When I first asked that question, it was in the mid 1970s. My company was spending tens of millions of dollars each year on tuition refunds while at the same time we were pouring millions more into training programs for our managers. I was a very young and somewhat naive young manager charged with administering our management development programs and assumed my vice president would just keep the money flowing. When I submitted my annual budget I was surprised when he called me into his office and demanded to know what the business payback was for all those millions we were spending. I had no answer. For many months after that, I researched the problem and finally provided an answer. We weren't getting very much. From that point on, I went a crusade to try to improve the return on our business investment by challenging presidents of major universities to improve their curriculums and prove to us too why people should invest so much in them. That is a long saga, which I will not reiterate here. I only use the story to explain my interest and early involvement in the problem of rising tuition and the value of education.
Many assume that you cannot place a dollar amount on education, citing all kinds of esoteric and intangible reasons that education is for education sakes. There are arguments for that, but it is untrue that you can't measure it and place a financial number to it. You can determine how much of a return you are getting for the investment. It is just expensive to measure behavior modification and that is what most education is about. With college tuitions exploding, it is unlikely that the majority of people send their kids to college purely for the sake of education itself. There are few liberal arts degrees awarded these days.
When I've directly asked university board members and administrators to show the value of the investment that they are asking millions of parents and students, few if any are able to answer the question. Many can't even give a coherent answer to the question about what their mission is. That is especially true among board members of state owned universities. State Universities do not have the same mission as private schools, yet their boards often believe they do. They think they are competing for the same students. They are not. In universities that are owned by the states, that is the taxpayers; their obligation is first and foremost to the residents of that state, not outsiders. While it is good to have a diverse cultural experience in college, that is not their primary mission. Normally these publically owned schools are charged with providing a high quality education at as low a cost as possible to the citizens of the state. There are lots of other things you might want to include in that mission, but that is usually the very first and most important reason for their existence and continued public support. It is also the one that is most often forgotten by board members in their decisions to raise tuition costs while continuing to build new brick and mortar facilities, buy new uniforms for the football teams, and pay exorbitant salaries to professors who contribute less, not more each year. These same people justify why it is more important to accept out of state students to utilize these facilities yet they cannot show you where that is in their mission. Some board members claim to agonize over raising costs, but never suggest cutting costs. It is as though everyone is entitled to a raise. They claim to agonize, but I sincerely doubt that they agonize anywhere near as much as those who must pay back these monstrous student loans. If everyone would go back to asking the schools to justify the investment payback and to demand to know what they are doing to meet the first objective of their mission, then tuition might actually go down. No business operates the way universities do and whether the schools believe it or not, they are in business to educate the students and prove they have value. The citizens of the states must take back ownership of their schools and demand that they be run as they would their own businesses and start to see a return on their investment.
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
Sunday, September 26, 2010
Explaining Communism and Socialism
Even though I was a political science major in my college days, it has taken me many years to really understand the various political philosophies of the world. I came to realize in my research over several decades that a great many people in both politics and the media are quite misinformed about the fundamentals of various world philosophies. Lately, I've been involved in numerous discussions trying to explain the differences in the various labels that are applied to individuals. Because some people have found these explanations helpful, and at their request, I am adding this information to my blog site. I hope it will help others to better understand how these terms apply in our current political environment. It should be kept in mind that these are philosophies and as such are always open to debate. That is the nature of philosophy. However, where it comes to describing a specific philosophy such as Communism, that philosophy is defined by its creator. In order to understand its meaning, people must go to the source and not rely on individual interpretations and claims of academic pundits of some particular political position. Claiming to believe a personal version of a philosophy does not make it a correct interpretation. You don't need to rely on my explanations or those of any other writer to get the correct version. You can read it for yourself in the source documents of their creators. That statement will also likely spark some debate, but I would encourage all to do their own research and I don't mean by reading some book that analyzes these things and offers their own opinions.
Lately, we've been hearing lots of liberal politicians calling themselves progressives or political moderates or various other terms that in my view simply obscure what they really believe. Even Glenn Beck who I believe has done an excellent job in trying to educate the public on the political issues, seems to have missed some key points where it comes to understanding political philosophy. He has made some distinctions about progressives that I view as a bit artificial and unnecessary. It took Marx an entire book to describe the principles of Socialism and Communism and no one that I know can boil that down in a few paragraphs, so I will try to confine my explanations to the most basic points I can. The first is to try to explain why Socialism and Communism are part of the same thing and cannot be separated. We have a great many politicians in Washington doing their best to avoid being called Socialist or Communists when they seem to not even understand the terms. Those who do are intentionally distorting their positions to avoid the negative connotation of those terms in America. Americans often associate communism with brutal totalitarians, like Mao in China, Stalin in the Soviet Union, and Castro in Cuba. However, many of our own members of Congress and the executive branch appear to hold very socialist communist ideologies. It isn't who they say they are or want to call themselves that matters. What matters is what they believe and do, and lately that has been very much a socialist communist behavior and legislation. I'll try to explain why that is true.
Many people try to avoid the label communist, while admitting to holding socialist values. They often believe there is a difference between communists and socialists and even talk about them as though they were different philosophies. They don't understand that socialism and communism are just different parts of the same philosophy. You cannot claim to believe in one without the other. Communism is simply the economic system and the ultimate goal in which all socialist systems seek to achieve. Socialism is the governmental system for administering policies and programs to achieve the communist objective. Nearly all socio political systems require two or more components to operate. There is the economic system like communism and capitalism and there are governmental administrative systems such as socialism and republicanism, as just two examples. Communism, like most philosophies is an idealistic governmental objective that has not been achieved by any nation. It is the economic system of in which a government operates. The polar opposite of communism is capitalism. Both are economic systems. There are no communist governments in any Western European country, nor socialist governments. All are capitalist parliamentarian systems who have adopted various socialist programs. None operates as socialist nations and it is a complete misunderstanding to call them socialist. They are not. Use of these labels becomes dangerous because people really do not understand what they mean. They tend to assume they know because they heard someone say it on television or heard a politician say it. Most politicians I've talked to don't seem to understand the differences either.
Republicanism relies on very little central control by a government unit and decentralizes authority down to the lowest levels of government, usually at a local level. Capitalism can only survive in such a government structure because it depends on the freedom of individual initiative and invention to grow. The more direct government control over capitalism, the less individuals can decide for themselves and the less they can achieve through individual initiative.
Socialism requires complete central control in order to operate, because it is government that makes all decisions for the economic system. It decides what will be produced and how much. It decides who receives the benefits of the output. It makes all decisions for the citizens. Communism must have such control in order to operate. However, the reason it has and will always fail is that government does not produce wealth and can only operate by extracting the money it needs from industry that it controls. As it pulls more and more resource from the system to support the bureaucracy, there is a constant draining of the wealth and unless production can outpace that extraction, people become poorer. Since there is never enough wealth to make everyone equally wealthy, people become equally poor, thereby creating a new society of discontented citizens ready for the next revolution. That is what has happened repeatedly in such countries.
When people refer to themselves as progressives or liberal democrats, often they mean they favor a strong central government that makes the economic decisions for the individual. Many believe that government knows best what is good for the majority. The problems with that belief are many, but the one that has happened throughout mankind's history is that the growth of central control is never satisfied. The power to control always leads to more control and the power is usually held by the elite's within the government. Governments are almost never static. In nearly every populous revolution, the goal was to take back power from the elites and give it back to the people. However, human social evolution seems to lead to individuals who believe they know what is best and begin again to seize power and control from the masses. Progressives might believe they are creating a benevolent central powerful government, but it has never turned out that way. Once control is acceded to the government it is seldom ever returned to the people until the next revolution occurs. Such governments have always ended in totalitarianism and that is why it is such a danger for the public to give away their freedom. What they get in return is never what they expected or wanted.
What we tend to have in most countries is a mixture of different political and economic philosophies in which the society has adopted various levels of the principles of one philosophy or the other. None are pure forms of anything, but tend to be in transition from one type of government to another. There are entire books devoted to these subjects and I cannot begin to get into the details in an article such as this. I am simply trying to explain here the most fundamental differences in these terms. For more information, readers need to buy a few books on the subject. Happy reading.
Lately, we've been hearing lots of liberal politicians calling themselves progressives or political moderates or various other terms that in my view simply obscure what they really believe. Even Glenn Beck who I believe has done an excellent job in trying to educate the public on the political issues, seems to have missed some key points where it comes to understanding political philosophy. He has made some distinctions about progressives that I view as a bit artificial and unnecessary. It took Marx an entire book to describe the principles of Socialism and Communism and no one that I know can boil that down in a few paragraphs, so I will try to confine my explanations to the most basic points I can. The first is to try to explain why Socialism and Communism are part of the same thing and cannot be separated. We have a great many politicians in Washington doing their best to avoid being called Socialist or Communists when they seem to not even understand the terms. Those who do are intentionally distorting their positions to avoid the negative connotation of those terms in America. Americans often associate communism with brutal totalitarians, like Mao in China, Stalin in the Soviet Union, and Castro in Cuba. However, many of our own members of Congress and the executive branch appear to hold very socialist communist ideologies. It isn't who they say they are or want to call themselves that matters. What matters is what they believe and do, and lately that has been very much a socialist communist behavior and legislation. I'll try to explain why that is true.
Many people try to avoid the label communist, while admitting to holding socialist values. They often believe there is a difference between communists and socialists and even talk about them as though they were different philosophies. They don't understand that socialism and communism are just different parts of the same philosophy. You cannot claim to believe in one without the other. Communism is simply the economic system and the ultimate goal in which all socialist systems seek to achieve. Socialism is the governmental system for administering policies and programs to achieve the communist objective. Nearly all socio political systems require two or more components to operate. There is the economic system like communism and capitalism and there are governmental administrative systems such as socialism and republicanism, as just two examples. Communism, like most philosophies is an idealistic governmental objective that has not been achieved by any nation. It is the economic system of in which a government operates. The polar opposite of communism is capitalism. Both are economic systems. There are no communist governments in any Western European country, nor socialist governments. All are capitalist parliamentarian systems who have adopted various socialist programs. None operates as socialist nations and it is a complete misunderstanding to call them socialist. They are not. Use of these labels becomes dangerous because people really do not understand what they mean. They tend to assume they know because they heard someone say it on television or heard a politician say it. Most politicians I've talked to don't seem to understand the differences either.
Republicanism relies on very little central control by a government unit and decentralizes authority down to the lowest levels of government, usually at a local level. Capitalism can only survive in such a government structure because it depends on the freedom of individual initiative and invention to grow. The more direct government control over capitalism, the less individuals can decide for themselves and the less they can achieve through individual initiative.
Socialism requires complete central control in order to operate, because it is government that makes all decisions for the economic system. It decides what will be produced and how much. It decides who receives the benefits of the output. It makes all decisions for the citizens. Communism must have such control in order to operate. However, the reason it has and will always fail is that government does not produce wealth and can only operate by extracting the money it needs from industry that it controls. As it pulls more and more resource from the system to support the bureaucracy, there is a constant draining of the wealth and unless production can outpace that extraction, people become poorer. Since there is never enough wealth to make everyone equally wealthy, people become equally poor, thereby creating a new society of discontented citizens ready for the next revolution. That is what has happened repeatedly in such countries.
When people refer to themselves as progressives or liberal democrats, often they mean they favor a strong central government that makes the economic decisions for the individual. Many believe that government knows best what is good for the majority. The problems with that belief are many, but the one that has happened throughout mankind's history is that the growth of central control is never satisfied. The power to control always leads to more control and the power is usually held by the elite's within the government. Governments are almost never static. In nearly every populous revolution, the goal was to take back power from the elites and give it back to the people. However, human social evolution seems to lead to individuals who believe they know what is best and begin again to seize power and control from the masses. Progressives might believe they are creating a benevolent central powerful government, but it has never turned out that way. Once control is acceded to the government it is seldom ever returned to the people until the next revolution occurs. Such governments have always ended in totalitarianism and that is why it is such a danger for the public to give away their freedom. What they get in return is never what they expected or wanted.
What we tend to have in most countries is a mixture of different political and economic philosophies in which the society has adopted various levels of the principles of one philosophy or the other. None are pure forms of anything, but tend to be in transition from one type of government to another. There are entire books devoted to these subjects and I cannot begin to get into the details in an article such as this. I am simply trying to explain here the most fundamental differences in these terms. For more information, readers need to buy a few books on the subject. Happy reading.
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Taking Over the Tea Party Movement
This morning, I heard a radio political advertisement for one of our local candidates who claimed he was endorsed by the Tea Party. When I heard that, I wondered who he was talking about. The advertisement included a gentleman that stated that he was the President of a Local Tea Party. That surprised me even more, but at the same time I thought it was also predictable.
When Americans first came out in force across the country to express their frustration with politicians in general, you can be sure that some politicians are going to want to jump on that bandwagon. The Tea Party movement was never a political party, but rather an outpouring of expression from citizens of many persuasions. They were simply trying to be heard in Washington and make a tone deaf Congress and Administration sit up and take notice. This was a rebellion against government intrusion and self serving politicians. This was the people's movement, not the politicians.
Now we see individuals gathering to take advantage of that public emotion and frustration. They are meeting together, forming small groups that call themselves the Tea Party, electing leaders, and now endorsing candidates as though they represented the sentiments of all of those that came out to the Tea Party movement gatherings. It is almost the same thing that many citizens were rebelling against in the first place.
In my view, the last thing we need in this country is another political party with a new agenda of their own. We have difficulty trying to sort out the politics of a two party system. The greatest problem with multiple parties is the same one with which Europe constantly struggles. Multi party systems split the vote of the citizens so that a majority is seldom ever achieved. Because of that, the majority never feels that they are represented and thet don't' agree on most policies.
While it is possible that the Tea Party movement could evolve into a political party, it is highly doubtful that it would ever become a major party. As soon as it becomes a party, much of its support will disappear from those who were protesting that very idea of it. However, strange things happen in the world of politics. Creating a new party would only undermine the ability to unseat the power structure that they are fighting against. There is not enough support in the nation to elect a majority of 3rd Party candidates that would be required in order to control the committees and chair positions. It would only take some seats from both Democrats and Republicans, but the control would remain where it is today. That is to the advantage of the Democrats and they are not oblivious to that fact. I suggest that those who support the Tea Party movement should focus on changing control of Congress and the Administration first, before deciding whether we need additional political parties.
When Americans first came out in force across the country to express their frustration with politicians in general, you can be sure that some politicians are going to want to jump on that bandwagon. The Tea Party movement was never a political party, but rather an outpouring of expression from citizens of many persuasions. They were simply trying to be heard in Washington and make a tone deaf Congress and Administration sit up and take notice. This was a rebellion against government intrusion and self serving politicians. This was the people's movement, not the politicians.
Now we see individuals gathering to take advantage of that public emotion and frustration. They are meeting together, forming small groups that call themselves the Tea Party, electing leaders, and now endorsing candidates as though they represented the sentiments of all of those that came out to the Tea Party movement gatherings. It is almost the same thing that many citizens were rebelling against in the first place.
In my view, the last thing we need in this country is another political party with a new agenda of their own. We have difficulty trying to sort out the politics of a two party system. The greatest problem with multiple parties is the same one with which Europe constantly struggles. Multi party systems split the vote of the citizens so that a majority is seldom ever achieved. Because of that, the majority never feels that they are represented and thet don't' agree on most policies.
While it is possible that the Tea Party movement could evolve into a political party, it is highly doubtful that it would ever become a major party. As soon as it becomes a party, much of its support will disappear from those who were protesting that very idea of it. However, strange things happen in the world of politics. Creating a new party would only undermine the ability to unseat the power structure that they are fighting against. There is not enough support in the nation to elect a majority of 3rd Party candidates that would be required in order to control the committees and chair positions. It would only take some seats from both Democrats and Republicans, but the control would remain where it is today. That is to the advantage of the Democrats and they are not oblivious to that fact. I suggest that those who support the Tea Party movement should focus on changing control of Congress and the Administration first, before deciding whether we need additional political parties.
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
Incompetence Reigns in Washington
While I have pointed out many times over the last couple of years the importance of credentials, experience, and competence in the people we elect, the importance of those qualities has never been clearer than the last 18 months. I have run out of adjectives to properly describe the moronic level of incompetence we have sunk to in this country. This lack of professional ability has resulted in the appointment of even lower levels of incompetence in every key position in the federal government. Repeatedly, we see people whose primary purpose in life is to promote the transformation of America into a socialist government. They have no personal executive skills, no functional expertise in the positions they have been asked to manage, no seeming knowledge of the facts as they exist in the world. Most of these bureaucrats seem oblivious and uncaring about the Constitution and the limits it places on their power and are far more interested in advancing their own personal agendas and control over our thinking and personal choices.
Just in the last few days, we hear Eric Holder, the US Attorney General criticize severely the immigration control law passed in Arizona and then admit before the entire country that he had never even read it. Even more unbelievably, the Secretary of Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano did not take a lesson from that enormous flub and told reporters the exact same thing. She was highly critical of the law and days after Holder is mocked by the media, she tells reporters she has not read it either. She had to know this would be asked, yet she still couldn't take a few minutes to read a 10 page bill. This is followed again yesterday by Assistant Secretary of State, Michael Posner's comments that he agreed with China's criticism of US for human rights violations and cited the Arizona law. It is simply crazy to listen to China of all countries criticizing us, and over a law none have read. As it happens, I have read the Arizona bill and see none of the points contained in it that are being charged by these members of the Obama administration. The President himself has criticized the bill for things that are not in the law and has intentionally distorted the truth, that in fact it is the same as current federal law, only giving direct authority to local police to enforce it. That authority is also available under federal statute, but has not been enforced or requested by our federal government. It was because federal authorities have ignored enforcement that state authorities felt compelled to protect themselves. That is the right and responsibility of every government.
When will this stop? It stops only when the American have had enough of this outrageous out of control government who like Cass Sunstein, the White House's Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, says government often knows best and should act to correct the behaviors of citizens when they don't believe what the bureaucrats believe. That is why he wants to control internet content and ensure that you and I view what he wants us to see. He would require us to place links to opposing views on everything we write. That is insane nonsense and tyrannical thinking. However, that is captured on video and I have seen him say it in that exact context. This is the same Cass Sunstein, who was a constitutional law professor at the University of Chicago and Harvard, that the next candidate for the Supreme Court, Elena Kagan calls the preeminent constitutional law expert of our time. This is truly frightening. America must wake up to this onslaught on the Constitution and our freedoms. It is encouraging to see the results of recent elections but we must inform all Americans of the truth of what is happening. Only through the truth and all of the facts can people make the right choice.
Just in the last few days, we hear Eric Holder, the US Attorney General criticize severely the immigration control law passed in Arizona and then admit before the entire country that he had never even read it. Even more unbelievably, the Secretary of Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano did not take a lesson from that enormous flub and told reporters the exact same thing. She was highly critical of the law and days after Holder is mocked by the media, she tells reporters she has not read it either. She had to know this would be asked, yet she still couldn't take a few minutes to read a 10 page bill. This is followed again yesterday by Assistant Secretary of State, Michael Posner's comments that he agreed with China's criticism of US for human rights violations and cited the Arizona law. It is simply crazy to listen to China of all countries criticizing us, and over a law none have read. As it happens, I have read the Arizona bill and see none of the points contained in it that are being charged by these members of the Obama administration. The President himself has criticized the bill for things that are not in the law and has intentionally distorted the truth, that in fact it is the same as current federal law, only giving direct authority to local police to enforce it. That authority is also available under federal statute, but has not been enforced or requested by our federal government. It was because federal authorities have ignored enforcement that state authorities felt compelled to protect themselves. That is the right and responsibility of every government.
When will this stop? It stops only when the American have had enough of this outrageous out of control government who like Cass Sunstein, the White House's Administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, says government often knows best and should act to correct the behaviors of citizens when they don't believe what the bureaucrats believe. That is why he wants to control internet content and ensure that you and I view what he wants us to see. He would require us to place links to opposing views on everything we write. That is insane nonsense and tyrannical thinking. However, that is captured on video and I have seen him say it in that exact context. This is the same Cass Sunstein, who was a constitutional law professor at the University of Chicago and Harvard, that the next candidate for the Supreme Court, Elena Kagan calls the preeminent constitutional law expert of our time. This is truly frightening. America must wake up to this onslaught on the Constitution and our freedoms. It is encouraging to see the results of recent elections but we must inform all Americans of the truth of what is happening. Only through the truth and all of the facts can people make the right choice.
Sunday, March 28, 2010
The Liberal Media Spins the National Debt
For those of you who might happen to get Parade Magazine as an insert in your Sunday newspaper, you might have come across an article written by Rebecca Webber and Dr. Ranit Mishori in the section called Intelligence Report. This is an excellent example of taking the best set of numbers you can find to fit your personal world narrative. Parade Magazine has always been a very liberal piece of Sunday entertainment, but in the last few years it has become blatantly biased toward the Socialist agenda. So, what was wrong with their report?
In their article they try to show that other countries are in worse shape than the US and conclude that we are not so bad off. The title of their article was "Does America Owe Too Much?" They start out by saying that "the US public debt was $7.5 trillion - about 53% of the country's gross domestic product (GDP). Technically, that is factual, but what is wrong is that they are including only part of the debt, the public debt, not the gross national debt. The Gross National Debt, which includes the total of our obligations is actually around $13 trillion and is estimated to be over $14 trillion at the end of this year and that is nearly equal to the entire (GDP). These kinds of distortions are not just wrong, they are dangerous. They intentionally mislead the public into a false sense of security. They go on in the article to site other numbers used by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) as though these were official numbers that we should all use. The CBO is not an official source for any economic numbers. They use the numbers supplied by others to estimate outcomes based on various scenarios. The source for most the official government numbers comes from the Department of Commerce and the Treasury Department. Do not be mislead by these spinners of political narratives. The truth lies with the facts and we should let the numbers speak for themselves.
It is also important for citizens to understand that there is no bottomless pit of investment money around the world waiting to absorb our debt. Nearly all money that is available for investment is already invested in something. In order for markets to be willing to buy our debt through treasury notes, they have to be more attractive than what the money is already earning in other investment instruments.
At the moment, Congress and this Administration are on a very dangerous path and something will eventually have to give. There is simply not enough money in the system to be able to support these massive numbers that are being spent. Americans must wake up because only they can stop this drunken spending spree.
In their article they try to show that other countries are in worse shape than the US and conclude that we are not so bad off. The title of their article was "Does America Owe Too Much?" They start out by saying that "the US public debt was $7.5 trillion - about 53% of the country's gross domestic product (GDP). Technically, that is factual, but what is wrong is that they are including only part of the debt, the public debt, not the gross national debt. The Gross National Debt, which includes the total of our obligations is actually around $13 trillion and is estimated to be over $14 trillion at the end of this year and that is nearly equal to the entire (GDP). These kinds of distortions are not just wrong, they are dangerous. They intentionally mislead the public into a false sense of security. They go on in the article to site other numbers used by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) as though these were official numbers that we should all use. The CBO is not an official source for any economic numbers. They use the numbers supplied by others to estimate outcomes based on various scenarios. The source for most the official government numbers comes from the Department of Commerce and the Treasury Department. Do not be mislead by these spinners of political narratives. The truth lies with the facts and we should let the numbers speak for themselves.
It is also important for citizens to understand that there is no bottomless pit of investment money around the world waiting to absorb our debt. Nearly all money that is available for investment is already invested in something. In order for markets to be willing to buy our debt through treasury notes, they have to be more attractive than what the money is already earning in other investment instruments.
At the moment, Congress and this Administration are on a very dangerous path and something will eventually have to give. There is simply not enough money in the system to be able to support these massive numbers that are being spent. Americans must wake up because only they can stop this drunken spending spree.
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
The Fiscal Monster
In February, a New York Times columnist, and college professor, Paul Krugman wrote one of the strangest articles related to national debt ever written by someone professing to be an economist. Krugman is well known for two things. He is a devoted a socialist and winner of a Nobel Prize for which being a socialist now seems to be a prerequisite. Nobel Prizes these days are handed out only to those who carry the party message and Krugman does that with some zeal, albeit more than a bit crazy. However, that credential seems to have given him access to the media and he has busied himself helping the Obama administration try to sell the notion that national debt is a good thing.
In this week's article, entitled "Fiscal scare tactics miscast deficit as a monster", Krugman claims that Republicans in Congress and other economists around the world are simply stirring up hysteria. He believes there is nothing to be concerned about and that the current deficits represent no threat. This is tantamount to someone telling you that even though you are bankrupt, you have nothing to worry about and you should just take it all in stride and keep right on spending. This is not just bad advice; it is lunacy at the top of the scale. It is no wonder that the Obama administration loves Krugman. It is like taking your alcoholic friend along to go drinking. Not only is Krugman wrong, I think it is probable that he is suffering from some kind of mental delusion. Certainly no sane finance or economics expert would consider such statements. On the other hand, this might be from spending too many years locked away in his office in his university. I can see why he remains where he is, safely tenured in his job, because no business would hire him.
Lest anyone actually believe Professor Krugman, let me assure them that this is certainly not the view of the real world business economists and finance community. Clearly around the world, there is great concern, not just for the deficits of the US, but even more for some of the major European and Asian countries. This is not mystical, not opinion as Krugman suggests, not guess work, it is fact. The numbers do the speaking, not the economists. They only have to gather the numbers and assemble them. The reality is very simple to understand. There are only so many dollars in our economy and only so many in all those of the other countries. We know where that money is, what is available to invest, what financial instruments each is invested in, and what can be supported. In order for the US Government to get people to buy their notes, money must be transferred from some other investment source that either offers less return or is less secure. Taking money out of the capital investment market means businesses stop growing and so do jobs. This normally means that others will have to increase their returns to investors, thus setting off another round of inflation and a new cycle competing for the same dollars. In order to meet these staggering deficit numbers, profits, and wealth will have to grow enormously or they will simply not be able to find buyers for treasury notes.
The size of national debts that are being run up, exceed not just the amount of cash available in every kind of investment instrument, but in the entire gross domestic products (GDPs) of the countries that are creating them. Not only that, the unfunded liabilities for government programs like social security and Medicare are becoming many times larger than the GDPs and at current rates there is simply no money in the system to pay them. To suggest there is nothing to worry about is just insanity. Anyone that buys into Krugman's ideas is either as crazy as he is, unbelievably naive, or is trying to destroy the nation. We should speak out strongly against any such attempts to undermine the drive to fix these national problems. They must be fixed soon, or they will fix themselves with dire consequences.
In this week's article, entitled "Fiscal scare tactics miscast deficit as a monster", Krugman claims that Republicans in Congress and other economists around the world are simply stirring up hysteria. He believes there is nothing to be concerned about and that the current deficits represent no threat. This is tantamount to someone telling you that even though you are bankrupt, you have nothing to worry about and you should just take it all in stride and keep right on spending. This is not just bad advice; it is lunacy at the top of the scale. It is no wonder that the Obama administration loves Krugman. It is like taking your alcoholic friend along to go drinking. Not only is Krugman wrong, I think it is probable that he is suffering from some kind of mental delusion. Certainly no sane finance or economics expert would consider such statements. On the other hand, this might be from spending too many years locked away in his office in his university. I can see why he remains where he is, safely tenured in his job, because no business would hire him.
Lest anyone actually believe Professor Krugman, let me assure them that this is certainly not the view of the real world business economists and finance community. Clearly around the world, there is great concern, not just for the deficits of the US, but even more for some of the major European and Asian countries. This is not mystical, not opinion as Krugman suggests, not guess work, it is fact. The numbers do the speaking, not the economists. They only have to gather the numbers and assemble them. The reality is very simple to understand. There are only so many dollars in our economy and only so many in all those of the other countries. We know where that money is, what is available to invest, what financial instruments each is invested in, and what can be supported. In order for the US Government to get people to buy their notes, money must be transferred from some other investment source that either offers less return or is less secure. Taking money out of the capital investment market means businesses stop growing and so do jobs. This normally means that others will have to increase their returns to investors, thus setting off another round of inflation and a new cycle competing for the same dollars. In order to meet these staggering deficit numbers, profits, and wealth will have to grow enormously or they will simply not be able to find buyers for treasury notes.
The size of national debts that are being run up, exceed not just the amount of cash available in every kind of investment instrument, but in the entire gross domestic products (GDPs) of the countries that are creating them. Not only that, the unfunded liabilities for government programs like social security and Medicare are becoming many times larger than the GDPs and at current rates there is simply no money in the system to pay them. To suggest there is nothing to worry about is just insanity. Anyone that buys into Krugman's ideas is either as crazy as he is, unbelievably naive, or is trying to destroy the nation. We should speak out strongly against any such attempts to undermine the drive to fix these national problems. They must be fixed soon, or they will fix themselves with dire consequences.
Friday, March 5, 2010
The Public and Media Weigh In
Perhaps it is in the nature of humans to make quick assumptions and judgments. Maybe our early ancestors had to do that to survive. That’s a question I certainly am unqualified to answer, but like others, have asked. There are dozens of media reports every day about subjects such as an air traffic controller who let his kids speak from the control tower, how government bills that have not yet been written will affect us, how new tax systems will solve our problems, and so on. Before anyone has the facts on these issues, many in the media are writing stories suggesting who is at fault, who should be fired, who should apologize, how our lives will be affected, and so forth. The public immediately begins choosing sides, yet no one has any real facts on either side of the debates. Why do we do this?
I am increasingly troubled by these leaps to judgment because rather than learning the truth and making good rational decisions, we may end up with the exact opposite of what we thought we were going to achieve. Even being a professional researcher, I am still inclined to jump to conclusions myself, and am constantly battling with myself to remain objective and to get the facts before forming an opinion. I know that I have expertise in certain subjects, but even then it is limited to some fairly narrow areas. I try my best to confine my advice to others based on what I actually know, not on what might be. The world is full of misinformation, now more than ever because of the internet and cable TV. We are flooded with it daily.
One of the important things we try to teach our children at home and at school is how to think. Hopefully, the most important thing we try to learn in college is to not assume but deductively analyze what we read. I wonder at times if we are failing there too. When examining any issue it is as important to know what we don’t know as it is what we know. Much more often, what we don’t know is far greater. We need to challenge the information we get and not just accept it on face value. I frequently hear pundits taking positions about things that they have absolutely no expertise or experience to even know the right questions to ask. Many of these issues are highly technical and even those within those professional fields don’t have all the information or answers. Those leaps to judgment seem to be especially true in the media and politics.
We are currently faced with many national and state issues that could affect our lives for many years. It is critical that we try to inform the public and not mislead them. Trying to lead the public through emotional pleas from one side or the other may create unintended consequences that will severely damage our way of life. I believe it is critical for all leaders in government, business, and professional organizations to refrain from jumping to conclusions until they have the facts. They should question what they are shown and told. They should ask those who claim expertise for their own credentials to advise. Not all opinions are equal and simply because someone agrees with your position does not make them an expert or qualified to make an assessment. They must know what they don’t know and seek the truth, regardless of where that truth leads. I am not naïve enough to think that those who have personal interests in the outcomes of the decisions will stop spinning their versions. However, those who represent the public’s interest must stop the misrepresentations, the withholding of contradictory information, and jumping to conclusions about things of which they know little or nothing. We, the citizens, should do the same and demand it of our leaders.
I am increasingly troubled by these leaps to judgment because rather than learning the truth and making good rational decisions, we may end up with the exact opposite of what we thought we were going to achieve. Even being a professional researcher, I am still inclined to jump to conclusions myself, and am constantly battling with myself to remain objective and to get the facts before forming an opinion. I know that I have expertise in certain subjects, but even then it is limited to some fairly narrow areas. I try my best to confine my advice to others based on what I actually know, not on what might be. The world is full of misinformation, now more than ever because of the internet and cable TV. We are flooded with it daily.
One of the important things we try to teach our children at home and at school is how to think. Hopefully, the most important thing we try to learn in college is to not assume but deductively analyze what we read. I wonder at times if we are failing there too. When examining any issue it is as important to know what we don’t know as it is what we know. Much more often, what we don’t know is far greater. We need to challenge the information we get and not just accept it on face value. I frequently hear pundits taking positions about things that they have absolutely no expertise or experience to even know the right questions to ask. Many of these issues are highly technical and even those within those professional fields don’t have all the information or answers. Those leaps to judgment seem to be especially true in the media and politics.
We are currently faced with many national and state issues that could affect our lives for many years. It is critical that we try to inform the public and not mislead them. Trying to lead the public through emotional pleas from one side or the other may create unintended consequences that will severely damage our way of life. I believe it is critical for all leaders in government, business, and professional organizations to refrain from jumping to conclusions until they have the facts. They should question what they are shown and told. They should ask those who claim expertise for their own credentials to advise. Not all opinions are equal and simply because someone agrees with your position does not make them an expert or qualified to make an assessment. They must know what they don’t know and seek the truth, regardless of where that truth leads. I am not naïve enough to think that those who have personal interests in the outcomes of the decisions will stop spinning their versions. However, those who represent the public’s interest must stop the misrepresentations, the withholding of contradictory information, and jumping to conclusions about things of which they know little or nothing. We, the citizens, should do the same and demand it of our leaders.
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
Congress Strikes Again
Happy New Year to all.
With the start of the New Year, we have not been disappointed by Congress in their immediate return to partisan agenda politics. Democrats have decided that they no longer need or are even interested in any input from their Republican colleagues and therefore are essentially cutting them out the process entirely as they force through a healthcare bill that American citizens have resoundingly rejected. These members of Congress want to charge us all more for less and penalize those that do not want to buy their product. I personally view this as taxation without representation. If my representative is not even allowed to participate in the process, this is not the intent of our forefathers when they established Congress. However, there is very little that Congress has done in the last few years that is consistent with the intent of the founders and the wording of our Constitution. This document is being shredded before our very eyes. Where is the authority granted in the Constitution that would allow most of this legislation? Article 1, section 8, clause 3, often referred to as the Commerce Clause states “The Congress shall have the power to…. Regulate Commerce with foreign nations and among the several states and with Indian Tribes.” It says “regulate”, not “operate.” It says regulate among the states, not within the states. The clear intent both in the wording and in the Federalist papers was to regulate to ensure free and open trade between the states. It was not to tell people what they had to buy, from whom they had to buy, or to create a federal business that competed with private commerce. The job of the federal government was and is to regulate, but they have failed in that responsibility as well. It is the failure to regulate that has caused the loss of competition, unfair business practices, and other unethical and illegal behaviors. This is a clear failure of Congress, the Administration, the courts, and the voters who elected them to represent their views. We are all to blame for this massive incompetence and destruction of the values and principles set out in the Constitution.
Why do American’s allow their government to ignore the very document that sets out the limits of the authority that each of these governing bodies is given? Why do we give away our freedoms so easily when prior generations sacrificed their lives to achieve them for us? Others around the world are still dying in order to give those rights to their children. Recently, Congress decided to take over the board rooms of private companies, make them pay back monies earned under contract, and even pay additional taxes. Legislators once again ignored the Constitution and decided to punish certain members of those businesses although they had committed no crime. The Constitution states “No bill of attainder or ex post facto law shall be passed”. The Supreme Court in 1946 in US v. Lovett defined it this way. Legislative acts, no matter what their form, that apply either to named individuals or to easily ascertainable members of a group in such a way as to inflict punishment on them without a judicial trial are bills of attainder prohibited by the Constitution. These acts by Congress certainly seem to meet those conditions. While we leave these matters to the Constitutional lawyers to sort out, we the people are suppose to decide what we want them to mean too. We have a responsibility to be informed, to understand our Constitution, and to elect those people who will uphold those principles as sacred. Those who don’t must be removed. Those who intentionally ignore them fail their oath of office and are acting in a treasonous manner. Citizens who value their Constitution must never politely sit silently at home or in public and allow this to happen. We must stand up for what we believe. We must demand that our Constitution be respected. We must take back our freedoms. We must stand up for America.
With the start of the New Year, we have not been disappointed by Congress in their immediate return to partisan agenda politics. Democrats have decided that they no longer need or are even interested in any input from their Republican colleagues and therefore are essentially cutting them out the process entirely as they force through a healthcare bill that American citizens have resoundingly rejected. These members of Congress want to charge us all more for less and penalize those that do not want to buy their product. I personally view this as taxation without representation. If my representative is not even allowed to participate in the process, this is not the intent of our forefathers when they established Congress. However, there is very little that Congress has done in the last few years that is consistent with the intent of the founders and the wording of our Constitution. This document is being shredded before our very eyes. Where is the authority granted in the Constitution that would allow most of this legislation? Article 1, section 8, clause 3, often referred to as the Commerce Clause states “The Congress shall have the power to…. Regulate Commerce with foreign nations and among the several states and with Indian Tribes.” It says “regulate”, not “operate.” It says regulate among the states, not within the states. The clear intent both in the wording and in the Federalist papers was to regulate to ensure free and open trade between the states. It was not to tell people what they had to buy, from whom they had to buy, or to create a federal business that competed with private commerce. The job of the federal government was and is to regulate, but they have failed in that responsibility as well. It is the failure to regulate that has caused the loss of competition, unfair business practices, and other unethical and illegal behaviors. This is a clear failure of Congress, the Administration, the courts, and the voters who elected them to represent their views. We are all to blame for this massive incompetence and destruction of the values and principles set out in the Constitution.
Why do American’s allow their government to ignore the very document that sets out the limits of the authority that each of these governing bodies is given? Why do we give away our freedoms so easily when prior generations sacrificed their lives to achieve them for us? Others around the world are still dying in order to give those rights to their children. Recently, Congress decided to take over the board rooms of private companies, make them pay back monies earned under contract, and even pay additional taxes. Legislators once again ignored the Constitution and decided to punish certain members of those businesses although they had committed no crime. The Constitution states “No bill of attainder or ex post facto law shall be passed”. The Supreme Court in 1946 in US v. Lovett defined it this way. Legislative acts, no matter what their form, that apply either to named individuals or to easily ascertainable members of a group in such a way as to inflict punishment on them without a judicial trial are bills of attainder prohibited by the Constitution. These acts by Congress certainly seem to meet those conditions. While we leave these matters to the Constitutional lawyers to sort out, we the people are suppose to decide what we want them to mean too. We have a responsibility to be informed, to understand our Constitution, and to elect those people who will uphold those principles as sacred. Those who don’t must be removed. Those who intentionally ignore them fail their oath of office and are acting in a treasonous manner. Citizens who value their Constitution must never politely sit silently at home or in public and allow this to happen. We must stand up for what we believe. We must demand that our Constitution be respected. We must take back our freedoms. We must stand up for America.
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