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.

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.

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.

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.)

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.

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…

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...

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.

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.

1994 Assault Weapons Ban Expires--Liberals loose their minds

I enjoy shooting a nice gun. I presently own two shotguns, three rifles, and one pistol. I grew up with guns in my parent’s home, having received my first BB gun for Christmas when I was eight years old. My father took me squirrel hunting and taught me to shoot his 22 semi-automatic rifle by the time I was six. We built working replicas of civil war vintage flintlock rifles and pistols that were muzzle loaded with black gunpowder. Under his supervision, I learned gun safety and a respect for firearms. Our idea of gun control was “hitting the intended target, each and every time.”

Both of my grandfathers were avid hunters. My mother’s father hunted to feed his family and control varmints and pests on his farm. My father’s father was a casual hunter, taking trips each year to Canada and the northwestern US to hunt elk and caribou. Guns were present in their homes and the grandchildren all knew of the punishment earned by messing with their guns without permission and supervision.

I can confidently make the above statements without fear of reprisal here in the safety of my internet blog, but I’ve learned to carefully temper my statements in public in the south and outright avoid mention of gun ownership in states like Massachusetts and Vermont. It seems that having a southern accent and admitting to owning a gun makes people automatically deduct about 20 I.Q. points in their assessment of your intellect. Not my problem…however.

It seems that the federal government and much of the US population has come to believe that, as a society and individually, we are incapable of safely owning and operating guns without general madness and mayhem ensuing. Case in point--the furor over the expiration of the Federal Violent Crime and Law Enforcement Act, also known as the 1994 Assault Weapons Ban.

I beg to passionately differ.

I’ll just come right out and state the facts, then back up my assertions with some details. This law was the legal equivalent of rearranging the furniture on the deck of the Titanic. The law has made absolutely no difference whatsoever what weapons were allowed into the hands of criminals—individuals who just so happen to not care about breaking a gun law while they break the 8th commandment (thou shalt not steal.)

The general public thinks that the law banned machine guns. This perception is assisted by misinformation in news reports, newspapers, and the new ad by MoveOn.org that asserts that automatic weapons are somehow now legal. WRONG! True machine guns have been and continue to be illegal to possess, except by the military, law enforcement, and specially licensed private citizens, according to the National Firearms Act of 1934.

What this recently expired law did was ban semi-automatic weapons, guns that fired one shot with each pull of the trigger, based on their similarity of appearance to their fully automatic cousins. Basically, if the gun looked like a military weapon, it was banned, even if it could only fire as quickly as my dad’s old reliable JC Higgins 22 rifle.

This web site has a nice comparison of the previously illegal guns and shows the absurdity of the law’s requirements. I am definitely not inclined to behave in this manner, but I can assure you that I can cause severe bodily harm just as quickly from a range of 50 yards with my dad’s plain old vanilla looking 20 shot, 22 semi-automatic as I can with any of the weapons the disputed law banned. Dead is dead. Whether it took three shots or five, I guarantee that someone that knows what they are doing can get the job done with a semi-automatic 22 caliber weapon just as well as a fully automatic 30-06.

The bottom line is that the 1994 Assault Weapons Ban made people feel better by limiting law abiding citizens choices in the type and physical appearance of the guns they could buy and legally possess. Congress did us all a favor by not sending an extension or revised law to President Bush for his signature.

The partisan mainstream media and the DNC should get off of the presidents back and live with the results of the congress listening to the voting public. It was our choice today and our right from our country's beginning as outlined in the second amendment of the US Constitution.

Hurricane Ivan is a Communist Threat (but not the way you would think)

I just watched a story on “The Weather Channel” about the latest tropical weather poised to threaten our little pieces of paradise here on the coast of the Southeastern United States--Hurricane Ivan. Unfortunately, it looks like this year will continue to produce a bumper crop of tropical weather for the pleasure of the weather forecast professionals and the dread of the residents of the Lesser and Greater Antilles, the Caribbean Islands, Florida, and the balance of the Atlantic and Gulf coasts of the US.

While my home is located on St Simons Island on the Atlantic coast of Georgia, I’ve spent the past week visiting my mother in lower Alabama (also affectionately called LA) just about one hundred miles from the Gulf of Mexico. (I offer this visit as my excuse for my reduced writings on the Blog this week.) We and the other members of my extended family have all become quite aware that this year’s tropical weather is unusually capable of keeping us on our toes, worrying about our homes and possessions situated on both coasts.

Hurricane Charley produced only a little rain and wind on St Simons and nothing here in Alabama, but I learned via E-mail earlier this week that Hurricane Fances managed to remove the roof from our carport on St Simons. Now I get to drive home on Sunday and begin preparations for Ivan--reluctantly leaving behind my seven plus decade old mother to fend for herself should the storm take a more westerly track than that currently predicted. The generator is all gassed up and she’s already done her share of tropical weather in her day, so I hope she'll be O.K.

Situated between the US and Ivan are the countries of Jamaica, the Cayman Islands, and Cuba. I’m afraid that my friend Ian, a native of Monteigo Bay, Jamaica, is in for a rough September 11th. If you have never visited Jamaica ( population 2.6 million,) picture a million plus people living in simple tin/cardboard/wooden packing crate huts with no utilities. Even the thin middle class who own real homes and the few wealthy individuals who reside on the island could have their property destroyed and their lives placed at great risk by daylight this morning.

The image that really caught my eye in this evening’s “Weather Channel” story was a picture of Fidel Castro, sitting at a conference table, brandishing a printout of the latest NOAA three day forecast track for Ivan from the 11:00 PM forecast this evening. My mind leapt to attention!
There we go again, us mean old, insensitive, capitalistic, war-mongering, bigoted, ugly, Americans-- providing free technology to third world communist countries. Information, by the way, the free dissemination of which will inevitably save hundreds if not thousands of lives and help to minimize damage to whatever meager property the citizens of Cuba possess.

How can the United Nations‘ Kofi Anon, not to mention the French, the Germans, the Spanish, the Russians, and the Chinese, et. al. sit still for such behavior from a country whom is so obviously dedicated to the ideals of international conquest and nation building?

What will John Kerry and John Edwards say? Would they vote for the funding of NOAA, before they vote against it? Since, according to the Democrats, our president is a known liar, who was AWOL for much of his reserve pilot duty during the Vietnam war thirty years ago, I would expect Jimmy Carter to personally fly to Cuba to warn Senior Fidel of the treachery of anything delivered by the Republican controlled US government.

I understand that newly formed 527 group “Caribbean’s against Bush” are collecting plywood, tarps, bottled water, generators, and vintage IBM electric typewriters for distribution once the storm has passed in an effort to rebuild and document Mr. Bush’s 30 year old culpability in the (un)natural natural disaster.

“If John Kerry had just been in office, Ivan would have been a kinder, more sensitive form of tropical disaster” stated Grenada Governor General Daniel Williams. “It was just like old Ron Reagan came back from the dead and was looking for some medical students to rescue,” stated an unidentified Democratic spokesperson. “The American people deserve better…”

The Devil's in the Details

Leave it to the AP to bury the story of CBS's forged documents inside an apparent indictment of President Bush's piloting skills.

I wonder if AP writer Matt Kelly or any of the AP's so-called "editors" have ever been near the left seat of a private piston engine aircraft, not to mention either seat in a jet trainer or the single pilot’s seat of a military fighter jet. I suspect that a first class seat in a commercial airliner is as close to the front of the airplane as anyone associated with the story has ever been or ever will be--unless they were standing on the runway under the nose of the airplane at an air show.

As a former private pilot, I have a few things to point out to the non-flying public regarding flying in general and aviation logbook procedures specifically.

First, the standard operating procedure common in civil and military aviation is to do a controlled "go-around" and set up for another approach if you don't like any little detail encountered during final approach. No reason to risk the airplane, let alone your own rear end (and potentially those of your crew and passengers,) trying to finish an approach to a runway that isn’t going well. Cross-winds, fog, other air traffic, problems with the aircraft, having a bad day, or just being human can and will cause problems that require another attempt at the runway. There are a lot of dead pilots out there who’s egos got them killed trying to fix a botched final runway alignment in the last 50 feet of altitude.

My own flight instructors used to love to pull little tricks like killing the throttle in flight to practice emergency landing procedures or suddenly announce "go-around" only 100 feet off of the runway. They did it repeatedly until I could do it perfect every time. We never once made negative log entries relative to executing either a practice or actual go-around. If you were flying solo, without an instructor or co-pilot, you were free to write whatever you thought was relevant about the flight. I usually made little notes for posterity like “beautiful weather”, “crappy visibility”, or “blew second approach to RYY (McCullum Field-Cobb County, GA) Runway 27. It was my choice and the comments weren’t graded like a report card or test paper.


In the last months of his flying career, Lt. Bush flew both the Lockheed T-33 jet trainer and the Convair F102A “Delta Dagger” which as a post-Korean War era single-engine jet fighter interceptor. The AP article seems to want to make some unspoken “ominous” point in that Bush flew the F-102A less and less as he moved toward ending his flight status, instead choosing to spend time in the T-33’s.

Doesn’t that make sense? It has been reported that there was a glut of pilots returning from Vietnam and there were few airplanes to go around. In addition to being more readily available, the T-33 was obviously easier and more fun to fly than a hot front line fighter. Couldn’t Bush have felt that it was better for the pilots who were going to continue flying to have the F-102’s while he got his hours in the T-33’s?

Again, for those that haven’t piloted an aircraft, I would suggest that flying a T-33 is about like driving a factory Corvette, while the F-102A is like driving a Grand Prix race car with guns and missile pods. They both get you to where you are going, but latter requires a lot more work and concentration.

In the military, the way things work is that you go down to the flight line with your wings and your logbook, check out whatever is available that you are qualified to fly (and current on), they gas it up, you do your preflight check, start her up, and you go flying. My dad and his fellow pilots did it all of the time in the Army back in the 1950’s. Two of them would need to log hours, so when their duty would allow it they would grab an airplane and fly cross country to visit their respective parents over the weekend, returning the airplane a few days later with several dozen hours each in the logbook.

Of course you can reserve a given airplane or type of airplane in advance, but if I were President Bush I would not be taking chances in a high performance fighter when a little hot-rod trainer served the purpose of building flight hours at substantially less cost to the government and much less risk to his personal health. Military jets are complex assemblies of millions of parts, all bought from the low-bid contractor--and they are known to break more often than civilian aircraft.

And one last thing, being grounded as a military or commercial pilot is a mater of formality if you fail or miss an annual (or in my case--every three years) medical exam. As long as you are not caught flying without the appropriate medical certification, all you have to do is take and pass the physical to re-attain your flight status.

The media keeps harping on “being grounded” like it’s like being sent to the principal’s office or being expelled from school. I’m grounded right now because I haven’t taken a FAA 3rd Class Medical Exam since 1995. But I could take and exam for $75, get a half dozen hours of refresher training, and be right back in the sky for you all to worry about while I fly over your homes and offices.

Sorry Associated Press, but the devil is in the details, and the Internet Bloggers are checking facts and coming up with LOTS of details.

Mob Rule - Part I

I just read that there is a move afoot, again, to abolish the Electoral College in favor of electing the United States President by popular vote. God help us all if we allow this to happen.

Don't get me wrong here, it’s not that I am in favor of ramming the wishes of the few down the throats of the many regarding everything from toothpaste flavor to the choice of boxers or briefs.

Its just that I and many well-read like-minded people strongly believe that popular voting is better suited to the resolution of issues like where to go for dinner tonight, the election of a team captain in little league baseball, or deciding on the appropriate debutant to fill the role of homecoming queen at the local high school. The election of the leader of the most powerful and influential nation on the earth is quite another matter, however.

I am in some pretty impressive company when it comes to supporting the Electoral College. Guys with last names like Washington, Adams, Jefferson, and Franklin realized nearly 250 years ago that every single democracy that had preceded our fine country’s existence, with the ensuing concept of popular vote, had ultimately degenerated into a state of MOB RULE. For this and other reasons, the government of the United States of America was intentionally set up as a REPRESENTATIVE REPUBLIC, not a Democracy.

Unfortunately, that little itty bitty distinction has evidently been forgotten by many of the citizens/voters educated in public (government) schools before about 1980 and has been intentionally marginalized or outright omitted from the education of those whom graduated since that era. It is also being intentionally overlooked by an insidious segment of our population like the socialists, the democrats, and the anarchists in an overt effort to gain control of our government.

A very loud, far reaching voice, The New York Times, recently editorialized for the abolition of the Electoral College because, in the writer’s opinion, it "thwarts the will of the majority, distorts presidential campaigning and has the potential to produce a true constitutional crisis." Well boo hoo hoo, where is my hanky?

As Lord Alexander Tyler, an 18th /19th century Scottish historian/professor so eloquently stated:

"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves money from the public treasure.

From that moment on the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most money from the public treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy followed by a dictatorship.

The average age of the world's great civilizations has been two hundred years. These nations have progressed through the following sequence:

From bondage to spiritual faith
From spiritual faith to great courage
From courage to liberty
From liberty to abundance
From abundance to selfishness
From selfishness to complacency
From complacency to apathy
From apathy to dependency
From dependency back to bondage."

The Electoral College http://www.archives.gov/federal_register/electoral_college/ is one of the highest forms of checks and balances against mob rule that is found in our government today. They already took the right to appoint US Senators away from the State governments and replaced it with a popular vote--please don’t let this same tragedy befall the office of President of the United States.

Extra Reading to get you ready for Mob Rule - Part II:

Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay composed and published The Federalist Papers in the late 1700’s in part as a campaign to rally support for ratification of the US Constitution. I bet you that your kids didn’t see much of these writing in US History class.

Acting stupid with a cell phone shoved in your ear...

I keep thinking about this and forgetting to write about it, but tonight after the telecast of President Bush’s speech I got a huge visual reminder…

What is up with perfectly normal looking (and at times, incredibly stupid looking) people feeling that they have to stand behind the person being interviewed on a TV camera, all the time blabbing mindlessly into their cell phones, talking to "Bubba" or "Honey" or "Mamma" or "whoever" and contorting their faces and bodies like so many Gumby dolls in yuppy clothing?

Lynn Swan was the guest on Fox news tonight after Mr. Bush's speech and eight out of twelve faces, bodies, or portions thereof in the picture were mugging like three year old children for the camera with their Nokia brain-cancer-photo-pager-PDA-idiot boxes held firmly against their ignorant skulls.

Having attained the ripe old age of 45 about 15 minutes ago, and re-assessing my own maturity, I ask you all to have some sense of dignity and self-respect, please people…

Riddlin for the Blogger Mind or...Multitasking with hyperactive hyperlinks

My brain is literally paralyzed with indecision since yesterday morning regarding what topics to write about and when to post them. One thing is sure, Hurricane Frances is going to drive us all crazy here on the southern Atlantic coast.

I have four different topics (Hurricane Frances, Kobe Bryant, universal health care, and something else that escapes my mind at the moment???) under development as we speak, not including this item. I guess I’m going to post this in an effort to apologize to myself for not meeting my goal of a post per day. Believe it or not, I do have quality standards for my writing (my own standards, not yours.)

I’m not sure if it is going to help or hinder my efforts, but I have found a number of amazing political Bloggers (instapundit, powerlineblog) who are doing high quality writing and making money doing it. And here I was thinking that this was just a reason to stay up all night and rant and rave about whatever topic caught my somewhat bloodshot, squinting, middle-aged eyes. Captain Edward Morrissey at Captain's Quarters (who happens to be blogging from the Republican Convention this week) even responded to an E-mail I sent him. I’m all a tingle…I feel like a groupie at an Elvis concert.

I guess the only good news is that I have stopped using crappy direct text links in my writing and have started using descriptive words like beldarblogs instead of http://beldar.blogs.com/. I guess I was just lazy, but I decided this week to clean up my act and the documents will look better I admit.

I’ve spent a good deal of time looking at other blogs and have made some modifications to the Coastalcompanion site including a hit counter. I had over 40 hits in August (ok,ok,ok only 40 hits) but someone is reading what I am writing and I hope to keep your attention. I am working on adding a links section that will show you some other like-minded bloggers and some web sites that I enjoy regularly (no porno—sorry to all you married guys and other perverts out there.)

At the risk of being proven wrong, I’m going to sign off now and work on my other writings. If I get something else posted before 09/03, you’ll be the second to know.

Living Wages

A “living wage.” Exactly what does that statement mean? Is a “living wage” something for which you build a little house in your backyard and put out a bowl of food and water to feed?

Activists and politicians love to talk about a “living wage.” It makes good newspaper headlines. The concept seems to basically involve the government telling the owner of a business how much to pay his employees, rather than letting the free market make that determination. Well isn’t that special, I know all of those business owners will appreciate the assistance…not!

So let me see if I have this straight. I go out and borrow $200,000 from the bank, put up $100,000 of my own money, rent a building on a small parcel of land, buy equipment, raw materials, and hire 20 employees (sales, administrative, and manufacturing) in order to produce and sell my own brand of widgets. Happily, sales are booming…and I need a vacation after working my rear end off over the past five years building the business.

But along comes the government, with a gun and arrest powers, and they have some different ideas about how I should spend my time and what I should do with MY money.

I already have to handle the withholding of payroll taxes (income, FICA, FUTA, social security) from my employees, and collect sales taxes for my state and local governments. To do all of the resulting financial paperwork, I have to hire an accounting firm and a couple of bookkeepers and pay at least fifty or sixty thousand dollars annually for their services.

Then, if I actually have money left over after paying for the building, my employees, raw materials, and my accountants, then I have to pony up between 20% and 36% of the company’s net profit in the form of taxes to the federal and state government to pay “my fair share.” Boy, am I glad that that is over with. And, by the way, we didn’t mention the cost of group health insurance yet, did we?

But wait a minute, there is another problem that the government is going to step in and help me fix. Now I need to pay a living wage. It seems that I don’t pay enough in wages to some of my twenty employees I hired after spending three weeks interviewing the 150 applicants I got from the $100 newspaper ad I ran in the local paper. So now the government will ride to the rescue and tell me how much I need to pay. Boy, am I ever relieved.

The media loves to report stories about how it is impossible to support a family of three or four on one 40 hour a week job paying minimum wage, which happens to be $5.15 per hour in most states. As a result, we are told, people are unfairly forced to work more than forty hours or worse, forced to work more than one job in order to “make ends meet.” Where is my box of tissues…sob, sob.

What is not reported is the FACT that most if not all of the jobs paying minimum wage are ENTRY LEVEL. Who in their right mind expects to work to retirement age in a position paying minimum wage? Most of the people working in these jobs are teenagers or twenty something’s that spend a few months or at most a year at that compensation level on their way up the job ladder. If they don’t move up, something is seriously wrong with the employee and/or their education. Of course there are always the obvious sob stories about the high school drop-out, single mother of three who can't afford daycare and can't afford the time to go back to school while working two minimum wage jobs. What was she thinking to get herself and her family in that situation? That's the problem, she and thousands like her aren't thinking--and now they want the government to solve their problem by artificailly forcing wages upward.

A total of twelve states have already taken it upon themselves to force employers to pay minimum wages in excess of the federal rate. For instance, the State of California has imposed a $6.75 minimum, with a special rate of $8.50 for the City of San Francisco, with sometimes devastating results. Within months of this wage minimum being imposed, San Francisco based Chevy’s, the company that owned the Tex/Mex restaurant chain Rio Bravo that operated here in Georgia, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and closed all 26 Rio Bravo Restaurants. It’s sort of hard to profitably run a restaurant paying $8.50 an hour when your competitors are paying $3.25 plus tips. It seems that California tries to force firms based in their state to pay the mandated minimum wage on all jobs regardless of where the employee is located. The long arm of the law just keeps getting longer.

In my opinion, what is at the heart of the “living wage” controversy and resulting higher minimum wage push is an obvious culprit. While it is usually disguised as a humanitarian effort, the reality is that union pay scales are directly tied to the local minimum wage, something that the labor unions and the Democrats don’t want you to know about. If the minimum wage goes up, union labor rates automatically go up across the board, without having to re-negotiate the existing labor contract!

More on this topic later...


UPDATE October 14, 2004 5:30 AM

Who is paid minimum wage? This says it better than I ever could. Read it!