I just came back from the hardware store where I bought my second 50-lb. bag of salt, $21.99 per bag plus tax.
I have put no salt on the garage apron next to the alley, none on the sidewalk to the garage, a little bit on the sidewalk around the house, practically none on the front walk and steps. I have put almost all the previous salt on the public sidewalk in attempt to get rid of the ice buildup from the street snow plowed on the sidewalk.
Now let's put some perspective on taxes and costs. Our real estate taxes to the city are about $330, half what we pay to the county and about two-thirds what we pay to the school district. The city taxes are what many people complain about the most.
Let's see if I can figure out Duluth's 2009 financial report correctly. From the summary of revenues, expenses, and changes in net assets, page 17, Duluth spent 124.942 million dollars of which Public Works spent 7.616 million. That's six percent of the city budget, or I paid far less than $20 per year for snow removal by the city.
But I've personally paid over $40 in 2011 for snow reduction. I've spent many hours working on snow reduction, and there is still much to go.
I assume the city could keep my walk practically clear for far less money and in less time than I have. But that would mean I would have to pay more taxes. So, it is a good thing I'm paying more out of pocket for a bit of service than I would pay in taxes for more service.
I think I'll go have a cup of tea.
Friday, January 21, 2011
Business-friendly? Friendly to which businesses?
One of the current political buzzwords is "business-friendly" or more likely "business-unfriendly". "Business friendly" generally means minimum or no interference with businesses or giving of breaks, tax or otherwise, to businesses.
Although some consider "business-friendly" to mean "people-unfriendly", one "business-friendly" act for one business can be "business-unfriendly" to another business.
I read a case of this in today's Star Tribune, "TCF gains in fight over debit-card fee limits", 2011-01-21. TCF and other banks are complaining that new Federal Reserve rules on exchange-fee limits will hamper their profits.
However, other businesses complain that the exchange fees cut into their profits. And of course, the exchange fees may cut into people's pockets with higher prices.
It wouldn't surprise me that many of the proponents of higher fees see no conflict with their call for lower taxes. It's all right for businesses to raise prices when their costs go up but not all right for government to raise taxes when its costs go up.
Another example of one business' gain being another business' loss is fuel costs. Maybe the producers will have more profits, but the truckers and the airlines, will have higher costs. The fuel users will do their best to raise their prices, but another fuel user, the governments that clear the snow will be constrained.
Maybe we should have a mantra to match "No new taxes" with a people-friendly "No new prices".
The same issue of the Star Tribune reports that the newly elected governor of Wisconsin want to increase the setback for wind-farms, "Wind showdown". On first glance, this would seem a business-unfriendly move. But I suspect it's only towards a new business many Republicans don't like - alternative energy.
Were these politicians opposing a high-voltage power line when many Wisconsin residents were fighting against it? The line went across, not near, their property, and they were forced to sell the right-away at a cost determined by others. Doesn't sound very free market to me.
I wonder if the Wisconsin Republicans will bend to the popular will if there is land-owner opposition to a new nuclear plant.
Although some consider "business-friendly" to mean "people-unfriendly", one "business-friendly" act for one business can be "business-unfriendly" to another business.
I read a case of this in today's Star Tribune, "TCF gains in fight over debit-card fee limits", 2011-01-21. TCF and other banks are complaining that new Federal Reserve rules on exchange-fee limits will hamper their profits.
However, other businesses complain that the exchange fees cut into their profits. And of course, the exchange fees may cut into people's pockets with higher prices.
It wouldn't surprise me that many of the proponents of higher fees see no conflict with their call for lower taxes. It's all right for businesses to raise prices when their costs go up but not all right for government to raise taxes when its costs go up.
Another example of one business' gain being another business' loss is fuel costs. Maybe the producers will have more profits, but the truckers and the airlines, will have higher costs. The fuel users will do their best to raise their prices, but another fuel user, the governments that clear the snow will be constrained.
Maybe we should have a mantra to match "No new taxes" with a people-friendly "No new prices".
The same issue of the Star Tribune reports that the newly elected governor of Wisconsin want to increase the setback for wind-farms, "Wind showdown". On first glance, this would seem a business-unfriendly move. But I suspect it's only towards a new business many Republicans don't like - alternative energy.
Were these politicians opposing a high-voltage power line when many Wisconsin residents were fighting against it? The line went across, not near, their property, and they were forced to sell the right-away at a cost determined by others. Doesn't sound very free market to me.
I wonder if the Wisconsin Republicans will bend to the popular will if there is land-owner opposition to a new nuclear plant.
Thursday, January 20, 2011
Computers: How the times change!
Twenty-eight years ago last month, I left Univac to form my own software company based on the new microcomputers. Partly I felt Univac was stuck in old paradigms of big boxes, and partly I wasn't doing very well myself on creating new ideas.
A few years after that, Burroughs bought Univac and called the new company Unisys. Unisys continued making mainframes for a few years and slowly moved to being more of a consulting company.
Before that really happened, I moved to using Macs only and haven't stopped since.
Now, Unisys is now considered a "technology services specialist", and some Motley Fools think that Apple and Unisys may reach some agreement to help Apple seek enterprise and government contracts.
Also, once companies started adopting personal computers, the "gold standard" became PCs and Microsoft. The Mac was a toy and not a business computer. Now "Apple's Tim Cook [acting CEO] says the iPad is being deployed or piloted in 80% of the largest corporations today, and 88 of the Fortune 100 companies are testing or using the iPhone."
See "3 Stocks Ready to Roar", Motley Fool
And older readers may remember all the predictions of Apple's demise in the 80s and 90s. I read somewhere that Apple now has more market value than Microsoft.
And as I've said many times before, we ain't seen nothing yet in technology.
A few years after that, Burroughs bought Univac and called the new company Unisys. Unisys continued making mainframes for a few years and slowly moved to being more of a consulting company.
Before that really happened, I moved to using Macs only and haven't stopped since.
Now, Unisys is now considered a "technology services specialist", and some Motley Fools think that Apple and Unisys may reach some agreement to help Apple seek enterprise and government contracts.
Also, once companies started adopting personal computers, the "gold standard" became PCs and Microsoft. The Mac was a toy and not a business computer. Now "Apple's Tim Cook [acting CEO] says the iPad is being deployed or piloted in 80% of the largest corporations today, and 88 of the Fortune 100 companies are testing or using the iPhone."
See "3 Stocks Ready to Roar", Motley Fool
And older readers may remember all the predictions of Apple's demise in the 80s and 90s. I read somewhere that Apple now has more market value than Microsoft.
And as I've said many times before, we ain't seen nothing yet in technology.
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
Health care repeal is the real job-killer
The Republicans are calling for the repeal of the "job-killer health care bill". But have they considered that the previous health care "system" was the real job killer?
Why? Consider that many people seek jobs based on the "benefits" offered by the company – "benefits" generally meaning health care insurance. These people will seek jobs in large companies rather than smaller companies. Once people work for large companies, they are almost "locked" into their jobs.
People who are "locked" into their jobs won't venture out on their own, whether to be consultants, to be employees of smaller companies, or to start their own companies.
When people move in any of these directions, they may be moving to a more creative environment. That creative environment may in itself create more jobs. Thank goodness that Steve Jobs and Bill Gates were young, healthy, and well-enough off to start Apple and Microsoft, respectively.
But have many people not started companies because they didn't want to be concerned or couldn't afford health care for their employees. That situation is/was a job-killer.
About the only job-killing I think the health care bill does is reduce the number of people who are looking for ways to deny care.
Why? Consider that many people seek jobs based on the "benefits" offered by the company – "benefits" generally meaning health care insurance. These people will seek jobs in large companies rather than smaller companies. Once people work for large companies, they are almost "locked" into their jobs.
People who are "locked" into their jobs won't venture out on their own, whether to be consultants, to be employees of smaller companies, or to start their own companies.
When people move in any of these directions, they may be moving to a more creative environment. That creative environment may in itself create more jobs. Thank goodness that Steve Jobs and Bill Gates were young, healthy, and well-enough off to start Apple and Microsoft, respectively.
But have many people not started companies because they didn't want to be concerned or couldn't afford health care for their employees. That situation is/was a job-killer.
About the only job-killing I think the health care bill does is reduce the number of people who are looking for ways to deny care.
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
Ideology, compromise, and the big picture
Today was another publication day for me. My letter to the editor of the Star Tribune was published as "Political Discourse: You want compromise? Are you sure about that?"
Ross Douthat also wrote a blog about politicians jockeying for position rather than trying to solve problems: "The Roots of Overheated Rhetoric".
He does take a good look at bigger issues than just who believes what on some "little" issue. However, I take issue with one of his statements: "a protective government ready to save us from our foolishness when the economy goes bad".
Who is this "we" in "our foolishness"? Granted, many of "us" overextended ourselves with inducements from many sellers of this and that; a little reflection could have kept our credit card bills small. On the other hand, credit was extended by "trusted advisors" who few had any reason not to trust. When the mortgage officer at "Neighborhood Bank and Trust" tells us we can afford the mortgage, few of us have the expertise to ask the right questions. And when "Oversize Bank and Trust" of Wall Street tells Neighborhood Bank and Trust that it will buy Neighborhood's mortgages, Neighborhood feels it can and should sell as many mortgages as it possible. The whole problem was out of "our" hands.
Well, maybe not completely. Enough of us believed the rhetoric about "getting the government out of the way", not realizing less government oversight meant less corporate oversight of the long-term effects of its short-term thinking.
Ross Douthat also wrote a blog about politicians jockeying for position rather than trying to solve problems: "The Roots of Overheated Rhetoric".
He does take a good look at bigger issues than just who believes what on some "little" issue. However, I take issue with one of his statements: "a protective government ready to save us from our foolishness when the economy goes bad".
Who is this "we" in "our foolishness"? Granted, many of "us" overextended ourselves with inducements from many sellers of this and that; a little reflection could have kept our credit card bills small. On the other hand, credit was extended by "trusted advisors" who few had any reason not to trust. When the mortgage officer at "Neighborhood Bank and Trust" tells us we can afford the mortgage, few of us have the expertise to ask the right questions. And when "Oversize Bank and Trust" of Wall Street tells Neighborhood Bank and Trust that it will buy Neighborhood's mortgages, Neighborhood feels it can and should sell as many mortgages as it possible. The whole problem was out of "our" hands.
Well, maybe not completely. Enough of us believed the rhetoric about "getting the government out of the way", not realizing less government oversight meant less corporate oversight of the long-term effects of its short-term thinking.
Monday, January 17, 2011
A possible name and basis for a new party?
There is no real middle between today's so-called conservatives and so-called liberals, other than those who feel caught between two extremes.
What we need is a party that determines what the real problems are and what real, possible solutions to those problems may be. Maybe this party should be called the Realistic Party, not to be confused with reality shows.
Of course, once a group has a name and real people start joining it, then the group starts moving from its original goals. Oh, well! I tried.
This entry was partially inspired by Ross Douthat's latest column, "Scenes from a Marriage", New York Times, 2011-01-16.
He writes about the mutual antipathy between "the media" and Sarah Palin, which Douthat writes is more co-dependence.
Based on his realistic look at the issue, I would say he might be an ideal spokesperson for the Realistic Party. On the other hand, does his over-generalization that some journalists are "the media" disqualify him from this role?
What we need is a party that determines what the real problems are and what real, possible solutions to those problems may be. Maybe this party should be called the Realistic Party, not to be confused with reality shows.
Of course, once a group has a name and real people start joining it, then the group starts moving from its original goals. Oh, well! I tried.
This entry was partially inspired by Ross Douthat's latest column, "Scenes from a Marriage", New York Times, 2011-01-16.
He writes about the mutual antipathy between "the media" and Sarah Palin, which Douthat writes is more co-dependence.
Based on his realistic look at the issue, I would say he might be an ideal spokesperson for the Realistic Party. On the other hand, does his over-generalization that some journalists are "the media" disqualify him from this role?
Sunday, January 16, 2011
A Freudian slip of the fingers?
As I was copying the keywords from "Give Governance a Chance" to attach to the next entry, I discovered a big, bad typo. I had typed "Conversatives" instead of "Conservatives".
Is there some truth in that so-called "conservatives" react "conversely" to anything they perceive so-called "liberals" espousing?
Is there some truth in that so-called "conservatives" react "conversely" to anything they perceive so-called "liberals" espousing?
Responses to "Give Governance a Chance"
So far there have only been two posted responses to my "Local View" submission, "Give Governance a Chance". One simply was "Well stated." The other was a long paragraph about living at the end of a mile-long private road and not worrying about getting cholera. The Like or Dislikes were 10-2 and 2-11, respectively.
I haven't been around town since it was published, but four acquaintances told me that they liked it, as well as my two adult children (of course).
"Give Conservatives a Chance" has over thirty comments, including replies and replies to replies. I didn't bother reading most of them, being "same old, same old" regardless of the "side" taken.
I haven't been around town since it was published, but four acquaintances told me that they liked it, as well as my two adult children (of course).
"Give Conservatives a Chance" has over thirty comments, including replies and replies to replies. I didn't bother reading most of them, being "same old, same old" regardless of the "side" taken.
Was Microsoft Office 2011 for the Mac written by the government
After a long wait for a replacement for Office 2008, which took away Virtual Basic macros, I was able to buy Office 2011, which supposedly put macros back.
Guess what? I'm not sure they work.
I put a simple one-line macro back in an Excel spreadsheet, and it worked. But, every time I typed in a cell, Excel would only except one number and then do nothing. I had to enter the data in the formula bar. At least the formula bar seems to be standard in Office 2011; in some update to Office 2008 the formula bar would keep disappearing.
I tried removing the macro and putting it back in again, and now the macro stops with some mysterious error.
If I opened the progress bar in Entourage (Office 2008), it would be there the next time I opened Entourage. In Outlook (Office 2011), it is never present the next time I open Outlook.
The installation process for Office 2011 ignored many of my preference from Office 2008.
Outlook changed the type font and size, and it only remembers the reset type font but not the reset size.
Outlook automatically includes the message I'm answering in my response. I had turned this off in Entourage; I have yet to find a preference for this in Outlook. I have to remember to remove the message in my response, and it is often below my writing area.
Outlook has put some of my old messages in the task list.
Outlook did not get my message categories right. It put "Family" messages in "Iphone, saved to".
Outlook changed the links to many of my Entourage replies. The linked messages sometime bear no relation to each other.
Gosh, with these errors and many others, Office 2011 must have been written by the government instead of an "efficient" private company.
To tell the truth, I do have some sympathy for the Microsoft programmers. When I gave up on my own software programming company, for my far simpler program I had a problem list far longer than the list above.
I do wish Microsoft had had a bit bigger budget on testing.
I also wish that I could just call or email someone with these problems. Instead, the user has to spend hours looking through forums to find a specific problem, which nobody may have raised yet. This is part of the larger trend in far too many enterprises to push costs on to the customers. See "Technology: A big bother we can't do without".
Guess what? I'm not sure they work.
I put a simple one-line macro back in an Excel spreadsheet, and it worked. But, every time I typed in a cell, Excel would only except one number and then do nothing. I had to enter the data in the formula bar. At least the formula bar seems to be standard in Office 2011; in some update to Office 2008 the formula bar would keep disappearing.
I tried removing the macro and putting it back in again, and now the macro stops with some mysterious error.
If I opened the progress bar in Entourage (Office 2008), it would be there the next time I opened Entourage. In Outlook (Office 2011), it is never present the next time I open Outlook.
The installation process for Office 2011 ignored many of my preference from Office 2008.
Outlook changed the type font and size, and it only remembers the reset type font but not the reset size.
Outlook automatically includes the message I'm answering in my response. I had turned this off in Entourage; I have yet to find a preference for this in Outlook. I have to remember to remove the message in my response, and it is often below my writing area.
Outlook has put some of my old messages in the task list.
Outlook did not get my message categories right. It put "Family" messages in "Iphone, saved to".
Outlook changed the links to many of my Entourage replies. The linked messages sometime bear no relation to each other.
Gosh, with these errors and many others, Office 2011 must have been written by the government instead of an "efficient" private company.
To tell the truth, I do have some sympathy for the Microsoft programmers. When I gave up on my own software programming company, for my far simpler program I had a problem list far longer than the list above.
I do wish Microsoft had had a bit bigger budget on testing.
I also wish that I could just call or email someone with these problems. Instead, the user has to spend hours looking through forums to find a specific problem, which nobody may have raised yet. This is part of the larger trend in far too many enterprises to push costs on to the customers. See "Technology: A big bother we can't do without".
Friday, January 14, 2011
Give Democracy a Chance
After reading of the popular uprising in Tunisia, I can't help but give this entry a parallel title to my previous entry.
The chance I hope for any democracies that arise in the Arab world by popular demand is that the U. S. stays out of the way. Almost anything the U.S. does, be it some support for the existing rulers or some support to the people is bound to backfire in one way or another.
The only thing the U. S. should do is to listen to whoever is in power, but promise nothing.
But, I'm pessimistic. Somewhere in the vast U.S. military-intelligence complex will be those who call for intervention in our national interest. Our only national interest is to help any U. S. citizens who want to leave countries in turmoil.
The chance I hope for any democracies that arise in the Arab world by popular demand is that the U. S. stays out of the way. Almost anything the U.S. does, be it some support for the existing rulers or some support to the people is bound to backfire in one way or another.
The only thing the U. S. should do is to listen to whoever is in power, but promise nothing.
But, I'm pessimistic. Somewhere in the vast U.S. military-intelligence complex will be those who call for intervention in our national interest. Our only national interest is to help any U. S. citizens who want to leave countries in turmoil.
Give Governance a Chance
This is the title of a "Local View" article I wrote for the Duluth News Tribune. You can find it at
http://www.duluthnewstribune.com/event/article/id/188796/
It was my response to "Give Conservatism a Chance" published earlier in the week. It is at
http://www.duluthnewstribune.com/event/article/id/188404/
Be forewarned: The Duluth News Tribune makes articles available for free for only a week; after that you have to pay.
http://www.duluthnewstribune.com/event/article/id/188796/
It was my response to "Give Conservatism a Chance" published earlier in the week. It is at
http://www.duluthnewstribune.com/event/article/id/188404/
Be forewarned: The Duluth News Tribune makes articles available for free for only a week; after that you have to pay.
Thursday, January 13, 2011
Limp or wimp?
Today I decided to make my traditional triangle walk to Bixby's for coffee, UMD for University of Seniors, and back home. I have been driving to Bixby's because with all the unshoveled walks, walking has been no fun. However, parking at UMD is no fun during the day.
Because the city of Duluth has partially cleared many walks with a large snowblower, I've been able to stride instead of mince. Even though it was snowing lightly, off I strode.
Our street wasn't so bad. Then I got to the first traffic light. The pedestrian button was unreachable without climbing a thigh-high pile of snow - an icy pile with few footholds. I got up high enough to push the button, but when I turned around to come down, things looked almost impossible. I kind of leapt down from depression to depression but my momentum carried me right into the street. Fortunately for me, no cars were whipping around the corner.
I stood at the corner waiting for the light to change, but guess what? There was no traffic! Do I cross now or wait? I waited.
The rest of the walk to the coffee shop was uneventful. Some parts of the sidewalk were even, some had deeper snow, none too difficult to walk in the 8-inch work boots I had on.
After coffee I went to UMD for a couple of classes. When I got to the campus, the walks were freshly brushed with only a dusting of snow. There were some icy patches at the edge, but I could walk normally.
While I was in the classes there was light snow. I wondered if I wanted to take a bus home or walk. As I told a friend, it was a question of limp or wimp - limp on uneven sidewalks or wimp out by taking the bus. I opted to limp.
Again, the campus walks were no problem at all. As soon as I crossed into a neighborhood, the situation deteriorated. The first couple of blocks had wide boulevards and plow snow had not made it to the sidewalk. But few had shoveled their walks in the last couple of weeks.
When I turned onto the thoroughfare, things got worse. The city's snowblower had come by, but a plow had been by again, putting snow and "rocks" on the sidewalk.
Now walking became mincing.
Just after I took the picture and stepped off the curb at the corner, a car turned right in front of me! What nerve! What luck! It was my wife who was coming home from her own activities. I only had about three minutes walk to get home, but I was glad for the relief.
She wended her way through the neighborhood to our alley, and just as she was pulling in the garage, I saw the bus coming down the hill. I would rather have ridden with her than with a bunch of strangers.
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
Sign language: does it really means what it says?
Toilets block easily
Please go easy on toilet paper
Thanks
The management
Please go easy on toilet paper
Thanks
The management
So said a sign in a store restroom.
Sunday, January 09, 2011
Mandate? Landslide? Let's count ALL the voters
Frank Rich used "Reagan" and "landslide" many times in his article, "Let Obama's Reagan Revolution Begin", 2011-01-09.
I was going to post the following as a comment, but I was too late as comments were already closed.
Please stop using the term "landslide" to describe Reagan's win of the 1984 election. Forty-three percent of the voters didn't even show up, indirectly voting for "none of the above." Ronald Reagan did receive 58.7% of the votes of those who did show up which is impressive. But if one considers the no-shows, he had the backing of only 33.5% of the people. In other words, he came in second to none of the above.
If we reported elections with all the relevant data we could either stop winners from declaring a "mandate" or get more people out to vote the next time.
See also "Voting is not a horse race" and "If you don't vote, you have only yourself to blame".
I was going to post the following as a comment, but I was too late as comments were already closed.
Please stop using the term "landslide" to describe Reagan's win of the 1984 election. Forty-three percent of the voters didn't even show up, indirectly voting for "none of the above." Ronald Reagan did receive 58.7% of the votes of those who did show up which is impressive. But if one considers the no-shows, he had the backing of only 33.5% of the people. In other words, he came in second to none of the above.
If we reported elections with all the relevant data we could either stop winners from declaring a "mandate" or get more people out to vote the next time.
See also "Voting is not a horse race" and "If you don't vote, you have only yourself to blame".
Are fewer manufacturing jobs always a bad thing?
Dick Palmer picked a poor example about the decline of manufacturing when he mentioned Rochester, New York, home of Eastman Kodak. How many rolls of film has he been buying recently? Few people use film anymore; most cameras are now digital and can take many more pictures than film cameras. In fact, it is difficult to even sell a film camera on eBay. "State exports may be up but nation still hurting", Dick Palmer, Duluth Budgeteer, 2011-01-06.
Technological changes have led to many more job changes, but I'll come back to these in a bit.
Another contributor to job changes for over two hundred years has been low cost manufacturing, whether by low-cost labor or high productivity. Weavers in England and India were put out of business by power looms in England. Instead of high-skilled weavers, children could and did operate the machines.
New Englanders stole some of the designs and set looms up in Massachusetts. They hired hundreds of young women to operate the machines. Feeling exploited, workers organized into unions to push for more rewards for their labor.
Then the textile mills lowered their costs by moving to the South where unions were not tolerated. Even then, people found opportunity for better paying jobs and to attract labor, the companies had to raise wages.
Then shipping became cheaper, and textile companies found even lower cost labor in Asia and Central America. And as labor becomes more expensive in those countries, the companies move on to other countries.
Higher productivity means fewer people are needed to manufacture the same amount of goods. Higher productivity comes from more and more mechanization and now computerization. Even in the 80s, Ford could produce cars for less than GM because it used more mechanization and fewer workers. Fewer highly skilled machinists are needed thanks to numerically-controlled machine tools. Write a little program to make the cuts, put the code into the machine, and have a cup of coffee.
My father was a well-regarded dental prosthetic technician specializing in crowns. I have a folder of letters from dentists praising his work. When I got a crown last year, the dentist waved a wand over my teeth, an image appeared on the computer screen, he rotated the image and made some adjustments, he clicked OK, and a machine in the basement proceeded to make the crown. We chatted awhile, and then he went downstairs to get the crown. He put it in my mouth, pulled it out, made some adjustments with his drill, put it back in again, had me grind my teeth, and so on. In two hours, I had a new crown in my mouth, not a temporary to be replaced in three weeks and several visits later.
What is manufactured has changed dramatically in the last few decades.
When I worked at Univac programming mainframes mainframes in the 1960s, dozens of people would thread wires through little iron donuts for the main memory. When I started, a large memory had less than 400,000 characters, each character represented by six donuts. When I left nearly twenty years later, a large memory had about six million characters on an array of integrated circuits on several sets of large circuit boards. Now I carry eight billion characters of memory in my shirt pocket.
The miles of film that Eastman Kodak spewed out and put in little boxes have been replaced by memory cards the size of the end of one of those boxes. On a 1991 trip to Japan I shot nine rolls of film; my cost was over one hundred dollars for film and processing. On a 2007 trip to Japan I shot almost forty percent more pictures on a single memory card that cost less than fifty dollars, and I used the card over and over again for many hundreds of pictures more. My cost of processing was my time to download the pictures to my computer.
What is considered manufacturing has changed even more dramatically. We don't consider software on a disk or downloaded from a website as a manufactured product, but it is. It's just that the balance between design and physical rendering has moved dramatically to the design side. I haven't checked, but I assume that Apple Computer has more employees today than IBM and the "Seven Dwarves" of mainframes had thirty years ago. Apple definitely has more customers spending a lot more money than the mainframe manufacturers did.
The problem is not the decline of an economic sector, but the rate of change of the economy. I think few people, whether individuals or people in government, business, and education, have sufficient understanding of the change. Too many people are judging tomorrow by what happened a decade ago. And too many people are assuming that solutions that seemed to work twenty years ago are going to work today.
Abraham Lincoln said it 165 years ago, "As our case is new, so must we think anew."
To his credit, Dick Palmer has started to think anew. He does end his column with and elaboration on "The secret ingredient to success today is education…"
Technological changes have led to many more job changes, but I'll come back to these in a bit.
Another contributor to job changes for over two hundred years has been low cost manufacturing, whether by low-cost labor or high productivity. Weavers in England and India were put out of business by power looms in England. Instead of high-skilled weavers, children could and did operate the machines.
New Englanders stole some of the designs and set looms up in Massachusetts. They hired hundreds of young women to operate the machines. Feeling exploited, workers organized into unions to push for more rewards for their labor.
Then the textile mills lowered their costs by moving to the South where unions were not tolerated. Even then, people found opportunity for better paying jobs and to attract labor, the companies had to raise wages.
Then shipping became cheaper, and textile companies found even lower cost labor in Asia and Central America. And as labor becomes more expensive in those countries, the companies move on to other countries.
Higher productivity means fewer people are needed to manufacture the same amount of goods. Higher productivity comes from more and more mechanization and now computerization. Even in the 80s, Ford could produce cars for less than GM because it used more mechanization and fewer workers. Fewer highly skilled machinists are needed thanks to numerically-controlled machine tools. Write a little program to make the cuts, put the code into the machine, and have a cup of coffee.
My father was a well-regarded dental prosthetic technician specializing in crowns. I have a folder of letters from dentists praising his work. When I got a crown last year, the dentist waved a wand over my teeth, an image appeared on the computer screen, he rotated the image and made some adjustments, he clicked OK, and a machine in the basement proceeded to make the crown. We chatted awhile, and then he went downstairs to get the crown. He put it in my mouth, pulled it out, made some adjustments with his drill, put it back in again, had me grind my teeth, and so on. In two hours, I had a new crown in my mouth, not a temporary to be replaced in three weeks and several visits later.
What is manufactured has changed dramatically in the last few decades.
When I worked at Univac programming mainframes mainframes in the 1960s, dozens of people would thread wires through little iron donuts for the main memory. When I started, a large memory had less than 400,000 characters, each character represented by six donuts. When I left nearly twenty years later, a large memory had about six million characters on an array of integrated circuits on several sets of large circuit boards. Now I carry eight billion characters of memory in my shirt pocket.
The miles of film that Eastman Kodak spewed out and put in little boxes have been replaced by memory cards the size of the end of one of those boxes. On a 1991 trip to Japan I shot nine rolls of film; my cost was over one hundred dollars for film and processing. On a 2007 trip to Japan I shot almost forty percent more pictures on a single memory card that cost less than fifty dollars, and I used the card over and over again for many hundreds of pictures more. My cost of processing was my time to download the pictures to my computer.
What is considered manufacturing has changed even more dramatically. We don't consider software on a disk or downloaded from a website as a manufactured product, but it is. It's just that the balance between design and physical rendering has moved dramatically to the design side. I haven't checked, but I assume that Apple Computer has more employees today than IBM and the "Seven Dwarves" of mainframes had thirty years ago. Apple definitely has more customers spending a lot more money than the mainframe manufacturers did.
The problem is not the decline of an economic sector, but the rate of change of the economy. I think few people, whether individuals or people in government, business, and education, have sufficient understanding of the change. Too many people are judging tomorrow by what happened a decade ago. And too many people are assuming that solutions that seemed to work twenty years ago are going to work today.
Abraham Lincoln said it 165 years ago, "As our case is new, so must we think anew."
To his credit, Dick Palmer has started to think anew. He does end his column with and elaboration on "The secret ingredient to success today is education…"
Thursday, January 06, 2011
The "Huckleberry Finn" rewrite: Thomas Bowdler is alive and well
Michiko Kakutani wrote a marvelous slam about the latest attempt to force Mark Twain to write according to some people's taste; "New 'Huckleberry Finn' Edition Does Disservice to a Classic", New York Times, 2011-01-06.
One of her best sentences on changing "nigger" to "slave" was, "Never mind that attaching the epithet slave to the character Jim — who has run away in a bid for freedom — effectively labels him as property, as the very thing he is trying to escape." Another is that it "stands as a powerful indictment of slavery (with Nigger Jim its most noble character)".
Rewriting by translators is one reason that I prefer reading books or seeing movies in the original language. I may comprehend the text less in the original, but that is my doing, not some intermediary's.
See also "Bowdlerization", Melvyn Magree, Reader Weekly, 2001-04-12.
One of her best sentences on changing "nigger" to "slave" was, "Never mind that attaching the epithet slave to the character Jim — who has run away in a bid for freedom — effectively labels him as property, as the very thing he is trying to escape." Another is that it "stands as a powerful indictment of slavery (with Nigger Jim its most noble character)".
Rewriting by translators is one reason that I prefer reading books or seeing movies in the original language. I may comprehend the text less in the original, but that is my doing, not some intermediary's.
See also "Bowdlerization", Melvyn Magree, Reader Weekly, 2001-04-12.
Are those worried about blasphemy the real blasphemers?
Although I will be referring to Muslims because the actions of some Muslims are in the current news, let us not forget that other believers have taken drastic action. The Grand Inquisitor, Torquemada, had many tortured and killed because they were suspected of not having complete fealty to the Church of Rome. The Puritans of Massachusetts executed Quakers because they refused to stop preaching. And the Jews of Biblical times slaughtered those who worshiped Baal.
The latest incident to make the news is the assassination of the Governor of Punjab by one of his bodyguards. The "sin" of the Governor? He wanted to overturn the blasphemy laws of Pakistan that call for the death penalty for those who "insult" Mohammed or Islam.
Other incidents include the murder of a Dutch filmmaker and the threats against European cartoonists who have "insulted" Mohammed or Islam.
If God/Allah is omnipotent, wouldn't God/Allah deal with blasphemers with a bolt of lightning or other public displays of power? If Elijah's Jehovah could burn a water-soaked offering pyre, why did Elijah chase down and kill the priests of Baal?
If God/Allah is unknowable, how does anybody know the mind of God/Allah enough to actually carry out "God's will"? If a person assumes that he knows the mind of God/Allah, isn't that blasphemy too?
It is ironic that many Muslims preface taking an action with "Insallah" ("God willing"). But if they don't know God's will, how can they act in God's name?
I think people who attack those who believe differently are themselves insecure in their faith. Their beliefs are threatened by those who believe differently. This holds for radical Muslims, the Puritans, Torquemada, or Elijah.
Fortunately for those of us who don't have the "True Belief", whichever one that is, most of the co-religionists of the "True Believers" are willing to get along with others who do not share their beliefs.
The latest incident to make the news is the assassination of the Governor of Punjab by one of his bodyguards. The "sin" of the Governor? He wanted to overturn the blasphemy laws of Pakistan that call for the death penalty for those who "insult" Mohammed or Islam.
Other incidents include the murder of a Dutch filmmaker and the threats against European cartoonists who have "insulted" Mohammed or Islam.
If God/Allah is omnipotent, wouldn't God/Allah deal with blasphemers with a bolt of lightning or other public displays of power? If Elijah's Jehovah could burn a water-soaked offering pyre, why did Elijah chase down and kill the priests of Baal?
If God/Allah is unknowable, how does anybody know the mind of God/Allah enough to actually carry out "God's will"? If a person assumes that he knows the mind of God/Allah, isn't that blasphemy too?
It is ironic that many Muslims preface taking an action with "Insallah" ("God willing"). But if they don't know God's will, how can they act in God's name?
I think people who attack those who believe differently are themselves insecure in their faith. Their beliefs are threatened by those who believe differently. This holds for radical Muslims, the Puritans, Torquemada, or Elijah.
Fortunately for those of us who don't have the "True Belief", whichever one that is, most of the co-religionists of the "True Believers" are willing to get along with others who do not share their beliefs.
Government inefficient, business efficient? Hah!
The following is the second message that I've sent in the last two days to Wells Fargo; Wells Fargo manages shareholder reinvestment accounts for Allete.
I'm glad that I long ago paid off my truck loan with Northwestern Bank (now Wells Fargo). At least they couldn't repossess it from me for some obscure technicality; I sold it.
Once again you are emailing me that "A new Allete, Inc. tax form has been posted to your account", and once again that form is for the 2009 tax year, identical to the one I received a year ago, and at least twice this past few weeks.Isn't Wells Fargo one of the banks involved in improper foreclosures? A Google search for "wells fargo foreclosures" yields "Judge Rejects Wells Fargo Foreclosure Documents Again", Daily Finance, Abigail Field, 2010-12-10.
The 2010 Form 1099 should have a larger amount than the 2009 form because I have the dividends reinvested.
I think I'll post this business inefficiency to my blog: http://magree.blogspot.com
I'm glad that I long ago paid off my truck loan with Northwestern Bank (now Wells Fargo). At least they couldn't repossess it from me for some obscure technicality; I sold it.
Wednesday, January 05, 2011
Snow removal – something only higher taxes can buy
To avoid taxes on residents for clearing sidewalks, cities by law expect that residents clear the sidewalks in front of their houses. But to do so one must spend time and energy clearing the sidewalk or pay somebody else to clear the sidewalk; either one is a tax by inaction. If one has a friendly neighbor volunteer to clear a walk, that time and energy is a tax on that neighbor. Add to the time and energy the costs of snow shovels, ice chippers, snow blowers, and ice melt or sand. Oh yes, gas and oil for the snow blower. And in some cases heart attacks or muscle pain.
All of this is inefficient and more. Hired snow clearers do a couple of houses in one area and move on to another. Individual homeowners may or may not clear their walks at the same time or even on the same day. Depending on the size of the boulevard, the sidewalk snow may be thrown into the yard, to become melt water in warmer weather, run across the sidewalk, and then freeze in colder weather.
People who might normally walk now drive for their own safety and comfort. Parents who are concerned about their children's safety demand school buses, even for walks of less than a half-hour. School buses are operated with tax money.
This cycle can be repeated several times in any given snow season, the snow pile getting higher and the frozen melt getting thicker.
Wouldn't it be more efficient and cost effective if the city were to remove as much plowed or blown snow as possible after each storm? The state certainly does it on bridges and underpasses. What if as soon as possible after plowing, the city came back with large snowblowers and trucks and removed the snow on boulevards? What if next the city came back again and cleared and removed the snow from sidewalks? It may be a lot of money up front, but the overall savings to the community might be very large.
If all else fails, let's resort to the argument that snow removal creates jobs. Gosh, if there is tax money to induce a business to move to a city to "create jobs", can't there be tax money to "create jobs" to make a city more livable?
All of this is inefficient and more. Hired snow clearers do a couple of houses in one area and move on to another. Individual homeowners may or may not clear their walks at the same time or even on the same day. Depending on the size of the boulevard, the sidewalk snow may be thrown into the yard, to become melt water in warmer weather, run across the sidewalk, and then freeze in colder weather.
People who might normally walk now drive for their own safety and comfort. Parents who are concerned about their children's safety demand school buses, even for walks of less than a half-hour. School buses are operated with tax money.
This cycle can be repeated several times in any given snow season, the snow pile getting higher and the frozen melt getting thicker.
Wouldn't it be more efficient and cost effective if the city were to remove as much plowed or blown snow as possible after each storm? The state certainly does it on bridges and underpasses. What if as soon as possible after plowing, the city came back with large snowblowers and trucks and removed the snow on boulevards? What if next the city came back again and cleared and removed the snow from sidewalks? It may be a lot of money up front, but the overall savings to the community might be very large.
If all else fails, let's resort to the argument that snow removal creates jobs. Gosh, if there is tax money to induce a business to move to a city to "create jobs", can't there be tax money to "create jobs" to make a city more livable?
Tuesday, January 04, 2011
What nationality are you? An irrelevant question!
Asking "What nationality are you" seems to be an American social game. But is it really a relevant question? When people ask me this, I answer, "I'm American." How can I be anything else?
Three of my grandparents were born in the U.S. and one in a part of Germany now in Poland. I hardly knew my German-born grandmother when I was growing up. I certainly was not German when I went to Germany.
Four of my great-grandparents were born in Germany. See above. I never met any of them. Three of my great-grandparents were born in England. I only knew one of my great-grandmothers and about the only English custom observed when we visited her was drinking tea, with Carnation milk! I certainly was not English when I went to England.
One of my great-grandfathers, the one with the "Irish" name, was born in Williamsburgh, New York, now a neighborhood of Brooklyn. I never knew him, and I only drove through Brooklyn to get to JFK. I doubt anybody anywhere would consider me a Brooklynite.
I've known several people who've called themselves Swedish or Italian, but I bet I've spent more time in those countries and know more of both languages than many of these people's parents. Not all by any means, but enough to wonder why these people call themselves Swedish or Italian rather than Americans.
Ironically, Americans often consider Canadian, Australian, and New Zealander as nationalities. But these countries are populated with people from all over the world, just like the United States.
Even more ironically, many of the "nationalities" represent nation-states that are themselves made of people with ancestors outside the borders of the nation states. Consider the often beleaguered nation Poland. Most of the people there have German, Swedish, Finnish, Russian, Latvian, and other ancestors. The French skier, Jean-Claude Killey's grandfather was a Kelly. And what nationality is the president of France, Nicolas Sarkozy? According to American custom he is Hungarian-Greek-Jewish-Spanish-… Are there any French "birthers" demanding to see Sarkozy's birth certificate?
Three of my grandparents were born in the U.S. and one in a part of Germany now in Poland. I hardly knew my German-born grandmother when I was growing up. I certainly was not German when I went to Germany.
Four of my great-grandparents were born in Germany. See above. I never met any of them. Three of my great-grandparents were born in England. I only knew one of my great-grandmothers and about the only English custom observed when we visited her was drinking tea, with Carnation milk! I certainly was not English when I went to England.
One of my great-grandfathers, the one with the "Irish" name, was born in Williamsburgh, New York, now a neighborhood of Brooklyn. I never knew him, and I only drove through Brooklyn to get to JFK. I doubt anybody anywhere would consider me a Brooklynite.
I've known several people who've called themselves Swedish or Italian, but I bet I've spent more time in those countries and know more of both languages than many of these people's parents. Not all by any means, but enough to wonder why these people call themselves Swedish or Italian rather than Americans.
Ironically, Americans often consider Canadian, Australian, and New Zealander as nationalities. But these countries are populated with people from all over the world, just like the United States.
Even more ironically, many of the "nationalities" represent nation-states that are themselves made of people with ancestors outside the borders of the nation states. Consider the often beleaguered nation Poland. Most of the people there have German, Swedish, Finnish, Russian, Latvian, and other ancestors. The French skier, Jean-Claude Killey's grandfather was a Kelly. And what nationality is the president of France, Nicolas Sarkozy? According to American custom he is Hungarian-Greek-Jewish-Spanish-… Are there any French "birthers" demanding to see Sarkozy's birth certificate?
Friday, December 31, 2010
We need to do a makeover of Duluth
In 2007 I wrote an article for the Reader Weekly, "Economic development to beat all economic development" about tearing Duluth down and starting all over again.
As I've been clearing plowed snow off our sidewalk and getting ice out of the sump pump hose, I've been thinking about this again.
Snow plowed from the streets onto sidewalks is an old issue with me. Suffice it to say that streets widened to accommodate more traffic mean narrower boulevards (tree lawns to some) to store plowed snow.
Much of Duluth has an early 20th century sewer system. This means that storm water run-off often got into the sanitary sewers and filled the sanitation holding tanks past capacity.
First we had to have a sump pump installed and any basement drainage into the sanitary sewer blocked. This meant that water that had been put into the sewers was now dumped out on the lawn. Because Duluth is built on a hill, this meant the water would often run onto the sidewalk causing ice buildup in the winter.
Next we had to have our sanitary sewers from the house to the street replaced because ground water was seeping into them, contributing to the capacity problem. This also meant that the ground was even more saturated after rains or thaws, and that meant that even more water flowed onto the sidewalk.
Add to this overflow problem that the snow bank acts as a dam and that many sidewalk sections are tilted away from the street, the overflow stays on the sidewalk. This then means that homeowners need to spend hours each week to ensure that the sidewalks in front of their houses are accessible and safe.
Revisiting the ideas in "Economic Development", when we level Duluth to start again, we should include double sewer lines from houses, one for sanitary waste, one for ground water runoff. We should rebuild all streets with a minimum of four-foot wide boulevards. We should rebuild all sidewalks with a slight tilt toward the street, and we should place them higher than both the curb and the boulevard.
I'm sure you can add many more ideas about improving walkability in Duluth, but I'll limit this little essay to dealing with snow and ice.
As I've been clearing plowed snow off our sidewalk and getting ice out of the sump pump hose, I've been thinking about this again.
Snow plowed from the streets onto sidewalks is an old issue with me. Suffice it to say that streets widened to accommodate more traffic mean narrower boulevards (tree lawns to some) to store plowed snow.
Much of Duluth has an early 20th century sewer system. This means that storm water run-off often got into the sanitary sewers and filled the sanitation holding tanks past capacity.
First we had to have a sump pump installed and any basement drainage into the sanitary sewer blocked. This meant that water that had been put into the sewers was now dumped out on the lawn. Because Duluth is built on a hill, this meant the water would often run onto the sidewalk causing ice buildup in the winter.
Next we had to have our sanitary sewers from the house to the street replaced because ground water was seeping into them, contributing to the capacity problem. This also meant that the ground was even more saturated after rains or thaws, and that meant that even more water flowed onto the sidewalk.
Add to this overflow problem that the snow bank acts as a dam and that many sidewalk sections are tilted away from the street, the overflow stays on the sidewalk. This then means that homeowners need to spend hours each week to ensure that the sidewalks in front of their houses are accessible and safe.
Revisiting the ideas in "Economic Development", when we level Duluth to start again, we should include double sewer lines from houses, one for sanitary waste, one for ground water runoff. We should rebuild all streets with a minimum of four-foot wide boulevards. We should rebuild all sidewalks with a slight tilt toward the street, and we should place them higher than both the curb and the boulevard.
I'm sure you can add many more ideas about improving walkability in Duluth, but I'll limit this little essay to dealing with snow and ice.
Thursday, December 30, 2010
War of the words
In response to Germany's Transport Minister Peter Ramsauer suggesting that employees not use foreign words such as "der Laptop", U.S. Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood has suggested that employees respond to fellow workers sneezes with "Bless you" rather than "Gesundheit".
"Der laptop? Nein, nein", Deutsches Presse-Agentur as reported by the Star Tribune, 2010-12-30
Hm! Has somebody started a rumor? If I go to either www.dpa.com or www.dpa.de and search for "laptop", I get "Kein Suchergebnisse" - "no search 'whatever'". Besides, the Star Tribune is not using richtig Deutsche; it should be "Der Laptop?" Nouns are almost always capitalized in German.
Mein Deutschekunnigheit? Nicht so gut! Ich habe zu viel vergessen:(
"Der laptop? Nein, nein", Deutsches Presse-Agentur as reported by the Star Tribune, 2010-12-30
Hm! Has somebody started a rumor? If I go to either www.dpa.com or www.dpa.de and search for "laptop", I get "Kein Suchergebnisse" - "no search 'whatever'". Besides, the Star Tribune is not using richtig Deutsche; it should be "Der Laptop?" Nouns are almost always capitalized in German.
Mein Deutschekunnigheit? Nicht so gut! Ich habe zu viel vergessen:(
1968 Letter from Europe
My mother-in-law kept many of our letters from Europe in a scrapbook. After she died three years ago, my wife kept the scrapbooks. This week she has been rereading our old letters. She pointed out to me one I wrote from Basel 29/30 October 1968.
I was in Basel, Switzerland to prepare a demo for a potential Univac customer. Univac didn't have one of its own computers in Europe yet, and so we borrowed or bought time on customer computers. For this demo I was working with an 1108 at Sandoz in Basel. Sandoz is now called Novartis.
I don't remember much of the trip except I was introduced to raclettes, cheese melted on a board in front of a fire. The German I was working with took me to a restaurant near the bahnhof that specialized in raclettes. I've had and have made raclettes since then, but none have compared to those at that Swiss restaurant.
And I don't remember if we made the sale for which we did the demo.
Letter to my in-laws, Jean and Fred Smith, 29/30 October 1968
Dear Folks,
I am back in Basel on a four week assignment and back to learning German, but tomorrow or Thursday I go back to Rome for the rest of the year, I hope. Not quite, we hope to take a two week ski vacation at Christmas time, but in Switzerland. I tried calling three hotels in Davos yesterday, and found out you have to make your reservations in the spring or in January when you leave, so we will probably spend this year in Italy.
All this travel is not as exciting as it may seem. As I generally work nights and have to see people during the day it often becomes an eat-sleep-work cycle. Right now I am writing this while waiting to get on the machine [a Univac 1108 computer]. Hah, just as I finished the last sentence, the machine became free. Now I am baby-sitting the machine at the console.
The most interesting and frustrating experience of being in Europe is the language problem. My minimal French, German and Italian gets me throughout quite a variety of situations, but general conversation is a rare and difficult thing. The missing ingredients are vocabulary and listening ability. I really think that in the U. S. not enough emphasis is put on foreign language ability and they are are treated as an academic subject. Throughout most of the world to much importance is given to grammar and not enough to vocabulary. I always cringe when a grammar author boasts that he only introduces 20 words per lesson. I have found, especially in Italian, that one can use a grammarian's nightmare of a sentence but still convey the thought if one has sufficient words. Conversely with a bit of vocabulary and little grammar one can at least get the sense of newspaper stories. To me the best method would be to have classes using conversation and reading newspapers and magazines. Tests would be on the things read just as they might be in English lit or History. (Most Europeans who graduate from high school can speak 2 foreign languages, of course not all finish, but still.)
Sincerely,
Mel
I was in Basel, Switzerland to prepare a demo for a potential Univac customer. Univac didn't have one of its own computers in Europe yet, and so we borrowed or bought time on customer computers. For this demo I was working with an 1108 at Sandoz in Basel. Sandoz is now called Novartis.
I don't remember much of the trip except I was introduced to raclettes, cheese melted on a board in front of a fire. The German I was working with took me to a restaurant near the bahnhof that specialized in raclettes. I've had and have made raclettes since then, but none have compared to those at that Swiss restaurant.
And I don't remember if we made the sale for which we did the demo.
Letter to my in-laws, Jean and Fred Smith, 29/30 October 1968
Dear Folks,
I am back in Basel on a four week assignment and back to learning German, but tomorrow or Thursday I go back to Rome for the rest of the year, I hope. Not quite, we hope to take a two week ski vacation at Christmas time, but in Switzerland. I tried calling three hotels in Davos yesterday, and found out you have to make your reservations in the spring or in January when you leave, so we will probably spend this year in Italy.
All this travel is not as exciting as it may seem. As I generally work nights and have to see people during the day it often becomes an eat-sleep-work cycle. Right now I am writing this while waiting to get on the machine [a Univac 1108 computer]. Hah, just as I finished the last sentence, the machine became free. Now I am baby-sitting the machine at the console.
The most interesting and frustrating experience of being in Europe is the language problem. My minimal French, German and Italian gets me throughout quite a variety of situations, but general conversation is a rare and difficult thing. The missing ingredients are vocabulary and listening ability. I really think that in the U. S. not enough emphasis is put on foreign language ability and they are are treated as an academic subject. Throughout most of the world to much importance is given to grammar and not enough to vocabulary. I always cringe when a grammar author boasts that he only introduces 20 words per lesson. I have found, especially in Italian, that one can use a grammarian's nightmare of a sentence but still convey the thought if one has sufficient words. Conversely with a bit of vocabulary and little grammar one can at least get the sense of newspaper stories. To me the best method would be to have classes using conversation and reading newspapers and magazines. Tests would be on the things read just as they might be in English lit or History. (Most Europeans who graduate from high school can speak 2 foreign languages, of course not all finish, but still.)
Sincerely,
Mel
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
We don't have political parties, we have dreaming parties
We have one party that engages in wistful thinking and another that engages in wishful thinking. One dreams of a time that never was and the other of a time that never will be.
Too many commentators try to make a continuum from one to the other. What we really need are a political party or two that can define the real problems of here and now and come up with practical solutions for them. These would not be "moderate" parties, taking a little bit from one side and a little bit from the other. These would be parties that are interested in governance over grandstanding.
It's happened before in our country, but we are 150 years overdue for it happening again.
Too many commentators try to make a continuum from one to the other. What we really need are a political party or two that can define the real problems of here and now and come up with practical solutions for them. These would not be "moderate" parties, taking a little bit from one side and a little bit from the other. These would be parties that are interested in governance over grandstanding.
It's happened before in our country, but we are 150 years overdue for it happening again.
Government workers aren't productive?? Try this job!
I haven't taken time to read all the stories about the East Coast blizzard, but there seem to be a lot about the various governments not being prepared. Do these critics want to pay the taxes necessary to have enough equipment and personnel ready to clear the snow?
The people who clear the snow work harder and longer than most of us would tolerate. I know it's hard enough to drive a bus for eight hours on dry roads; try running a snow plow with obstacles everywhere you look.
In the case of New York City, they assigned park employees who normally took down trees to drive plows on city streets. See "Obstacles at Every Turn for Plow Crew", New York Times, 2010-12-29.
The people who clear the snow work harder and longer than most of us would tolerate. I know it's hard enough to drive a bus for eight hours on dry roads; try running a snow plow with obstacles everywhere you look.
In the case of New York City, they assigned park employees who normally took down trees to drive plows on city streets. See "Obstacles at Every Turn for Plow Crew", New York Times, 2010-12-29.
Sunday, December 26, 2010
Let's get our perspective right on healthy food
My daughter handed me a cellophane bag of chocolate balls as an early Christmas present. She said they were chocolate-covered cranberries and were half-healthy. I replied, "You mean cranberries aren't healthy?"
If you liked this anecdote, you might enjoy "Major Food Groups", a spoof piece my wife and I dreamed up ten years ago and was published by the Reader Weekly, then called the Northland Reader. It still is one of the more popular pages on my website.
If you liked this anecdote, you might enjoy "Major Food Groups", a spoof piece my wife and I dreamed up ten years ago and was published by the Reader Weekly, then called the Northland Reader. It still is one of the more popular pages on my website.
Thursday, December 23, 2010
"The People" decided what?
In a presidential election year, when a president is selected by the number of electoral votes, many of those who supported the successful candidate say, "The people decided…"
Wait a minute! Electoral votes do not always coincide with actual votes. A candidate may win based on electoral votes, but not have gained a majority, or even a plurality of the actual votes. The people who voted for the other candidate are not "people"?
In a presidential election year, the party of the winning presidential candidate generally gets majorities in both the House and the Senate. But the other party always gets a large number of votes. The people who voted for the other party are not "people"?
Then two years later, supporters of the party that was less successful start saying the President and members of Congress are not listening to "the people". But the President and Congress are listening to "the people" that elected them.
Unfortunately, too often more people didn't bother to vote than voted for either candidate in far too many races. Does this mean "the people" don't give a damn about either party?
It would be great if "people" would use more precise words in their discussions and writings, but it ain't going to happen. "People" want to use imprecise words so that they can prevent both their supporters and the opposition from thinking clearly.
Wait a minute! Electoral votes do not always coincide with actual votes. A candidate may win based on electoral votes, but not have gained a majority, or even a plurality of the actual votes. The people who voted for the other candidate are not "people"?
In a presidential election year, the party of the winning presidential candidate generally gets majorities in both the House and the Senate. But the other party always gets a large number of votes. The people who voted for the other party are not "people"?
Then two years later, supporters of the party that was less successful start saying the President and members of Congress are not listening to "the people". But the President and Congress are listening to "the people" that elected them.
Unfortunately, too often more people didn't bother to vote than voted for either candidate in far too many races. Does this mean "the people" don't give a damn about either party?
It would be great if "people" would use more precise words in their discussions and writings, but it ain't going to happen. "People" want to use imprecise words so that they can prevent both their supporters and the opposition from thinking clearly.
Tired of pouring gas on your shoes?
How often have you poured gas into your lawnmower or snowblower, looked down at your shoes or the tires, and seen gas dribbling on them? Gosh, darn, you tightened the spout on as much as you could.
Somehow, a couple of years ago, after decades of frustration, I came upon a little trick to get the spout on really tight. Most of the time, that is.
Place the spout 1/4 turn counterclockwise from where you want it, place the screw ring around the spout, hold the spout a bit up and in its turned position, and tighten the screw ring as best you can. Then without holding the spout, tighten the ring even more. The spout should turn close to the desired position.
Now, maybe, just maybe, the spout should be the gas can sufficiently tight so that no gas dribbles out.
Of course, all bets are off with these new "safety cans" with their little stops to prevent accidental opening. Of course, they also deter planned opening. How can something be safer if users become so frustrated using it that they become careless in some other aspect?
Somehow, a couple of years ago, after decades of frustration, I came upon a little trick to get the spout on really tight. Most of the time, that is.
Place the spout 1/4 turn counterclockwise from where you want it, place the screw ring around the spout, hold the spout a bit up and in its turned position, and tighten the screw ring as best you can. Then without holding the spout, tighten the ring even more. The spout should turn close to the desired position.
Now, maybe, just maybe, the spout should be the gas can sufficiently tight so that no gas dribbles out.
Of course, all bets are off with these new "safety cans" with their little stops to prevent accidental opening. Of course, they also deter planned opening. How can something be safer if users become so frustrated using it that they become careless in some other aspect?
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
City to be run like a business
Bowing to critics who say that government should be run like a business, Mayor Les S. Moore has announced several initiatives to follow certain business practices.
Following the lead of orange juice companies who reduced the size of their cartons from 64 ounces to 59 ounces, he has ordered all snow plow drivers to clear only 59/64th the width of city streets.
Noticing that facial tissue now comes in 132-count boxes instead of 200-count boxes, he has ordered the police department reduce its staff from 200 sworn officers to 132.
When Mayor Moore goes grocery shopping, he'll be looking for more examples to apply to city government.
When the city produced its new quarterly to keep citizens informed of the activities of the city government, he followed the lead of the newspapers and had no one proofread the articles. He was embarrassed to see that a library manager wrote that the library had materials for geneology.
To centralize citizen/customer communication with the city, he has ordered that the phone numbers and email addresses of department heads no longer be published. Instead, a single 800 number and a single email address, customersupport@city.gov, will be provided. These both will be handled by a limited staff in India.
Taking a cue from the telecommunications industry, he will offer more and more services electronically with greater and greater speeds. Each increase will be advertised as with no new taxes in the first six months.
He did balk at following one business example as he thought it would reduce his chances of re-election. He didn't think he would be very popular if he increased his salary as he cut the number of employees.
Following the lead of orange juice companies who reduced the size of their cartons from 64 ounces to 59 ounces, he has ordered all snow plow drivers to clear only 59/64th the width of city streets.
Noticing that facial tissue now comes in 132-count boxes instead of 200-count boxes, he has ordered the police department reduce its staff from 200 sworn officers to 132.
When Mayor Moore goes grocery shopping, he'll be looking for more examples to apply to city government.
When the city produced its new quarterly to keep citizens informed of the activities of the city government, he followed the lead of the newspapers and had no one proofread the articles. He was embarrassed to see that a library manager wrote that the library had materials for geneology.
To centralize citizen/customer communication with the city, he has ordered that the phone numbers and email addresses of department heads no longer be published. Instead, a single 800 number and a single email address, customersupport@city.gov, will be provided. These both will be handled by a limited staff in India.
Taking a cue from the telecommunications industry, he will offer more and more services electronically with greater and greater speeds. Each increase will be advertised as with no new taxes in the first six months.
He did balk at following one business example as he thought it would reduce his chances of re-election. He didn't think he would be very popular if he increased his salary as he cut the number of employees.
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
The high cost of no new taxes
In my part of Duluth we had about 12 inches of snow on the night of 2010-12-20. The city snow plow drivers did a great job of clearing the streets, but the result is heavy packed snow on our sidewalk, too much for this little 5hp 22in snowblower, and definitely too much for my back.
According to city ordinance, home owners are responsible for clearing their sidewalks within twenty-four hours of a snowfall. However, if the city plows push snow on to the sidewalk, the city is responsible for clearing the sidewalk.
Even if I made a Herculean effort to clear the sidewalk, it would be futile. When the plows come by again, there will more heavy snow on the sidewalk.
If last year's Christmas week storm is any guide, the city won't clear our sidewalk for at least a week. Meanwhile, pedestrians of all ages and abilities have to walk in the street; they are taxed for the city not raising taxes.
You really are good at foreign languages
How often have you heard people say, "I never was any good with foreign languages!" But any of us who read a lot or listen a lot, know lots of foreign words and phrases as part of our own language.
Consider the following:
Oui, non, savoir faire, coup d'état, menu, restaurant, merci beaucoup, la plume de ma tante, père, mère, soirée, bon jour, monsieur, madame, mademoiselle, garçon, parlez vous français
Si, gracias, señor, señora, señorita, taco, burrito, chili, sombrero, serape, fiesta, siesta, madre, padre, muchacho, muchacha, piñata, guerrilla, mesa
Ja, nein, Blitzkrieg, danke, sprechen sie Deutsch, guten morgen, auf Wiedersehen, angst
Da, nyet, troika, glasnost, perestroika, tsar, soviet, sputnik, vodka, tundra
Smörgåsbord, fjörd, tack, Viking, ski, lingon, orienteering, ombudsman, moped
Judo, karate, karaoke, sumo, sushi, tofu, miso, manga, sake, kimono, samurai, futon, tsunami
Si, no, italiano, spaghetti, opera, pasta, forte, piano, ciao, arrivederci, buon giorno, vino
I bet you know over 90% of these words and can identify each of the groups.
Interestingly, Apple's TextEdit only flagged five words as not in its dictionary; these were burrito, chili, serape, nyet, and fjörd. TextEdit was happy when I spelled fjörd as fjord. In fact, TextEdit insisted on changing it as I typed. Microsoft's Word is a bit fussier; it didn't recognize any of the words that contained diacritical marks, like in garçon, señor, and smörgåsbord.
See, you're also smarter than a computer. You could recognize all the words.
Next time somebody says they have never been good at whatever, reply that they just haven't spent enough time and interest learning that whatever.
Ciao, amici miei!
Consider the following:
Oui, non, savoir faire, coup d'état, menu, restaurant, merci beaucoup, la plume de ma tante, père, mère, soirée, bon jour, monsieur, madame, mademoiselle, garçon, parlez vous français
Si, gracias, señor, señora, señorita, taco, burrito, chili, sombrero, serape, fiesta, siesta, madre, padre, muchacho, muchacha, piñata, guerrilla, mesa
Ja, nein, Blitzkrieg, danke, sprechen sie Deutsch, guten morgen, auf Wiedersehen, angst
Da, nyet, troika, glasnost, perestroika, tsar, soviet, sputnik, vodka, tundra
Smörgåsbord, fjörd, tack, Viking, ski, lingon, orienteering, ombudsman, moped
Judo, karate, karaoke, sumo, sushi, tofu, miso, manga, sake, kimono, samurai, futon, tsunami
Si, no, italiano, spaghetti, opera, pasta, forte, piano, ciao, arrivederci, buon giorno, vino
I bet you know over 90% of these words and can identify each of the groups.
Interestingly, Apple's TextEdit only flagged five words as not in its dictionary; these were burrito, chili, serape, nyet, and fjörd. TextEdit was happy when I spelled fjörd as fjord. In fact, TextEdit insisted on changing it as I typed. Microsoft's Word is a bit fussier; it didn't recognize any of the words that contained diacritical marks, like in garçon, señor, and smörgåsbord.
See, you're also smarter than a computer. You could recognize all the words.
Next time somebody says they have never been good at whatever, reply that they just haven't spent enough time and interest learning that whatever.
Ciao, amici miei!
Sunday, December 19, 2010
Forget Ranked Choice Voting, Try Ranked Vote Reporting
Many people tout Ranked Choice Voting as a solution to the gridlock of the so-called two-party system. Others say it will be to confusing to voters. One thing I do know is that it requires charter and constitutional changes. Like many elections of candidates, charter changes will probably not be brought about by a majority of eligible voters.
We can put a better perspective on election results with a simple election administration change. Each precinct, county, and state should publish the totals of registered voters who did not vote and include it in a ranked report.
For example, assume a precinct with 1,000 registered voters of whom only 600 showed up. 290 voted for A, 250 voted for B, and 60 voted for C. A is declared the winner because A received the plurality of votes. And A's party will be dancing until midnight celebrating the victory.
But, let's consider the true count. 400 voters didn't care to show up at all. If the precinct had to include these un-cast votes in its report, we might see something like this:
400 (40%) no vote cast
290 (29%) Candidate A
250 (25%) Candidate B
60 ( 6%) Candidate C
Even if Candidate A had received 310 votes or a majority of the votes cast, the report would still show Candidate A coming in second to "no vote cast". Not exactly an overwhelming victory; Candidate A did not get a "mandate".
Actually, we don't even need an administrative change. If media started reporting results in this manner, it would have the same effect. Most large media organizations have access to this data.
If this idea really took hold, we might get one or more of the following. Candidates would work to increase turnout; candidates would work to widen their appeal; additional candidates may run because they would see the "popular" candidates as not so popular.
We can put a better perspective on election results with a simple election administration change. Each precinct, county, and state should publish the totals of registered voters who did not vote and include it in a ranked report.
For example, assume a precinct with 1,000 registered voters of whom only 600 showed up. 290 voted for A, 250 voted for B, and 60 voted for C. A is declared the winner because A received the plurality of votes. And A's party will be dancing until midnight celebrating the victory.
But, let's consider the true count. 400 voters didn't care to show up at all. If the precinct had to include these un-cast votes in its report, we might see something like this:
400 (40%) no vote cast
290 (29%) Candidate A
250 (25%) Candidate B
60 ( 6%) Candidate C
Even if Candidate A had received 310 votes or a majority of the votes cast, the report would still show Candidate A coming in second to "no vote cast". Not exactly an overwhelming victory; Candidate A did not get a "mandate".
Actually, we don't even need an administrative change. If media started reporting results in this manner, it would have the same effect. Most large media organizations have access to this data.
If this idea really took hold, we might get one or more of the following. Candidates would work to increase turnout; candidates would work to widen their appeal; additional candidates may run because they would see the "popular" candidates as not so popular.
Social Security checks didn't stay the same; they went down
This week we received our Social Security Benefit statements for 2011. As predicted the "monthly amount" stayed the same, but the deductions went up!
Medicare medical insurance went up $74 per month and the Medicare prescription drug plan went up $4.60. So, we'll each have $78.60 less every month to spend in the local economy.
We do have other sources of income, but we have saved those to use for big ticket items, like property tax. For us, this decrease is an inconvenience; for others it can be a major blow.
I sent the above to Sens. Amy Klobuchar and Al Franken and to Rep.-elect Chip Cravaack.
Medicare medical insurance went up $74 per month and the Medicare prescription drug plan went up $4.60. So, we'll each have $78.60 less every month to spend in the local economy.
We do have other sources of income, but we have saved those to use for big ticket items, like property tax. For us, this decrease is an inconvenience; for others it can be a major blow.
I sent the above to Sens. Amy Klobuchar and Al Franken and to Rep.-elect Chip Cravaack.
Thursday, December 16, 2010
Duluth Digs: Hope for shoveled walks??
Email to Don Ness, Mayor of Duluth, on Duluth Digs, an initiative to "encourage people to do a little more to keep sidewalks clear."
As you know from some of my Reader Weekly articles on walking in Duluth, I'm all for keeping sidewalks clear for pedestrians. I applaud you and Duluth Digs for attempting to make Duluth a more walkable city, but I'm pessimistic it's going to happen for two reasons.
First, wherever there is a narrow boulevard, which is anything less than four feet, snow plows are going to dump a huge amount of snow on the sidewalks. This snow is not the light, fluffy, new-fallen snow, but heavy wet gunk. It is not easy to lift. Because of this, many people don't even attempt to shovel their walks.
We were away during one of the big snows last winter. When we came back our sidewalk was covered with three feet of ice and snow. It was even hopeless to do with a snowblower. It was many days before a crew was able to get to our block to clear this.
Second, the mandated sump pumps are putting a lot of ice on the sidewalks. With the many rains, the ground was saturated and the pump water continued on to the sidewalks. When the temperature dropped, the standing water became ice. I did sand it, but given its unevenness, it was no fun to walk on.
I don't know how many hours spread over many days I've spent chipping at this ice, some of it two inches thick. Only today did I manage to have a strip less than two feet wide along our portion of the sidewalk.
I have just about given up walking in Duluth in the winter or after dark. In winter because the uneven surfaces lead to various muscle problems; after dark because of all the overhanging branches and protruding shrubbery.
I know in your heart you would like to follow in the footsteps of a former mayor of Eden Prairie. When asked why her city was successful in attracting businesses, she responded that they made Eden Prairie a nice place to live. Sadly, doing so today is considered a cost rather than an investment in a benefit.
References:
"Talking about walking about", http://www.cpinternet.com/~mdmagree/walking_2001-10-25.html
"In-Your-Face while Walking", http://www.cpinternet.com/~mdmagree/walking_2004-10-21.htm
"Save energy! Encourage Walking!" http://www.cpinternet.com/~mdmagree/walking_2007-12-06.html
"Save energy! Promote Walking!" http://www.cpinternet.com/~mdmagree/save_energy_2008-05-08.html
As you know from some of my Reader Weekly articles on walking in Duluth, I'm all for keeping sidewalks clear for pedestrians. I applaud you and Duluth Digs for attempting to make Duluth a more walkable city, but I'm pessimistic it's going to happen for two reasons.
First, wherever there is a narrow boulevard, which is anything less than four feet, snow plows are going to dump a huge amount of snow on the sidewalks. This snow is not the light, fluffy, new-fallen snow, but heavy wet gunk. It is not easy to lift. Because of this, many people don't even attempt to shovel their walks.
We were away during one of the big snows last winter. When we came back our sidewalk was covered with three feet of ice and snow. It was even hopeless to do with a snowblower. It was many days before a crew was able to get to our block to clear this.
Second, the mandated sump pumps are putting a lot of ice on the sidewalks. With the many rains, the ground was saturated and the pump water continued on to the sidewalks. When the temperature dropped, the standing water became ice. I did sand it, but given its unevenness, it was no fun to walk on.
I don't know how many hours spread over many days I've spent chipping at this ice, some of it two inches thick. Only today did I manage to have a strip less than two feet wide along our portion of the sidewalk.
I have just about given up walking in Duluth in the winter or after dark. In winter because the uneven surfaces lead to various muscle problems; after dark because of all the overhanging branches and protruding shrubbery.
I know in your heart you would like to follow in the footsteps of a former mayor of Eden Prairie. When asked why her city was successful in attracting businesses, she responded that they made Eden Prairie a nice place to live. Sadly, doing so today is considered a cost rather than an investment in a benefit.
References:
"Talking about walking about", http://www.cpinternet.com/~mdmagree/walking_2001-10-25.html
"In-Your-Face while Walking", http://www.cpinternet.com/~mdmagree/walking_2004-10-21.htm
"Save energy! Encourage Walking!" http://www.cpinternet.com/~mdmagree/walking_2007-12-06.html
"Save energy! Promote Walking!" http://www.cpinternet.com/~mdmagree/save_energy_2008-05-08.html
Friday, December 10, 2010
Who took votes from whom?
In 2000, many Democrats said that Ralph Nader took votes from Al Gore in Florida making it easier for George W. Bush to become president.
In 2010, Tony Sutton, chair of the Republican Party in Minnesota, said that Tom Horner, Independence Party candidate took votes from Tom Emmer, allowing Mark Dayton to become governor of Minnesota.
Maybe both complaints are misdirected.
In either case, have they considered that many of the people who voted for the "minor" candidate might not have even voted if they hadn't had a third choice?
In the 2010 Minnesota governor case, has anyone considered that Mark Dayton might have "taken votes" from Tom Horner? Maybe many voters would have voted for Tom Horner, but they didn't want to "throw their votes away" and allow Tom Emmer to become governor. So, maybe they voted for Mark Dayton because they thought he was a better choice than Tom Emmer.
Unless we interview in depth every single voter, we'll never really know their motivations. It really is presumptuous to assume to know the intent of unknown voters.
In 2010, Tony Sutton, chair of the Republican Party in Minnesota, said that Tom Horner, Independence Party candidate took votes from Tom Emmer, allowing Mark Dayton to become governor of Minnesota.
Maybe both complaints are misdirected.
In either case, have they considered that many of the people who voted for the "minor" candidate might not have even voted if they hadn't had a third choice?
In the 2010 Minnesota governor case, has anyone considered that Mark Dayton might have "taken votes" from Tom Horner? Maybe many voters would have voted for Tom Horner, but they didn't want to "throw their votes away" and allow Tom Emmer to become governor. So, maybe they voted for Mark Dayton because they thought he was a better choice than Tom Emmer.
Unless we interview in depth every single voter, we'll never really know their motivations. It really is presumptuous to assume to know the intent of unknown voters.
Tuesday, December 07, 2010
Would today's Republicans support Abraham Lincoln?
When I read Wired's "Republican Congressman Crowdsource Attack on Science", I thought of all the projects they oppose without even weighing costs and benefits. The crowdsourcing is an attempt to get the general public to expose "waste" in federal spending, starting with the National Science Foundation. They essentially take an apparently frivolous aspect of a project without looking any deeper into what benefits might be gained. They have started YouCut Citizen Review. Maybe the first cut in the federal budget should be to disband YouCut?
Would today's Republicans support Abraham Lincoln's push for a transcontinental railroad? Especially with the huge outlay of bonds to fund it? That would not lead to a balanced budget.
Would today's Republicans support Abraham Lincoln's handling of the Civil War? Although today's Republicans are big on spending on the military (without any meaningful analysis of the benefits), they are also big on states' rights, the major argument leading to the Civil War.
Would today's Republicans support Abraham Lincoln's push for a transcontinental railroad? Especially with the huge outlay of bonds to fund it? That would not lead to a balanced budget.
Would today's Republicans support Abraham Lincoln's handling of the Civil War? Although today's Republicans are big on spending on the military (without any meaningful analysis of the benefits), they are also big on states' rights, the major argument leading to the Civil War.
Those special places
Today Jim Heffernan republished "That Special Christmas Place" on his blog; it was originally published in 1983.
It made me think of some of the places where I lived that don't exist anymore. I personally saw that the house I lived in from 1947 to 1951 is no more as well as some of its neighbors. From Google Street view I saw that an apartment building I lived in from 1951 to 1953 is gone and that a drugstore that we lived over in the early 1940s is gone.
They weren't the best houses in the world, but they were home. I have no ownership of them and few would value them as a place the "famous" Mel Magree lived. However, that there is a vacant lot or a parking lot where I once lived does leave a vacant spot in my heart. I think this is so because I can't put my hands on any pictures I may have of these places and that my descendants can't go to the places as they are in my memory.
See also "Often you really can't go home".
It made me think of some of the places where I lived that don't exist anymore. I personally saw that the house I lived in from 1947 to 1951 is no more as well as some of its neighbors. From Google Street view I saw that an apartment building I lived in from 1951 to 1953 is gone and that a drugstore that we lived over in the early 1940s is gone.
They weren't the best houses in the world, but they were home. I have no ownership of them and few would value them as a place the "famous" Mel Magree lived. However, that there is a vacant lot or a parking lot where I once lived does leave a vacant spot in my heart. I think this is so because I can't put my hands on any pictures I may have of these places and that my descendants can't go to the places as they are in my memory.
See also "Often you really can't go home".
Wednesday, December 01, 2010
Don't worry, insurance will pay for it!
How often have you heard this remark? This leads many people to see a doctor for even small problems that may go away on their own. This also leads many providers to not be cost conscious of the work they do, at least not as cost conscious if the patient was paying out of pocket.
People rarely ask the follow-up question: who pays for insurance? The answer is that we all do, directly or indirectly. If we pay the premiums directly, it comes out of our pockets. If our employer pays the premiums, its money that could go into our pocket instead or its money that has to come from the price of the goods or services sold. If the government pays, it comes out of our taxes.
Since there are so many payers of health care, there are no real controls on the costs. So, no controls, no limit on costs. Up and up they go.
For some more thoughts on this, see "What Happened to U.S. Health Care Costs?" Megan McArdle, The Atlantic, 2010-12-01.
She has an interesting graph showing how U.S. health care costs diverged dramatically from the costs in other countries.
People rarely ask the follow-up question: who pays for insurance? The answer is that we all do, directly or indirectly. If we pay the premiums directly, it comes out of our pockets. If our employer pays the premiums, its money that could go into our pocket instead or its money that has to come from the price of the goods or services sold. If the government pays, it comes out of our taxes.
Since there are so many payers of health care, there are no real controls on the costs. So, no controls, no limit on costs. Up and up they go.
For some more thoughts on this, see "What Happened to U.S. Health Care Costs?" Megan McArdle, The Atlantic, 2010-12-01.
She has an interesting graph showing how U.S. health care costs diverged dramatically from the costs in other countries.
We're exceptional 'cause we say so
Thomas Friedman wrote a spoof cable from the Chinese Embassy back to Peking; it would be hilarious if it weren't so sadly true. You can find it at "From WikiChina", New York Times, 2010-12-01.
I've always found "exceptionalism" a bit arrogant. It's kind of grade-schoolish; "my whatever is better than your whatever!" Does it really matter? Can't our whatevers be our whatevers without having to be better than somebody else's?
See "I Live in the Best House in the World".
I've always found "exceptionalism" a bit arrogant. It's kind of grade-schoolish; "my whatever is better than your whatever!" Does it really matter? Can't our whatevers be our whatevers without having to be better than somebody else's?
See "I Live in the Best House in the World".
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
A response to one troll
While I was preparing tuna fish salad for dinner, a picture in Wikipedia of trolling for tuna came to mind. That lead to thinking of those who troll on the internet. That lead to a possible response to the person who left the trolling comment about all Democrat voters being in cemeteries: Do you have copies of their death certificates?
Why I don't open this blog for comments
I just read "Online, Anonymity Breeds Contempt", Julie Zhou, New York Times, 2010-11-30. From it I learned the term for people who leave comments like I mentioned in "A couple examples of how some 'discourse'"; these posters are called trolls. For more on internet trolls, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troll_%28Internet%29.
I've seen some of the off-the-wall comments on other blogs and I've received combative phone calls and letters from complete strangers. I decided that I'm not going to open the Irregular Blog to any of that.
Besides, I would have to read all the comments, respond when appropriate (including writing thanks), and delete comments that are inappropriate. That means I would write even fewer blog entries, which are getting too infrequent to attract many readers.
What do you think? If you know me, drop me a line or say something next time you see me.
I've seen some of the off-the-wall comments on other blogs and I've received combative phone calls and letters from complete strangers. I decided that I'm not going to open the Irregular Blog to any of that.
Besides, I would have to read all the comments, respond when appropriate (including writing thanks), and delete comments that are inappropriate. That means I would write even fewer blog entries, which are getting too infrequent to attract many readers.
What do you think? If you know me, drop me a line or say something next time you see me.
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
TSA is wrong target, but the only one we can reach
A major boycott may be forming against the full-body scanners of the Transportation Security Agency. See "Viral 'pornoscan' protest challenges TSA" and http://wewontfly.com/.
However, the TSA is only a product of decades of foreign policy failures. The United States has been meddling in other countries affairs at a level and a time span that we would not tolerate if other countries did the same to us. Our chickens have come home to roost.
Andrew Bacevich has been warning about our military/intelligence failures for some time, but despite the volume and popularity of his writing, he doesn't seem to be making much progress bringing about reform. See his "The Limits of Power, The End of American Exceptionalism" and "Washington Rules, America's Path to Permanent War", and many of his magazine articles.
Maybe a boycott of air travel could bring about a major change in foreign policy. It may seem like a win for the terrorists, but they keep winning in small ways all the time. The burden on passengers of airport security is a big win for terrorists; they have disrupted our economy and our sense of well-being. How long will we have to put up with terrorists before governments figure out how to permanently neutralize them without violence that creates more terrorists.
However, the TSA is only a product of decades of foreign policy failures. The United States has been meddling in other countries affairs at a level and a time span that we would not tolerate if other countries did the same to us. Our chickens have come home to roost.
Andrew Bacevich has been warning about our military/intelligence failures for some time, but despite the volume and popularity of his writing, he doesn't seem to be making much progress bringing about reform. See his "The Limits of Power, The End of American Exceptionalism" and "Washington Rules, America's Path to Permanent War", and many of his magazine articles.
Maybe a boycott of air travel could bring about a major change in foreign policy. It may seem like a win for the terrorists, but they keep winning in small ways all the time. The burden on passengers of airport security is a big win for terrorists; they have disrupted our economy and our sense of well-being. How long will we have to put up with terrorists before governments figure out how to permanently neutralize them without violence that creates more terrorists.
Monday, November 22, 2010
Another business not living within its means
A couple of weeks ago I bought some facial tissue on sale, thinking I was getting such a deal that I bought 2 three-packs.
Last week opened a box because an old box was almost empty. When I put the new box next to the old box, I discovered that the new box was about 2/3 the size of the old box. What's going on here?
Neither box contained a count, but the pack wrapper for the new boxes listed it as 132 tissues per box. 132? What kind of count is that? Oh, that's about 2/3 of the old count of 200.
So, Proctor & Gamble, the distributor of Puffs has effectively raised its price per tissue by over fifty percent.
I bet the board of P&G would be hollering bloody murder if government raised taxes by the same percentage.
See also http://magree.blogspot.com/2010/10/businesses-dont-live-within-their-means.html.
P.S. Our other favorite fresh-squeezed orange juice producer also went from 64 oz. containers to 59 oz. containers. Maybe we'll just buy fresh oranges and get more fiber.
Last week opened a box because an old box was almost empty. When I put the new box next to the old box, I discovered that the new box was about 2/3 the size of the old box. What's going on here?
Neither box contained a count, but the pack wrapper for the new boxes listed it as 132 tissues per box. 132? What kind of count is that? Oh, that's about 2/3 of the old count of 200.
So, Proctor & Gamble, the distributor of Puffs has effectively raised its price per tissue by over fifty percent.
I bet the board of P&G would be hollering bloody murder if government raised taxes by the same percentage.
See also http://magree.blogspot.com/2010/10/businesses-dont-live-within-their-means.html.
P.S. Our other favorite fresh-squeezed orange juice producer also went from 64 oz. containers to 59 oz. containers. Maybe we'll just buy fresh oranges and get more fiber.
Friday, November 19, 2010
Reprevaricators?
Jim Hightower recently asked his readers to give a different name to the Republican Party. My favorite was Republicants.
This evening I'm at my daughter's watching more TV in an evening than I watch in a couple of months. She and her husband like watching all the Friday night public TV news programs. One segment included the Minnesota Republican gubernatorial candidate, Tom Emmer, claiming that the Democratic Secretary of State, Mark Ritchie, said that there were 20,000 more ballots cast than there were voters. I'm not sure of the exact figure, but it was large.
OK, don't take anybody's, and I really mean anybody's, assertion as fact. I looked for "mark ritchie" and "more ballots than voters". I couldn't find any source other than Republican or "conservative" sites asserting this. This doesn't mean that Ritchie didn't say it, but it certainly does make one wonder if he did say it.
Unfortunately, this seems to be a conservative strategy to make assertions without proof, repeat them often enough, and hope few challenge the assertions. If anyone does, disparage their credentials or just ignore them. We see this with climate change, we see it with the military, we see it with taxes, we see it with …
I am really saddened by these tactics. First, it is no way to run a democracy or a republic. Second, I used to be a Republican Party active member. When Ronald Reagan was nominated for president, I saw that it was no longer my Republican Party. About the only thing I did after that is support Arne Carlson for governor when the nominated Republican candidate self-destructed in the light of sexual improprieties involving teen-agers.
See also:
Government of whom, for whom, and by whom?
Republicans do not have "people's" support or a "mandate"
A couple examples of how some "discourse"
This evening I'm at my daughter's watching more TV in an evening than I watch in a couple of months. She and her husband like watching all the Friday night public TV news programs. One segment included the Minnesota Republican gubernatorial candidate, Tom Emmer, claiming that the Democratic Secretary of State, Mark Ritchie, said that there were 20,000 more ballots cast than there were voters. I'm not sure of the exact figure, but it was large.
OK, don't take anybody's, and I really mean anybody's, assertion as fact. I looked for "mark ritchie" and "more ballots than voters". I couldn't find any source other than Republican or "conservative" sites asserting this. This doesn't mean that Ritchie didn't say it, but it certainly does make one wonder if he did say it.
Unfortunately, this seems to be a conservative strategy to make assertions without proof, repeat them often enough, and hope few challenge the assertions. If anyone does, disparage their credentials or just ignore them. We see this with climate change, we see it with the military, we see it with taxes, we see it with …
I am really saddened by these tactics. First, it is no way to run a democracy or a republic. Second, I used to be a Republican Party active member. When Ronald Reagan was nominated for president, I saw that it was no longer my Republican Party. About the only thing I did after that is support Arne Carlson for governor when the nominated Republican candidate self-destructed in the light of sexual improprieties involving teen-agers.
See also:
Government of whom, for whom, and by whom?
Republicans do not have "people's" support or a "mandate"
A couple examples of how some "discourse"
A couple examples of how some "discourse"
I posted a comment to "American Angst", Jeremy Siegel, Yahoo Finance, 2010-11-17, http://finance.yahoo.com/banking-budgeting/article/111333/american-angst, very similar to the webmail I sent to Gail Collins about projecting how some people voted to being what all people wanted, http://magree.blogspot.com/2010/11/republicans-do-not-have-peoples-support.html.
As of yesterday I had two replies. I'll let you judge how germane they are to the issue of voting. I chose not to honor them with a reply.
On vote count for Democratic Senators
Yes, but many of these folks were in cemeteries, so they had little choice.
-----
It was not clear to only those with tin ears.
The message to all parties in the recent election was that YOU WORK FOR US. Start doing what you are suppose do or we will come after you.....elephant, donkey, green or whatever.
-----
What neither poster seems to understand is there are a lot of people with differing views, many not in agreement with theirs. The first demonizes these "others". The second assumes that all the voters have an agenda that is different than that of the politicians. What the second poster doesn't understand is that some people were willing to keep an incumbent in office and some people wanted the incumbent to be replaced. This is true of either party. Some incumbents of both parties were returned to office; some incumbents of both parties were not returned to office. And far too many people didn't even care to cast a vote for or against an incumbent.
As of yesterday I had two replies. I'll let you judge how germane they are to the issue of voting. I chose not to honor them with a reply.
On vote count for Democratic Senators
Yes, but many of these folks were in cemeteries, so they had little choice.
-----
It was not clear to only those with tin ears.
The message to all parties in the recent election was that YOU WORK FOR US. Start doing what you are suppose do or we will come after you.....elephant, donkey, green or whatever.
-----
What neither poster seems to understand is there are a lot of people with differing views, many not in agreement with theirs. The first demonizes these "others". The second assumes that all the voters have an agenda that is different than that of the politicians. What the second poster doesn't understand is that some people were willing to keep an incumbent in office and some people wanted the incumbent to be replaced. This is true of either party. Some incumbents of both parties were returned to office; some incumbents of both parties were not returned to office. And far too many people didn't even care to cast a vote for or against an incumbent.
Thursday, November 18, 2010
Fair share or share fairly
Many say "the rich" should pay their "fair share" of taxes, but what really is a "fair share"? I think often the argument is that since the rich have more money, they can afford to pay more taxes, and that they should pay at a higher marginal rate without a lot of gimmicks that allow some to pay even less taxes than some earning less.
I think that this is the wrong approach. What one should add up the "benefits" that the rich get for their taxes.
How often do we consider that those involved in commerce benefit from a good transportation network? Every part of the network is paid for in full or part by taxes. Almost all roads are paid for by taxes, local property taxes, state and federal taxes, and probably some by income taxes. Airports are built and operated partly from landing fees and partly from taxes from all levels.
How often do we consider that those in business depend on a trained work force? Without taxes we would have far fewer schools and a far smaller trained work force. Kids could only go to school if their parents could afford it. We have examples of this imbalance all over the world and even in our own country's past.
How often do we consider that business depends on a court system to settle disputes? Some say we need "tort reform", meaning reduce the ability of individuals to sue corporations. But does anybody consider how much corporations sue each other, sometimes resulting in settlements in billions of dollars.
How often do we consider that business depends on public safety, sanitary systems, and many other aspects of tax-supported infrastructure? Would every business want its own fire department and security department. If they are going to have their own security department, are they going to have their own courts and detention centers to do something with those who harm people or things on company property?
If businesses need all these government services, shouldn't they pay the taxes for them, either directly or through the income of those profiting from the business?
Many argue that "taxing the rich" limits their ability to invest and create jobs. But how many of them are putting money into new ventures or expansion? Or are many of them just moving money around? The answer is both but I would say more of the latter than the former.
For those of you who have what you consider a good amount of savings, how much of it have you put into helping somebody start or expand a business? More than likely you have put it into mutual funds, stocks, and bonds. What happens when you invest. Directly or indirectly you buy stocks and bonds from somebody who already owns them. Does that money go into creating jobs? Probably not, except for the transaction fees pay the salaries and bonuses of those working for mutual funds or brokerages.
The only real benefit of your buying stock and bonds is providing liquidity to the market. This is necessary but it really doesn't really do that much for creating businesses and jobs. Liquidity has many advantages but let us look at only one. You put $1,000 into some investment. It may go up or down, but let's assume not by much in either direction. Now something happens to your car or house that you need about $1,000 to pay for. Assuming you have no other savings, you want to quickly get your $1,000 back. If there was no liquidity, you would have as much chance of getting your $1,000 back as you would have of quickly selling a film camera on eBay.
I could go on with many more "yes, but" considerations about taxing and investment. I do hope that this little bit of text does help you consider almost all the arguments in print and on the blogs are over-simplifications of something that needs more than just taking a position. And taking a position may be a way to invest, but it is not the way to run a country.
I think that this is the wrong approach. What one should add up the "benefits" that the rich get for their taxes.
How often do we consider that those involved in commerce benefit from a good transportation network? Every part of the network is paid for in full or part by taxes. Almost all roads are paid for by taxes, local property taxes, state and federal taxes, and probably some by income taxes. Airports are built and operated partly from landing fees and partly from taxes from all levels.
How often do we consider that those in business depend on a trained work force? Without taxes we would have far fewer schools and a far smaller trained work force. Kids could only go to school if their parents could afford it. We have examples of this imbalance all over the world and even in our own country's past.
How often do we consider that business depends on a court system to settle disputes? Some say we need "tort reform", meaning reduce the ability of individuals to sue corporations. But does anybody consider how much corporations sue each other, sometimes resulting in settlements in billions of dollars.
How often do we consider that business depends on public safety, sanitary systems, and many other aspects of tax-supported infrastructure? Would every business want its own fire department and security department. If they are going to have their own security department, are they going to have their own courts and detention centers to do something with those who harm people or things on company property?
If businesses need all these government services, shouldn't they pay the taxes for them, either directly or through the income of those profiting from the business?
Many argue that "taxing the rich" limits their ability to invest and create jobs. But how many of them are putting money into new ventures or expansion? Or are many of them just moving money around? The answer is both but I would say more of the latter than the former.
For those of you who have what you consider a good amount of savings, how much of it have you put into helping somebody start or expand a business? More than likely you have put it into mutual funds, stocks, and bonds. What happens when you invest. Directly or indirectly you buy stocks and bonds from somebody who already owns them. Does that money go into creating jobs? Probably not, except for the transaction fees pay the salaries and bonuses of those working for mutual funds or brokerages.
The only real benefit of your buying stock and bonds is providing liquidity to the market. This is necessary but it really doesn't really do that much for creating businesses and jobs. Liquidity has many advantages but let us look at only one. You put $1,000 into some investment. It may go up or down, but let's assume not by much in either direction. Now something happens to your car or house that you need about $1,000 to pay for. Assuming you have no other savings, you want to quickly get your $1,000 back. If there was no liquidity, you would have as much chance of getting your $1,000 back as you would have of quickly selling a film camera on eBay.
I could go on with many more "yes, but" considerations about taxing and investment. I do hope that this little bit of text does help you consider almost all the arguments in print and on the blogs are over-simplifications of something that needs more than just taking a position. And taking a position may be a way to invest, but it is not the way to run a country.
Monday, November 15, 2010
Republicans do not have "people's" support or a "mandate"
Gail Collins wrote "Believing in Barack", for the 2010-11-12 New York Times. She laments that Obama has not come through on many tasks. In it she makes the statement, "The people of America made it clear in the election that they want something done about the deficit." I sent her the following email:
Thanks for an interesting column on your ambivalence about Barack Obama. Much of what you wrote has some basis in what's happened.
However, you fell into the "media-bias" trap of over-generalization with "The people of America made it clear in the election that they want something done about the deficit."
The people of America made nothing clear. 34 million voted for Republican Senate candidates, 31 million voted for Democratic Senate candidates, and far too many stayed home. If we project an estimated turnout of 40.3% to a count of total eligible voters (165 million), we then have the Republicans coming in a distant second to "None of the above", cast de facto by 96 million eligible voters. Unfortunately, too few people actually show up to cast blank ballots, and so they are not counted.
BTW, the Republicans 34 million votes were not even a majority of the votes cast for Senate.
I do wish those who have a bigger platform than my little blog would point out more often just how many eligible voters don't show up and just how hollow claims of electoral victories are.
References:
United States Election Project, George Mason University, http://elections.gmu.edu/Turnout_2010G.html
United States Senate Elections, 2010, Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Senate_elections,_2010
End of email to Gail Collins
Thanks for an interesting column on your ambivalence about Barack Obama. Much of what you wrote has some basis in what's happened.
However, you fell into the "media-bias" trap of over-generalization with "The people of America made it clear in the election that they want something done about the deficit."
The people of America made nothing clear. 34 million voted for Republican Senate candidates, 31 million voted for Democratic Senate candidates, and far too many stayed home. If we project an estimated turnout of 40.3% to a count of total eligible voters (165 million), we then have the Republicans coming in a distant second to "None of the above", cast de facto by 96 million eligible voters. Unfortunately, too few people actually show up to cast blank ballots, and so they are not counted.
BTW, the Republicans 34 million votes were not even a majority of the votes cast for Senate.
I do wish those who have a bigger platform than my little blog would point out more often just how many eligible voters don't show up and just how hollow claims of electoral victories are.
References:
United States Election Project, George Mason University, http://elections.gmu.edu/Turnout_2010G.html
United States Senate Elections, 2010, Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Senate_elections,_2010
End of email to Gail Collins
Monday, November 08, 2010
Government of whom, for whom, and by whom?
In the car I generally listen to classical music or podcasts; my wife listens to public radio news. I had taken my car in for service and she was driving me to pick it up. On our way, "Talk of the Nation" was on, and Neal Conan was interviewing Chris Hedges, author of "Death of the Liberal Class".
You can find an excerpt of the book and a link to the audio at
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=131166027&ps=cprs
Hedges basically says that the Liberal elite has been bought out or co-opted by corporate interests and are no longer really concerning themselves with the plight of ordinary people.
As I listened to and read some of the political advertising and sloganeering in the latest election farce, I wondered can these ideas be coming from average citizens or is some small group orchestrating these ideas.
Republicans said that Rep. Jim Oberstar was out of touch with the people. But which people - the people that voted against him, the people that voted for him, or the people who didn't even bother to vote?
Republicans said they wanted to limit the government that was encroaching on our freedoms. Which freedoms? The freedom to breathe clean air and drink clean water? Or the freedom of large corporations to pollute as they please. The freedom to have a safe workplace? Or the freedom of large corporations to cut corners on safety at the cost of workers lives? The freedom to have safe food and medicines? Or the freedom of large corporations to use carcinogenic pesticides in factory farms and to limit the testing of medicines? The freedom to obtain health care at a reasonable cost? Or the freedom of large corporations to make large profits on health care insurance? The freedom to have financial institutions safeguard our investments? Or the freedom of large banks to make unregulated, risky investments and pay themselves huge amounts of our money?
An effective government provides these freedoms to people. A bought government provides the opposing freedoms to large corporations.
It seems to me that certain corporate interests are doing their best to create a mythology of an intrusive government, both by the propaganda they put out and by the politicians they buy.
If you want a good example of how certain corporate interests are subverting rational public discussion, see "Global Warming: Man or Myth - Global Warming Denial Machine", by Prof. Scott Mandia of Suffolk County Community College. I was lead to this article by "Scientists Join Forces in Hostile Climate", Andrew Revkin, New York Times, 2010-11-07.
Did the Republican Party die with Abraham Lincoln? Many commentators think that his "government of the people, by the people, for the people" has already perished from the earth.
You can find an excerpt of the book and a link to the audio at
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=131166027&ps=cprs
Hedges basically says that the Liberal elite has been bought out or co-opted by corporate interests and are no longer really concerning themselves with the plight of ordinary people.
As I listened to and read some of the political advertising and sloganeering in the latest election farce, I wondered can these ideas be coming from average citizens or is some small group orchestrating these ideas.
Republicans said that Rep. Jim Oberstar was out of touch with the people. But which people - the people that voted against him, the people that voted for him, or the people who didn't even bother to vote?
Republicans said they wanted to limit the government that was encroaching on our freedoms. Which freedoms? The freedom to breathe clean air and drink clean water? Or the freedom of large corporations to pollute as they please. The freedom to have a safe workplace? Or the freedom of large corporations to cut corners on safety at the cost of workers lives? The freedom to have safe food and medicines? Or the freedom of large corporations to use carcinogenic pesticides in factory farms and to limit the testing of medicines? The freedom to obtain health care at a reasonable cost? Or the freedom of large corporations to make large profits on health care insurance? The freedom to have financial institutions safeguard our investments? Or the freedom of large banks to make unregulated, risky investments and pay themselves huge amounts of our money?
An effective government provides these freedoms to people. A bought government provides the opposing freedoms to large corporations.
It seems to me that certain corporate interests are doing their best to create a mythology of an intrusive government, both by the propaganda they put out and by the politicians they buy.
If you want a good example of how certain corporate interests are subverting rational public discussion, see "Global Warming: Man or Myth - Global Warming Denial Machine", by Prof. Scott Mandia of Suffolk County Community College. I was lead to this article by "Scientists Join Forces in Hostile Climate", Andrew Revkin, New York Times, 2010-11-07.
Did the Republican Party die with Abraham Lincoln? Many commentators think that his "government of the people, by the people, for the people" has already perished from the earth.
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Weak economy with record profits?
I've long thought that blaming government policies for the "weak economy" has been so much hooey and that blaming the Democrats alone for all the "bad" government polices has been even more hooey.
Morgan Heusel looks at all the factors in "Why Corporate America Isn't Hiring". He has a long list of factors including that many companies have learned they are getting just as much work from fewer employees and that older employees are staying longer.
I also note that the Star Tribune has been reporting many Minnesota MANUFACTURING companies have seen increased business, especially exports, and profits. And so many letter writers complain, "We don't make anything in America anymore." Hooey!
Heusel concludes with "we have a jobs crisis not because of a lack of demand, but because we're suffering from a mental recession of fear and uncertainty."
Have political parties become irrelevant?
That is a question the Independence Party of Minnesota is asking.
I'm on the Independence Party's mailing list because I contributed to a couple of gubernatorial candidates from the Independence Party in the past. Being a "Party of One", I don't contribute to parties but I do to candidates who I believe in.
Anyhow, the rest of this entry is an edited (reduced and for typos:>) version of an interesting email I received today. Take whatever action you feel appropriate. But whatever you do, be sure to show up and vote on Tuesday, whether it is for certain candidates, against certain candidates, or for none of the above. Remember, an uncast ballot is not counted, but a blank ballot is counted.
"How political parties don't matter
"Today we have witnessed a remarkably bad transformation in Minnesota's political landscape, something that has never happened before in over 160 years of state history.
I'm on the Independence Party's mailing list because I contributed to a couple of gubernatorial candidates from the Independence Party in the past. Being a "Party of One", I don't contribute to parties but I do to candidates who I believe in.
Anyhow, the rest of this entry is an edited (reduced and for typos:>) version of an interesting email I received today. Take whatever action you feel appropriate. But whatever you do, be sure to show up and vote on Tuesday, whether it is for certain candidates, against certain candidates, or for none of the above. Remember, an uncast ballot is not counted, but a blank ballot is counted.
"How political parties don't matter
"Today we have witnessed a remarkably bad transformation in Minnesota's political landscape, something that has never happened before in over 160 years of state history.
"Outside political interest groups, we will call them "quasi-parties", are now overcoming the DFL and Republican parties as the dominant powers on the left and the right. Campaign finance reports filed just yesterday, show that ALLIANCE FOR A BETTER MINNESOTA, an organization on the left which aggressively attacks Republicans, has expenditures of around $5 million this year. MINNESOTA FORWARD and MINNESOTA FUTURE, two right-wing organizations which aggressively attack Democrats, have combined expenditures of around $3 million. They are overtaking the parties which use to be the leaders on the left and right.
"What does this mean?
"It means that these groups are now the functional heads of the liberal and conservative politics in the State of Minnesota. They are now passing the parties they support, they use the ugliest attack ad politics possible, and they are not accountable to the public in any meaningful caucus or primary. If you need a Halloween tale, that is it.
"What can you do?
"Please talk to your friends from the left and right and help them understand that politics should not be about hatred and mudslinging, and then ask them to do the one thing that will prove to them what is going on. Ask them to demand that candidates from Mark Dayton and Tom Emmer on down, thoroughly reject and rebuke the actions of these groups and tell Minnesotans that this is no way to express their politics in Minnesota...and they had better be sincere (one candidate tried it earlier in the year despite knowing that family members were donating to a group).
"If your friends don't get a straight answer, ask them to consider if they are really voting for someone or against! Then tell them to vote for candidates with real ideas and solutions."
BTW, a Google search of "are blank ballots counted", without the quotes, yields over 55,000 hits.
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Elections are good for the economy, let's have more
Daniel Gross wrote that elections pump a lot of money into the economy, almost all of it spent domestically. According to Open Secrets http://www.opensecrets.org, over $3.6 billion dollars has been spent on the 2010 campaigns as of 15:40 CDT, 26 October. Watching their meter, I'd guess $1,000 is being spent every 13 seconds.
See Quantitative Electioneering, Yahoo!Finance, 2010-10-26.
We're getting the best candidates money can buy!
See Quantitative Electioneering, Yahoo!Finance, 2010-10-26.
We're getting the best candidates money can buy!
Thursday, October 21, 2010
Is the People's Republic of America coming?
For over sixty years when Communists or other dictatorial groups took over a country, they tried to give a veneer that their government was a popular government: for example the People's Republic of China. But it was not a republic and it relied more on dogma than any definable public will.
Now we hear charges in the U.S. that elected politicians are not listening to the people or that the people are angry or the people are…
But who are "the people"? It depends on who you talk to. "The people" are whoever agrees with the speaker, it doesn't matter what portion of the population actually agrees with the speaker. We have the Tea Party speaking for "the People", we have the Democrats speaking for "the People", and we have the Party of One speaking for "the People".
Lost is the "We the people" of the preamble to the Constitution:
"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish
Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity…"
That is, "the People" work together to achieve these things, not form factions that consider all the other factions wrong.
Oh, well! Before a decade had passed, U.S. politics was descending into charge and counter-charge, extravagant insults were begin hurled about, and much other uncivil discourse had become part of the national landscape.
The more things change, the more they remain the same.
Now we hear charges in the U.S. that elected politicians are not listening to the people or that the people are angry or the people are…
But who are "the people"? It depends on who you talk to. "The people" are whoever agrees with the speaker, it doesn't matter what portion of the population actually agrees with the speaker. We have the Tea Party speaking for "the People", we have the Democrats speaking for "the People", and we have the Party of One speaking for "the People".
Lost is the "We the people" of the preamble to the Constitution:
"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish
Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity…"
That is, "the People" work together to achieve these things, not form factions that consider all the other factions wrong.
Oh, well! Before a decade had passed, U.S. politics was descending into charge and counter-charge, extravagant insults were begin hurled about, and much other uncivil discourse had become part of the national landscape.
The more things change, the more they remain the same.
Debates are no way to select candidates
It is almost mandatory for candidates for public office to debate their opponents in some public forum, whether on a TV or radio program or live in some public meeting space.
But do these debate really prove anything? The candidates appear without notes or aides and answer impromptu questions from a moderator or members of the audience. They are judged on how well they respond and on their grasp of the issue of the question. But if elected, do they govern that way?
No! Sure, there are debates in legislative sessions, but those often do not sway anybody but the folks back home. The legislators have generally worked out what is in a bill and are merely expressing their support or opposition to it.
The real work is done in offices with plenty of aides and other research sources. The legislators draft a bill and pass it around to colleagues who have an interest in it. A legislator may have a bias one way or another about the issue, but he or she has to construct it in a way to maximize support for it. This cannot be done in the two-to-five minutes allowed in a debate.
Debates also give an advantage to the glib who can come up with a plausible answer within a few seconds. They put at a disadvantage to the thoughtful who try to consider many aspects of a problem. We need fewer politicians like the former and more like the latter.
A much better way would be to have a public discussion on an issue, each candidate having access to research assistants to provide additional information.
Thoughtful consideration was essentially the idea of the original Roman Senate and of the original federal legislature of the United States as expressed in the Constitution.
Unfortunately, the government of both Rome and the United States degenerated into bread and circuses. In the case of the latter, it is entitlements, earmarks, pork as bread and flashy ads and phony debates as the circuses.
But do these debate really prove anything? The candidates appear without notes or aides and answer impromptu questions from a moderator or members of the audience. They are judged on how well they respond and on their grasp of the issue of the question. But if elected, do they govern that way?
No! Sure, there are debates in legislative sessions, but those often do not sway anybody but the folks back home. The legislators have generally worked out what is in a bill and are merely expressing their support or opposition to it.
The real work is done in offices with plenty of aides and other research sources. The legislators draft a bill and pass it around to colleagues who have an interest in it. A legislator may have a bias one way or another about the issue, but he or she has to construct it in a way to maximize support for it. This cannot be done in the two-to-five minutes allowed in a debate.
Debates also give an advantage to the glib who can come up with a plausible answer within a few seconds. They put at a disadvantage to the thoughtful who try to consider many aspects of a problem. We need fewer politicians like the former and more like the latter.
A much better way would be to have a public discussion on an issue, each candidate having access to research assistants to provide additional information.
Thoughtful consideration was essentially the idea of the original Roman Senate and of the original federal legislature of the United States as expressed in the Constitution.
Unfortunately, the government of both Rome and the United States degenerated into bread and circuses. In the case of the latter, it is entitlements, earmarks, pork as bread and flashy ads and phony debates as the circuses.
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
Who delivers "snail mail"? You'd be surprised!
I hate the term "snail mail" because it is unfair to the post office. It assumes using the internet is instantaneous.
The internet is not instantaneous. First, it assumes the recipient is ready to read email at any time of day. Some people only check their email once a week. Second, it assumes the recipient will respond immediately. Some people never respond; lots of companies take two to three days to respond. Third, it assumes that any message sent is instantly available to the recipient. Many factors can lead to delay of email.
Any of the servers involved in routing a message from sender to receiver can be overloaded and thus delay the message by minutes or hours. A message may be sent by a third party who may take a few days to send it but with the time stamp of the original message.
This just happened to me. I received a message from a vendor dated 16 Oct 2010 04:27:31. However, it was sent by the third party at 20 Oct 2010 07:12:36. The times are PDT. The USPS generally does a better job; a first class letter put in a box before the last pickup on Saturday may be delivered Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday, depending on the distance.
Worse, the address of the bulk mailer makes the email look like spam. However, the mailer has a legitimate URL; its home page lists "Enterprise Email Marketing" as one of its services. I guess I won't be sending this email to the Anti-Phishing Working Group.
The internet is not instantaneous. First, it assumes the recipient is ready to read email at any time of day. Some people only check their email once a week. Second, it assumes the recipient will respond immediately. Some people never respond; lots of companies take two to three days to respond. Third, it assumes that any message sent is instantly available to the recipient. Many factors can lead to delay of email.
Any of the servers involved in routing a message from sender to receiver can be overloaded and thus delay the message by minutes or hours. A message may be sent by a third party who may take a few days to send it but with the time stamp of the original message.
This just happened to me. I received a message from a vendor dated 16 Oct 2010 04:27:31. However, it was sent by the third party at 20 Oct 2010 07:12:36. The times are PDT. The USPS generally does a better job; a first class letter put in a box before the last pickup on Saturday may be delivered Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday, depending on the distance.
Worse, the address of the bulk mailer makes the email look like spam. However, the mailer has a legitimate URL; its home page lists "Enterprise Email Marketing" as one of its services. I guess I won't be sending this email to the Anti-Phishing Working Group.
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Whatever you think of the candidates, do not stay home on election day!
I posted the following, including the above title, on a U.S. News and World Report article republished by Yahoo!Finance, "How Republicans, Too, Can Botch the Economy", Rick Newman, 2010-10-19, http://finance.yahoo.com/news/How-Republicans-Too-Can-Botch-usnews-4118282348.html. I don't know if it will be published.
If you are certain of your choices on November 2, be sure to go to the polls and vote for your choices, even if your choices are down in the polls. The polls don't vote; you do. Remember the Dewey "won" in 1948 while Truman slept. The polls didn't consider that many Truman supporters didn't have telephones. What false assumptions are the polls making now?
If you are uncertain of your choices on November 2, be sure to go to the polls and turn in a vote.
Here are some guidelines for the uncertain.
What kind of message are the candidates giving? If they are more negative about their opponents than positive about themselves, vote for the opponent.
Who is financing the candidates? If large sums are coming from out-of-state to candidates, vote for the candidates who are getting the least from out-of-state. I wish I could say that a few candidates refuse to accept contributions from those who have no right to vote for them, but I haven't heard of any.
If a candidate is putting large amounts of his or her own money in the campaign, consider voting for the opponent. Do you want the best candidates money can buy or the best candidates?
If some mysterious organization is putting out ads criticizing a candidate, consider voting for the opponent. Where is the money for the ads coming from? Do those who provide that money have any right to vote in that election? Again, do we want the best candidates money can buy or do we want the best candidates?
If none of these suggestions provide any satisfaction and if you don't really care for any of the candidates, you still have two choices. You can write somebody in, but that makes a lot of work for the election judges. You can always leave any or all of the choices on the ballot blank.
People do this all the time. How many people cast ballots for each judge position or for the commissioner of whatsit? What's wrong with leaving a blank ballot for governor, representative, senator, or even President?
If you don't show, your choice is NOT counted. If you show and leave a blank ballot your choice is OFFICIALLY counted.
If those of you who don't like any of the choices on the ballot cast blank ballots, consider that a candidate coming in second to "none of the above" will not have a "mandate". That candidate might more carefully consider how he or she governs.
Just think, "Ronald Reagan won in a landslide in 1984 but he won with a low turnout. In fact, only 27% of the eligible voters cast their votes for Reagan. What if the 47% who didn't vote had showed up and cast blank ballots, would there have been a Reagan Revolution?" - "Voting is not a horse race", http://www.cpinternet.com/~mdmagree.voting_2000-10-26.htm.
If you are certain of your choices on November 2, be sure to go to the polls and vote for your choices, even if your choices are down in the polls. The polls don't vote; you do. Remember the Dewey "won" in 1948 while Truman slept. The polls didn't consider that many Truman supporters didn't have telephones. What false assumptions are the polls making now?
If you are uncertain of your choices on November 2, be sure to go to the polls and turn in a vote.
Here are some guidelines for the uncertain.
What kind of message are the candidates giving? If they are more negative about their opponents than positive about themselves, vote for the opponent.
Who is financing the candidates? If large sums are coming from out-of-state to candidates, vote for the candidates who are getting the least from out-of-state. I wish I could say that a few candidates refuse to accept contributions from those who have no right to vote for them, but I haven't heard of any.
If a candidate is putting large amounts of his or her own money in the campaign, consider voting for the opponent. Do you want the best candidates money can buy or the best candidates?
If some mysterious organization is putting out ads criticizing a candidate, consider voting for the opponent. Where is the money for the ads coming from? Do those who provide that money have any right to vote in that election? Again, do we want the best candidates money can buy or do we want the best candidates?
If none of these suggestions provide any satisfaction and if you don't really care for any of the candidates, you still have two choices. You can write somebody in, but that makes a lot of work for the election judges. You can always leave any or all of the choices on the ballot blank.
People do this all the time. How many people cast ballots for each judge position or for the commissioner of whatsit? What's wrong with leaving a blank ballot for governor, representative, senator, or even President?
If you don't show, your choice is NOT counted. If you show and leave a blank ballot your choice is OFFICIALLY counted.
If those of you who don't like any of the choices on the ballot cast blank ballots, consider that a candidate coming in second to "none of the above" will not have a "mandate". That candidate might more carefully consider how he or she governs.
Just think, "Ronald Reagan won in a landslide in 1984 but he won with a low turnout. In fact, only 27% of the eligible voters cast their votes for Reagan. What if the 47% who didn't vote had showed up and cast blank ballots, would there have been a Reagan Revolution?" - "Voting is not a horse race", http://www.cpinternet.com/~mdmagree.voting_2000-10-26.htm.
Sunday, October 17, 2010
For year-round deer season, shoot from the hip
For the last few weeks of bird season, I've been hearing shots all around our cabin. I dread deer season when there may be even more shots because deer hunting is more popular. What frosts me the most is that I need to wear orange on my own property to protect myself from the few who pay no attention to where they're hunting.
Otherwise, I don't need to worry about when it is deer season, because I shoot deer without fear of breaking the law year round.
I shoot from the hip. That is, I grab my compact digital camera off my belt and get as many shots as I can. Sometimes I get a deer looking directly at the camera, sometimes I get a bobbing white tail. But I think I get at least six good shots a year.
I just looked up "Magree" and "deer" on Flickr; I don't have as many as I thought posted. I'll have to review some of my recent pictures and upload them. One is a cool one of a deer munching a twig at the roadside.
Otherwise, I don't need to worry about when it is deer season, because I shoot deer without fear of breaking the law year round.
I shoot from the hip. That is, I grab my compact digital camera off my belt and get as many shots as I can. Sometimes I get a deer looking directly at the camera, sometimes I get a bobbing white tail. But I think I get at least six good shots a year.
I just looked up "Magree" and "deer" on Flickr; I don't have as many as I thought posted. I'll have to review some of my recent pictures and upload them. One is a cool one of a deer munching a twig at the roadside.
Saturday, October 16, 2010
The difference between "greedy teacher unions" and "greedy CEOs"
Have you ever noticed that those who complain about "greedy teacher unions" rarely complain about CEO salaries and that those who complain about "greedy CEOs" rarely complain about teacher salaries?
Well, the teacher unions negotiate with school boards who have some idea about how much money the school district has. The school board members are elected in often competitive elections and serve only part-time for salaries they wouldn't accept for their real jobs.
On the other hand, CEOs often have a say in who sits on the boards of their companies. The boards are "elected" by the shareholders as a single slate chosen by the board. The board also decides on its pay, and in order to justify its six-figure salaries for showing up for five or six meetings a year, grants the CEO seven- or eight-figure compensation. Some companies even go into debt to maintain this compensation.
About the only way a "greedy teacher" can get a six-figure income for showing up five days a week is having a second job or writing a lot of books.
We used to be able to have very successful companies without six-figure boards and seven-figure executives. Would we be able to have successful companies without teachers?
Well, the teacher unions negotiate with school boards who have some idea about how much money the school district has. The school board members are elected in often competitive elections and serve only part-time for salaries they wouldn't accept for their real jobs.
On the other hand, CEOs often have a say in who sits on the boards of their companies. The boards are "elected" by the shareholders as a single slate chosen by the board. The board also decides on its pay, and in order to justify its six-figure salaries for showing up for five or six meetings a year, grants the CEO seven- or eight-figure compensation. Some companies even go into debt to maintain this compensation.
About the only way a "greedy teacher" can get a six-figure income for showing up five days a week is having a second job or writing a lot of books.
We used to be able to have very successful companies without six-figure boards and seven-figure executives. Would we be able to have successful companies without teachers?
Thursday, October 14, 2010
People should fulfill their obligations; corporations need not?
I found this link on a Motley Fool weekly update: "Mortgage Bankers Association Strategic Default".
The video shows John Courson, President and CEO, talking about how homeowners should fulfill their mortgage obligations and not walk away from them. However, the Mortgage Bankers Association walked away from the mortgage on its $79 million headquarters.
Maybe Jon Stewart and Comedy Central are "flaming liberals", but the Motley Fools are serious capitalists, investing their own money in various companies.
The video shows John Courson, President and CEO, talking about how homeowners should fulfill their mortgage obligations and not walk away from them. However, the Mortgage Bankers Association walked away from the mortgage on its $79 million headquarters.
Maybe Jon Stewart and Comedy Central are "flaming liberals", but the Motley Fools are serious capitalists, investing their own money in various companies.
Thursday, October 07, 2010
Ads for a moderate party
A coin is flipped and lands on the left side of a line. "Heads - nobody wins." A coin is flipped and lands on the right side of the line. "Tails - everybody loses." A coin is flipped, lands on edge on the line, and rolls off into the future. "You can make the 'improbable' happen."
A person tries to budge an elephant. The person tries to budge a donkey. The person jumps on a horse, into a car, whatever, and goes off to the future.
Abraham Lincoln said, "As our case is new, so must we think anew." Third party candidates have become president.
A person tries to budge an elephant. The person tries to budge a donkey. The person jumps on a horse, into a car, whatever, and goes off to the future.
Abraham Lincoln said, "As our case is new, so must we think anew." Third party candidates have become president.
Wednesday, October 06, 2010
Taxes are not the only consideration for picking a retirement destination
Or picking any other place to move to.
Yahoo Finance republished a Kiplinger article, "5 Tax Factors to Consider When Picking a Retirement Destination", Mary Beth Franklin, 2010-10-06.
I added the following comment to the article.
Beware of isolating tax factors from all other considerations. Maybe you'll pay less taxes in the State of Bliss but less taxes could mean slower response times by fire departments. Slower response times may mean higher insurance costs. Less taxes could mean less road repair. Less road repair could mean more auto repair costs. Less taxes could mean less regulatory oversight. Less regulatory oversight could mean higher electricity costs. This could mean you pay more for air-conditioning in your retirement home than you paid for heating in your previous home.
Tax factors are only one part of the two really important considerations: the cost of living and the quality of life. Look at the big picture.
Yahoo Finance republished a Kiplinger article, "5 Tax Factors to Consider When Picking a Retirement Destination", Mary Beth Franklin, 2010-10-06.
I added the following comment to the article.
Beware of isolating tax factors from all other considerations. Maybe you'll pay less taxes in the State of Bliss but less taxes could mean slower response times by fire departments. Slower response times may mean higher insurance costs. Less taxes could mean less road repair. Less road repair could mean more auto repair costs. Less taxes could mean less regulatory oversight. Less regulatory oversight could mean higher electricity costs. This could mean you pay more for air-conditioning in your retirement home than you paid for heating in your previous home.
Tax factors are only one part of the two really important considerations: the cost of living and the quality of life. Look at the big picture.
Tuesday, October 05, 2010
How to get serious about "throwing the bums out"?
If you are tired of the same old, same old with politicians, no matter what the party, you have a choice but few exercise it. Vote for none of the above, whether it's on the ballot or not.
You can do this in on of two ways. Write in a candidate of your choice or leave that particular item blank.
I remember reading that a hippo in a Brazilian zoo once got more votes than any of the candidates on the ballot. I would recommend writing in Mickey Mouse, but we should consider the vote counters. They work long hours, and they don't need to count hundreds of write-in votes.
If you leave a particular choice blank, then that will reduce the percentage of votes for all candidates. That means if enough voters leave a choice blank, the leading candidate may get less than 50% of votes. That would hardly be a mandate.
However, if you do neither of the above and stay home, the leading candidate may get 52% of the vote and claim a "mandate" from "the voters".
My wife just said that we need to get into the popular vernacular "A blank ballot is a vote for change!"
Let's make this idea viral! Pass on this entry or its link to as many friends as you think would be receptive to politics as unusual.
You can do this in on of two ways. Write in a candidate of your choice or leave that particular item blank.
I remember reading that a hippo in a Brazilian zoo once got more votes than any of the candidates on the ballot. I would recommend writing in Mickey Mouse, but we should consider the vote counters. They work long hours, and they don't need to count hundreds of write-in votes.
If you leave a particular choice blank, then that will reduce the percentage of votes for all candidates. That means if enough voters leave a choice blank, the leading candidate may get less than 50% of votes. That would hardly be a mandate.
However, if you do neither of the above and stay home, the leading candidate may get 52% of the vote and claim a "mandate" from "the voters".
My wife just said that we need to get into the popular vernacular "A blank ballot is a vote for change!"
Let's make this idea viral! Pass on this entry or its link to as many friends as you think would be receptive to politics as unusual.
More on follow the money
Bob Herbert wrote a good one how raising corporate money seems more important to many politicians than governance. He focuses on John Boehner, Republican representative from Ohio ("That's where the money is", New York Times, 2010-10-05).
One of the best comments to the article was "The Republican Moral Compass looks like a Salvadore Dali painting."
I would have added a comment on showing up to vote no matter how you cast your vote, even leaving a blank ballot, but comments were already closed.
keywords: campaign finance reform, corporations as person, elections, best politicians money can buy
One of the best comments to the article was "The Republican Moral Compass looks like a Salvadore Dali painting."
I would have added a comment on showing up to vote no matter how you cast your vote, even leaving a blank ballot, but comments were already closed.
keywords: campaign finance reform, corporations as person, elections, best politicians money can buy
Businesses don't live within their means; why should government?
"Minn. Power granted 11% rate increase" is a headline on the front page of today's Duluth News Tribune.
Hm! If government is supposed to "live within its means", shouldn't businesses? If taxpayers are paying too much taxes, then aren't ratepayers paying too much?
Minnesota Power justified the rate increase "to pay for investments in reducing emissions,…" and to pay for a transmission line for wind-generated electricity.
On the other hand, government isn't supposed to raise taxes for investments in education and transportation infra-structure. Is business going to step in and make these investments? It certainly needs an educated work force and transportation to move goods and services.
Hm! If government is supposed to "live within its means", shouldn't businesses? If taxpayers are paying too much taxes, then aren't ratepayers paying too much?
Minnesota Power justified the rate increase "to pay for investments in reducing emissions,…" and to pay for a transmission line for wind-generated electricity.
On the other hand, government isn't supposed to raise taxes for investments in education and transportation infra-structure. Is business going to step in and make these investments? It certainly needs an educated work force and transportation to move goods and services.
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