All Student Deaths are Equal

Ever heard of Harper High School?  Ever heard of the 27 children killed there last year?  You didn't because they are not important like the rich white kids at Columbine High School.  Just poor black kids shot in the neighborhoods around the school. Gang shootings.  If you want to survive, you have to be in a gang.  Your gang protects you, other gangs kill you.

We just sent Pakistan $240 million to help them secure their country.  Is that right?  How much goes to Chicago to secure the neighborhoods around Harper High School.

When I lived in Peru, I always felt safe in downtown Lima because a soldier stood guard on all the key intersections with a machine gun, probably an assault weapon, I'm not a gun man.

 I once went to a beautiful waterfall in the Amazon forest.  A soldier with a machine gun waved me into my parking spot.  More soldiers lined the top of the mountain ridge as I walked down a path for a few miles on the way to a glorious waterfall.  I was told not to go beyond the waterfall because the Shining Path still controll that part of the jungle.  (Cocaine funds the Shining Path, so again, thank you America for the market.)  People always react when I tell them of such stories with shock on their face and with comments, I would never want to be in such a place.

Guess what?  I would gladly go back to Peru instead of hanging around in the neighborhoods around Harper High School, or in most big cities after dark.  A white man, after dark in a gang controlled neighborhood of Chicago.  Get real, a white man stupid enough to be there after dark is going to die.  I suspect policemen are not going to be caught out alone at night in those neigborhoods.  Peru would care enough to secure the neighborhoods, but in America we send our troops to a 150 countries around the world to secure the world, forget poor black neighborhoods.  Forget our pathetic Congress taking on such issues.  No election is ever going to be won by addressing security in poor black neighborhoods.  

There are two Americas.  The one for rich Americans, like Lehman Brothes CEO who walked out with about $500 million in cash as his bank collasped and his country got plunged into the second depression/ big recession.  And a second America that exists in the slums where unemployment runs 25 to 50% and children try to stay alive long enough to get out of the neighborhood.  Our government meanwhile sends serious  money to Pakistan and Eygpt to buy friends and sends in troops all over the world to secure our financial interests (oil, etc.).  

And as Americans, we don't give a shit.  Screw Harper High School kids.  We can't even pass background checks even though 90% of Americans favored the act.  Congress works more for the NRA than us, accept it. Will Congress do anything to stop gangs from controlling streets in America?  We don't even officially track the deaths (again thanks to legislation backed by the NRA).  

In the America I grew up in at the age of eight I road a bus down town (without a cell phone) in El Paso, walked a half mile from the bus stop to the YMCA.  I lost my nickel sometimes for the ten-mile ride home, but the bus driver took me home anyway because I told him my mom would give me an extra nickel to pay him the next time I went downtown.  Where did that America go?

Accepting Death with Courage and Compassion

In 2010, my wife ended a two year battle with cancer.  The cancer won.  My daughter who tried to help me with the ordeal had an emotional break down and is still struggling with the after effects.  My wife fought well, she fought death with courage, but we as a family never had the compassion to let "her accept death with courage."  We never got to the point where we said enough of the painful chemo and radiation treatments.  Enough fighting battles in a war that is already lost.  We didn't have the compassion to let her know it was alright if she wanted to accept death and enjoy the end as best she could.

I blame a lot of this on our medical profession who has not learned to face death with courage much less coach their patients to do so.  Of course, euthanasia is deemed immoral by most religious groups and therefore forced upon me (in the land of the not so free).  But, even short of euthanasia, there needs to be coaching/therapy to the patience, family, and friends.  It doesn't happen in this country from my experience with my wife and a few friends.  No time is set aside to accept death and say our goodbyes. 

On a bigger front, a significant amount of our growing medical cost crisis comes from keeping people alive at all costs for as long as possible.  It is legally challenging to let someone die even when they have a living will.  To begin preparing someone for death at the beginning of the treatment cycle for critical diseases might be seen as giving up on someone, but the price we pay is that we do not make rational, informed, and caring decisions on how to live our last days.  And, we can easily run up millions of dollars of medical bills for our society and hundreds of thousands of dollars for our family above what insurance will cover. 

I have always said I hope I get to live my last days well and then die in the woods.  I mean that a little metaphorically, but the spirit of what I am saying is this: "I want to live well and then, when it is time, accept death with courage."  I would like the support of my family and society when it is time.

No Honorable Way Out

Guantanamo Bay.  Ugly situation.  89 of the 160 prisoners there have been cleared for release by the military.  This of course does not mean they are innocent, because in the military system you are guilty until you're proven innocent -- except of course you don't ever get your day in court to prove your innocence.  So basically, once picked up you always guilty.  So, some of the guilty ones have been cleared for release ... perhaps a form of less guilty.

Ignore the 100 prisoners whose hopelessness has turned into a hunger strike, or the 27 that are being forced fed to keep them alive.   Let's just think about the 89 that have been cleared for release, some of which are on the hunger strike.

Will the 89 less guilty prisoners (where do they get the term detainees, is that supposed to make us feel better) ever be freed.  Apparently, it takes action by Congress to make that happen; at least to finance their move back to their native country.  Yea, in reality, it is probably bribes paid to high officials in the other countries to accept the return of these prisoners.  Any one in Congress that takes up the cause of the prisoners is probably not going to be re-elected.  It is not accident that Obama did not push too hard on Guantanamo Bay issue in his first term.  So, a Congressman doing something just because it is the right thing to do ... fat chance of that happening.  (Look at immigration reform and see how well Congress is doing.  NOT.)

So, what is going to happen to the prisoners.  Simple, they are going to die for the most part in prison.  The military is currently building a cardiac care building anticipating caring for these prisoners as they age.  And some will be successful in killing themselves despite the military's efforts to stop them.

In all there is no honorable way out for America, at least none that we are likely to take.  Or perhaps, there is no honor left in America? What have we created?  The best recruitment tool for terrorism since the Iraq invasion.  We have created 160 martyrs for the cause of Jihad.  We have also decided that security is more important than our principles.  We have gone further than that even, we have shown the world how callous and uncaring we Americans can be.  

Just Let Them Die -- Guantanamo Bay

Imagine that you were taken prisoner by a foreign government.  Perhaps you are visiting the Middle East and get caught up in a riot and are swept into custody with the mob you find yourself surrounded by.  You are moved to a prison far from the scene of the supposed crime without being charged of doing any wrong.  You are kept in a small cell for ten years.  You lose hope of ever seeing your family again.  You have children growing up that will never know their dad.  At some point, you give up hope and stop eating, a hunger strike.  But, you are not allowed to die, you are punished for trying to die, they tie you to a bed and ram over sized feeding tubes up your nose, but neither do they give you any hope.  They take all possessions away as further punishment, even your tooth brush and all reading materials.  You have a mattress and bed.  And periodically you are dragged to chair especially designed by the military for force feeding  upon which you are tied and then force fed with oversized size 10 tubes.

Of course, that is very similar to what WE have done to 160 people at Guantanamo Bay.  We do not even try to make their life better, or negotiate with them, or in any way treat them as humans.  

I am sure some are as guilty as hell of whatever you want to imagine, but I also suspect that some of them as guiltless as you as a reader ... and as innocent as the scene imagined above, i.e., being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

WE as AMERICANS are doing this.  Is this justice?  Justice for what?  Can our fears justify such actions against fellow humans.  What could they believe or think that could justify such treatment.  And obviously, we don't of anything WRONG THEY HAVE DONE or we would have charges against them.  So, we think they might of been guilty of something.  We even have three children we are abusing.  If we as Americans allow our country to do such things, are we good people?  Are we proud of belonging to such a country?

The entire world is lining up on the side of the PRISONERS not us.  Every international organizations including the UN are saying forced feeding is not humane.  Every person should have the right to deny medical treatment --- the concept behind a living will.   We as Americans simply do not care what happens to them as we have proven for ten years.  The humane thing to do is to let these people die. But, can we even be humane. 

Myth#14: Justice is Enough

Of course we want justice, and even vengeance perhaps in our hearts for what happened in Boston.  It is hard, as a knee jerk reaction, not to blame Muslims in general for this crime.  And there are those that are professed Muslims that are turning out terrorists, driven by revenge for real and imagined crimes against Muslims.  They are not the majority of Muslims or even a significant minority, but a small group.  We would call them a radical hate group perhaps if they were Americans on our soil, for example, if they were White Supremacists.  

Muslims can easily point to things like three wars in the Middle East, the killing of innocent people with drones, backing Israel in their denial of statehood for Palestinians, profiling of Muslims (however incompetently it was done), our right wing almost hate propaganda against Muslims, pushing back against Turkey's entry into the European Union, our treatment of enemy combatants, our continued abuse of prisoners in Guantanamo Bay, etc.  Who wouldn't want to hate a country that has the power to do all these things largely unopposed.  The instinct is to fight these with the only weapons they THINK they really have, home made bombs, crude missiles sent into Israel, largely ineffective resolutions in the United Nations on Palestine statehood, and suicide bombers.  What else do they have to fight with, sticks and stones?  But perhaps, there are more weapons with the right allies.  

So, our gut reaction is revenge against all Muslims for the crimes of a few, their gut reaction is to oppose the Military Industrial Complex that runs this country by any means possible. 

Perhaps Muslims should realize that many Americans feel as helpless and frustrated and even outraged by America as our likeminded Muslim friends.  We are a minority for now that truly grasp that PAC's and not Americans run this country, that Congress's number one job is getting re-elected.  We also realize that America as a land of opportunity and a strong middle class is disappearing which is fueling a lot of desparation and eventually hate -- hate to be directed at Muslims and other minorities, gays, Hispanics, etc.  We realize that our government is non-functional but still very powerful and dangerous. There are a lot of Americans who see the same problems that Muslims see.  Our biggest crime, our apathy in losing control of a once great nation. 

This reminds me of a screen in War Horse the movie where Germans and Americans are in foxholes separated by a field covered with bobwire.  A horse runs through the bobwire and becomes entangled.  Both sides can see the horse thrashing around in the wire.  Both sides ache with the pain the horse is enduring.  Both sides agree to a cease fire to save the horse.  A beautiful scene that fills my eyes with tears from the love and humanity shown in that one moment.  But so often that humanity and love is missing when we become so afraid of a wounded 19 year old terrorist that shut a whole city down. 

Perhaps the Muslims can join with Americans that want to take our country back and base our actions at home and abroad on our principles, the principles that our father's died for in some wars that really were against injustice in the world, not for oil.  Good Muslims have the same principles from their heritage.  Because they are not principles created by our  fore-fathers, they were simply recognized by our fore-fathers.  They are principles inherent to all good people  based on fairness, a hand out for those weaker and those in need, kindness, acceptance of differences, tolerance, diligence, perseverance, courage, etc., etc.   

We should be united against the autrocities being committed from vengence, intolerance, and hate.  We need to seek ways to unite as good people against those of us that would seek to make us enemies.  Justice should include correcting the patterns of behavior leading to the conflicts between us.

Myth#5: We are safer after three wars and spending trillions of dollars.

Are we safer after three wars, expansion of many security agencies, spending trillions of dollars, and losing many personal liberties? Is there anything we might be doing that makes people hate us?

We have now fought three wars in the Middle East, spent about $4 trillion in wars, expanded security to about fifty agencies and government departments and created homeland security.   We have caused a quarter of a million people to die and displaced about 8 million people from their homes.   I am sure the world loves us for these accomplishments, but are we safer?

If anyone doubts our persistence in killing, then we have the ongoing drone attacks.  If you want to see how the Arab world views these drone attacks, read this article on Drone Attacks in Arab News.   Again,  I am sure people love us for killing their families, but are we any safer?

And of course we favor countries getting their independence and establishing democracies, so it is ironic that we are one of nine countries (all U.S. buddies) who voted against Palestine in taking the first steps in being recognized as an independent state via the United Nations.  The 138 countries that voted for it and the 41 that abstained (afraid of the U.S.?) of course don’t know anything about creating democracies; they must do it our way to be correct.  Surely, the world will soon recognize the error of their ways, but are we any safer by opposing statehood for Palestine?

Our constitutional rights have been abridged for our safety.  You can be declared an enemy combatant and scheduled for a drone attack without any due process of law … or you can just be put in jail without trial.  The Patriot Act and the National Defense Authorization Act is very similar to McCarthyism were you could be destroyed for real or imagined links to the communist party.  Doesn’t this make you feel safer, by golly!

So, the FBI is saying there is no evidence there is a broader plot in Boston marathon attacks.  First, there is no evidence either way.  I suspect that this was said just to make us feel better.  But, let’s summarize.  We have killed many more innocent people and continue to do so than the innocent people killed on 9/11.  Do we expect people to love us? to help us?  

The way you stop a bomber is from tips from people that are sympathetic to the U.S., not people that have lost friends and families to our military and our drones.  Have we increased the number of people that want to help us by the wars?

How much good could have been done in the Middle East with say $4 trillion dollars.  Let’s see we could have given 80 million people in the Middle East full scholarships to U.S. Universities.  What impact would that have on human rights in the Middle East, in the U.S.  We could have built and operated thousands of hospitals, or Universities, or Walmarts in the Middle East.  In short, we could have improved the lives of millions of innocent people.  But, we had to revenge the deaths of the 2000 people that died at 9/11.  But, funny how we have ignored the 100,000 deaths in the U.S. from gun violence over the last decade, many of them children, much of it gang related.  (NRA keeps us from keeping good records, really, but another blog.)   Who gets vengeance for them as we flounder around with the most powerful and most expensive military force in the history of the world.  

WE HAVE BOUGHT INTO A PLAN THAT WE CAN USE MILITARY FORCE TO CHANGE THE HEARTS OF OUR ENEMY.  I guess we think we can scare them into obedience.  Do you think this makes the U.S. safer?

In any case

Myth#20: Assault Weapons are Different From Machine Guns (Poll Included)

NRA contends that not being able to own an assualt weapons violates 2nd Ammendment rights.  They felt the same thing about machine guns, but the Supreme Court did not agree. 

Supreme Court Upholds Ban on Machine Guns

Now the question is do most americans think it is alright if their neighbors have some serious fire power at their finger tips.  Think of your most beloved (not) neighbor and answer these questions.  

Myth#2 Justice for All

In first thinking about this topic, I thought of the well-known affect of rich people avoiding serving jail time compared to poor people.  Prison is filled for the most part with poor people and a much large portion of African American and Hispanics than in the general population.  Justice is not blind to money.

I was listening to NPR and they were talking about 10 million people go into and out of our jails and prisons each year.  It turns out that there are thousands of clerical errors.  Some prisoners get out early, a lot stay longer than their sentence.  Of course, the poor often have no advocates either from family or lawyers so they can essentially get lost forever in the system.  They forgot one man in solitary confinement for two years.  Oops, he was released without charges.

And then there are the mentally impaired.  Our mental hospitals are over flowing so justice turns a blind eye and many mental patients are boarded in our jails and prisons simply because there is no where else to put them, unless you want them to be homeless. Often without a trial, or even after a trial, innocent mentally impaired people are sent to jail because the judge knows the mental hospitals are over-booked.  We simply as Americans can't be bothered.

So the above refers to the unequal enforcement of laws.  But, even a bigger category of injustice comes from laws that are inherently injustice.  For example, if you are a gay person in those country and your mate just died, or you just tried to use your partner's insurance or to collect your partner's pension you can't believe our laws are just.  If you got sentenced to prison for smoking pot by a judge that has three martini's at lunch, you can't feel our laws are just or even rational.

Then there is the IRS where we are all guilty until proven innocent.  There is nothing just about how the process with the IRS works where you have no rights, when there is no day in court.  Just pay up or face big fines and interest rates.  The best you can hope for is to beg your IRS representative for some leniency and then hope you are one of the few lucky ones that gets a break.  Not.

Many of our drug laws mimic the IRS in the person being guilty unless proven innocent.  If you are a contractor paying your workers in cash, better not be caught with $10K on your person. You are assumed to be a drug dealer and your cash is taken.  No trial.  There is another law about having too many CD in your possession at one time.  It is assumed you are making illegal copies and your CD's are taken and you are fined.

Lately, Expert Witnesses have been coming forward and saying their new methods prove in some cases that their testimony was wrong decades ago.  One prisoner tried to get released based on the expert witness recanting his previous opinion that sentenced the prisoner in the first place.  The judge said their needs to be some finality of judgment, otherwise trials would have to be redone too often (see NPR a few days ago).   I bet he feels the world is just after being in jail for 20 some odd years with no hope of getting out even though it is quite clear he probably didn't do it.

And of course, there are those 165 inmates at Guantanamo Bay that our military said they made a mistake on.  They were not terrorists.  If we had due process of law in the first year instead of a decade later, perhaps these people could go home.  Now their homeland countries say they don't want them and we try hard not to let them starve themselves to death on hunger strikes.   Justice for these people is just too much trouble.  Can you believe they would rather die than live in prison for the rest of their lives?

Justice it turns out is just too much trouble, just too expensive to extend to all.  What a foolish concept.

Myth#1 It's Best to Leave Radioactive Waste Where It Is Until You Have a Perfect Plan

In the state of Washington, six tanks storing high level nuclear waste are leaking.  

Now here is the story.  In the early 1980's I interviewed for a job to be the Project Manager of Facility that was to take this waste, melt it into fused glass, and then encapsulate that glass in an exotic stainless steel canisters and then place it far underground in salt domes in Yucca Mountain, Neveda.  Then I discovered they had been waiting for several years to pull some samples out of the tank to do material balances until they could find an absolutely safe way to pull the samples, and until they could get consensus their sampling method was full-proof.  

Here we are three decades later.  The project is still delayed.   Hundreds of tanks are in danger of leaking, all well past their 20 year design life.  Tens of billions of dollars have been spent trying to get consensus. 

Why?  Because of irrational fear.  The people of Nevada have fought the Yucca Mountain repository on the grounds that no one can guarantee that there will not be a spillage in the next 10,000 years.  As I understand it, some waste has now been put in Carlsbad New Mexico.  But, every step of the way environmentalists insist that it can not be safely stored and that there is no guarantee that it can be made safe forever. 

Environmentalists point to the leaking tanks as evidence that radioactive waste can not be stored safely.  Duh ....  Engineers had a master plan, the tanks were only step 1.   Environmentalists that say nuclear waste can't be stored safely have made a self-fulfilling prophecy. 

Guess what? We can guarantee that hundreds of tanks in Washington will probably all start failing in the ten to twenty years (80 years into their 20 year life).  Radioactive waste will  find its way into the water table, the Columbia River and flow out to the local cities in the Tri-City Area.  

And the environmentalists will be correct, "It's Best to Leave Radioactive Waste Where It Is Until You Have a Perfect Plan."   NOT.

Anti-Myth #4 Machine Guns are a 2nd Amendment Right

Anti-Myth #4 Machine Guns are a 2nd Amendment Right

According to the 2nd Amendment, the State Militia's and the People are guaranteed the right to bear arms in case the Federal Government, which would be the United States, gets out of hand and begins to oppress the People -- or so the argument goes.

It is quite clear given the one trillion year budget of the Military Industrial Complex in this nation, that the bare essentials with regard to armament for the People  to be successful at this task are modern machine guns.  And not only do we need the best machine guns this country has to offer, we need lots of them.  And we need to start young.

Of course, they will be expensive, so we need some government grants to enable the distribution of machine guns on a neighborhood by neighborhood basis.  The government supports programs that give away condoms so likewise the government of the people should help defray the cost of arming the people with this needed deterrent.  If nothing else, some tax breaks are called for.  The NRA lobby is busy securing the needed help.  Congressmen that are not cooperative, will be replaced.  They have the POWER, and are feared by Congress, Democrats and Republicans.

Then we need some local organizations.  To save time, we are going to use the existing structure offered by the boy scouts.  They have thousands of chapters already in place with people like us.  Each den father would become responsible for training the children in their pack on how to use and maintain their assigned machine guns ....  first, with safety training taught in the homes then later graduating to NRA gun ranges with live ammunition.  When they are able to gun down two or three jack rabbits running across the range then they could earn their Jack Rabbit Machine Gun Merit Badge (JRMGMB).   Of course, we can use our imagination and use deer, kangaroos and other more challenging targets as the kids move up through the Eagle Scouts, etc. and become more proficient.  

In our local neighborhoods, we will need to organize with  sergeants on each block, and neighborhood lieutenants, etc.  The local Churches can be used to recruit children into the ranks and teach them their duty to protect us against the government.  The churches can also be used as ammunition depots with 24/7 staffing by the Eagle Scouts and war vets.  We will teach them the uselessness of the democratic process and the need to prepare for the future.  We should be sure to screen neighborhoods to make sure we are recruiting people of like mind and background.  The high command of the NRA will find and bring you into the national fold when you are ready and the time draws near.

The NRA is officially against public ownership of the machine guns, but we all know this is a ploy until they can secure national approval for assault weapons, large gun clips, semi-automatic weapons and the freedom to buy guns without registration or background checks.  Once this is secured, then machine guns are the obvious next step.  So, they are with us, but just playing the political game for now.  (This is not a secret, the apathy of the American people (non NRA members) is so great they will peaceably go along as NRA coerces Congress.) 

Although Machine Gun Training will be primarily for men and young men, in order to win public support, an advertisement campaign will be undertaken to portray young women, fashionably attired, as supportive of the cause to defend our great country.  As the public becomes more accustomed to machine guns, we hope to train and arm our teachers with machine guns to stop the bad guys from every again killing our children in schools.  The time for action is now. If your congressman is not supporting the right to bear assault weapons, he is not one of us and he will be replaced.

Of course, we need more than machine guns, but all in due time. 

Myth #127 Republicans Can Keep Their Old Beliefs and Just Sugar Coat Their Message

Myth #127  Republicans Can Keep Their Old Beliefs and Just Sugar Coat Their Message

Republicans did an autopsy of their party's failure in the 2012 elections.  They decided they needed to put more feet on the ground and try to appeal to minorities, women, etc.  Big Problem.

Sugar coating their message doesn't change their message.  For example, 53% of American approve of same-sex marriages by a CBS Poll.  A Washington Post-ABC Poll found 58% of Americans in favor of the same.  In true Romney style, the republicans explained why the polls are not true.  Of course, among the young adults same-sex marriage just seems normal.  The Republican platform is clearly against it.  

11 million immigrants want a path to citizenship.  They have a lot of Hispanic friends and many sympathetic white supporters.  Most Americans want there to be a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants.  Republicans do not.  Republicans think they should be punished for breaking the law even if most of them have a good cause ... helping to support their families back home.  Republicans could come up with a plan to base immigration on a policy to bring talent into the U.S. like Australia, Canada and many other wise governments.  But, Republicans have nothing. 

Most Americans like Planned Parenthood which helps prevent abortions via birth control.  Republicans do not.  Really?

Most Americans favor at least background checks on people buying guns.  Republicans do not.  NRA owns the Republican party and unfortunately many of the Democrats.  In this case, what the majority want is not relevant.  So, this may not hurt the Republicans since the Democrats are cowards on this issue.

Most Americans have a problem with no health insurance being available for those who have a pre-existing condition.  So, if the Republicans knock Obamacare, they should come to the table with some plan on that issue.  They should come up with something better than the emergency room for treating the common cold for the uninsured.  They've got nothing. Again, the majority wants a plan on Health Care.  Given no alternatives, they favor Obamacare. 

So, Republicans are mostly in disagreement with the majority and lacking any real substantive alternatives. They are in denial like they were with the polls that showed Romney losing.  In a democracy if you are on the side of the minority on most issues, it is really tough to get the votes.  

Republicans, you need to change your position away from the far religious right.  Holding on to that group will lose you the hispanics, gays, blacks, women, and young voters.  But, you may hold on to the old white men -- the group that has a poor record in getting out to the polls.  More sugar is not going to fix it this time.

Plan B?

Myth #12 It is America's Duty to Be The Unpaid Policeman of the World

Perhaps you know that North Korea has nuclear bombs and ballistic missiles.  What we don't know is if they can make their nuclear weapons small enough to fit on their ballistic missiles.  The bad news is that the North Korea's are making threats against South Korea, Japan and the United States to use their nuclear weapons in a preemptive first strike.

The United States of course responded with plans to beef up anti-missile missiles on the West Coast and plans will surely follow to beef up defenses in Japan and South Korea.  All of course for big bucks to the American taxpayer. 

But why?  If you are Japan or South Korea what would you pay to get anti-missiles installed in your turf to keep North Korea from dropping a nuclear bomb on your head.  I am thinking we could even make a handsome profit.  Of course, we can stick with the current plan of borrowing money from China, passing the debt on to our children, and pretending like we are rich.

Myth #147 Obamacare will be repealed.

Myth#147 Obamacare will be repealed.

Ryan just came out with a new budget.  In his budget that says we will have a balanced budget by 2023 (just in time) he assumes Obamacare will be repealed.


REALLY?  

Lets face it.  Obamacare is the law of the land.  It has a lot of problems but it is not going away.  Assuming that it is going away invalidates everything Ryan is saying.  As McEnroe would say, "you've got to be kidding!"

If Ryan and the other Republicans want to be taken seriously they will start improving Obamacare with ammendments -- working with democrats that know much needs to be changed to make Obamacare efficient, even functional.  But, be real guys.

Myth#27: Capitalism Is Good For Workers

I grew up taking pride in calling myself a capitalist.  At the simplest level it is simply letting individuals and companies freely trade with each other -- but a set of rules has evolved that defines what is fair.   The question is, "are the rules fair?".  Is there a balance of power between the various groups in our capitalist system?

Is our capitalism dominated by special interest groups just like our government?  Is it possible to have free and fair trade when the government that governs our capitalism is dominated by special interest groups?
  

"Free" Capitalism puts a value on everything relative to the value of everything else.  There is no other system that works better than this... how many pounds of bread is one pound of steel worth.  The Soviet Union didn't know how to  do this during their prime.  They looked it up in Western newspapers.  Really.  Of course, if they were having a drought in Society Union and not in the west, the Soviets were using a low value for bread.

Capitalism optimizes a system based on the underlying rules and power groups that operate within it.  For instance, print more money and capitalism lowers the value of that currency, although there may be a lag.   Raise taxes, something painful, and the system adjusts to avoid taxes more.  Make business taxes cheaper overseas then business moves overseas to minimize taxes.  

There are four primary groups in American capitalism, shareholders, customers, government, and workers.  All of these groups have power/representation except for the American worker.  Unions used to represent the worker, but their power has been minimized; government used to represent the worker, but our pathetic Congress no longer represents anyone but themselves in getting re-elected.

There is another huge factor working against the worker, there are seven billion humans on this plant.  Capitalism automatically discounts anything that is in excess supply. 
We are also replacing humans with machines, computers, and technology in general, see Myth#3 There are No Solutions for Unemployment.  Also not good for human's value in the capitalistic machine.

BUT sadly ... it goes further than this.  If capitalism just valued things based on their scarcity,  all still might not be too bad for workers.  But, the value of all things are adjusted by what I will call the Good Old Boy Club.  If one factor of production has the power to adjust its value, for instance, labor unions fifty years ago, then the value of an item is raised or lowered by this power, this leverage.   More on this in later posts. 

But for now, let me just say our form of Capitalism has been fined tuned by the Good Old Boy Club to optimize things for those in power.  And who is in power ... in corporations it is The Board of Directors and Upper Management, and in Government it is the Top Layers of Government and the Military Industrial Complex, see Eisenhower. 

In companies, it is easy to see how upper management serves on the Board of other corporations who in turn serve on their board.  They take care of each other.  The Good Old Boy Club has also reached from corporations to the government for decades, but with PAC's from corporations buying elections the connection no longer has to be secretive ... the buying and selling of officials is out in the open.  Congress for example has only one mission ... get elected, get re-elected.  And a complacent population that does not know history is easy to control. 

Most companies, like most families, just get by, making a modest profit, paying their bills, putting a little in the bank for a rainy day.  But, from time to time companies by the brilliance of their workers or simply being at the right place at the right time make a killing.  This is not bad because it means they have met a need or a want extraordinarily well. Government gets their cut via taxes and then the Good Old Boys in Congress spend it for their special interest groups. But who decides where the rest of it goes? 

To pick on Apple ... it has $400 billion in cash that has been generated from the combined brains of its workers and management and meeting the need for a great cell phone, the Iphone.  Shareholders have also put up cash to get the whole show started.  Who is going to decide how this bounty is destributed: hint: a few key shareholders and upper management.  The workers gave up their rights to any of this extraordinary bounty the day they signed a pile of papers in the personal office on their first day of work. If they wanted a job, they had no choice.  For example, they signed a paper saying any patents they create will belong to the company -- which strangely does not include them in this context.   The Good Old Boy in Upper Management will throw them a few crumbs to keep them happy, but they have no legal right to the wealth they helped create.  (Apple will take care of their workers better than most companies, but in our present world, they certainly are not expected to.)

How created wealth is distributed/shared is not automatically determined by capitalism.  It is a construct that develops by a series of laws and legal decisions and past practice that establishes the rules of capitalism in our country.  Of course, recall who writes the laws ... industry usually .. upper management ... the good old boy club.  If workers are employed because of their special skills, they do not have final say about matters affecting how money is distributed, or much of anything else.

So, we have developed our flavor of capitalism that very effectively distributes money to the good old boy club ... upper management, the Board of Directors, preferred shareholders (read good old boy club),  Congress (good old boy club), etc.  BUT NOT THE WORKERS.  

As jobs become more scarce (End of Work by Jeremy Rifkn), will we as workers and citizens fight over the last scraps or will be informed enough to unite together to change the rules of distribution. Will we unite to set up Term Limits for Congress? Will we even care enough to know what rule changes we want for our form of capitalism, or will we meekly follow the good old boys?

Myth#63: We Are Our Brother's Keeper?

Myth#63: We Are Our Brother's Keeper?

Many of us have heard the tape where the 911 Operator pleads with a nurse to give CPR to a woman who has fallen.   The nurse refuses to help the woman in the assisted living home because it is against policy.  The woman dies, persumably because no help was given. 

The initial debate in the media centers on the policy in the assisted living center, but to me the existance of a policy, good or bad, is not the real issue.  Does it make sense in a life and death situation that someone has to refer to a policy, to a written manual to know what to do?  We have our entire life to learn and study and develop our own moral code.  Is this a decision that can be delegated to someone else? Can the nurse, as a person, get off the hook because someone else has decided that letting the woman die was the right thing to do?

If the nurse knew she might get sued for trying to help and instead doing CPR wrong, would that change what is right and wrong?

Are we our brother's keeper?

Let's apply this principle to yesterday's question.  Should we be willing to work a shorter work week, make less money, if more unemployed people would now have a jobs? And what would happen to the economy if more people had jobs?

Is helping others the path to helping ourselves, the path to helping the economy?

Myth#3: There Are No Solutions for Unemployment

I am reading a book that I read the first edition of about 1980.  The book is entitled "The End of Work".  It contends that computer technology, robotics, and technology in general are reducing the need for labor.  For example it states that steel production in the last twenty years rose from 75 million to 102 million tons while employment in the steel industry fell from 289,0000 to 74,000.  The book is filled with such examples from all over the world with some noted exceptions (Africa, parts of South America, etc.)  Even China is shedding jobs even as it creates new ones.

Of course, the real unemployment rate in the U.S. is much worse than the offical 8% or so.  We do not include people that have stopped looking for work, or people that have never been on the employment roles like high school dropouts that sell drugs or do whatever they can to get by.  Neither do they include the 2% of our population that is in prison or the large amount of people that are working but not producing much in government or miliary jobs.  And finally, it does not include perhaps 10% or so of our population that is under-employed doing much less than they are capable of doing.  Lose your job and if you find a new job it is probably a lower paying job requiring less skills than before.

It is estimated, per Jeremy Rifkin the author of this book that by 2050 only 5% of the adult work force will be need to run all of industry, farms, manufactuting, etc.  I visited a wall board plant last year that had 27 acres of a factory under roof producing wall board at a rate of many feet per second.  The plant was huge and no one was around.  Mountains of wall board were being produced and stacked by machines.  A lone fork lift operator loaded pallets onto a truck sitting at the dock.  A factory full of machines making wall board.  A total of 18 people worked in the plant including secretaries and this was for all three shifts combined - including the boss.  The few workers sat watching computer screens.  I saw one person get up to make an adjustment on a machine when the computer warned it was slightly out of alignment.  It really is happening, jobs are vanishing.

So how is it that we are doing as good as we are doing. Credit. The housing bubble and the credit pumped into our society kept a lot of people employed.   It is estimated that the average American lived on 120% of his salary over the last decade.  The government spends about 142% of the revenues / taxes that they bring in.  They are crying loudly because they have via the sequester dropped down to 136%.  

Things are not going to magically fix themselves.  We need some short and long time changes to the game book.  One simple idea for today, more in later posts.  

Job Sharing

France about a decade ago reduced the work week to 35 hours, most of Europe is down to 37 hours or so.  Of course, our industry would cry how impossible it would be to reduce the work week without destroying productivity.  Surprisingly, two countries that beat American productivity are France and Belgium who have 35 hour work weeks.  However, they have the same spending disease that we have so they turn out to be in worse shape than us.

Remember in the elections how we (Obama and Romney) were going to reduce corporate income taxes to improve American competitiveness -- so we at least hold on to more of our jobs.  So much for campaign talk.  

Large companies are sitting on trillions of dollars they are not investing because their plants are running under capacity because their markets are not growing -- because all the workers /consumers are sitting on the couch at home looking for jobs.  (Example, Apple has $400 billion in the bank.)

So, why couldn't we give cuts in the corporate tax rate to those companies that reduce their work week - a sliding scale.  One would assume at some point that to maintain productivity they will hire workers to replace the lost hours from shorter work weeks.

Although this is not an international fix, and lack of jobs is an international problem, we can create jobs in America at the expense of the rest of the world by simply lowering our corporate tax rate and attracting the jobs that are created to American instead of Europe, or even China.  America is still a good place to find skilled and dedicated workers.  Few companies however are willing to pay our corporate taxes, 35% and often state taxes, for example in Maryland, of 35% also.  Pay 70% corporate tax or go to Hong Kong or Ireland, etc. and pay 10%.  Duhhh, what should we do.

Myth#1 America is the Greatest

We as Americans believe we live in the Greatest Country in the World.  Is that true?  By what standard?  Literacy?  The number of babies that survive birth?  By how safe it is to live in this country?  By how well we take care of our sick, our aged, our youth?  By how we educate our children?  By how hard we work?  By how our families stick together?  By our success in marriage?  

Perhaps there is one area.  Our military.  But even that is suspect for effectiveness.  We spend ten times more than China, and more than the next twenty countries put together -- all of which are our allies except for China.  Are we any safer than the rest of the world?  If so, then what about 911.  Our military is the best at spending money the most inefficiently.  Do we seriously believe that if China was stupid enough to spend a trillion dollars a year on the military that they would not kick our butt like they do in every other category.

My friends in Peru used to say that Americans were good at making money but not good at living life.  We no longer have the highest standard of living in the world, we have not for a long time.  So, I am afraid my Peruvian friends were wrong, we don't know how to make money or live life.

But, we do have more tanks in storage than anyone else.  Tanks that the miliary do not want, but Congress likes pork despite the fact that it helping to destroy America. 

Is the American Dream becoming a myth?  Is Congress part of the problem, or part of the solution?

Myth #96 We can spend our way out of recession without paying the fidler.

Everything has consequences.  Printing trillions of dollars of new money (printing and debt) to SAVE our Economy will not be done without a huge cost.  More dollars representing the same, or even less goods and services, means the dollars are worth less.  The other variable is its relative rank versus other currencies.  If other countries do the same thing the relative drop in our currency will be less, canceling the effect to some extent.  But, no other country is going quite as nuts as us in trying to spend their way out of this situation.

Capitalism and free markets are pushing us toward an adjustment in our lifestyle.  We as a people and country have been living outside of our means for a long time.  The house of cards have fallen-in on themselves.  The message we are being sent by the markets is that resources have been and are being irrationally distributed.  Credit, far beyond what is rational was used to probe up this irrational distribution for much longer time than a more prudent policy would have allowed.  

For instance, it is irrational that Fuld from Leman Brothers got $480 million managing a bank that he helped drive into bankrupt.   Keeping interest rates abnormally low to keep our economy going while loaning money to people to buy things they could not afford at any rate was an irrational distribution of resources.  

Obama spending money to stimulate the economy without a real plan to improve things will just lead to inflation.  Investing in our economy, our people, our infrastructure, etc. would also stimulate the economy without necessarily causing inflation assuming value was created equal to or greater than the monies spent.   The downside of investments is that they take time, usually years, to see the benefits.  We as a people have grown weary of working hard and waiting for our investments to bear fruit.  So, I suspect we will concentrate on quick fixes and pay for it later with higher inflation.  

Myth #21 We Had a Noble Cause in Iraq.

War Statistics

Number Of Iraqis Slaughtered Since The U.S. Invaded Iraq "1,366,350" www.justforeignpolicy.org/iraq/iraqdeaths.html Number of U.S. Military Personnel Sacrificed (Officially acknowledged) In America's War On Iraq: 4,691 icasualties.org/oif/   Number Of International Occupation Force Troops Slaughtered In Afghanistan : 1,597 http://icasualties.org/oef/ Cost of War in Iraq & Afghanistan $951,331,622,218 http://www.costofwar.com/ If we only had a noble cause, we might be able to rationalize killing so many people and impoverishing our children.  But, what is the Noble Cause, I can't seem to remember.  And, what exactly is the Change that Obama promised?

Myth#15 We were innocent in causing the big recession.

Unemployment Pain

10 % unemployment in America.  Horrible.  The real number is much higher if you count those that have given up and those that are underemployed.  The real number is about 17%.  For some minority groups the number is much higher.  With our population growth, we need 125,000 jobs per month created just to hold even on the percent unemployed.  Depressing as it gets.

Have you ever been unemployed.  You want to work, you want to take care of those you love and you have no job.  No one will give you and job and you don't have a clue of what to do.  It absolutely sucks.  It destroys your self worth and it hurts as you see your life savings disappear, your house be repossessed, and your children become homeless.  It is a very helpless feeling that happens to people that have done everything right their entire life, or at least what they were told to do, to see the lives unwind. Go to school, get an education, work hard and everything will be okay, and suddenly it is not okay. 

To a man where his identity in life is what is what he does for a living, it can be absolutely devastating. This can be as bad as not having health insurance, well actually the two go together in this country.  Not having health care is just another thing that happens to the unemployed in this country.

Did the recession cause this problem?  Of course, you say, its obvious.  Not really.  The jobs we had before the recession where not built on reality, they were built on loans from China, et al.  We borrowed money to buy stuff that kept most of us employed.  It was not real, it was not sustainable.  On average, Americans were living 20% above their means buying goods, which of course kept a lot of employed for awhile.

The challenge is simple, seven billion people on the planet want the life style that we have become accustomed to in the U.S. and they are willing to work harder and smarter than us to get there.  In athletics, we say they are hungry.  In contrast, we are not.  We expect the good life, we wait for it to come to us.  We use our military might, mostly in the Middle East, to protect our energy resources to try to maintain the life style we have become accustomed to. 

Side diversion, the 2016 Olympics.  Brazil won the right to host it as we all noticed it.  We were shocked that Chicago, the city of 37 child homicides this year, came in last.  Sadly, that is how the world now sees us, as Has-Beens.  And, there is too much truth to it, i.e., 17% unemployed if you count those who are no longer looking and/or no longer qualified for unemployment.

The government can help and is doing so now with infrastructure projects, and it can do more.  Government has to leverage its actions through small business.  It is simple, helping small business helps create jobs ... since most job creation in this country comes from small business.  What does small business need?  Credit, accelerated depreciation schedules, investment tax credits, medical insurance for its workers, and respect.  The government can also help with education, our only real long term path from being a Has-Been to being the Come-back-Kid.

But, in the end, recovery and full employment has to come from us the people.  We have to stop blaming everyone else for where our path has taken us and turn inward, and as JFK said, "ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country."

Myth #134 Justice is Black and White: Roman Polanski

The 13 year that was raped by Polanski is now over 40. This reminds me of the German officers that participated in the Holocaust. Some were not caught until they were in their eighties for crimes they committed in their 20's and 30's. Perhaps some of these men had grown into kind people doing great good for the world. Perhaps some had paid all they could pay for the horrific crimes they did and had suffered their punishment just being alive. I don't know, but it is possible.

Yea, Polanski was wrong a long time ago and should not have fled. I am assuming he has led a virtuous life since then, or at least stayed away from minors. The question is, is he the same person that committed the crime. Is revenge and punishment the reason that he needs to go to jail now?

Yes, I think he should be brought back over to face up to his past. But, it is not clear to me that what was decided about 30 years ago should still be the right thing to do now. The victim of the crime, the state, and Polanski need to sit down and do a lot of talking. It would be good to hear some remorse from Polanski, and some insights from the victim, and some flexibility by the law. In short, there should be a process, perhaps even a new trial. I don't know what the right answer should be, perhaps Polanski should go to jail. But, everyone needs to sit down and discuss this and figure out what the right thing to do is -- what makes the world a better and kinder place to live.

I guess I just do not believe in black and white.