel of land adjacent to a county road within a quarter mile of the local marina and public boat ramp. What a great location--I'm gonna be rich. In addition to the building and land, I also purchased the complete store inventory from the prior owner; including a large cage full of chirping crickets, boxes and boxes of night crawlers (worms—for those of you not from the southern US), and an aerated tank full of Shad Minnows. There is also the obligatory assortment of beer coolers, assorted snack displays, artificial lures, bamboo poles, and other fishing paraphernalia.
After spending half a day at the bank and in the lawyer’s offices filling out forms for the real estate closing and eating a celebratory lunch, I finally get back to my new business and begin the task of contacting my suppliers in anticipation of opening for business.
The first thing I am hit with is bad news. The recent bout of cold weather has resulted in a shortage of both crickets and night crawlers. To make matters worse, the local supplier of shad minnows has legal troubles and has had his commercial fishing license revoked for a few weeks. After making several frantic phone calls to the previous owner and some additional suppliers, I finally locate crickets, worms, and minnows. The cost, including extra shipping, is nearly double what I had paid previously. I reluctantly place an order for next week. What do I do now?
The first thing I do is raise my prices. My present inventory consists of over one thousand crickets that sold previously for $1 a dozen. The new price will have to be $1.75. The hundreds of pounds of night crawlers that used to sell for $2 a tub will now cost $3.50, and the hundreds of dozens of minnows will go up from $1.50 a dozen to $3.25. I change my signs accordingly.
When I arrive to open up for business at 5:30 AM the next morning, three pickup trucks full of my first customers are already waiting in my parking lot. I introduce myself, explaining that I purchased the shop from “Ronnie Redneck,” and excitedly unlock and open the front door to the stampede of fishermen.
What ensues is nothing short of a riot. “Price gouging” cry my prospective customers. “We won’t stand for it,” they protest. “Ronnie didn’t charge us these prices” the say as they stomp out of the front door into the parking lot. What a rude awakening to the retail bait business.
As the trucks bearing the angry fishermen spin their tires out of my gravel lot, I pause to reconsider my pricing policies. Let’s see, I only have about three thousand dollars in the purchase of the live bait that was included with the “Bait Emporium.” But, when I sell what I have, I am looking at paying nearly six thousand dollars to restock my store. And I’m already short on cash after putting $25,000 into the down payment. What do I do now?
Am I guilty of price gouging because I want to sell my existing inventory at prices based on the replacement cost rather than the cost I originally paid for the crickets, worms, and minnows?
OF COURSE NOT. What kind of moron would sell their inventory knowing that at the end of the day they wouldn’t have enough funds to replace it in order to stay in business? It is, after all, a business, not a CHARITY, isn’t it?
Now I will get to my point (with my apologies for making you read my bait shop story.) What is the difference between fish bait, hurricane supplies, gasoline, or flue vaccine?
N-O-T-H-I-N-G, that’s what.
This whole concept of the government stepping into the free market and arresting lawfully licensed, reputable businesspersons for adjusting the pricing of any given commodity (regardless of whether it floats, f**ks, farts, or flys) based on market conditions, is insane.
Just because people “NEED” flue vaccine during our current government produced vaccine shortage or “NEED” plywood after the roof of their house decided to obey the laws of physics and disassemble itself into a pile of kindling in their neighbor’s yard doesn’t mean that anyone has to sell you anything at any price.
I needed 42 gallons of gasoline to fill up the tank on my Chevy Suburban this afternoon, but I settled for $25 worth (about 13 gallons) and I didn't blame the station owner.
I hear that people in Hell want ice water, too. Quick, call the government!
"The Fundamental Test of Leadership..."
This morning’s edition of The Washington Times has a story by Joel Mowbray nailing John Kerry in another exaggeration regarding his foreign policy abilities.
In December 2003 and again in the second debate Kerry stated that, before voting to authorize the use of force against Iraq, he had met "with the entire Security Council, and we spent a couple of hours talking about what they saw as the path to a united front in order to be able to deal with Saddam Hussein."
The problem for Senator Kerry is that the investigations can only find three members of the security council—Cameroon, Singapore, and….drum roll please…FRANCE—that say they talked to Kerry. There is also an unconfirmed rumor that he also met with the British Ambassador.
The other newspapers and the TV news shows haven’t picked up on this story yet, but just watch the press give Pinocchio…er…um, Mr. sKerry another pass on this one just like they did the famous Christmas in Cambodia story (you want that memory lightly “seared” or well done—Mr. Kerry?) and numerous other self aggrandizing exaggerations he has uttered in this campaign.
Kerry has been hanging his hat on “truthfulness” and continuously making assertions that President Bush hasn’t been “truthful with the American People.” He has also called truthfulness “the fundamental test of leadership.” I believe that this story is yet additional proof of how willing he is to bend (or break) the truth to suit his needs.
Senator Bob Dole had the class to resign his seat in the Senate so he could focus on running for President. John Kerry has been absent from the senate for most of twenty years—missing almost the entire session of this past year during his own campaign.
Let’s hope that the voters in Massachusetts have enough sense to add the word “former” in front of the word “Senator” next year…once we get through kicking his ass off of the national stage on November 2nd.
In December 2003 and again in the second debate Kerry stated that, before voting to authorize the use of force against Iraq, he had met "with the entire Security Council, and we spent a couple of hours talking about what they saw as the path to a united front in order to be able to deal with Saddam Hussein."
The problem for Senator Kerry is that the investigations can only find three members of the security council—Cameroon, Singapore, and….drum roll please…FRANCE—that say they talked to Kerry. There is also an unconfirmed rumor that he also met with the British Ambassador.
The other newspapers and the TV news shows haven’t picked up on this story yet, but just watch the press give Pinocchio…er…um, Mr. sKerry another pass on this one just like they did the famous Christmas in Cambodia story (you want that memory lightly “seared” or well done—Mr. Kerry?) and numerous other self aggrandizing exaggerations he has uttered in this campaign.
Kerry has been hanging his hat on “truthfulness” and continuously making assertions that President Bush hasn’t been “truthful with the American People.” He has also called truthfulness “the fundamental test of leadership.” I believe that this story is yet additional proof of how willing he is to bend (or break) the truth to suit his needs.
Senator Bob Dole had the class to resign his seat in the Senate so he could focus on running for President. John Kerry has been absent from the senate for most of twenty years—missing almost the entire session of this past year during his own campaign.
Let’s hope that the voters in Massachusetts have enough sense to add the word “former” in front of the word “Senator” next year…once we get through kicking his ass off of the national stage on November 2nd.
Saturday, October 16, 2004
Hillarycare Preview
A quick scan of recent news stories relating to this season’s supply of Flu Vaccine indicates that the mainstream media believes that Americans should know a) that there is a vaccine shortage and b) that the CDC has changed their recommendations regarding who should take the available doses of the vaccine. Based on the stories I have read, those two tidbits of information comprise basically the entire story. The balance of the stories' contents seem to focus on recounts of verbal hand wringing by medical professionals and polite interviews with potential vaccine users who are affected by the shortage.
This past Thursday my ears perked up when I heard Rush Limbaugh make brief mention of how we got into this situation in the first place. Since then, I’ve done a little research and now I’m here to tell you what you should really know about the vaccine shortage--and why you should be angry. More importantly, I believe that the realities of the flue vaccine shortage could give us all an ominous preview of “coming attractions” with regard to the unintended results of increased meddling by the imperial Federal Government in our nation’s healthcare business.
Remember shortly after Bill Clinton’s presidential inauguration in 1993 when he turned his lovely bride Hillary Rodham-Clinton loose on the task of reforming our national healthcare system? Remember how quickly the Newt Gingrich led US Congress and the American citizens tore the document from Hillary’s manicured fingertips and stomped it flat?
Well, what you might not remember is that Hillary and the Democrats didn’t take “no” as a final answer. They just had to find some way to ensure that this countries’ “beloved children” (not your children or my children—but “our” children) received adequate healthcare. “I know what we need,” she must have said, “from now on I’ll make the government give all of the kids free vaccines….that’s the ticket.”
And she did…with the “Vaccines for Children Program.” Here is how it works. The Federal government challenged the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) to calculate how much of each vaccine (including vaccines for other childhood illnesses like mumps and measles) the US population would need each year, then the government would go on our behalf to the drug companies and purchase the necessary quantities of each medication in bulk--at a reduced price. The vaccines would then be made available to the public at a reduced price and in many cases, for free. Sounds good on paper, right? Well, it turned out to be a disaster in the making.
Since the government in general and the Democrats specifically refuse to understand the concept of supply and demand and how the free market affects product pricing, the politicians came stomping into the vaccine market like a five hundred pound gorilla and demanded to purchase major portions of vaccine inventory each year from the dozen or so existing vendors (in 1994) at bargain basement prices. In order to stay in business and in an effort to keep their drug licenses, the manufacturers were strong armed into going along with the deal. As the years went by, one by one the vendors of the flu vaccine (and many other vaccines) dropped out of the production business, citing the rising costs of product liability lawsuits and the reduced profits resulting from the government’s bulk purchasing program.
As a result, the number of Flu vaccine vendors has dropped over the past thirty years from over TWENTY down to only TWO! Aventis Pasteur manufactures vaccines here in the United States and expects to deliver over 48 million doses of flu vaccine later this fall. The only other US FDA approved supplier, Chiron Corporation which operates their manufacturing operation in Liverpool England, had its production license pulled last week by British regulators as the result of an error in the manufacturing process. Quality control issues in a few lots of vaccine expanded to the entire supply manufactured by the company for this flu season. We've been dealing with shortages on a regional and local basis for a number of years now. With only two suppliers, it was just a matter of time until a disaster of this kind struck.
Now that it is obvious that the government’s meddling in the free market system of supply and demand has caused the shortages, rather than admitting fault and getting the heck out of the way of the process, local and national officials are out running around trying to sue vaccine suppliers for the hated crime of “Price Gouging.” Individual states have set up 1-800 hotlines for consumers and healthcare providers to report offers of suspected…shush…..don’t tell anyone…overpriced vaccine….Gasp!! My attitude is that if you want and need a given product, get out your wallet and pay the asking price (see my earlier posting--Hurricane Recovery Price Gouging.) Can you get me two front row tickets to Cirque du Soleil for $10 each...quick call the cops...they're price gouging?!?!
There has been some discussion of looking at obtaining supplies of the Flu Vaccine from Canadian approved manufacturers but the US Secretary of Health, Tommy Thompson, indicated that “it was unlikely a drug maker without a license in the United States could supply that market.” Bureaucracy at it’s finest, ladies and gentlemen. I guess that if you don’t end every other sentence with a rhetorical “eh,” own four snowmobiles, and know the words of the Canadian National Anthem, the government believes that you might be somehow maimed or otherwise injured by a vaccine designed for Canadians. Worse yet, they might fear that if you actually took the Canadian vaccine you would give up on the Braves and Yankees in favor of watching and actually understanding the rules to hockey; or quit your bowling league in favor of curling (you know, the team sport using a broom and a big smooth stone that slides on ice.)
Since only about 50% of the normal US vaccine supply is available, officials are now making it a crime to inoculate someone who is not on the CDC’s hastily modified listing of “high risk” consumers. They are actually threatening to fine and jail medical providers who commit the heinous crime of inoculating non-high risk individuals. Penalties include:
* In Washington, the fine for such a violation is $1,000
* In Wisconsin, penalties include 30 days in jail and a $500 fine
* In Massachusetts, the penalty is a $200 fine per infraction and six months in jail
An article in the Charlotte Observer offered the following statement and quotation:
A new survey of more than 2,800 hospital pharmacy directors, by the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists, found that 55 percent of respondents had been contacted by vendors offering vaccine at inflated prices. Of those, more than 80 percent reported prices of more than four times the original market value.
"Shame on the people who are price gouging," said Dr. Julie Gerberding, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention at a news conference this week. "This is a reprehensible thing to be doing, and I think an immoral thing. We need to pull together as a country to protect our vulnerable populations."
Can you believe this? After screwing around with the process and causing the shortage, the government know-it-alls have the unmitigated gall to refuse to look at alternate supply sources and actually threaten to jail a doctor for giving someone an unapproved shot?
I ask the question, why not jail and fine the government idiots that caused this situation in the first place?
You mark my words; this is just a preview of things to come in regard to government provided healthcare services. The veterans are already filling out reams of paperwork and standing in ridiculous lines at government operated VA hospitals to get their healthcare. I suggest that the government is not going to be satisfied until we are all paying through the nose and standing in one giant line, regardless of “class” or “income level,” trembling under the fear of fines or prison if we dare to take matters into our own greedy little hands and dare go somewhere "unapproved" or pay "extra" to get our health services.
I feel like Chicken Little…the sky is falling…the sky is falling...except I’M RIGHT.
Update: October 30,2004
The presidential race is currently trumping all other news, but I'm still paying attention.
Here are some links that further my case: Vaccine manufacturing process needs updating and the trial lawyers aren't through screwing up things yet...
This past Thursday my ears perked up when I heard Rush Limbaugh make brief mention of how we got into this situation in the first place. Since then, I’ve done a little research and now I’m here to tell you what you should really know about the vaccine shortage--and why you should be angry. More importantly, I believe that the realities of the flue vaccine shortage could give us all an ominous preview of “coming attractions” with regard to the unintended results of increased meddling by the imperial Federal Government in our nation’s healthcare business.
Remember shortly after Bill Clinton’s presidential inauguration in 1993 when he turned his lovely bride Hillary Rodham-Clinton loose on the task of reforming our national healthcare system? Remember how quickly the Newt Gingrich led US Congress and the American citizens tore the document from Hillary’s manicured fingertips and stomped it flat?
Well, what you might not remember is that Hillary and the Democrats didn’t take “no” as a final answer. They just had to find some way to ensure that this countries’ “beloved children” (not your children or my children—but “our” children) received adequate healthcare. “I know what we need,” she must have said, “from now on I’ll make the government give all of the kids free vaccines….that’s the ticket.”
And she did…with the “Vaccines for Children Program.” Here is how it works. The Federal government challenged the US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) to calculate how much of each vaccine (including vaccines for other childhood illnesses like mumps and measles) the US population would need each year, then the government would go on our behalf to the drug companies and purchase the necessary quantities of each medication in bulk--at a reduced price. The vaccines would then be made available to the public at a reduced price and in many cases, for free. Sounds good on paper, right? Well, it turned out to be a disaster in the making.
Since the government in general and the Democrats specifically refuse to understand the concept of supply and demand and how the free market affects product pricing, the politicians came stomping into the vaccine market like a five hundred pound gorilla and demanded to purchase major portions of vaccine inventory each year from the dozen or so existing vendors (in 1994) at bargain basement prices. In order to stay in business and in an effort to keep their drug licenses, the manufacturers were strong armed into going along with the deal. As the years went by, one by one the vendors of the flu vaccine (and many other vaccines) dropped out of the production business, citing the rising costs of product liability lawsuits and the reduced profits resulting from the government’s bulk purchasing program.
As a result, the number of Flu vaccine vendors has dropped over the past thirty years from over TWENTY down to only TWO! Aventis Pasteur manufactures vaccines here in the United States and expects to deliver over 48 million doses of flu vaccine later this fall. The only other US FDA approved supplier, Chiron Corporation which operates their manufacturing operation in Liverpool England, had its production license pulled last week by British regulators as the result of an error in the manufacturing process. Quality control issues in a few lots of vaccine expanded to the entire supply manufactured by the company for this flu season. We've been dealing with shortages on a regional and local basis for a number of years now. With only two suppliers, it was just a matter of time until a disaster of this kind struck.
Now that it is obvious that the government’s meddling in the free market system of supply and demand has caused the shortages, rather than admitting fault and getting the heck out of the way of the process, local and national officials are out running around trying to sue vaccine suppliers for the hated crime of “Price Gouging.” Individual states have set up 1-800 hotlines for consumers and healthcare providers to report offers of suspected…shush…..don’t tell anyone…overpriced vaccine….Gasp!! My attitude is that if you want and need a given product, get out your wallet and pay the asking price (see my earlier posting--Hurricane Recovery Price Gouging.) Can you get me two front row tickets to Cirque du Soleil for $10 each...quick call the cops...they're price gouging?!?!
There has been some discussion of looking at obtaining supplies of the Flu Vaccine from Canadian approved manufacturers but the US Secretary of Health, Tommy Thompson, indicated that “it was unlikely a drug maker without a license in the United States could supply that market.” Bureaucracy at it’s finest, ladies and gentlemen. I guess that if you don’t end every other sentence with a rhetorical “eh,” own four snowmobiles, and know the words of the Canadian National Anthem, the government believes that you might be somehow maimed or otherwise injured by a vaccine designed for Canadians. Worse yet, they might fear that if you actually took the Canadian vaccine you would give up on the Braves and Yankees in favor of watching and actually understanding the rules to hockey; or quit your bowling league in favor of curling (you know, the team sport using a broom and a big smooth stone that slides on ice.)
Since only about 50% of the normal US vaccine supply is available, officials are now making it a crime to inoculate someone who is not on the CDC’s hastily modified listing of “high risk” consumers. They are actually threatening to fine and jail medical providers who commit the heinous crime of inoculating non-high risk individuals. Penalties include:
* In Washington, the fine for such a violation is $1,000
* In Wisconsin, penalties include 30 days in jail and a $500 fine
* In Massachusetts, the penalty is a $200 fine per infraction and six months in jail
An article in the Charlotte Observer offered the following statement and quotation:
A new survey of more than 2,800 hospital pharmacy directors, by the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists, found that 55 percent of respondents had been contacted by vendors offering vaccine at inflated prices. Of those, more than 80 percent reported prices of more than four times the original market value.
"Shame on the people who are price gouging," said Dr. Julie Gerberding, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention at a news conference this week. "This is a reprehensible thing to be doing, and I think an immoral thing. We need to pull together as a country to protect our vulnerable populations."
Can you believe this? After screwing around with the process and causing the shortage, the government know-it-alls have the unmitigated gall to refuse to look at alternate supply sources and actually threaten to jail a doctor for giving someone an unapproved shot?
I ask the question, why not jail and fine the government idiots that caused this situation in the first place?
You mark my words; this is just a preview of things to come in regard to government provided healthcare services. The veterans are already filling out reams of paperwork and standing in ridiculous lines at government operated VA hospitals to get their healthcare. I suggest that the government is not going to be satisfied until we are all paying through the nose and standing in one giant line, regardless of “class” or “income level,” trembling under the fear of fines or prison if we dare to take matters into our own greedy little hands and dare go somewhere "unapproved" or pay "extra" to get our health services.
I feel like Chicken Little…the sky is falling…the sky is falling...except I’M RIGHT.
Update: October 30,2004
The presidential race is currently trumping all other news, but I'm still paying attention.
Here are some links that further my case: Vaccine manufacturing process needs updating and the trial lawyers aren't through screwing up things yet...
Wednesday, October 13, 2004
Living Wages--Part II
The Working Poor Families Project just released a series of reports on the condition of “working families” in America. The report is funded by the Anne E. Casey Foundation (AECF), the Ford Foundation, and the Rockefeller Foundation—all well financed “do-gooder” organizations.
Jim Casey, one of the founders of United Parcel Service, started the Anne E Casey Foundation in memory of his wife in 1948. A good example of a liberal putting his money where his mouth is. In their opening statement of the Executive Summary, they offer the following passage:
“The United States of America is often called the “Land of Opportunity,” a place where hard work and sacrifice lead to economic success. Across generations, countless families have been able to live out that promise.
However, more than one out of four American working families now earn wages so low that they have difficulty surviving financially. These are families with responsible, hard-working breadwinners who want to get ahead but hold down low-paying jobs with inadequate benefits and little hope for advancement. Many lack the skills and education they need to move into jobs that pay better, even while the economy demands more highly trained employees. And while our economy relies on the service jobs these low-paid workers fill—such as cashiers, janitors, security guards and home health aids—our society has not taken adequate steps to ensure that these workers can make ends meet and build a future for their families, no matter how determined they are to be self-sufficient.”
What lovely, sensitive words—on the surface. Only when you look deeper to do you see the true meaning that lies (no pun intended) within.
Once again, here we find a reference to “working families.” I demand to know what the term “working family” means. Can any one tell me? (See Living Wages—Part I.) I believe that the term is intended to refer to a person with a spouse and kids to support who is trying to live on the wages earned working every day for most of their lifetime in a near minimum wage (what I call entry level) job.
What are they thinking? Sure they may be “responsible and hard-working” but the best paid sanitation engineer (garbage man) still earns garbage man’s pay. At least the report seems to acknowledge that the economy has good jobs available, but unfortunately there aren’t many employment want-ads for buggy whip makers and blacksmiths in The Atlanta Journal/Constitution newspaper. Times are a changin’, and we have to change also.
Where I come from, the incentive of “hav(ing) difficulty surviving financially" was both an everyday reality and acted as a powerful incentive to get off of your ass and make some serious changes. I think that you would agree that most Americans have considered themselves to be squeezed financially for part of their working career, so what is so evil with this situation that government intervention should be mandated?
“Many lack,” they say, “the skills and education they need to move into jobs that pay better…” Well boo hoo hoo, did they have to quit school before graduation to go to work to support themselves and their family like both of my Grandfathers did in pre-depression era America? Probably not. Most likely they slept through and played hooky through twelve years of free government education because they either didn’t care or didn't know any better. The girls likely were certain that they were going to get married to a rich man and the boys were sure that they were going “Pro” in the NFL or the NBA. Once they hit the big time they figured that they could pay someone else to do their ‘ritin, readin’, and ‘rithmatic. “Let me ax you, do you know a good accountant? “
And then we are admonished that our “society has not taken adequate steps to ensure that these workers can make ends meet.” Upon utterance of this statement, my head starts spinning around uncontrollably. How about asking these workers to take some steps on their own to ensure that they can make ends meet? What else should we be required to continue to pay for without seeing some tangible improvement and/or actual results?
I mean, after providing twelve years of free education and handing out additional financial support in the form of welfare and public housing, haven’t we done about enough? No, they say. We need to somehow do whatever it takes to ensure these miserable, underprivileged souls move out of the ghetto and enjoy a lifetime of success.
And God forbid that we attempt to tell our benefactors how to lead their lives in areas that are highly predictive of future outcome. We can’t, for instance, criticize their lifestyle decisions like the company they keep, the way they speak, the way they dress, or their propensity to adopt expensive, self-destructive habits like alcohol and drug abuse. No way, Jose. And we can’t intervene in areas of intimate personal behavioral like sex which inevitably result in the expensive side affects like producing unwanted/un-afforded children or the acquisition of sexually transmitted diseases like AIDS. We are, as a society, supposed to close our eyes, toss our money at the problem, and hope for the best outcome. Ab-rah Kadab-rah, poof.....success!
In looking into the AEC Foundation, I found this statement from the current president, Doug Nelson:
“Applying Lessons Learned. The generation of American children born in the last two decades of the 20th century has been blessed by a period of unprecedented national prosperity. For most of these children and their families, this has been among the best of times.
Yet for fully one-fifth of this nation's kids, the economic boom has quite simply passed them by. In small towns, many suburbs, and especially in large cities, millions of children remain largely untouched by the good times, with little prospect for connecting with the benefits of a soaring economy. Our most recent KIDS COUNT data report a significant increase since 1990 in the number of children—5.6 million—in families of the working poor. In all, more than 14 million, or 21 percent of all kids under 18, still live in poverty-a higher proportion than in 1975.“
IF the data supporting these statistics are accurate, we are as a society guilty of a great failure. But I say that the government hasn’t failed; the recipiants have—in spite of a large amount of public financial support. Remember that President Johnson’s series of economic initiatives announced in his 1964 Presidential campaign, called “The Great Society,” was largely implemented by the “Fabulous Eight-Ninth” congress. Among their mandates were:
1. Achieved the goals of the Fair Deal.
2. Achieved the goals of the New Frontier.
3. Introduced Medicare programs.
4. Passed the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.
5. Legislated a Housing and Urban Development program.
6. Ratified the highway beautification act, a pet project of Lady Bird Johnson, the First Lady.
7. Installed clean air and water regulations.
8. Ended the immigration quota system of the 1920s.
9. Set forth new city planning programs.
"New Deal," "Fair Frontier," Education, housing, environment, healthcare—do these topics sound familiar? Same old same old. Just throw some more money at the perceived problems and implement government mandated solutions and everything will be ok, right? That’s what they say.
“To do that (improve the chances for all to advance,) we must effectively invest our public resources so that low-income working families have far better access to education, training, healthcare, parental leave, and other benefits. People earning higher salaries typically have access to those things; those who are paid less need the same…In the long run we will maintain stable communities and keep our businesses competitive.”
Let me dissect this paragraph for you. “We must invest our public resources”…that’s government terminology for spending other people’s tax money. Our “investment” will give low-income “working families” all the things (education, training, healthcare, parental leave, and other benefits) that my parents and I have already paid dearly for in time and money in order for me to be able to work somewhere other than the McDonalds’ drive through window. And this parental leave thing—where do they get off telling a business owner that when he hires a walking set of ovaries or testicles with no restraint that he has to hand out unlimited (or at least ridiculous) amounts of “parental leave” in order to take care of five or six children that were neither planned for nor can be afforded financially?
Then they actually have the guts to come out and say that, regardless of your personal effort or commitment to your education and employment efforts, you “need” (and by default and government mandate you deserve) the same compensation rewards provided to better educated and more productive employees. Well, I NEED a vacation home on a Caribbean island and a 100 foot yacht and Lear Jet to get there—can someone in Washington help me please?
“In the long run we will maintain stable communities and keep our businesses competitive.” Is this a threat that if we don’t hand over funding, anarchy will result and the stock market will crash? Me and my Smith and Wesson don't think so...
I have every compassion for the children identified to be in these situations living in poverty. It’s not their fault, but the problem I have is that the government doesn’t cut checks to minor children. They do cut checks to adults who consciously make crappy life decisions, reproduce without conscience and V-O-T-E. For forty years “Great Society” politics has yielded little improvement and constant demands for increased funding. Enough is Enough...just call me insensitive.
UPDATE October 14, 2004 5:30AM
The implied solution to the problems of the "working poor" is to raise the minimum wage. You might ask, who is actually paid minimum wage? This link gives the answer better than I ever could.
Jim Casey, one of the founders of United Parcel Service, started the Anne E Casey Foundation in memory of his wife in 1948. A good example of a liberal putting his money where his mouth is. In their opening statement of the Executive Summary, they offer the following passage:
“The United States of America is often called the “Land of Opportunity,” a place where hard work and sacrifice lead to economic success. Across generations, countless families have been able to live out that promise.
However, more than one out of four American working families now earn wages so low that they have difficulty surviving financially. These are families with responsible, hard-working breadwinners who want to get ahead but hold down low-paying jobs with inadequate benefits and little hope for advancement. Many lack the skills and education they need to move into jobs that pay better, even while the economy demands more highly trained employees. And while our economy relies on the service jobs these low-paid workers fill—such as cashiers, janitors, security guards and home health aids—our society has not taken adequate steps to ensure that these workers can make ends meet and build a future for their families, no matter how determined they are to be self-sufficient.”
What lovely, sensitive words—on the surface. Only when you look deeper to do you see the true meaning that lies (no pun intended) within.
Once again, here we find a reference to “working families.” I demand to know what the term “working family” means. Can any one tell me? (See Living Wages—Part I.) I believe that the term is intended to refer to a person with a spouse and kids to support who is trying to live on the wages earned working every day for most of their lifetime in a near minimum wage (what I call entry level) job.
What are they thinking? Sure they may be “responsible and hard-working” but the best paid sanitation engineer (garbage man) still earns garbage man’s pay. At least the report seems to acknowledge that the economy has good jobs available, but unfortunately there aren’t many employment want-ads for buggy whip makers and blacksmiths in The Atlanta Journal/Constitution newspaper. Times are a changin’, and we have to change also.
Where I come from, the incentive of “hav(ing) difficulty surviving financially" was both an everyday reality and acted as a powerful incentive to get off of your ass and make some serious changes. I think that you would agree that most Americans have considered themselves to be squeezed financially for part of their working career, so what is so evil with this situation that government intervention should be mandated?
“Many lack,” they say, “the skills and education they need to move into jobs that pay better…” Well boo hoo hoo, did they have to quit school before graduation to go to work to support themselves and their family like both of my Grandfathers did in pre-depression era America? Probably not. Most likely they slept through and played hooky through twelve years of free government education because they either didn’t care or didn't know any better. The girls likely were certain that they were going to get married to a rich man and the boys were sure that they were going “Pro” in the NFL or the NBA. Once they hit the big time they figured that they could pay someone else to do their ‘ritin, readin’, and ‘rithmatic. “Let me ax you, do you know a good accountant? “
And then we are admonished that our “society has not taken adequate steps to ensure that these workers can make ends meet.” Upon utterance of this statement, my head starts spinning around uncontrollably. How about asking these workers to take some steps on their own to ensure that they can make ends meet? What else should we be required to continue to pay for without seeing some tangible improvement and/or actual results?
I mean, after providing twelve years of free education and handing out additional financial support in the form of welfare and public housing, haven’t we done about enough? No, they say. We need to somehow do whatever it takes to ensure these miserable, underprivileged souls move out of the ghetto and enjoy a lifetime of success.
And God forbid that we attempt to tell our benefactors how to lead their lives in areas that are highly predictive of future outcome. We can’t, for instance, criticize their lifestyle decisions like the company they keep, the way they speak, the way they dress, or their propensity to adopt expensive, self-destructive habits like alcohol and drug abuse. No way, Jose. And we can’t intervene in areas of intimate personal behavioral like sex which inevitably result in the expensive side affects like producing unwanted/un-afforded children or the acquisition of sexually transmitted diseases like AIDS. We are, as a society, supposed to close our eyes, toss our money at the problem, and hope for the best outcome. Ab-rah Kadab-rah, poof.....success!
In looking into the AEC Foundation, I found this statement from the current president, Doug Nelson:
“Applying Lessons Learned. The generation of American children born in the last two decades of the 20th century has been blessed by a period of unprecedented national prosperity. For most of these children and their families, this has been among the best of times.
Yet for fully one-fifth of this nation's kids, the economic boom has quite simply passed them by. In small towns, many suburbs, and especially in large cities, millions of children remain largely untouched by the good times, with little prospect for connecting with the benefits of a soaring economy. Our most recent KIDS COUNT data report a significant increase since 1990 in the number of children—5.6 million—in families of the working poor. In all, more than 14 million, or 21 percent of all kids under 18, still live in poverty-a higher proportion than in 1975.“
IF the data supporting these statistics are accurate, we are as a society guilty of a great failure. But I say that the government hasn’t failed; the recipiants have—in spite of a large amount of public financial support. Remember that President Johnson’s series of economic initiatives announced in his 1964 Presidential campaign, called “The Great Society,” was largely implemented by the “Fabulous Eight-Ninth” congress. Among their mandates were:
1. Achieved the goals of the Fair Deal.
2. Achieved the goals of the New Frontier.
3. Introduced Medicare programs.
4. Passed the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.
5. Legislated a Housing and Urban Development program.
6. Ratified the highway beautification act, a pet project of Lady Bird Johnson, the First Lady.
7. Installed clean air and water regulations.
8. Ended the immigration quota system of the 1920s.
9. Set forth new city planning programs.
"New Deal," "Fair Frontier," Education, housing, environment, healthcare—do these topics sound familiar? Same old same old. Just throw some more money at the perceived problems and implement government mandated solutions and everything will be ok, right? That’s what they say.
“To do that (improve the chances for all to advance,) we must effectively invest our public resources so that low-income working families have far better access to education, training, healthcare, parental leave, and other benefits. People earning higher salaries typically have access to those things; those who are paid less need the same…In the long run we will maintain stable communities and keep our businesses competitive.”
Let me dissect this paragraph for you. “We must invest our public resources”…that’s government terminology for spending other people’s tax money. Our “investment” will give low-income “working families” all the things (education, training, healthcare, parental leave, and other benefits) that my parents and I have already paid dearly for in time and money in order for me to be able to work somewhere other than the McDonalds’ drive through window. And this parental leave thing—where do they get off telling a business owner that when he hires a walking set of ovaries or testicles with no restraint that he has to hand out unlimited (or at least ridiculous) amounts of “parental leave” in order to take care of five or six children that were neither planned for nor can be afforded financially?
Then they actually have the guts to come out and say that, regardless of your personal effort or commitment to your education and employment efforts, you “need” (and by default and government mandate you deserve) the same compensation rewards provided to better educated and more productive employees. Well, I NEED a vacation home on a Caribbean island and a 100 foot yacht and Lear Jet to get there—can someone in Washington help me please?
“In the long run we will maintain stable communities and keep our businesses competitive.” Is this a threat that if we don’t hand over funding, anarchy will result and the stock market will crash? Me and my Smith and Wesson don't think so...
I have every compassion for the children identified to be in these situations living in poverty. It’s not their fault, but the problem I have is that the government doesn’t cut checks to minor children. They do cut checks to adults who consciously make crappy life decisions, reproduce without conscience and V-O-T-E. For forty years “Great Society” politics has yielded little improvement and constant demands for increased funding. Enough is Enough...just call me insensitive.
UPDATE October 14, 2004 5:30AM
The implied solution to the problems of the "working poor" is to raise the minimum wage. You might ask, who is actually paid minimum wage? This link gives the answer better than I ever could.
Monday, October 11, 2004
No Child Left Behind?
I’ve had a love hate relationship with formal education—both the mandatory 12 years of primary/secondary school and my dual experiences as an undergraduate Mechanical Engineering student.
You see, I consider myself to be smart, and I was a good student in school. I just disliked many of my (government) school teachers and many of my (government) school teachers barely tolerated me. I say many because there were actually a few instructors that liked my work and I liked them, but these were the exceptions rather than the rule.
I had a problem with the educational process in that I found it to be tedious and overly bureaucratic. I guess that my mind didn’t fit the model of the student that they were trained to teach. My primary failure was my belief that I was actually there to learn something and that there was too much crap and politics that had to be dealt with in order to get your daily dose of readin’, writin’, and ‘rithmatic.
In post World War II America, the government has bought (or possibly sold ) the general public’s simplistic belief that a high school diploma automatically guarantees quality employment and economic success.
To this end, the public (government) school system has made every effort to hand a high school diploma to every person (read that so-called student) that can show up in a classroom for some minimum number of days over a twelve year period. Rather (but not Dan Rather) than supporting and maintaining the quality while increasing access to a primary and secondary education, the end result has been the degradation of standards and the output of basically the same number of qualified graduates as were produced before government intervention. The key word is qualified. You heard me right, everyone is required to go, but the number of successful high school students is quantitatively the same. It’s a matter of supply and demand.
In spite of this increased availability of educational programs, here in Georgia over 40% of high school students drop out before graduation. Do you get this? They are virtually giving away high school diplomas based on attendance and nearly half of the students don’t have enough sense and discipline to hang around long enough to get one. And the sad reality is that the diploma has no real market value in its current form. It’s become basically a certificate of (non)attendance
The imperial federal government of the United States made their first foray into higher education with the passage of the Higher Education Act of 1965 (all 499 pages in PDF format,) and the next target of the Federal Government’s newly formed Department of Education was a college diploma. Since the high school diplomas weren’t getting enough people a country club membership and a new Caddy Seville every three years, the belief was that adding four more years of education with the obligatory government meddling would certainly do the trick. Of course the Ivy League schools like Harvard and Yale wouldn’t in theory have to participate, but the state colleges and Universities were in for an onslaught of ill prepared “High School” graduates with government backing.
Lewis Grizzard, a famous southern humorist, newspaper columnist, and staunch University of Georgia fan and alumni was quoted as saying (paraphrasing): “they say if you drive through the UGA campus, they will throw a diploma through your open car window…taint true…you got to stop your car.” How true that has become, Lewis.
The State of Georgia went as far as to use education as a basis for implementing a state lottery, the result being the HOPE Scholarship program and state funded pre-K and Kindergarten programs that were heralded as the end-all save-all solution for Georgia students.
The jury is still officially out, but after ten years the initial results are that the HOPE program has done very little to improve education in Georgia. The few good high school teachers that were out there have suffered under pressure to inflate grades to make students have the necessary “B” average to qualify for a Hope scholarship. The few good college professors are now pressured to hand out A’s and B’s in order to allow students to maintain HOPE Scholarship eligibility. And the reality is that a large percentage of the students entering college with Hope Scholarships are not really qualified and as a result, many have to take remedial classes in English (their native language) and math before they can even enter the normal curriculum.
As is usual with found money, the state government has had a spending spree of using HOPE funds to pay for non-scholarship expenses like computer technology that no one on the educational staff can fathom and for building new facilities all over the state that either aren't needed or are under-utilized.
In the ensuing financial crunch caused by low qualification standards, the state legislature has had to wrestle every year with potential changes to program requirements. The problems are not unique to HOPE, they are just amplified by the availability of public money. Racial leaders and activists claim that “rich people’s” kids get a disproportionate share of HOPE money—they want income limits on recipients. Inner city school proponents refuse to acknowledge the academic deficiencies of the current standards and oppose the use of SAT scores as part of the qualification process. The college remedial programs continue to bulge at seams.
Again, at the heart of the issue is the concept of supply and demand. Here is my simple (but accurate) redneck analysis for your enjoyment (and liberal disdain.) Suppose that by some miracle we actually managed to make the following changes in our society:
1. Every child was a willing and able student.
2. Every household provided a nourishing academic environment.
3.Every school has perfect teachers, perfect facilities, and adequate funding.
Given these improvements and assuming that the academic standards were ethically maintained, I guarantee you that the socialists and utopians would still be unhappy. Why?
Because there would still be students with B, C, and even failing grade averages. All students are not in fact created equal. Everyone can't be Valedictorian. Further, even if you could get every high school student up to a B performance level and handed them a HOPE scholarship, there are not enough seats in college classrooms to park their butts in every day for two to four years.
If you were to somehow carry this concept through to the college level and actually get every student a college sheepskin, then you will find that there are not enough jobs that require a college degree (even a degree in underwater basket weaving or god forbid—education) to use all of the applicants.
Only the top students would get the best jobs and attain the highest levels of success in the workplace. As I like to say, “everyone can’t be a rocket scientist.” Well, actually, you can be a “rocket scientist,” but you might be an unemployed rocket scientist unless you want to start your own company and work for yourself. (Kudos to Dick Rutan.)
“No Child left Behind?” Baah, Humbug...I say kick them (and their parents) in their behinds until the child has no behind left.
You see, I consider myself to be smart, and I was a good student in school. I just disliked many of my (government) school teachers and many of my (government) school teachers barely tolerated me. I say many because there were actually a few instructors that liked my work and I liked them, but these were the exceptions rather than the rule.
I had a problem with the educational process in that I found it to be tedious and overly bureaucratic. I guess that my mind didn’t fit the model of the student that they were trained to teach. My primary failure was my belief that I was actually there to learn something and that there was too much crap and politics that had to be dealt with in order to get your daily dose of readin’, writin’, and ‘rithmatic.
In post World War II America, the government has bought (or possibly sold ) the general public’s simplistic belief that a high school diploma automatically guarantees quality employment and economic success.
To this end, the public (government) school system has made every effort to hand a high school diploma to every person (read that so-called student) that can show up in a classroom for some minimum number of days over a twelve year period. Rather (but not Dan Rather) than supporting and maintaining the quality while increasing access to a primary and secondary education, the end result has been the degradation of standards and the output of basically the same number of qualified graduates as were produced before government intervention. The key word is qualified. You heard me right, everyone is required to go, but the number of successful high school students is quantitatively the same. It’s a matter of supply and demand.
In spite of this increased availability of educational programs, here in Georgia over 40% of high school students drop out before graduation. Do you get this? They are virtually giving away high school diplomas based on attendance and nearly half of the students don’t have enough sense and discipline to hang around long enough to get one. And the sad reality is that the diploma has no real market value in its current form. It’s become basically a certificate of (non)attendance
The imperial federal government of the United States made their first foray into higher education with the passage of the Higher Education Act of 1965 (all 499 pages in PDF format,) and the next target of the Federal Government’s newly formed Department of Education was a college diploma. Since the high school diplomas weren’t getting enough people a country club membership and a new Caddy Seville every three years, the belief was that adding four more years of education with the obligatory government meddling would certainly do the trick. Of course the Ivy League schools like Harvard and Yale wouldn’t in theory have to participate, but the state colleges and Universities were in for an onslaught of ill prepared “High School” graduates with government backing.
Lewis Grizzard, a famous southern humorist, newspaper columnist, and staunch University of Georgia fan and alumni was quoted as saying (paraphrasing): “they say if you drive through the UGA campus, they will throw a diploma through your open car window…taint true…you got to stop your car.” How true that has become, Lewis.
The State of Georgia went as far as to use education as a basis for implementing a state lottery, the result being the HOPE Scholarship program and state funded pre-K and Kindergarten programs that were heralded as the end-all save-all solution for Georgia students.
The jury is still officially out, but after ten years the initial results are that the HOPE program has done very little to improve education in Georgia. The few good high school teachers that were out there have suffered under pressure to inflate grades to make students have the necessary “B” average to qualify for a Hope scholarship. The few good college professors are now pressured to hand out A’s and B’s in order to allow students to maintain HOPE Scholarship eligibility. And the reality is that a large percentage of the students entering college with Hope Scholarships are not really qualified and as a result, many have to take remedial classes in English (their native language) and math before they can even enter the normal curriculum.
As is usual with found money, the state government has had a spending spree of using HOPE funds to pay for non-scholarship expenses like computer technology that no one on the educational staff can fathom and for building new facilities all over the state that either aren't needed or are under-utilized.
In the ensuing financial crunch caused by low qualification standards, the state legislature has had to wrestle every year with potential changes to program requirements. The problems are not unique to HOPE, they are just amplified by the availability of public money. Racial leaders and activists claim that “rich people’s” kids get a disproportionate share of HOPE money—they want income limits on recipients. Inner city school proponents refuse to acknowledge the academic deficiencies of the current standards and oppose the use of SAT scores as part of the qualification process. The college remedial programs continue to bulge at seams.
Again, at the heart of the issue is the concept of supply and demand. Here is my simple (but accurate) redneck analysis for your enjoyment (and liberal disdain.) Suppose that by some miracle we actually managed to make the following changes in our society:
1. Every child was a willing and able student.
2. Every household provided a nourishing academic environment.
3.Every school has perfect teachers, perfect facilities, and adequate funding.
Given these improvements and assuming that the academic standards were ethically maintained, I guarantee you that the socialists and utopians would still be unhappy. Why?
Because there would still be students with B, C, and even failing grade averages. All students are not in fact created equal. Everyone can't be Valedictorian. Further, even if you could get every high school student up to a B performance level and handed them a HOPE scholarship, there are not enough seats in college classrooms to park their butts in every day for two to four years.
If you were to somehow carry this concept through to the college level and actually get every student a college sheepskin, then you will find that there are not enough jobs that require a college degree (even a degree in underwater basket weaving or god forbid—education) to use all of the applicants.
Only the top students would get the best jobs and attain the highest levels of success in the workplace. As I like to say, “everyone can’t be a rocket scientist.” Well, actually, you can be a “rocket scientist,” but you might be an unemployed rocket scientist unless you want to start your own company and work for yourself. (Kudos to Dick Rutan.)
“No Child left Behind?” Baah, Humbug...I say kick them (and their parents) in their behinds until the child has no behind left.
Friday, October 08, 2004
The Devil's in the Details--Part II
One-Billion-three-hundred million Chinese versus two-hundred-ninety-three million Americans. A ratio of slightly over four to one. That’s what it really comes down to when you look at crude oil prices.
In spite of what the mainstream media and the Democratic National Committee may write in fine print news editorials, exclaim in 72 point newspaper headlines, or say in their prime time TV news programming, the fact is that current crude oil pricing is only partially driven by a short term deficiency in crude oil production. A major contributor to high crude prices is long term increases in Chinese and third world energy consumption, and the pricing of gasoline is further complicated by the static nature of US domestic oil refinery capacity.
That’s right, the current oil price increase causing pain in the nation’s pocketbooks is not caused by the political ineptitude of the Bush administration, but rather (not Dan Rather) by international influences like the 100% increase in Chinese crude oil consumption over the past 10 years as their population increased by only 8%. While the US population grew at approximately the same percentage rate, our crude oil usage only increased by 10.9% over the same period. And here’s a really scary fact--if China’s oil consumption grew to match the US rate of consumption on a per capita basis, they would consume over 80 million barrels per day! That’s more than the current WORLD WIDE production capacity! God help us all if that situation ever actually developed.
It’s just an unfortunate coincidence that the economic piper has to be paid here in the US this year before a presidential election. But here is a disturbing consequence that I believe to be intentionally promoted by the self proclaimed independent national media. Bush seems to loose politically no matter what direction crude oil prices take.
Case in point, the media uproar last April over assertions in journalist Bob Woodward’s book, “Plan of Attack”, that President Bush’s ties to the Saudi Royal Family had allowed him to “secretly” negotiate Saudi assistance in lowering oil and gas prices in the fall in order to help his re-election campaign. CBS’s 60 Minutes correspondent Mike Wallace anchored a segment giving Woodward extensive prime time space to publicize the book. You do remember that both CBS News and “Plan of Attack” publisher Simon and Schuster are both owned by Viacom?
“Woodward says that Bandar (the reigning Saudi Prince) understood that economic conditions were key before a presidential election: ‘They’re [oil prices] high. And they could go down very quickly. That's the Saudi pledge. Certainly over the summer, or as we get closer to the election, they could increase production several million barrels a day and the price would drop significantly.’ “
John Kerry wasted no time jumping all over that revelation:
“If ... it is true that gas supplies and prices in America are tied to the American election, tied to a secret White House deal, that is outrageous and unacceptable to the American people,” Kerry said during a campaign stop in Florida. “If this sounds wrong to you, that’s because it is fundamentally wrong.”
“Kerry said he had his own plan for lowering gas prices. ‘And you know what the Number One priority of that plan was? Put pressure on the Saudis to increase production and lower the prices to America,’ he said.”
Notice that Kerry did qualify his statement with the words “if it is true,” but managed to get the mantra of “secret White House deal” and the attack words “outrageous and unacceptable” sprinkled in for good measure. Would it be ok for President Bush to negotiate with the Saudi prince regarding pre-election oil prices if he conducted the negotiations in public? Or if there wasn’t an election for a few years, would it be ok to secretly negotiate oil pricing simply for the economic good of the American people?
By his statements it would appear that Kerry does at least recognize that of all of the world’s petroleum producers, Saudi Arabia--with proven reserves in excess of 250 billion barrels of crude and an average daily production of nearly 9 million barrels--is definitely the country with which the US needs to maintain close political and economic ties. Saudi Arabia is also the only OPEC member with substantial unused output capacity. All of the other members of OPEC essentially operate at their maximum capacity all of the time. The Saudis could actually pump an additional one and one half to two million barrels of crude oil per day--on “demand.”
I use the word “demand” because that is what Kerry says that he would do, he’d: “put pressure on the Saudis to increase production.” How many tanks and F-15’s is the silken tongued Kerry going to transfer to the Saudi Arabian border from Iraq and Afghanistan? Or perhaps he is planning on getting down on one knee and proposing to another wealthy heiress, this one wearing a hijab?
Fast forward with me now through this past summer as crude oil prices continued to rise, recently breaking the $50 per barrel mark. On October 5th , The New York Times carried a story about the Kerry campaign and the 527 group “The Media Fund” releasing new ads hammering on the Bush Administration “as giving the (Saudi Royal) family ‘special favors’ and as having an over-reliance on Saudi Arabia for oil.”
Now it’s Bush’s fault and the Bush-Saudi connection is the reason that crude oil has toped $50 per barrel. Can they really be serious? They can’t have it both ways. Didn’t Kerry previously state that his “Number One Priority” in his energy plan included reliance on the Saudis? This makes complete sense since the Saudis have the greatest known oil reserves in the entire world-- more than the rest of OPEC put together. And what about their ability to easily increase daily production by nearly 15%?
So NOW what would Kerry do in lieu of relying on the Saudis—drill in the Alaskan ANWR preserve?
And once again, as in the past, when faced with inaccurate reporting, inconsistencies, or outright lies, the media gives itself and the Kerry campaign a pass by conveniently forgetting to mention their prior statements about the existence of “secret plans” to artificially lower crude oil prices in the months prior to the election. If the price of crude had actually dropped through the summer, I guess that the headlines would read: “Gas Prices Tumble, Bush in cahoots with the Arabs…”
In spite of all of the uproar over Crude oil prices, here is the bottom line. The American people could care less about the price of a barrel of crude oil. Most of them wouldn’t know a barrel of crude oil if it landed next to them on the sofa in their living room during a broadcast of 60 minutes. Its the high gasoline prices that has their panties in a wad. And here is a fact that the TV news won’t tell you and I keep screaming at the top of my lungs in public when discussing this issue —US gasoline prices today are still not as high as they were in 1980 at the end of Democratic President Jimmy Carter’s term when they rose to a level equivalent to $2.85 per gallon in 2004 dollars.
Gas prices will not see a substantial reduction until the US reduces their reliance on imported oil and increases their domestic refinery capacity. Most of the media and virtually all of the politicians are either misinformed on this issue or are outright liars.
By the way, if you can’t afford to drive that gas hog Chevy Suburban that you bought two years ago, you better sell it now while it is still worth something and go buy yourself a compact car. Sorry folks, but dollar-twenty-five a gallon gasoline is ancient history.
UPDATED on 10/08/04 3:00 PM
I corrected an error in the growth rate of the US and Chinese populations in the third paragraph (I was off by 50%--and me with an engineering education...go figure.)
Also, I failed to mention the absurdity of the campaign by the Democrats and the media to tap the Strategic Petroleum Reserve in an effort to reduce gasoline prices.
The bottom line is that if we dumped the entire 700 million barrel contents of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve into the refineries here in the US we would gain less than 40 days of gasoline inventory. This is because the SPR, stored underground in various gulf coast salt domes, contains both “sweet” low sulfur (< 0.5% sulfur) crude oil suitable to be easily refined into gasoline and “sour” high sulfur (<2.0% sulfur) crude oil best suited for refining into heating oil, boiler fuel oil, and diesel fuel.
Not a real solution, just a political band-aid.
In spite of what the mainstream media and the Democratic National Committee may write in fine print news editorials, exclaim in 72 point newspaper headlines, or say in their prime time TV news programming, the fact is that current crude oil pricing is only partially driven by a short term deficiency in crude oil production. A major contributor to high crude prices is long term increases in Chinese and third world energy consumption, and the pricing of gasoline is further complicated by the static nature of US domestic oil refinery capacity.
That’s right, the current oil price increase causing pain in the nation’s pocketbooks is not caused by the political ineptitude of the Bush administration, but rather (not Dan Rather) by international influences like the 100% increase in Chinese crude oil consumption over the past 10 years as their population increased by only 8%. While the US population grew at approximately the same percentage rate, our crude oil usage only increased by 10.9% over the same period. And here’s a really scary fact--if China’s oil consumption grew to match the US rate of consumption on a per capita basis, they would consume over 80 million barrels per day! That’s more than the current WORLD WIDE production capacity! God help us all if that situation ever actually developed.
It’s just an unfortunate coincidence that the economic piper has to be paid here in the US this year before a presidential election. But here is a disturbing consequence that I believe to be intentionally promoted by the self proclaimed independent national media. Bush seems to loose politically no matter what direction crude oil prices take.
Case in point, the media uproar last April over assertions in journalist Bob Woodward’s book, “Plan of Attack”, that President Bush’s ties to the Saudi Royal Family had allowed him to “secretly” negotiate Saudi assistance in lowering oil and gas prices in the fall in order to help his re-election campaign. CBS’s 60 Minutes correspondent Mike Wallace anchored a segment giving Woodward extensive prime time space to publicize the book. You do remember that both CBS News and “Plan of Attack” publisher Simon and Schuster are both owned by Viacom?
“Woodward says that Bandar (the reigning Saudi Prince) understood that economic conditions were key before a presidential election: ‘They’re [oil prices] high. And they could go down very quickly. That's the Saudi pledge. Certainly over the summer, or as we get closer to the election, they could increase production several million barrels a day and the price would drop significantly.’ “
John Kerry wasted no time jumping all over that revelation:
“If ... it is true that gas supplies and prices in America are tied to the American election, tied to a secret White House deal, that is outrageous and unacceptable to the American people,” Kerry said during a campaign stop in Florida. “If this sounds wrong to you, that’s because it is fundamentally wrong.”
“Kerry said he had his own plan for lowering gas prices. ‘And you know what the Number One priority of that plan was? Put pressure on the Saudis to increase production and lower the prices to America,’ he said.”
Notice that Kerry did qualify his statement with the words “if it is true,” but managed to get the mantra of “secret White House deal” and the attack words “outrageous and unacceptable” sprinkled in for good measure. Would it be ok for President Bush to negotiate with the Saudi prince regarding pre-election oil prices if he conducted the negotiations in public? Or if there wasn’t an election for a few years, would it be ok to secretly negotiate oil pricing simply for the economic good of the American people?
By his statements it would appear that Kerry does at least recognize that of all of the world’s petroleum producers, Saudi Arabia--with proven reserves in excess of 250 billion barrels of crude and an average daily production of nearly 9 million barrels--is definitely the country with which the US needs to maintain close political and economic ties. Saudi Arabia is also the only OPEC member with substantial unused output capacity. All of the other members of OPEC essentially operate at their maximum capacity all of the time. The Saudis could actually pump an additional one and one half to two million barrels of crude oil per day--on “demand.”
I use the word “demand” because that is what Kerry says that he would do, he’d: “put pressure on the Saudis to increase production.” How many tanks and F-15’s is the silken tongued Kerry going to transfer to the Saudi Arabian border from Iraq and Afghanistan? Or perhaps he is planning on getting down on one knee and proposing to another wealthy heiress, this one wearing a hijab?
Fast forward with me now through this past summer as crude oil prices continued to rise, recently breaking the $50 per barrel mark. On October 5th , The New York Times carried a story about the Kerry campaign and the 527 group “The Media Fund” releasing new ads hammering on the Bush Administration “as giving the (Saudi Royal) family ‘special favors’ and as having an over-reliance on Saudi Arabia for oil.”
Now it’s Bush’s fault and the Bush-Saudi connection is the reason that crude oil has toped $50 per barrel. Can they really be serious? They can’t have it both ways. Didn’t Kerry previously state that his “Number One Priority” in his energy plan included reliance on the Saudis? This makes complete sense since the Saudis have the greatest known oil reserves in the entire world-- more than the rest of OPEC put together. And what about their ability to easily increase daily production by nearly 15%?
So NOW what would Kerry do in lieu of relying on the Saudis—drill in the Alaskan ANWR preserve?
And once again, as in the past, when faced with inaccurate reporting, inconsistencies, or outright lies, the media gives itself and the Kerry campaign a pass by conveniently forgetting to mention their prior statements about the existence of “secret plans” to artificially lower crude oil prices in the months prior to the election. If the price of crude had actually dropped through the summer, I guess that the headlines would read: “Gas Prices Tumble, Bush in cahoots with the Arabs…”
In spite of all of the uproar over Crude oil prices, here is the bottom line. The American people could care less about the price of a barrel of crude oil. Most of them wouldn’t know a barrel of crude oil if it landed next to them on the sofa in their living room during a broadcast of 60 minutes. Its the high gasoline prices that has their panties in a wad. And here is a fact that the TV news won’t tell you and I keep screaming at the top of my lungs in public when discussing this issue —US gasoline prices today are still not as high as they were in 1980 at the end of Democratic President Jimmy Carter’s term when they rose to a level equivalent to $2.85 per gallon in 2004 dollars.
Gas prices will not see a substantial reduction until the US reduces their reliance on imported oil and increases their domestic refinery capacity. Most of the media and virtually all of the politicians are either misinformed on this issue or are outright liars.
By the way, if you can’t afford to drive that gas hog Chevy Suburban that you bought two years ago, you better sell it now while it is still worth something and go buy yourself a compact car. Sorry folks, but dollar-twenty-five a gallon gasoline is ancient history.
UPDATED on 10/08/04 3:00 PM
I corrected an error in the growth rate of the US and Chinese populations in the third paragraph (I was off by 50%--and me with an engineering education...go figure.)
Also, I failed to mention the absurdity of the campaign by the Democrats and the media to tap the Strategic Petroleum Reserve in an effort to reduce gasoline prices.
The bottom line is that if we dumped the entire 700 million barrel contents of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve into the refineries here in the US we would gain less than 40 days of gasoline inventory. This is because the SPR, stored underground in various gulf coast salt domes, contains both “sweet” low sulfur (< 0.5% sulfur) crude oil suitable to be easily refined into gasoline and “sour” high sulfur (<2.0% sulfur) crude oil best suited for refining into heating oil, boiler fuel oil, and diesel fuel.
Not a real solution, just a political band-aid.
Thursday, September 30, 2004
Channeling Mr. Haney
I hate to admit this, but I can do a pretty good vocal impression of Mr. Haney, the loveable--but somewhat shady--salesman supreme on the 1960’s TV show "Green Acres". The character of Mr. Haney was played by a since deceased actor named Pat Buttram—what a character he was.
Mr. Haney’s vocal enunciation is immediately recognizable and usually elicits a strong crowd reaction. I learned this years ago when I first started breaking into my Mr. Haney voice to add a bit of levity to informal business meetings or in an attempt to amuse (or offend) a captive audience in local bars and restaurants. My girlfriend absolutely hates it when I break into a few lines of my best Mr. Haney impression in the middle of a James Taylor or Willie Nelson song at the local pub while singing Karaoke.
Mr. Haney, the quintessential salesman, was always quick to show up in the story line of most Green Acres episodes with his truck loaded with items he thought necessary to sate the consumer appetites of Mr. And Mrs. Douglas’ latest situation. Things like the telephone at the top of the telephone pole, the tractor that never worked, genuine imitation sheepskin house slippers, or elaborate preplanned/prepaid wedding accoutrements for Eb or Miss Ralph Monroe (one of the Monroe Brothers) were always in his extensive inventory of products & services.
I’ve also learned that Mr. Haney, like the evil Cheney/Halliburton Empire, is either loved or hated, and it usually doesn’t take very long to find out the disposition of your audience once your make first mention of either name. The reaction to the name Halliburton, constantly vilified by democrats and their abettors in the mainstream media, usually occurs on a knee-jerk basis—not on the basis of detailed facts and knowledge of the business conducted on their behalf.
I am willing to make a substantial bet that 95% of the voting population knows nothing about this issue except that there is some implied “suspicion of wrongdoing” in Halliburton's business dealings with the taxpayers and that there is some (in my opinion-unwarranted) “measure of contempt” for Dick Cheney because he comes to the office of Vice President from a short, successful stint in the private business sector rather than an entire lifetime of being on the public payroll as a career politician. What is so wrong with being a successful businessman? Everything, say the liberals…you can’t be rich without being evil, unless you inherited the money or are an ambulance chasing trial lawyer like Democratic Vice Presidential Candidate John Edwards.
So grab a bottle of overpriced chilled water, sit back, and read, as I intend to give everyone a short primer in the details of the business of Haliburton (as apposed to that of my idol, Mister Haney.)
In spite of what the media says, Halliburton has in fact not been handed giant, overpriced government contracts by the evil President Bush and Vice-President Cheaney without competitive bidding. In fact, Halliburton is, like other giant multi-national contractors Bechtel, ABB, Dyncorp, etc., is a veteran supplier of everything from basic necessities like toilet paper, gasoline delivery, and manpower; to complicated turn-key construction projects like pipelines, hydroelectric dams, and roads.
The bidding process involves looking at a very wide ranging list of materials and services and providing a material, labor, and delivery cost for large quantities, delivered in very far flung, dangerous, world wide locations, under variable and sometimes adverse conditions. The government every two to four years usually issues the fixed price request for quotations and resulting contracts. The contracts are issued on a sliding scale of pricing that depends largely on world events and the quantities of product that is actually delivered. The purpose of issuing request for bids and negotiating contracts up front is the idea that it saves time and money in the day-to-day operational situations or more recently in the “heat of battle.” The contracts aren’t NO-BID, they’re PRIOR BID.
In fact, Halliburton bid on and won essentially the same type contracts for the provision of material and services during the Reagan, Bush Sr., and Clinton administrations. Yes, you heard right, President Clinton contracted with Halliburton for services. Call the NY Times! Call the National Enquirer! Call someone that really is informed and really cares. This isn’t a scandal…this isn’t cronyism; this is normal, day-to-day, government material contracting in action. It might not be perfect, it might not be the most efficient way, and it might not yield the absolute cheapest results, but Halliburton didn’t invent it and hasn’t done anything different than every other large contractor in a position to fill the shoes the military has asked them to fill.
Case in point, the uproar over “excessive billing for gasoline delivery in Iraq.”
How much would you charge for you or your loved one to drive your tanker truck with 1000 gallons of gasoline (1 gallon = approx. 1 stick of dynamite) into the war zone of Iraq? How much would you charge if you could cut the length of the delivery route by 75%. It would certainly cost more in Iraq than it does in South Georgia or central Indiana and it sure costs more to drive 500 miles than to drive 100. Well, the so-called over-priced gasoline that Halliburton was accused of delivering came from our ally, Kuwait, via the resulting short delivery distance between Kuwait and Baghdad.
Yes, the Kuwaitis wanted more per gallon for the gasoline (and probably should have cut us a better deal in return for saving their bacon 13 years ago), but the actual price, in delivery miles and further, the likelihood of a successful delivery, most definitely offset the increased cost of gasoline. The gas has no value to the war effort if the truck is blown up, killing the driver and never arriving at the intended destination. The option, by the way, was to drive the Iraqi’s own cheep domestic gasoline from their northern oilfields/refineries, across a torturous, dangerous route of unimproved roads that was three or four times longer than the path from Kuwait. The mainstream media has constantly omitted this little itty bitty logistical detail to this day.
Mean old Halliburton.
Not that I condone waste of taxpayer dollars or fraud, but the “issues” and “scandals” attributed to Halliburton are not unique to this one company, but are representative of systemic problems inherent in government purchasing in this country at all levels from the smallest town councils to the largest of NASA suppliers. The only thing that makes these stories newsworthy is the past connection of Bush and Cheney with oil companies in general and the prior connection of Cheney and Halliburton specifically. Get over it, people…
UPDATE October 10,2004 3:00PM
An article published in the National Review Online addresses another of what I call “itty bitty details” that never make it onto the 6:30 PM evening news or the front page Newspaper stories.
Halliburton’s stock price is down over 10% since Bush’s inauguration in January 2001, while the oil industry stock price in general is up nearly 35%. What a great manipulator of wealth Bush and Cheney have proven to be. I should have bought Haliburton rather than Home Depot (down over 20% since that same time period.)
Monday, September 27, 2004
Advances in Computer Technology & Self-Employmnent
I’m sitting here on my sofa with my feet propped up on pillows (in my pajamas—official blogger attire) watching the NOAA Web site’s display of Hurricane Jeanne sliding to the west past our home on St. Simons Island. As I nonchalantly surf the Internet on my girlfriend’s 3 pound Dell Latitude notebook laying in my lap, attached to a Motorola cable modem, it just occurred to me that 15 years ago this month I bought my first “IBM PC” compatible computer. What a long way we have come since September 1989.
It was a tumultuous time in my life—turning 30 and at the same time abandoning a profitable six years worth of employment with what would turn out be a preeminent company in the industrial air pollution control business. I thought that my wife’s head was going to explode—she was a meat & potatoes, social and economic security type personality and I’m a devil-may-care, balls to the wall type of fool. What led me astray into the great employment unknown in those simplistic, naive, childish years was the opportunity to work for “Myself.” What a bad boss I have turned out to be.
The new computer was a necessity in the infrastructure of this somewhat ill-founded but amazingly ego-enhancing endeavor. I was so excited. After carefully researching and pricing my purchase, I settled on a computer manufactured by the former printer giant, Epson—over three thousand dollars worth of hardware and software. Epson, you may recall, made a zillion dollars producing dot matrix ink-ribbon based printers that were a mainstay of the low end printer industry at the inception of the IBM PC boom which began in 1980/1981.
My new Epson PC was a shiny, full size, steel encased system unit powered by an Intel 80386 processor running at 20 MHZ. It had 512 Kbytes of RAM (the crowd says oooohhh, aahhhh) and was equipped with the coupe de resistance—an 80 megabyte SCSI hard drive with some long forgotten “high speed” data seek rate. I had SCSI when SCSI wasn't cool. I also had a Hayes 2400 Baud (that’s 2.4 Kbytes per second, ya’ll) external modem and a Hercules monochrome graphics card which supported text and vector graphics (straight lines instead of stair step shaped “jaggies”) based AutoCAD drawings. In those days, anything but a $1000 state-of-the-art color graphics card and $2000, 15” color monitor produced images which looked like something an inept 3-year-old child produced with color crayons. Can you say EGA or VGA? My budget dictated monochrome graphics.
What a truly long way we have all come since that wonderful fall day in the years of Ron Regan and my own frivolous youthful aspirations. The old Epson PC was upgraded, re-processored, overhauled, and packed full of aftermarket bells and whistles before it was relegated to the back bedroom of my Atlanta area home. A house fire destroyed it at the ripe old age of 12, along with most of my other possessions in 2001.
As to the self-employment adventure, that has simply turned out to be another name for part time, self-inflicted, un-employment. Anybody need an Architect, Builder, Designer, Engineer, Harmonica player, Lover, Philosopher, Rocket-scientist, Salesman, Singer, Writer--Ernest Hemmingway/Jimmy Buffet wannabe?
Will work for internet access…or just a friendly pat on the head.
It was a tumultuous time in my life—turning 30 and at the same time abandoning a profitable six years worth of employment with what would turn out be a preeminent company in the industrial air pollution control business. I thought that my wife’s head was going to explode—she was a meat & potatoes, social and economic security type personality and I’m a devil-may-care, balls to the wall type of fool. What led me astray into the great employment unknown in those simplistic, naive, childish years was the opportunity to work for “Myself.” What a bad boss I have turned out to be.
The new computer was a necessity in the infrastructure of this somewhat ill-founded but amazingly ego-enhancing endeavor. I was so excited. After carefully researching and pricing my purchase, I settled on a computer manufactured by the former printer giant, Epson—over three thousand dollars worth of hardware and software. Epson, you may recall, made a zillion dollars producing dot matrix ink-ribbon based printers that were a mainstay of the low end printer industry at the inception of the IBM PC boom which began in 1980/1981.
My new Epson PC was a shiny, full size, steel encased system unit powered by an Intel 80386 processor running at 20 MHZ. It had 512 Kbytes of RAM (the crowd says oooohhh, aahhhh) and was equipped with the coupe de resistance—an 80 megabyte SCSI hard drive with some long forgotten “high speed” data seek rate. I had SCSI when SCSI wasn't cool. I also had a Hayes 2400 Baud (that’s 2.4 Kbytes per second, ya’ll) external modem and a Hercules monochrome graphics card which supported text and vector graphics (straight lines instead of stair step shaped “jaggies”) based AutoCAD drawings. In those days, anything but a $1000 state-of-the-art color graphics card and $2000, 15” color monitor produced images which looked like something an inept 3-year-old child produced with color crayons. Can you say EGA or VGA? My budget dictated monochrome graphics.
What a truly long way we have all come since that wonderful fall day in the years of Ron Regan and my own frivolous youthful aspirations. The old Epson PC was upgraded, re-processored, overhauled, and packed full of aftermarket bells and whistles before it was relegated to the back bedroom of my Atlanta area home. A house fire destroyed it at the ripe old age of 12, along with most of my other possessions in 2001.
As to the self-employment adventure, that has simply turned out to be another name for part time, self-inflicted, un-employment. Anybody need an Architect, Builder, Designer, Engineer, Harmonica player, Lover, Philosopher, Rocket-scientist, Salesman, Singer, Writer--Ernest Hemmingway/Jimmy Buffet wannabe?
Will work for internet access…or just a friendly pat on the head.
Thursday, September 23, 2004
60 Minutes after Five-Forty
Over the past few weeks, I’ve made a point of watching the local CBS TV affiliate’s broadcast of the “CBS Evening News,” enthusiastically looking for the day’s highlights/lowlights from the reporter-in-chief-co-conspirator, Mr. Dan Rather.
As a rule, I haven’t spent much time watching the “network news” over the past 20 years, except by accident or as a polite deference when forced to watch in someone else’s living room. With the onset of “Rathergate,” however, I find myself drawn like a moth to the CBS TV screen each evening. Am I the only one that has noticed that, instead of the lead story, I find that I have to watch through at least one commercial break-- until about "60 minutes after five-forty PM (six-forty PM)” to get to the meat of the desired story?
Like the morbid instinct that makes you want to turn your head to look as you slow your car and pass the scene of an auto accident, I somehow can’t help but watch Mr. Rather—hoping to see some indication of true humanity and remorse in his stoic face as he is forced to read from his own network's news copy the words "scandal," "CBS," and “60 Minutes II.”
Come on, Danno, go ahead and break down. Give us all a sob or a girlish whimper, or pound your wrinkled fist on your desk and storm off the set--into the sunset of disgrace and obscurity.
Oh well, I guess not…
As a rule, I haven’t spent much time watching the “network news” over the past 20 years, except by accident or as a polite deference when forced to watch in someone else’s living room. With the onset of “Rathergate,” however, I find myself drawn like a moth to the CBS TV screen each evening. Am I the only one that has noticed that, instead of the lead story, I find that I have to watch through at least one commercial break-- until about "60 minutes after five-forty PM (six-forty PM)” to get to the meat of the desired story?
Like the morbid instinct that makes you want to turn your head to look as you slow your car and pass the scene of an auto accident, I somehow can’t help but watch Mr. Rather—hoping to see some indication of true humanity and remorse in his stoic face as he is forced to read from his own network's news copy the words "scandal," "CBS," and “60 Minutes II.”
Come on, Danno, go ahead and break down. Give us all a sob or a girlish whimper, or pound your wrinkled fist on your desk and storm off the set--into the sunset of disgrace and obscurity.
Oh well, I guess not…
Tuesday, September 21, 2004
Motor Voters do a "drive by" on Elections
Just when I thought that my headache would subside, I read "How to steal an Election" and I just had to open a new MS Word document and start pounding the keys. This topic has been reverberating off of the inside of my skull for the past ten plus years and I finally have a forum and the energy to take it on, so here goes.
The “Right to Vote” in these here United States of America has radically changed, mostly for the better, since the ratification of our Constitution. In addition to the original white male landowners, the voter rolls now legally include black men, women of all color, and with few exceptions any other legal citizen of the United States who is not currently in jail or is a convicted felon.
As a formality, the officials what be do require that you register to vote in the county or parish in which your normal, full time residence (read that also to mean your abode, your apartment, your place, your crib, your teepee, your hovel, your cabin, your shack, your hut, your home, your condo, your mansion et.al.) might be located. I’m not quite sure what you do if you live on a boat on the ocean, in a motor home, or in some other form of mobile home that hasn’t been recently destroyed or relocated by a tornado. (In Georgia, seeAbsentee Ballot)
In 1993, during the first full distinguished year of the Clinton administration, before the Republican uprising/Newt Gingrich congressional takeover, the congress passed
The National Voter Registration Act (the Motor Voter Act) which was supposed to substantially improve the ability of minorities and people with disabilities to attain voter registration. Like most laws, it sounded good on paper and in the news headlines—hurray for justice and the American way.
Here is what really happened. The new law made it a requirement that the individual States allow you to register to vote when applying for a state issued driver’s license. Sounds good to me--the burden of proof is fairly high during that process.
Further voter registration must be provided:
“to each applicant for services, service renewal or address change through all offices that provide public assistance and all offices that provide state-funded programs primarily engaged in providing services to persons with disabilities; applicants must be provided with a voter registration form, a declination form, assistance in completing the forms and forwarding the completed applications to the appropriate state official) (42 U.S.C. 1973gg-5)”
For those challenged in the interpretation of legalese, this paragraph basically means that when you sign up for social security benefits, public housing, welfare, WIC, or disability payments, that you can also register to vote (in an obvious effort to increase your benefits and/or keep them coming for eternity.)
Finally, the states were also required to develop a standardized form which could be submitted by mail. Can you say RED FLAG?
My immediate response to this legislation ten years ago was that voter registration was going to end up working something like those annoying car dealer TV/Radio sales ads…
”TUESDAY…TUESDAY…TUESDAY…Come one, Come all, come on down and register NOW (excuse the unintended pun, all of you feminists) to exercise your right to V-O-T-E. No I.D., no documentation, no credit, no problem…All applications will be accepted…Hey mom, we got free pony rides and free hot dogs. Y’all bring grandma and the children; trade in that fake green card for a US voter registration card…Hable usted de espanola.”
I have had a driver’s license for the past 29 years and I haven’t applied for any of the government support programs like welfare, disability, or unemployment, but I did recently have occasion to change my voter registration from Cobb County Georgia to Glynn County Georgia—by mail.
My experience began by coming in contact with a somewhat surly senior citizen at the local public library here on the island. I forgot that I had other registration options and besides, you used to have to go to the library in person to register. He (the senior citizen) grumpily handed me two registration forms, basically treating me like I had spent the past hour naked, talking loudly, and viewing pornography web sites on the public internet terminal.
I took the forms home and found that my own registration task simply required writing in the address of my past and present residences and the addition of a $.37 stamp to the integral envelope--I was in business in five minutes. My significant other’s form required a copy of her drivers license in addition to the afore mentioned data since she hadn’t been registered in the State of Georgia previously. Still, it was too easy. I somehow favor showing up and filing such an important document in person as a form of validation, even if the attendant has the personality of a prison guard.
It’s this idea of signing up people at the public assistance offices that bothers me the most. Yes, I want people to be able to exercise their right to vote. No, I don’t want to go out dragging the rivers and streams for every form of blood sucking lowlife that doesn’t have the desire and faculties to get off of their rear end and actively seek the registration process as I just did. Isn’t it just a little too covenant to hand out voter registration forms at the welfare office? I’m fairly certain that you would get an entirely different population of voters if you handed out voter registration forms at the IRS audit office.
Further, what is the burden of proof of residence and citizenship that is being applied at these offices? It seems to me that the public assistance funds are pouring through the government offices in a flood toward non-residents and non-citizens. See what happened to the city of Lewiston, Maine? The opportunity for fraud and abuse is a bit too available here to make me real comfortable with the quality of the results.
While Mr. sKerry and the Democrats are busy playing the “Race Card,” talking about disenfranchising black and other minority voters, I just wonder how many other illegal voters have been energised, empowered, enfranchised, enlisted, employed, or are otherwise enacting a silent war on the most valuable of our rights as American Citizens?
Think about it on November 2nd...
The “Right to Vote” in these here United States of America has radically changed, mostly for the better, since the ratification of our Constitution. In addition to the original white male landowners, the voter rolls now legally include black men, women of all color, and with few exceptions any other legal citizen of the United States who is not currently in jail or is a convicted felon.
As a formality, the officials what be do require that you register to vote in the county or parish in which your normal, full time residence (read that also to mean your abode, your apartment, your place, your crib, your teepee, your hovel, your cabin, your shack, your hut, your home, your condo, your mansion et.al.) might be located. I’m not quite sure what you do if you live on a boat on the ocean, in a motor home, or in some other form of mobile home that hasn’t been recently destroyed or relocated by a tornado. (In Georgia, seeAbsentee Ballot)
In 1993, during the first full distinguished year of the Clinton administration, before the Republican uprising/Newt Gingrich congressional takeover, the congress passed
The National Voter Registration Act (the Motor Voter Act) which was supposed to substantially improve the ability of minorities and people with disabilities to attain voter registration. Like most laws, it sounded good on paper and in the news headlines—hurray for justice and the American way.
Here is what really happened. The new law made it a requirement that the individual States allow you to register to vote when applying for a state issued driver’s license. Sounds good to me--the burden of proof is fairly high during that process.
Further voter registration must be provided:
“to each applicant for services, service renewal or address change through all offices that provide public assistance and all offices that provide state-funded programs primarily engaged in providing services to persons with disabilities; applicants must be provided with a voter registration form, a declination form, assistance in completing the forms and forwarding the completed applications to the appropriate state official) (42 U.S.C. 1973gg-5)”
For those challenged in the interpretation of legalese, this paragraph basically means that when you sign up for social security benefits, public housing, welfare, WIC, or disability payments, that you can also register to vote (in an obvious effort to increase your benefits and/or keep them coming for eternity.)
Finally, the states were also required to develop a standardized form which could be submitted by mail. Can you say RED FLAG?
My immediate response to this legislation ten years ago was that voter registration was going to end up working something like those annoying car dealer TV/Radio sales ads…
”TUESDAY…TUESDAY…TUESDAY…Come one, Come all, come on down and register NOW (excuse the unintended pun, all of you feminists) to exercise your right to V-O-T-E. No I.D., no documentation, no credit, no problem…All applications will be accepted…Hey mom, we got free pony rides and free hot dogs. Y’all bring grandma and the children; trade in that fake green card for a US voter registration card…Hable usted de espanola.”
I have had a driver’s license for the past 29 years and I haven’t applied for any of the government support programs like welfare, disability, or unemployment, but I did recently have occasion to change my voter registration from Cobb County Georgia to Glynn County Georgia—by mail.
My experience began by coming in contact with a somewhat surly senior citizen at the local public library here on the island. I forgot that I had other registration options and besides, you used to have to go to the library in person to register. He (the senior citizen) grumpily handed me two registration forms, basically treating me like I had spent the past hour naked, talking loudly, and viewing pornography web sites on the public internet terminal.
I took the forms home and found that my own registration task simply required writing in the address of my past and present residences and the addition of a $.37 stamp to the integral envelope--I was in business in five minutes. My significant other’s form required a copy of her drivers license in addition to the afore mentioned data since she hadn’t been registered in the State of Georgia previously. Still, it was too easy. I somehow favor showing up and filing such an important document in person as a form of validation, even if the attendant has the personality of a prison guard.
It’s this idea of signing up people at the public assistance offices that bothers me the most. Yes, I want people to be able to exercise their right to vote. No, I don’t want to go out dragging the rivers and streams for every form of blood sucking lowlife that doesn’t have the desire and faculties to get off of their rear end and actively seek the registration process as I just did. Isn’t it just a little too covenant to hand out voter registration forms at the welfare office? I’m fairly certain that you would get an entirely different population of voters if you handed out voter registration forms at the IRS audit office.
Further, what is the burden of proof of residence and citizenship that is being applied at these offices? It seems to me that the public assistance funds are pouring through the government offices in a flood toward non-residents and non-citizens. See what happened to the city of Lewiston, Maine? The opportunity for fraud and abuse is a bit too available here to make me real comfortable with the quality of the results.
While Mr. sKerry and the Democrats are busy playing the “Race Card,” talking about disenfranchising black and other minority voters, I just wonder how many other illegal voters have been energised, empowered, enfranchised, enlisted, employed, or are otherwise enacting a silent war on the most valuable of our rights as American Citizens?
Think about it on November 2nd...
Sunday, September 19, 2004
Un-Healthy Healthcare--Part I
Over the past few weeks I have been taking a look at domestic campaign issues (in other words, those that don’t involve metals/ribbons or Vietnam) outlined on the web sites of the presidential candidates. I’ve mostly resisted the temptation to follow current events like “Rathergate”—CBS’s forged document scandal. Because of my family’s proximity to the “hurricane coasts” of the southeastern US, I have indulged myself with commentary on Charley, Frances, and most recently Ivan (my mother has been without electricity since last Thursday evening) but I have generally attempted to stay on the campaign issues.
In the process, I’ve already looked at minimum wages--the so called "living wage," gun control, government education, and most recently I looked at tax cuts for “working families.” All of these posts attempted to look at the flowery statements made by or on behalf of the candidates and address little annoying things like facts and details which are missing in support of their statements and positions on each issue.
For my next revelation, I have decided to take on what is perhaps the easiest topic, health care in general and specifically, health insurance.
Let me start out with an admission. I currently do not have health insurance, by choice—it’s not George Bush’s fault. I have spent the last four or so years without insurance and my health hasn’t exactly been perfect, but I have gotten by OK. I didn’t lose my insurance as a result of some sinister Republican conspiracy to ruin my finances and end my life, I let it lapse intentionally. I have, however, been continuously insured from the age of 18 until the age of 40 through a combination of programs in college, insurance provided by my employer when I had one, and with self- purchased private health insurance for a period of nearly 11 years that I was self employed. By the way, I also intend to acquire a health insurance policy later this year.
Before I go any further, let’s talk about the idea of insurance for a moment. Health insurance (or any other kind of insurance, for that matter) involves the concept of you gambling that you are going to incur some level of expenses (medical expenses, in the case of health insurance) and the insurance company gambling that you aren’t. You gamble that these expenses are, in theory, greater that the cost of the monthly premiums that you pay to the insurance company.
The insurance company, in turn, gambles that your expenses are actually less than the premiums which they collect from you. If the insurance company is right and your expenses are low, they can keep the excess premiums as profit or at least make enough interest off of the premiums while the hold them to offset the additional costs in any given year or period of years.
Insurance companies create groups (pools) of clients in the same risk category and sell insurance at similar rates of premium cost and payout risk. The idea is to make a profit by averaging the income and costs of all of the clients in the pool. They will pay out more than they take in premiums on some clients and pay out nothing on other clients. Company group insurance is just another form of insurance pool.
Up until the last 50 years, healthcare was a pay as you go business. You didn’t even have to use cash in rural America as evidenced by stories of country doctors making house-calls and extending credit or accepting produce, vegetables, and chickens for payment. Today it could be considered difficult to pay your brain surgeon’s fee or pay for a CAT scan with a bushel basket of corn.
Health insurance was originally sold to cover catastrophic costs over and above the annual checkups and the repair of a few nicks and scrapes that were encountered in the living of everyday life’s events and circumstances. This is exactly what the hated rich, upper class do today. Most people with any substantial net worth purchase major medical and hospitalization insurance policies with large deductibles and save the costs of high premiums by taking a manageable portion of the risk themselves. If you are healthy as a horse, you win…If you suddenly die of cancer, you loose. (You’re dead so it doesn’t matter does it?)
But things have changed greatly. Today there are masses of people out there that somehow believe that they should be able to pay out $50 per month ($600 per year) and in return receive unlimited free doctor’s visits, free emergency room visits, free hospitalization, free OB/GYN care for five children they can’t afford, free family dental care, and free prescription drugs, regardless of the actual total costs. How long could any private company remain financially solvent with that kind of negative cash-flow? The answer is, about 90 days.
So how can we expect the imperial federal government of the US to accomplish this feat? By stealing money from the hated rich upper class, money that they really don’t need say the liberals on behalf of “working families.” Programs like sHrillary Clinton’s “Universal Healthcare” would allow the government to force the doctors and other health providers to donate a portion of their time (read that, their lives) for free or at a reduced cost if they intend to retain that coveted medical license that they all want to continue to practice medicine.
Ironically, the federal government has a real head start in changing the public’s mentality toward health insurance. Historically, the idea of employer provided health insurance goes back to World War II when wage caps were placed by the federal government on employers. In an effort to get around these limitations on compensation and attract the highest quality employees, many companies started offering additional paid benefits like health insurance to their personnel.
The paid benefits idea carried over after the war and by the 1960’s, it was quite common for executive and mid-level positions to include company paid benefits like health and life insurance and retirement plans. Federal tax law further encouraged companies’ provision of health insurance, eventually expanding to include lower level executive and blue-collar employees, by allowing them to write off the cost of insurance premiums and lower their tax burden. In effect, the individual was still actually paying for the insurance. They just did it in before tax dollars.
So if you want to stop reading now, here is the logical, easiest, and most workable solution to the so called “health care crisis.” Extend to the individual the exact same tax break that businesses enjoy today—make the entire health insurance premium tax deductible. Why should only corporations enjoy this benefit? It penalizes small businesses and sole proprietorships at the expense of increasing the ranks of the un- insured. Unfortunately, large numbers of un-insured citizens is exactly what the federal government and the politicians want. How else can they justify taking over an industry that represents over 1/3 of the national economy?
NOW, as to the specifics on each candidates’ election platforms. Please indulge me as I offer my commentary, rebuttal, or outright prove them wrong on a paragraph by paragraph basis:
Here is what John Kerry and John Edwards have to say about health care:
“Affordable, high-quality health care will keep our families healthy, our businesses competitive, and our country strong.”
I’ll buy the first part, high quality health care will help keep families (and individuals) healthy… duhhh! Unfortunately, if you don’t have regular check-ups, and you wake up one day with colon cancer flying out your rear end, you can also spend a billion dollars on surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation and still be DRT (Dead Right There) when your time comes.
Businesses’ competitiveness and a strong country are a bit of a reach (com’ on, John and John) as I could see a healthy bunch of overpaid idiots being a liability, not an asset. There is just not a direct, one-to-one correlation here in what they say:
“Over the last three years, family premiums have increased by more than $2,600 and prescription drug prices have grown four times faster than inflation. These skyrocketing costs have hurt our economy and forced many families into bankruptcy.”
Let me jump in here with both feet and do the math for you. Assuming an equal rate of annual inflation, the $2,600 over three years is $867 per year (a little over $72 per month.) Sounds horrible, but…how do they define “family premiums.” Four, five, or six persons? And regarding drug prices growing four times faster than inflation, are the drug prices included in this statement the latest state-of-the-art products? Most medications go down in price and many go over the counter with a further price reduction. (I’m going to do another whole investigation into prescription drugs and pricing…just be patient.)
Next the Kerry campaign says:
“We deserve a president who understands that in America, regular check-ups shouldn't empty family checkbooks - a president who will put people ahead of insurance and drug companies. “
Again, I’ll do the math for you. The members of a family of four each have an annual medical physical. Let’s assume a cost of one hundred dollars each for the husband and two children, and two hundred fifty dollars for the woman of child bearing age with her God given extra “plumbing”. Total cost, five hundred fifty dollars. This hardly empties the checkbook, does it?
Where in the US Constitution does it say that the president’s job is to favor individuals over privately or publicly owned businesses? The insurance and drug companies all have the right to sell any product they can legally sell to any company or person at any price that the free market will bear. They also have the right to close down and offer nothing in the way of products and services, or to sell them all in Canada, Mexico, or (God forbid) France and Germany.
"John Kerry and John Edwards have a plan to address soaring premiums and cut Americans a break. Their plan will lower family premiums by up to $1,000 a year, cut waste from the system, lower the cost of prescription drugs to provide real relief to seniors, and use targeted tax cuts to extend affordable, high-quality coverage to 95 percent of Americans, including every child. And because John Kerry and John Edwards believe that everyone's health is equally important, they will provide all Americans with access to the same coverage that members of Congress give themselves."
Sooo, premiums will in theory be lowered by “up to $1000 per year.” Usually, “up to” means a sliding scale. And with government, let me guess, the mean old upper middle class will get a $1.98 reduction and the lowest income earners will get a thousand dollar check—regardless of their actual health care expenses. Another “earned income-type credit,” perhaps?
“…and use targeted tax-cuts to extend affordable, high-quality coverage to ninety-five percent of Americans?” Again, let me guess, they probably won’t be targeting me or my friends and family members. Further, the concept will be that the top 5% of the income earners will be raped and pillaged in order to pay for the other 95% of the population’s health care “rights.”
"To make affordable health care a right - not a privilege - for every American, John Kerry and John Edwards will: " (Sorry, but health care is a market commodity, not a government mandate. Show me where in the US Constitution it says “life, liberty, and affordable healthcare” or anything of the sort?)
"Cut Your Premiums--John Kerry and John Edwards will cut family premiums by up to $1,000. That's $1,000 in real savings people can use to buy groceries, pay the bills, and save for their children's future. And that will mean more jobs and more competitive American businesses."
So let me get this straight, if the US government hands “families” a $1000 annual savings in health insurance premiums, they will run right out and spend the money on groceries, “bills”, or save it for their children’s future. These “bills” just wouldn’t happen to include cigarettes, fish bait, and beer, or the down payment on a $4,800 annual lease on new Ford Mustang?
Or will these families take their $1000 health insurance cost savings, place an employment ad in the newspaper, start a new company, and hire two or three new employees? On receipt of their $1000 check, will they spontaneously increase their own productivity at their jobs in order to yield “more competitive American businesses?” Crappola Alert, Crappola Alert!!!
"Cover All Americans With Quality Care: The Kerry-Edwards plan will give every American access to the range of high-quality, affordable plans available to members of Congress and extend coverage to 95 percent of Americans, including every American child. Their plan will also fight to erase the health disparities that persist along racial and economic lines, ensure that people with HIV and AIDS have the care they need, end discrimination against Americans with disabilities and mental illnesses, and ensure equal treatment for mental illness in our health system.
In the process, I’ve already looked at minimum wages--the so called "living wage," gun control, government education, and most recently I looked at tax cuts for “working families.” All of these posts attempted to look at the flowery statements made by or on behalf of the candidates and address little annoying things like facts and details which are missing in support of their statements and positions on each issue.
For my next revelation, I have decided to take on what is perhaps the easiest topic, health care in general and specifically, health insurance.
Let me start out with an admission. I currently do not have health insurance, by choice—it’s not George Bush’s fault. I have spent the last four or so years without insurance and my health hasn’t exactly been perfect, but I have gotten by OK. I didn’t lose my insurance as a result of some sinister Republican conspiracy to ruin my finances and end my life, I let it lapse intentionally. I have, however, been continuously insured from the age of 18 until the age of 40 through a combination of programs in college, insurance provided by my employer when I had one, and with self- purchased private health insurance for a period of nearly 11 years that I was self employed. By the way, I also intend to acquire a health insurance policy later this year.
Before I go any further, let’s talk about the idea of insurance for a moment. Health insurance (or any other kind of insurance, for that matter) involves the concept of you gambling that you are going to incur some level of expenses (medical expenses, in the case of health insurance) and the insurance company gambling that you aren’t. You gamble that these expenses are, in theory, greater that the cost of the monthly premiums that you pay to the insurance company.
The insurance company, in turn, gambles that your expenses are actually less than the premiums which they collect from you. If the insurance company is right and your expenses are low, they can keep the excess premiums as profit or at least make enough interest off of the premiums while the hold them to offset the additional costs in any given year or period of years.
Insurance companies create groups (pools) of clients in the same risk category and sell insurance at similar rates of premium cost and payout risk. The idea is to make a profit by averaging the income and costs of all of the clients in the pool. They will pay out more than they take in premiums on some clients and pay out nothing on other clients. Company group insurance is just another form of insurance pool.
Up until the last 50 years, healthcare was a pay as you go business. You didn’t even have to use cash in rural America as evidenced by stories of country doctors making house-calls and extending credit or accepting produce, vegetables, and chickens for payment. Today it could be considered difficult to pay your brain surgeon’s fee or pay for a CAT scan with a bushel basket of corn.
Health insurance was originally sold to cover catastrophic costs over and above the annual checkups and the repair of a few nicks and scrapes that were encountered in the living of everyday life’s events and circumstances. This is exactly what the hated rich, upper class do today. Most people with any substantial net worth purchase major medical and hospitalization insurance policies with large deductibles and save the costs of high premiums by taking a manageable portion of the risk themselves. If you are healthy as a horse, you win…If you suddenly die of cancer, you loose. (You’re dead so it doesn’t matter does it?)
But things have changed greatly. Today there are masses of people out there that somehow believe that they should be able to pay out $50 per month ($600 per year) and in return receive unlimited free doctor’s visits, free emergency room visits, free hospitalization, free OB/GYN care for five children they can’t afford, free family dental care, and free prescription drugs, regardless of the actual total costs. How long could any private company remain financially solvent with that kind of negative cash-flow? The answer is, about 90 days.
So how can we expect the imperial federal government of the US to accomplish this feat? By stealing money from the hated rich upper class, money that they really don’t need say the liberals on behalf of “working families.” Programs like sHrillary Clinton’s “Universal Healthcare” would allow the government to force the doctors and other health providers to donate a portion of their time (read that, their lives) for free or at a reduced cost if they intend to retain that coveted medical license that they all want to continue to practice medicine.
Ironically, the federal government has a real head start in changing the public’s mentality toward health insurance. Historically, the idea of employer provided health insurance goes back to World War II when wage caps were placed by the federal government on employers. In an effort to get around these limitations on compensation and attract the highest quality employees, many companies started offering additional paid benefits like health insurance to their personnel.
The paid benefits idea carried over after the war and by the 1960’s, it was quite common for executive and mid-level positions to include company paid benefits like health and life insurance and retirement plans. Federal tax law further encouraged companies’ provision of health insurance, eventually expanding to include lower level executive and blue-collar employees, by allowing them to write off the cost of insurance premiums and lower their tax burden. In effect, the individual was still actually paying for the insurance. They just did it in before tax dollars.
So if you want to stop reading now, here is the logical, easiest, and most workable solution to the so called “health care crisis.” Extend to the individual the exact same tax break that businesses enjoy today—make the entire health insurance premium tax deductible. Why should only corporations enjoy this benefit? It penalizes small businesses and sole proprietorships at the expense of increasing the ranks of the un- insured. Unfortunately, large numbers of un-insured citizens is exactly what the federal government and the politicians want. How else can they justify taking over an industry that represents over 1/3 of the national economy?
NOW, as to the specifics on each candidates’ election platforms. Please indulge me as I offer my commentary, rebuttal, or outright prove them wrong on a paragraph by paragraph basis:
Here is what John Kerry and John Edwards have to say about health care:
“Affordable, high-quality health care will keep our families healthy, our businesses competitive, and our country strong.”
I’ll buy the first part, high quality health care will help keep families (and individuals) healthy… duhhh! Unfortunately, if you don’t have regular check-ups, and you wake up one day with colon cancer flying out your rear end, you can also spend a billion dollars on surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation and still be DRT (Dead Right There) when your time comes.
Businesses’ competitiveness and a strong country are a bit of a reach (com’ on, John and John) as I could see a healthy bunch of overpaid idiots being a liability, not an asset. There is just not a direct, one-to-one correlation here in what they say:
“Over the last three years, family premiums have increased by more than $2,600 and prescription drug prices have grown four times faster than inflation. These skyrocketing costs have hurt our economy and forced many families into bankruptcy.”
Let me jump in here with both feet and do the math for you. Assuming an equal rate of annual inflation, the $2,600 over three years is $867 per year (a little over $72 per month.) Sounds horrible, but…how do they define “family premiums.” Four, five, or six persons? And regarding drug prices growing four times faster than inflation, are the drug prices included in this statement the latest state-of-the-art products? Most medications go down in price and many go over the counter with a further price reduction. (I’m going to do another whole investigation into prescription drugs and pricing…just be patient.)
Next the Kerry campaign says:
“We deserve a president who understands that in America, regular check-ups shouldn't empty family checkbooks - a president who will put people ahead of insurance and drug companies. “
Again, I’ll do the math for you. The members of a family of four each have an annual medical physical. Let’s assume a cost of one hundred dollars each for the husband and two children, and two hundred fifty dollars for the woman of child bearing age with her God given extra “plumbing”. Total cost, five hundred fifty dollars. This hardly empties the checkbook, does it?
Where in the US Constitution does it say that the president’s job is to favor individuals over privately or publicly owned businesses? The insurance and drug companies all have the right to sell any product they can legally sell to any company or person at any price that the free market will bear. They also have the right to close down and offer nothing in the way of products and services, or to sell them all in Canada, Mexico, or (God forbid) France and Germany.
"John Kerry and John Edwards have a plan to address soaring premiums and cut Americans a break. Their plan will lower family premiums by up to $1,000 a year, cut waste from the system, lower the cost of prescription drugs to provide real relief to seniors, and use targeted tax cuts to extend affordable, high-quality coverage to 95 percent of Americans, including every child. And because John Kerry and John Edwards believe that everyone's health is equally important, they will provide all Americans with access to the same coverage that members of Congress give themselves."
Sooo, premiums will in theory be lowered by “up to $1000 per year.” Usually, “up to” means a sliding scale. And with government, let me guess, the mean old upper middle class will get a $1.98 reduction and the lowest income earners will get a thousand dollar check—regardless of their actual health care expenses. Another “earned income-type credit,” perhaps?
“…and use targeted tax-cuts to extend affordable, high-quality coverage to ninety-five percent of Americans?” Again, let me guess, they probably won’t be targeting me or my friends and family members. Further, the concept will be that the top 5% of the income earners will be raped and pillaged in order to pay for the other 95% of the population’s health care “rights.”
"To make affordable health care a right - not a privilege - for every American, John Kerry and John Edwards will: " (Sorry, but health care is a market commodity, not a government mandate. Show me where in the US Constitution it says “life, liberty, and affordable healthcare” or anything of the sort?)
"Cut Your Premiums--John Kerry and John Edwards will cut family premiums by up to $1,000. That's $1,000 in real savings people can use to buy groceries, pay the bills, and save for their children's future. And that will mean more jobs and more competitive American businesses."
So let me get this straight, if the US government hands “families” a $1000 annual savings in health insurance premiums, they will run right out and spend the money on groceries, “bills”, or save it for their children’s future. These “bills” just wouldn’t happen to include cigarettes, fish bait, and beer, or the down payment on a $4,800 annual lease on new Ford Mustang?
Or will these families take their $1000 health insurance cost savings, place an employment ad in the newspaper, start a new company, and hire two or three new employees? On receipt of their $1000 check, will they spontaneously increase their own productivity at their jobs in order to yield “more competitive American businesses?” Crappola Alert, Crappola Alert!!!
"Cover All Americans With Quality Care: The Kerry-Edwards plan will give every American access to the range of high-quality, affordable plans available to members of Congress and extend coverage to 95 percent of Americans, including every American child. Their plan will also fight to erase the health disparities that persist along racial and economic lines, ensure that people with HIV and AIDS have the care they need, end discrimination against Americans with disabilities and mental illnesses, and ensure equal treatment for mental illness in our health system.
Here's a couple more of my Politically Incorrect Factoids (PIF's): There is not one single child in this country that cannot receive reduced cost or free health care if the parent will deliver them to the appropriate existing medical facility. The only time proper care is not delivered is in the case that the parent is either an idiot, some kind of a religious zealot, a drunk, or a crackhead. Children are not, to my knowledge, dying on the side of the road in this country from lack of proper medical care.
The "health disparities" that exist along racial and economic lines are primarily culturally induced or caused by individual lifestyle choices. Dietary CHOICES, being chronically overweight, smoking, alcohol and drug consumption--these are all issuses that affect a person's health and currently only they themselves make the decisions to control these behaviors. Is Mr Kerry suggesting that the government should step in and save them from themselves?
The US government already spends a disproportate amount of research money on HIV/AIDS, exceeding the funding on a per case basis of research funds spent for pulminary and cancer deaths--illnesses that are the source of over 50% of the annual deaths due to chronic illness each year in the United States: http://www.cdc.gov/nccdphp/overview.htm.
President Bush recently proposed a record spending level of $17.1 billion for fiscal 2005 (a 27% increase since 2001) http://www.whitehouse.gov/infocus/hivaids/ in HIV/Aids research. What the hell else do they want us to do, and what other research programs are they willing to potentially underfund in support of this politically correct cause celeb?
Provide Affordable Prescriptions: The Kerry-Edwards plan will reduce prescription drug prices by allowing the re-importation of safe prescription drugs from Canada, overhauling the Medicare drug plan, ensuring low-cost drugs, and ending artificial barriers to generic drug competition."
Blaa Blaa Blaaa, Bla Bla Bla Blaaaaaaah! What did they just say? The Kerry-Edwards plan is going to “reduce prescription drug prices by allowing the re-importation of safe prescription drugs from Canada....” How does sending drugs to the US consumers through Canada or Mexico automatically lower prescription prices?
Well isn’t that special…last time I checked, it was the imperial Federal Government that was directly responsible for EACH AND EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THE PROPORTED PROBLEMS with prescription drugs that they are trying to change.
And what exactly does “ensuring low-cost drugs” mean? Perhaps holding a government gun to the head of a manufacturer to keep prices down? Why don't they try getting the FDA “voodoo scientists” off the drug manufacturers backs, thereby shortening the time to market for new drugs? It is all to easy to solve pricing problems by spending higher income taxpayers’ hard earned money to subsidize drug prices? No new news here.
"Cut Waste and Inefficiency: Today, approximately 25 percent of health care costs are wasted on paperwork and administrative processing. The Kerry-Edwards plan harnesses American ingenuity to cut waste, save billions, and take new steps to ensure patient privacy."
Well, sorry folks, but the Kerry/Edwards health care plan just took themselves and the federal government out of the picture with their own words. Based on prior experience with Medicare, Medicaid, and the Veteran’s Administration Hospitals, there is absolutely no way that further government involvement in our nation’s (actually our citizen's) healthcare could possibly “cut waste and inefficiency.”
In summary...are the citizens of this country just plain stupid and the politicians know it?
I have to stop writing now before my head explodes. Bah Humbug….
Tax Cuts for "Working Families"
I’ll open this discussion on income taxes with the following statement:
“YOU CAN’T GET AN INCOME TAX CUT IF YOU DON’T PAY INCOME TAXES.”
Did you get that? Adding a further collorary to this concept:
“DON’T EXPECT AN INCOME TAX RETURN IF YOU DON’T PAY INCOME TAXES.”
I’m afraid that at least half of the US population has lost track of these concepts. Democratic Presidential candidate John Kerry loves to talk about tax fairness for Americans. If he and Mr. Edwards (two so called “limousine liberals”) were to win the election this November, he says that the first thing they would do next January is to roll back all of President Bush’s tax cuts..
Mr. Kerry’s campaign dialogue is peppered with references to President Bush and the Republican Congress enacting “tax cuts for the rich” instead of “tax cuts for working families.” A report issued in late August by the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) shows that nothing could be further from the truth.
Kerry wants tax cuts for “working families.” Let me ask the question, exactly what is a "working family?" Does the term “working family” mean that both parents, all of the children, and the family pets each hold full time or part time jobs? Does the term “working family” only apply if you make less than $50,000 per year in total income? Does the term imply that people making over $100,000 don’t work for a living and/or don't have families ?
In fact, Senator Kerry, the Democrat’s, and other liberals of all stripes and colors use of the term “working family” plays to the most basic form of envy and class warfare that has been a staple of politics since the income tax was enacted.
As this editorial in the Detroit News (a newspaper in a city full of Kerry’s so called “working families”) so eloquently opines, Bush hasn’t gotten the credit he deserves. Consider this. After the hated tax cut, in 2001 the top 10% of taxpayers earned 38.3% of the total taxable federal household income, but they actually paid 66.7% of the federal income taxes. The top 20% of taxpayers earned 51.1% and paid 74.8%.
What else do they want? I know, I know…”those evil rich people don’t need all of their money.”
Seriously folks, how can you cut taxes on someone that already doesn’t pay taxes? The bottom 20% of income earners already gets an earned income credit and a resulting tax refund equaling 5.7% of their non-taxable income. The bottom 40% of households earned 9.7% of the total household income and had a negative tax rate of 2.8%. This means, even after Bush’s tax reform, that the imperial federal government of the United States uses the IRS to take money from the top 60% of income earners and give it to the bottom 40%. The Dem’s figure that if they can just increase this figure from 40% to 51% that they will be guaranteed re-election to local and national offices for eternity. (See Mob Rule – Part I)
When faced with the above facts supporting that the tax cut is truly across the board, the liberal Democrats then take another track. They start jumping up and down about how the tax cut fueled a record setting Federal Budget Deficit. Again not true. While the 2003 deficit is a record number of total dollars, at 3.1% it was in fact smaller as a percentage of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) than it was in 1976 under Carter (4.1%,) in 1985 under Reagan (5.1%,) and 1992 under Clinton (4.4%.) The problem is spending, not income.
Why does that matter, you might ask. Here’s an example: Say that one year a business has a $50,000 net income, but expenses also equaled $50,000 and the owner choose to borrow and additional $10,000 during the year to fund new product development costs. The next year, however, the new products sell well and the gross income doubles to $100,000, but expenses go up proportionally and the owner keeps working on expanding the business so the total debt increases to $15,000.
Record deficit scream the stockholders! Wrong you government school educated imbeciles. While the amount spent in excess of income rose by $5,000, the debt as a percentage of income actually fell from 20% to 15%, a deficit spending reduction of 25%. Put away the calculator and college diploma, simple 6th grade math tells the story. Why can’t the AP, the Wall Street Journal, and the New York Times get this right?
As a last resort, the Democrats and other liberals come out and claim that the middle class is unfairly burdened by FICA/FUTA/Social Security taxes. In former President Reagan’s words: “there (they) go again…” FICA/FUTA/Social Security taxes apply equally to everyone at all income levels and are in fact stolen by the federal government from today’s wage earners to pay the obligations they have accumulated and owe to unemployed, disabled, and retired members of past generations of taxpayers. Further, the so-called rich taxpayers already pay these taxes on disproportionate amounts of their incomes and at most only see pennies on the dollar in benefits because they earn and save too much money in private retirement accounts.
President Bush didn’t invent these taxes, but I seem to remember several famous Democrats like Roosevelt and Johnson whose fingerprints are all over these bait and switch programs. Yes they are unfair and need reform or outright elimination, but every time Bush and the Republican congress even try to talk about changes and improvements, they suffer under the age old liberal tactic of “scaring the old people” to get votes. “The Republicans are gonna take away your Social Security benefits…run to the polls and vote for us and we'll save you...”
Numerous web sites like http://www.bushtax.com/ go even further with their arguments, indicating that, beyond the excessive amounts of money “given” to the rich in this country by existing tax cuts, the Federal government’s tax policies have actually shifted additional costs to the middle class in the form of increased property taxes and greater tuition costs at state colleges and universities as the state governments see a reduction in the federal gravy-train of grants and other funding.
Give me another break, plu-eaze. So more and more "working families" own their own homes and have to pay corresponding property taxes and more and more children of "working families" are graduating from high school and entering college and incurring the associated tuition costs. Here's an option for you--rent a house and get a job at McDonalds after you finish 12 grades of government school.
And here is the real problem--up to the late 1970’s or early 1980’s most state governments operated with a budget surplus. Since that time, most states and many cities have engaged in a spree of hiring employees, building new programs, and generally increasing their spending—following the federal business model—and now they are all facing deficits of THEIR OWN MAKING. It is not the federal government’s job to step in and bail the Governors, state legislatures, and city councils out of their mess. Let the voters go to the polls and correct their spending problems at the state and local level this fall.
Rational spending policies and letting people keep more of their hard earned money will allow the Federal Budget to take care of itself. Continued income redistribution and expanding dependence on government for employment, health care, and retirement will be the death of us all fiscally.
“YOU CAN’T GET AN INCOME TAX CUT IF YOU DON’T PAY INCOME TAXES.”
Did you get that? Adding a further collorary to this concept:
“DON’T EXPECT AN INCOME TAX RETURN IF YOU DON’T PAY INCOME TAXES.”
I’m afraid that at least half of the US population has lost track of these concepts. Democratic Presidential candidate John Kerry loves to talk about tax fairness for Americans. If he and Mr. Edwards (two so called “limousine liberals”) were to win the election this November, he says that the first thing they would do next January is to roll back all of President Bush’s tax cuts..
Mr. Kerry’s campaign dialogue is peppered with references to President Bush and the Republican Congress enacting “tax cuts for the rich” instead of “tax cuts for working families.” A report issued in late August by the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) shows that nothing could be further from the truth.
Kerry wants tax cuts for “working families.” Let me ask the question, exactly what is a "working family?" Does the term “working family” mean that both parents, all of the children, and the family pets each hold full time or part time jobs? Does the term “working family” only apply if you make less than $50,000 per year in total income? Does the term imply that people making over $100,000 don’t work for a living and/or don't have families ?
In fact, Senator Kerry, the Democrat’s, and other liberals of all stripes and colors use of the term “working family” plays to the most basic form of envy and class warfare that has been a staple of politics since the income tax was enacted.
As this editorial in the Detroit News (a newspaper in a city full of Kerry’s so called “working families”) so eloquently opines, Bush hasn’t gotten the credit he deserves. Consider this. After the hated tax cut, in 2001 the top 10% of taxpayers earned 38.3% of the total taxable federal household income, but they actually paid 66.7% of the federal income taxes. The top 20% of taxpayers earned 51.1% and paid 74.8%.
What else do they want? I know, I know…”those evil rich people don’t need all of their money.”
Seriously folks, how can you cut taxes on someone that already doesn’t pay taxes? The bottom 20% of income earners already gets an earned income credit and a resulting tax refund equaling 5.7% of their non-taxable income. The bottom 40% of households earned 9.7% of the total household income and had a negative tax rate of 2.8%. This means, even after Bush’s tax reform, that the imperial federal government of the United States uses the IRS to take money from the top 60% of income earners and give it to the bottom 40%. The Dem’s figure that if they can just increase this figure from 40% to 51% that they will be guaranteed re-election to local and national offices for eternity. (See Mob Rule – Part I)
When faced with the above facts supporting that the tax cut is truly across the board, the liberal Democrats then take another track. They start jumping up and down about how the tax cut fueled a record setting Federal Budget Deficit. Again not true. While the 2003 deficit is a record number of total dollars, at 3.1% it was in fact smaller as a percentage of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) than it was in 1976 under Carter (4.1%,) in 1985 under Reagan (5.1%,) and 1992 under Clinton (4.4%.) The problem is spending, not income.
Why does that matter, you might ask. Here’s an example: Say that one year a business has a $50,000 net income, but expenses also equaled $50,000 and the owner choose to borrow and additional $10,000 during the year to fund new product development costs. The next year, however, the new products sell well and the gross income doubles to $100,000, but expenses go up proportionally and the owner keeps working on expanding the business so the total debt increases to $15,000.
Record deficit scream the stockholders! Wrong you government school educated imbeciles. While the amount spent in excess of income rose by $5,000, the debt as a percentage of income actually fell from 20% to 15%, a deficit spending reduction of 25%. Put away the calculator and college diploma, simple 6th grade math tells the story. Why can’t the AP, the Wall Street Journal, and the New York Times get this right?
As a last resort, the Democrats and other liberals come out and claim that the middle class is unfairly burdened by FICA/FUTA/Social Security taxes. In former President Reagan’s words: “there (they) go again…” FICA/FUTA/Social Security taxes apply equally to everyone at all income levels and are in fact stolen by the federal government from today’s wage earners to pay the obligations they have accumulated and owe to unemployed, disabled, and retired members of past generations of taxpayers. Further, the so-called rich taxpayers already pay these taxes on disproportionate amounts of their incomes and at most only see pennies on the dollar in benefits because they earn and save too much money in private retirement accounts.
President Bush didn’t invent these taxes, but I seem to remember several famous Democrats like Roosevelt and Johnson whose fingerprints are all over these bait and switch programs. Yes they are unfair and need reform or outright elimination, but every time Bush and the Republican congress even try to talk about changes and improvements, they suffer under the age old liberal tactic of “scaring the old people” to get votes. “The Republicans are gonna take away your Social Security benefits…run to the polls and vote for us and we'll save you...”
Numerous web sites like http://www.bushtax.com/ go even further with their arguments, indicating that, beyond the excessive amounts of money “given” to the rich in this country by existing tax cuts, the Federal government’s tax policies have actually shifted additional costs to the middle class in the form of increased property taxes and greater tuition costs at state colleges and universities as the state governments see a reduction in the federal gravy-train of grants and other funding.
Give me another break, plu-eaze. So more and more "working families" own their own homes and have to pay corresponding property taxes and more and more children of "working families" are graduating from high school and entering college and incurring the associated tuition costs. Here's an option for you--rent a house and get a job at McDonalds after you finish 12 grades of government school.
And here is the real problem--up to the late 1970’s or early 1980’s most state governments operated with a budget surplus. Since that time, most states and many cities have engaged in a spree of hiring employees, building new programs, and generally increasing their spending—following the federal business model—and now they are all facing deficits of THEIR OWN MAKING. It is not the federal government’s job to step in and bail the Governors, state legislatures, and city councils out of their mess. Let the voters go to the polls and correct their spending problems at the state and local level this fall.
Rational spending policies and letting people keep more of their hard earned money will allow the Federal Budget to take care of itself. Continued income redistribution and expanding dependence on government for employment, health care, and retirement will be the death of us all fiscally.
