Sunday News and Views

More Stuff, some Odd, some Sad, some Bad

Because I know y’all live for the next Florida Oddity, here’s a really shitty one. Police in West Palm Beach have cited a local firm recently. The company, “Advantage Rooter” (there’s a whole bit, right there) has a driver whose mother, apparently inspired by her mouthwash, named him Lavoris (yep, really; his sister, Listerine, swears to it). Anyway, Lavoris Grisby, on a company mission, pumped down several community septic tanks at a local condo. Rather than return to base when full, since there were several loads, Grisby simply opened a nearby manhole and pumped his excreta laden tank several times into the city’s storm drain system, spilling a fair amount into the street in the process. The citation lists three counts of “illegal dumping of human waste.” Oh well, it’s South Florida, whatcha gonna do?

       

        Almost as odd, but not as smelly, is the story of the Pennsylvania woman who, lending new degrees of meaning to the term "bag lady," recently announced that her handbag collection now numbers in excess of 3,000, which she stores in an US Army surplus Quonset hut on her estate. I get the whole collecting thing, but 3,000? Samples include a bag fashioned from a taxicab light. “Imelda Marcos, mover over; there’s a new goofy fashionista sheriff in town.”

        A shipment of Chinese fake Nike sneakers was seized recently at US Customs in SoCal (Long Beach). I only mentioned this because I can’t figure out how to distinguish fake Chinese manufactured grossly overpriced sneakers from real Chinese manufactured grossly overpriced sneakers.

        Police in Runnymede, (not the English one, where Magna Carta was forced on King John, but the one in New Jersey) have foiled a truly sinister plot at Saint Maria Goretti RC Church. Nope, no priests, candy bars or altar boys were involved. The plot centered on a fiendish plan by two women to rig the Church Hall’s weekly bingo game. It seems that they believed that if they just taped a different number, one which made their card a $200 winner, over the real number (not a winner) no one would catch on. An eagle-eyed church volunteer caught them, however, and after a suitable inquisition, in which one supposes, they recanted their board game apostasy, they were banished. No worries, though, the Methodists will still welcome them to the potluck after Bible Study on Wednesdays.  

        In much more serious news, UNICEF estimates that there have been about 200,000 cases of measles in Congo this year with more than 4,000 dead children as a result.  How tragic that this completely “eliminable” disease still is epidemic anywhere. So, Anti-vaxxers, have a nice winter season.

And the Weird Goes On

        More Florida oddities: Flash Update!!   

Reports of a South Florida couple being assaulted by a vicious bobcat last Tuesday have been revised a bit after DNA analysis of the hair left on them by the beast turned out to show that the deadly attacker was a raccoon! You really can’t make this s**t up. Those damned raccoons and their wily disguises!

 Raccoon. Master of disguise
normal appearance

      

Bobcat, (or Raccoon in drag,
cleverly disguised as one)

        Just when we bemoan the sad state of US relations with…well, practically everyone, these days, comes a ray of prideful sunshine. A family in Hawaii (yes, Donnie, Hawaii is in the USA, just like Puerto Rico) has entered the Guinness Book of World Records with the heaviest avocado ever grown. With an average avocado weighing in at around 6 ounces, The Pokini family’s 5.6 pound behemoth is the new champion! For the math challenged, this baby is 15 times as big as those you see in the produce section. Am I the only one who smells a doping scandal here? Meanwhile, anyone got chips? (‘cause we have guacamole for days!)

        In other and more depressing news, 18,000 families have applied for school vouchers under a new Florida program which will allow recipients to use taxpayer-funded scholarship awards to attend private schools. As is usual with this sort of thing, Both the Governor and Education Commissioner claim that the program will “Help low income and working-class students.”

       You know what helps low income and working-class students? Valuing education. Yeah, it’s pretty much that simple. Students whose families send them off the school with the belief that education is important already have the single most important component of the success tool kit. Such “vouchers” which address only school issues and have no effect in the home are the straw men of public spending.

        A scholarship to a private school where accountability is limited and the only difference is in school and not at home is a scam. In many cases legislators who sponsor this public cash grab do so for private profit since, in Florida at least, there is a history of for-profit school operators having direct or familial ties to state legislators.  As the Miami herald reported two years ago (and it has worsened since) several highly placed legislators, including the house Speaker and Education committee chair benefit, or have benefited, directly from their relationships with public or private Charter schools. Several sit on boards (and draw significant salaries for it) of such schools or their corporate entities. Having these elected double dippers vote on such an issue is analogous to asking me if I’d like a larger Social Security check. Well, Hell yeah!

        It’s not, however just the personal gain for legislators aspect which is troubling. It’s flawed thinking. The schools for which such vouchers might be issued are, in many cases, charter schools in the neighborhoods of D and F public schools, this constitutes handing over to the private sector not only public money but allowing and encouraging charter schools to take the best students. In other words, instead of pouring those public resources into struggling public schools, the Legislature is turning publicly funded education into separate and decidedly unequal school systems. In a struggling public system where choice already exists through magnets, there’s oversight and regulations that ensure standards. The charter system — which since its inception has demonstrated a wide range of reliability, accountability and failure, including some horrendous and well-documented flops — is an “Education as Industry” rodeo and  free-for-all. Private corporations operating the schools make the rules. Their basis is profit, not product.

        And, as if handing them hundreds of millions weren’t enough pillage, school districts are required to share, with charter schools, federal Title 1 funds that go to schools with the neediest students, and funds that come from property taxes for school construction. Understand: your taxes could be allocated to send a child to school in another district when they are needed locally.  It’s not just a giveaway, an example of corporate welfare, but a takeaway from public schools that desperately need state funding. All in the name of benefiting the expansion of an industry from which lawmakers and their families benefit.

        Of course, again in the Sunshine State, there are also the too frequent episodes of blatant fraud and mid-term closures of charter and other private schools. Add to this, the fact that these “scholarships” will also direct public money into church run schools, and it becomes more troubling to anyone who believes in Church/State separation. A concrete example would be the First Academy School run by First Baptist Church of Orlando. It charges tuition, pays teachers, and. I suspect, if the books were open, makes some profit in the process. Students can come there from literally anywhere. Yet, under the newly approved voucher program, more students, now with taxpayer money footing the bill, would be able to attend this church run school. If you desire to send your child to a religious school, especially one where such things as LGBTQ issues and other equally pressing social concerns are frowned upon, so be it, it’s their loss in the long run, but don’t ask me to pay for it.  

        As long as we’re on the “feel good” items from today’s news, let’s visit another topic. Apparently, not content to let racist and anti-Semitic religious huckster Billy Graham lie, the Daily Sun runs a column from beyond the grave. As Nixon Oval office tapes showed, Old’ Billy was hardly the humanitarian when persons other than White Protestants were concerned, but that’s another story. Today’s snippet of shit-kicker wisdom states: “Christ Made Peace by the Blood the Cross.” I’ll just let that lay here while you browse the world news and ascertain for yourself how that’s worked out over the ensuing 2000 years.

Today’s Things Which Make Me Wonder

        Not much to smile about today, so let’s start with the old reliable- "Florida oddities." It seems two young stalwarts in South Florida illegally captured a small alligator. As an aside, I remember when the ‘gator was threatened as a species. Now they may show up (literally, it happened recently two doors down) on your doorstep. Anyway, after videoing it biting one of them on the arm (small gator, remember) they also videoed themselves forcing it to drink beer.

        Based on documented fan behavior at University of Florida football home games, this might qualify for the Guinness Book of World Records as the only time a ‘Gator has ever had to be forced to drink beer.

        An article in the local section featured locals bitching about the measly “1.6 % Cost of Living Allowance” increase for Social Security this year. The complaint was some variation of the “prices are goin’ up faster” than Social Security. Obviously, at first glance, these rustics are computer illiterate or economically challenged, which is a more realistic option, since a quick Google search shows the CPI (Consumer Price Index) for 2019 to be 1.7%, while the COLA was “only” 2% in 2018 and will be 2.8% in 2019. (Spoiler Alert: “but wait, There’s more!”)

       So, what is this CPI, of which you speak Obi Wan?  The Consumer Price Index is a measure that examines the weighted average of prices of a basket of consumer goods and services, such as transportation, food, and medical care. It is calculated by taking price changes for each item in the predetermined basket of goods and averaging them. Overall it is the generally accepted metric (statistic) used to define “annual inflation” also. The problem, which may be driving the complaints of those who do, is that “weighted average” part.

       What that means to the average consumer is that there are several components sampled (price wise) which are not equal in impact to the CPI. There are 8 major groups of commodities/services sampled. These are Housing (42.02%), Food and beverages (14.31%), Transportation (16.35%), Education and Communication (6.6%), Recreation (5.69%), Apparel (clothing) (2.6%), Other Goods and Services (3.2%), and Medical Care (8.68%). This “market basket” of expenditures and their increase or decrease in price has been unchanged for some time. The percentages above are the weighted average cost share which makes up the CPI.  

       What anyone acquainted with statistics will note is that the effect of an increase or decrease in Housing of 1% is equivalent (because of the 42% weighting of that sector) to an increase of almost five times that much in medical/health care costs. However, Housing costs, tend to be more or less stable in many regions and tend lower in Baby Boomers. So, what is affecting these people who claim that their SS doesn’t go as far as it should? Considering the age of SS recipients, it should come as no surprise that, as a percentage of income, spending on seven of the eight categories that are sampled to calculate the CPI for seniors (over 65 and on Social security /Medicare) goes down, while one escalates markedly. That one, of course is Health Care/Medical expenditures, which average 30% higher than the national average for all age groups.

        What this means is that, while indexing COLAs is an apolitical method of determining them, which removes Congress from the process  (contrary to the blatant lies of some Republicans who claim that “Democrats didn’t give them enough raise” or some other totally bullshit fallacy) the CPI as currently calculated, while valid for the “average” (whatever that is) household is not truly representative of the challenges faced by seniors, since for them, while seven of the component sectors of the CPI actually decrease when over 65, health care is a much larger portion of household expense. This comes at a time when, again for (many) retirees over 70, household income is about 25% lower, drug and other medical expenses are about 30% higher.  Meanwhile, per the bureau of labor statistics, average per person health care expenditures even for those continues to increase faster than the CPI.

       OK, enough stats, what a you trying to tell us? Simply that the components which are factored into the CPI were defined before the Robber Barons of the Healthcare and specifically Big Pharma, skewed the playing field, as they continue to do. Congress is taking the heat for the wrong thing, which is the reality that weighted health care components of the CPI are no longer proportional to their actual share of expenditures by Boomers and newly Social Security eligible households, and it isn’t even close! What Americans should be angry about is the gutless Congressional refusal to tell Pharma to keep their lobbying bucks ($27.5 million - that we know about this year) and enact meaningful legislation either 1) shortening patent periods or 2) Even better, pass legislation requiring Pharma to prove their development costs to the FDA, to obtain permission for initial pricing (you know – “regulation in the public interest?” ), with any increases over patent life indexed to the CPI.  And, 3) Replace the Medicare Part D prohibition allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices like every single civilian insurer already does.

       Another nice touch would be to ban DTC (direct to consumer) media advertising of drugs ($5.1 billion in 2018), like every other civilized nation of the world, except New Zealand, does.  Of the nearly $30 billion total that health companies now spend on medical marketing each year, around 68 percent (or about $20 billion) goes to persuading doctors and other medical professionals—not consumers—of the benefits of prescription drugs. And that's according to an in-depth analysis published in January of this year in the Journal of the American Medical Association!  

       Okay, I quit, that’s all I got on this slow news day, other than a deep sense of sorrow for those innocents caught in the Turkish-Kurdish conflict which our illustrious President facilitated. When Pat Robertson criticizes you (he said Trump may have lost the “mandate of heaven” [gag me with a chainsaw]) you are well and truly fucked. This is the one and only time I have ever hoped that Evangelicals will listen to this Blood Diamond facilitating, Misogynistic, bag of offal.

The Villages Daily Sun...day.

      The New York Times famously displays on its masthead the slogan “All the News That’s Fit to Print.” The National Enquirer seems to have gone the route of “All the Dirt That Fits, we Print.”   Somewhere in the middle is our local (The Villages Daily Sun.”

        The paper has a large circulation for its population demographic, with distribution up 192% since 2003, while newspaper circulation around the United States has dropped 43 percent. This doesn’t include those outlets with digital circulation, like the WaPo and NYtimes. The Sun’s slogan should be “All the News that Fits Our Narrative, We Print.” The paper has stopped printing opinion letters to the editor, since some individuals, and I was one, insisted on responding to hate speech with reasoned response.

        The op-ed page features just about all Hard-Right columnists, including the two nastiest persons in America, “anchor baby” turned immigrant troller, Michelle Malkin and John Stossel, advocate for return to the age of Robber Barons. If you think that last is an exaggeration, Stossel actually defended $90 per case price gouging for bottled water, post Hurricane Harvey and Malkin has written that Japanese internment in the US was a “good idea.” Adriana Cohen and Walter Williams are but a tiny step down the vitriol slope, but on the too rare occasion, the Sun will run a column by Mona Charen, still markedly right of center, but literate and relatively moderate.

        Editorial policy hinges of course on the conservative politics of the developer’s family, who owns the paper and exerts political and self-serving editorial policy in a general way. For example: The Daily Sun's newspaper strategy has received criticism from residents and national media for its lack of coverage on topics of importance to the community. In 2017, over 32 sinkholes were reported in The Villages by media sources, despite The Villages Daily Sun reporting only one of those. According to Sun staff, speaking off record, employees had been instructed to not report on sinkholes and "anything complimentary about President Barack Obama."  A resident from The Villages who was selected to receive a private audience with Barack Obama at the Democratic National Convention, was told by the editor that the encounter was not newsworthy.

        On the other hand, being as fair and balanced as possible, (me, that is) local apolitical issues are generally well handled, and national news is generally syndicated Associated Press national releases. The future direction of the Sun may depend on the third generation of the Morse family, whose theater ties may well indicate a more tolerant attitude. We’ll see. I just wrote the above to give some sense of what it means to be a social liberal in The Villages. On balance, it could be worse ….it could be Kansas.

       So, what do we glean from today’s version?

        For starters, Red Tide is making a comeback in Southwest Florida, just in time for the snowbirds to begin flocking back. I wonder if there’s a previously undiscerned linkage?

       In completely unrelated news, it seems that some morons decided to desecrate what has been dubbed “America’s Stonehenge” using power tools to deface stones on this new Hampshire site which has, for years been a source of moderate controversy and what has been called, by some scientific authorities “pseudo-archeology.”  As far as anyone knows, the spot--located on the aptly named Mystery Hill, and accessible for a modest entry fee these days, was first settled by Jonathan Pattee and his family in 1823. Some say Pattee built it; there is more agreement that he destroyed much of it, selling the granite for sidewalks. With some of the stones at 4 tons, Patee would have needed a lot of Wheaties, just sayin’. There are markings on the rocks which are controversial because of what they have been claimed to be by believers and skeptics alike.

        One such “believer” former Harvard professor, Dr. Barry Fell, a linguist, investigated “inscriptions” found at the site. He said they could be “confidently set at about 800-600 BC and it was clear that Goidelic Celts," warlike early settlers of the British Isles--"were the occupants at that date, and in all probability, the builders too.”  Having read Dr Fell’s three best known books, “Bronze Age America”, “America BC” and “Saga America”, all I can say is read ‘em and make up your own mind.

Do we really think these were built by one guy?

rock carvings are hard to see, but plentiful

       In 1936, William Goodwin purchased the site, and until his death in 1950 took steps to preserve and research it. In his book, “The Ruins of Greater Ireland in New England,” he claims that the structures were built by Irish monks around AD 1000. I report, you decide.

        In a classic case of “You can’t fix stupid” (thanks, Ron White) one Cade Edmond Seimers, decided that taking a walk in Yellowstone at night and without a flashlight was even remotely a good idea, and he did so. Anyone who has been to the Park knows that the entire 3500 square mile region sits in the caldera of a (currently) dormant volcano which is located not on a plate boundary (fault line) like California or Japan, but rather over what is referred to as a “hot spot.” 

       The earth’s mantle is a liquid magma cloak which sometimes comes near the surface, not on plate boundaries (like the Pacific Ring of Fire, but in the middle. Mantle plumes are areas of hot, upwelling mantle. A hot spot develops above the plume, and if magma generated by the hot spot rises through the rigid plates of the lithosphere (rocks) it can and does produce active volcanoes at the Earth's surface. ... Hot spots are places within the mantle where rocks melt to generate magma. Hot spots exist around the world both undersea (the Hawaiian Islands are classic examples of islands formed as a plate moves over a hot spot) and under land masses as it has in Yellowstone. Apparently, determined to validate Darwin, Mr. Seimers, wandering around near Old Faithful in the dark, tripped (his word) and fell into a hot spring. The oddity isn’t that he did it, (well, OK, that is pretty weird), but that he lived to tell about it. He had to have stumbled on one of the coolest springs in the area, since Old Faithful erupts with 204-degree water. Falling into water at that temperature is a death sentence, even if the water isn’t one of the acid springs, which have dissolved humans and animals periodically. Temperatures underground in the park get as high as 456 degrees F. I repeat, you can’t fix stupid (but you can scald it!!)

The headline for this photo reads: "Man dissolved in boiling acidic water in slip at Yellowstone ..." Good thing our lucky friend didn't find this pool!

        In another example of understatement, A bridge on Taiwan collapsed on October 1. No bomb, no sabotage.  It fell down. It broke. The geniuses who report these things decided that their “may have been structural issues.” Wow! Asian wisdom prevails.

        And finally (mostly because I’m tired of typing and lunch is ready) “U.N. Security Council to Meet Tuesday on North Korea Launches.”  The story below the headline simply repeats with a bit more verbiage, that sentiment. North Korea has test launched a ballistic missile, not at any living target(s) and Britain, France and Germany didn’t like it, calling for “closed consultations” on the matter.

        This is an apparent continuation of the philosophy that “we” (western republics) are allowed to have these devices, but you Communists and/or Islamic nations  aren’t (unless you’re Russia, or China which are so big we can’t bully them like we do you (“you” being North Korea and Iran). Am I the only person of sound mind which finds that weird?

        I mean, both India and Pakistan are also nuclear capable, Pakistan, which sheltered Osama Bin Laden, since the late 1980s. As the nation which provided a haven for the mass murderer (so far) of the 21^st century, why aren’t we all “fatootsed” about that?

        Oh well lunchtime.

Must be Close to Halloween

        We know it must be getting close to Halloween because the Great Pumpkin made an appearance in The Villages yesterday. Typical of Trump, he ballyhooed an executive order (meaning nothing, since it neither really enabled nor denied anyone anything) which he claimed was him protecting Medicare which, oddly enough he has criticized elsewhere, but then this is a retirement community. The essence of the token gesture was to make it easier for Medicare Advantage plans to grab more Medicare money. The rub here is that Medicare advantage insurers are only able to provide what they do because drug prices are what drives high Medicare costs. Thank you, Bush 43, for Medicare part D’s free gift to private insurers which forbids Medicare from negotiating drug costs as Medicare Advantage and other private plans can (and do).

       As usual, he used far too many superlatives, filling in the gaps with meaningless drivel. The local paper, so far Right it can’t see the middle, headed the sports section today with a half page photo of Trump golfing and a headline “Golfer in Chief”. It is likely that few of his braying sycophants will recall the Trump who campaigned while claiming he, “Wouldn’t have time to play golf.”  Meanwhile he has spent more time and far more money on golf in 2 ½ years than Obama, whom he criticized as playing “too much golf”, did in two full terms. 

       And yet these annoying truths are just blown off, because …well because their (Trump supporters) moral compasses are seemingly broken.

        Meanwhile Federal handouts to US farmers have topped $27 billion due to the disastrous effects of Trump’s ill-advised tariff war with China. Similarly, American manufacturers and importer/retailers estimate the average American family will bear just over $850 dollars annually in extra expense due to the effects of those same tariffs. This offsets, for average Americans, any positive effects of the “tax cuts” enacted to benefit fat cat contributors. Amazingly, there are still those of the Trump camp who believe the outrageous lie that “China pays the tariffs.”  Of course, in terms Trump supporters can understand:  Not imposing agricultural tariffs alone on China would have saved taxpayers more than five times the cost of Mr. Trump’s ridiculous wall. Meanwhile the federal deficit, in what Trump maintains is a booming economy, has exceeded a trillion dollars.  I know he’s stupid and “doesn’t read” (his own characterization of his leadership style), but apparently, he’s counting on the economic ignorance of his fan base, because essentially every legitimate economist, regardless of political party advised against the tariffs.

       Then again, this is also the guy who said, “I know more about ISIS than the generals” and the Red Hats high fived each other, not one pausing to reflect on Trump’s total absence of military experience, yet apparently ready to ignore the Joint Chiefs of staff in favor of his own “stable genius” 

        Now for the truth: Over the next 10 years, Trump’s 2020 budget proposal aims to spend $1.5 trillion less on Medicaid — instead allocating $1.2 trillion in a block-grant program to states — $25 billion less on Social Security, and $845 billion less on Medicare.  

        Meanwhile, Trump himself, still absolutely convinced that he is a “stable genius,” both parts of which he proved wrong in front of the Finnish President, continues denying his missteps re: Ukraine, claiming that anyone who dares contradict him is a “traitor” (as if he had ever read the Constitutional definition of that term) and sends his lawyer, Rudy “Nosferatu” Giuliani out to lie for him. If anyone felt the need to be convinced of Trump’s miserable judgement, look to the revolving door in his cabinet and administration. I mean, hell if Rick Perry thinks you suck….!

        All that said, the standout example of just how morally bankrupt Trump truly is can be had in his selection of personal attorneys. Early on, Trump’s mentor and “fixer” was the poster boy for zero moral integrity.  Roy Cohn, himself a closeted gay man, was a prime mover in Joseph McCarthy’s attempts to smear just about anyone who came on McCarthy’s radar or questioned his character assassinations as either a “Commie”, “Gay” or whatever fake charge he could drum up. In Washington, Cohn was known as both a closeted homosexual and homophobic, (figure that out!?) among those leading the charge against supposedly gay witnesses who he and others believed should lose their government jobs because they were “security risks.” How odd that Trump became a Roy Cohn protégé and client. Actually, it isn’t odd at all, because Trump has needed “fixers” like Cohn since he reached adulthood, and the scurrilous methods he learned at Roy Cohn’s knee are those he uses today.

Donald Trump and Roy Cohn

                    Roy Cohn and Joseph McCarthy


          As if that wasn’t enough, he has now chosen a man, Giuliani, who is so far into his dotage that about twice weekly he publicly contradicts Trump, himself, or both. Asked who in the White House is responsible for handling Giuliani’s missteps, a White House aide, speaking anonymously, said, “Handling Rudy’s f--- ups takes more than one man.” One wonders what Giuliani knows that makes Trump hesitate to fire him.

On Social Systems

Sometimes a simple answer can “blossom” into so much more. Ever happen to you? It happened to me recently.

       The trigger was a simple Facebook question and answer regarding possible Democratic candidates. The issue revolved around Sanders/Warren, even though Biden is apparently the (hopefully short lived) front runner. The statement was:

“Bernie and Warren are not home free. To many of our voting public just don't understand socialism.”

       I was forced to reflect that the above statement may well reveal that even those who feel they do “understand socialism”, have little or no political real-world basis for that belief. Certainly, believing that the Green New Deal is a panacea for “what ails us” indicated profound ignorance of how we got here and how deeply entrenched a market economy is in Americans at even the small businessman level. Using the term Socialism, by implication and definition means (Oxford English Dictionary):

1) “A political and economic theory of social organization which advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole.”  (Regulated really somewhat reflects the concept of a regulated market economy, but most Americans see “Owned” and reject that out of hand.

2) “In Marxist theory, a transitional social state between the overthrow of capitalism and the realization of Communism.”

       It's a sliding scale, and there's the problem. Communism is specifically called State Socialism. Other than the occasional 15 or 20 hippies in the desert with a bushel of pot, there has never been a really successful Communist state or, for that matter democratic state. 20th century experiments involved a violent transition from dictatorship (Russia, Cuba) to the dictatorship of the Party. In both cases, the population base subjected to the system was already used to centralized and dictatorial abuse, ergo saw not a whole lot of change, except among the extreme lower classes (better off) and the former upper classes (worse off. In neither case did the end result really resemble Marx’s economic vision since human desires for wealth, privilege and power soon became entrenched.  A Russian serf was already miserable, so Communism, or in fact, any system which ameliorated that misery was preferable, even if that mean sweeping the streets of Moscow in winter (yeah, really) or waiting months for consumer goods nationalized industries were incapable of producing fast enough. There are areas where a national approach of a universally necessary service or commodity (like healthcare) is appropriate, but if you want a bloody revolution, tell all the power companies, airlines, auto manufacturers etc. that they're going to become government owned.

        We have too long a history of entrepreneurial business to simply reverse course. There is way too much money in far way too many hands. The best course would be the agreement that as Wilson said, Regulation in the public interest is appropriate. Theodore Roosevelt, himself a Republican, but also the first to use the Sherman Act to legally limit the public abuses by businesses of the age of robber barons (See Rockefeller, John D.) had said earlier, “ When we control business in the public interest we are also bound to encourage it in the public interest or it will be a bad thing for everybody and worst of all for those on whose behalf the control is nominally exercised.” I think there may well be a great truth in that idea. It is possible to encourage entrepreneurialism while limiting its abuses. Dodd-Frank was a good faith attempt to do that. You saw how quickly Trump backed us out of Dodd -Frank.

        The Public Interest theory of regulation explains government intervention in markets and associated regulatory rules as “responses to market failures and market imperfections.” It argues that regulation promotes the general welfare rather than the interests of well-organized stakeholders.

A reasonable position by any candidate might be to amend this to include the idea that some societal issues, benefits and possibilities are so central to successful communities that they should also fall under that umbrella. The issue then becomes, “What idea/concepts/services and in what manner.” An example of this gone “off the rails” is the Green New Deal. It proposes huge expenditures, ignores existing technology while removing incentive to private enterprise in the field. If it is desired that the nation transition to a much lower carbon footprint (a wonderful idea), then all "green" tech need be considered, including “zero footprint” nuclear power. The resistance to this is driven by ignorance and superstition. Additionally, if one wants to encourage Solar and or Wind, then make it attractive for private entities to do so. Let them raise capital, and if necessary be given tax incentives rather than creating more federal bureaucracy to do the same. If we learn anything from Denmark it should be that an all-out government wind program will drive energy costs sky high (highest in Europe and three times US average)

        Without massive social upheaval, (and I mean literally) the neutral ground would be to fairly regulate what private industry can and can't do. Sanders verges on being an out and out Socialist and, in my opinion, almost as reactionary to the left as is Trump to the right. In point of fact, based on anecdotal things from those who actually have worked (or tried to work) with him, he is abrasive and doesn't play well with others. Democrat Centrists would probably not support him.

         Asking the American public to take the kind of tax hit which a truly Socialist agenda would demand would be political suicide. Britain went that route to some extent and backed away from it due to economic failure, more than anything. Nationalized UK industries, at one time included coal, iron and steel, electricity' and gas, transport by rail, civil aviation, and some others. Note, however,  the absence of national healthcare, which does work, from that list!! The return to privatization was trying and perhaps we in the US could learn from Industrial Socialism’s failure in our closest ally, rather than reprove that it doesn’t work well.

          Denmark also has a huge marginal tax rate, as does Sweden and Norway, even with Norway producing most power by hydro. The "Green New Deal" sounds better than the unreality of funding it is, but is fatally flawed because it rejects nuclear power out of pure lack of knowledge.

        As a response to the original question re: my opinion on a realistic democratic ticket” I think a Warren/ Buttigieg ticket could win but feel Sanders would  condemn us to four more Trump years. Remember, we’re not talking to a politically sophisticated or informed country as a whole, and Trump supporters are at the bottom of that barrel. They will not be won ever by any non-rightist candidate, therefore any split in the democratic ranks will be tragic. What I find very hard to understand is why we know more about what AOC, in her relative ignorance and naivete, believes than we do about Professor Warren. She is a self-made woman of prodigious accomplishment and intellect. Like AOC, she put herself through college, unlike her, she did it as a working wife and mother. I feel it's time to make specific statements and draw firm lines disassociating herself  from the more radical socialism with which she is being labelled and the fairly and consistently regulated market economy which the majority of Americans find acceptable, even though many are so "economically challenged" that they know not what they know not. There are other socio/political/economic choices than Robber Baron or Socialist. Hell, we all thought socialism made sense when we were in college.... then we grew up and went to work for a living.

        A classic example of what I'm talking about is the electrical power industry. There is a government owned utility- the TVA. The TVA dams were built to provide power in areas of the mid-south where private utility companies had no lines. Using hydro, TVA retails power at a relatively low cost, but not really cheaper than other non-government hydro providers elsewhere. Electrical Utilities, like communications corporations, are regulated and legally restrained from rate increases which are unjustified. States do the same thing for utilities and insurers for example.

        If Orlando Utilities wants a rate increase, they must provide justification to the Public Services (or Public Utilities, titles vary) commission, which may reject such request. This is government regulation in the public interest of a private utility. Allowing a corporation to build and produce power by raising capital and then making a regulated fair profit eliminates the huge outlay of public funds such efforts would require. The cries of abuse we hear about drug pricing could be resolved by standing up to Big Pharma and using a "commission" to review pricing. It doesn't take Socialism to do that, it takes the willingness to ignore lobbyists and do the right thing. A good beginning could be had by banning all lobbyists.

My dear friend responded with: “Mike,  I understand your points but, and please correct me if I am wrong, I don't think Bernie wants total socialism; I think he wants a socialistic Healthcare System and to fight the big Pharma which has gotten way out of control. Please enlighten me.”

ME: “XXXX, that may be, but the message gets lost in the word “Socialism”. The larger issue is that while he does well with crowds, he apparently does far less well with those who he really needs - his peers. Here's a guy who has been sort of the  "cranky old uncle"" while not building any consensus with members of the organization. I just don't see him as now being able to build consensus. He's been an independent who, as president, would need support from those, some of whom he has built a career criticizing. He also supports free college and the Green New Deal which, as I said, is naive at best, and more like downright foolish.

Response: Mike, free college sounds great, but I don't know where the money will come from, but other countries do it.

ME: “XXXXX, they do it with high taxes. And yes, other countries do it, but if your taxes were as high as, say, Denmark you'd scream. The myth, however, is that “everyone should go to college.” 

       Tech schools are, for many, a better idea. The guy who fixes my a/ c starts at about the same pay as a Florida beginning teacher in many cases. 

       There will always be service sectors in various areas which require no college and which, in many cases, students can graduate high school ready to work. Another example: a starting apprentice electrician should expect to earn in the same general area as a beginning teacher (in Florida) – mid $30,000 range, let’s call it $35,000.  However, the teacher will have had to first pass four (more likely five, now) years of school and pay for that while earning nothing. In that same five years, the electrician, earned $175,000 and may well be a journeyman, (after 3 to 5 years apprenticeship) earning in the high $50ks-low $60ks depending on where they work. Even if the electrician doesn’t progress to master electrician ($83k, even in Florida) the teacher with five years of college will never, ever catch up! There were, in 2014, 628,800 master electrician jobs in the USA, requiring only a high school diploma or equivalency.

       The income is even higher for 2-year tech diploma grads in such fields as radiology tech. A licensed massage therapist in Florida with as little as 8 months to a max of 18 months training will earn, from the get-go, in the mid $45 k range and never have to grade homework.

       And finally, one last example, using my self. I entered the Navy with no college degree and remained enlisted throughout my career. A Navy enlistee today, who enlisted in 1998 and progressed as I did, would have, if a nuclear trained individual as I was, probably been paid additional $50 to $60,000 dollars (actually up to $100k in reenlistment bonus over and above salary. If that person, reached pay grade E-9 and was, as I was, career submarine and sea pay designated, they would earn well over $120,000 annually in pay and allowances, with increases for each year from 20 to 30. At 30 years of service, at say, age 48, they could retire with right at $70,000 annually for the rest of their lives. This doesn’t include premium health insurance for life, which reverts to a Medicare supplement at age 65. Pretty much means no medical bills after 65. Ever. No college required, just pass high school algebra with a C and be willing to work. The teacher, in Florida after 30 years, never having made, after about 15 years, as much annually as the enlisted man, could look forward after 30 years at say age 54, or so, to a retirement of $33,000 (yeah, that’s less than half) and pay for health care insurance.

No, not everyone needs to go to college, but if it were completely free, I’d be willing to bet that many more will try and fail

 .  

After I finished the text, I decided to include a graphic with explanations for whomever cares.

Bogus Memes and Those Who Believe Them

There’s no shortage of incomplete knowledge driven and disseminated by partisan zealots. The meme below is a wonderful example of both.

This originally showed itself on a Facebook post. I responded:

You really have no idea, do you? Congress has had no pay raise since 2009. They are supposed to get a COLA every year and have refused it for the last 10. Meanwhile the CPI has increased by 19.59% over that period so, in essence, Congress has had a salary cut of almost 20 percent from 2009-2019. Have you seen a 20% decrease in your spending power? Did you turn down the annual Social security COLA? Even If all 535 members of Congress got no pay whatsoever until the current 22 trillion debt was paid off, it would take 236 years!

Social security isn't a "pot" of money and would take too long to explain.

The meme to the left shows the lack of understanding exhibited by those too quick to post and too slow to do the work to discern the truth.

The Congressional pay raise if accepted, would amount to a percentage (in the 2% range) based on the same index as Social Security COLAs. In other words, the legislation was passed years ago and is completely out of any individual’s hands. Meanwhile the CPI has risen 19% over the period since Congress refused the raises beginning in 2009.

As for the debt, the deficit adds to it every year. Indeed, Obama had large deficits due to the great recession. Remember, his first year was the last Bush budget with almost half a trillion of the TARP included. (not criticizing Bush, just making the point). Adjusted for inflation it is similar to the FDR issues during terms 3 and part of four. 

       It (the initial huge Obama deficit) was driven by much lower tax receipts ($400 billion less in 2009!) due to Bush 43 tax cuts and epidemic home-owner defaults and bankruptcies while spending on wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which Obama also inherited, the deficit steadily decreased through the Obama last five years.

       What is far more difficult to grasp is why, in what Trump, himself, brags on as a "booming economy" The deficit is on track to be, in just one four-year term, 91% of Obama's total for two terms during a huge recession. Imagine, doing all this while giving huge tax cuts to the wealthy, gutting environmental protection and playing more golf in 2 1/2 years than Obama did in 8 years. In fact, Trump's golf has cost (so far) more than a year of Congressional salaries.

       Perhaps you might look elsewhere to vent? The best Trump quote on his huge "prosperity “deficit?" “We won't be here by then!" This is the same Trump who campaigned that he would "Balance the Federal budget fairly quickly". Instead he cut taxes and increased spending, aided by a Congress dominated by his own party. Tell me again why he's even marginally competent?

Not unexpectedly, the response by the original poster was:

“I think some of the additional benefits they get has helped them survive.”

       It was at this point that I realized that I was dealing with the “Congressmen get all their shit free!” fallacy as well as general lack of information.

So, being me, I leapt back into the fray:

       Not my point at all, the meme is a lie, pure and simple, and as for the "additional benefits", I suspect you don't really know what they are. They (Members of Congress) are required to pay for their own health care insurance and most are part of a federal employees group, just like a clerk in the Patent Office,  unless they buy private coverage. They can't use Walter Reed or any other hospital "free" as some have suggested. They don’t get free haircuts. Their retirement plan isn't vested until five years. A two term Representative gets no retirement at all! Under no circumstances can their retirement be more than 80 % of their "high five." They get no free housing or even housing allowance. In fact, some junior members actually sleep in their office while in DC. A USN retiree at 30 years, maybe 52 years old, gets 75% of high five and health care insurance for life, a Congressman draws nothing until 62, and it isn't portable.

         I don't love Congress either, but crap like this meme are simply lies and some are willing to believe it. In fact, compared to civilian sector individuals with comparative responsibility and authority, members of Congress are barely comparably paid. Why are you angry at Congress when football coaches are paid millions?

      As a Floridian, if you really want a righteous cause, consider that your taxes pay our 31 members of Congress (in salary) $5.4 million annually. On the other hand, your Florida state sales taxes and/or children’s exorbitant tuition, pay the top five football coaches (just football, not including all the other high-profile sports) out of more than 40 state schools, a total of just short of $15 million annually. What has a football coach done for you lately?