Rwanda and more

There are over a million people living in two refugee camps in Africa. The problems in African rarely get the news coverage that problems elsewhere in the world receive. It is not farfetched to assume that there is a racial component to this type of coverage. Recall in the 1990’s almost a million were massacred in Rwanda and most were chopped to death with machetes. The UN observers stood by and watched as many recalled the words of the holocaust demanding that this never happen again. The genocide had a lasting and profound impact on Rwanda and its neighboring countries. The pervasive use of war rape caused a spike in HIV infection, including babies born of rape to newly infected mothers; many households were headed by orphaned children or widows DADAAB, Kenya — The Kenyan government is threatening to dismantle the world’s largest refugee camp, setting off a panic among the nearly 350,000 people who live here and the international aid organizations that care for them. Ethiopia has overtaken Kenya to become Africa’s largest refugee-hosting country after hundreds of thousands of South Sudanese arrived in the country this year. The total refugee population has reached almost 630,000, raising concerns that its capacity to help displaced people may be overstretched. News from today. Massive new displacements caused by conflict, violence and human rights abuses are likely to continue to affect many countries on the continent in 2015. The projected numbers of people of concern in Africa in 2015 are expected to decrease slightly (from 15.1 million in 2014 to 14.9 million), due to repatriation, resettlement and other durable solutions. Where is the outrage!

Light sweet crude

Oil is sometimes call black gold but that is misleading in one respect. Gold is the same in every mine but oil is very different depending on where it is found. Some oil, like that found in the United States is sweet and light meaning it is low in sulfur and low in other contaminants like heavy metals. Oil that is imported from Mexico and Venezuela is heavy and sour meaning high in sulfur and other contaminants. US refineries have been set up to process heavy oil and it takes time and money to convert them over to processing light crude. This change is underway and will be accelerated in the coming years. That is one of the reasons why we are still importing about 8 million barrels per day or about 40% of the 20 million barrels per day that we use. There are 140 refineries in the United States and they are close to maximum production. No new refineries have been built in many years and there are a couple of reasons for this. First is the cost, especially concerning the many new regulations that have come about in the past few years. The second is that it is more economical to add capacity to existing refineries than to build new ones. Since 1975 it has been illegal for the US to export oil but that changed this week so we will see an increase in exports which means light crude is going overseas but this will not stop the refineries from changing over to light oil as they know that long term US oil will keep increasing.

Ethan Couch

The case of Ethan Couch is interesting as it relates to some of the complaints from blacks about the unfairness of our justice system. For those of you not familiar with the case, this young man at age 16 was driving drunk and killed four people. He comes from a wealthy family and his lawyer presented a case based on affluenza. This is a new term which describes a young person spoiled to the point where he thought he was above the law. The lawyer was very persuasive and the jury convicted the young man and he got 10 years probation. Now picture if you will a young black kid in North Minneapolis driving drunk and killing four people and try to imagine him getting probation. Not likely! The latest word is that the Ethan and his mother have disappeared and believed to be out of the country. Who knows what’s going on there.

Coal and climate

While the United States is no longer building new coal fired power plants and is converting existing coal plants over to natural gas, countries like China and India are continuing to build new coal plants. The same thing is happening in South Africa. The price of oil has now dropped to where it is competitive with coal and the United States has an almost unlimited supply of oil. Oil is much cleaner than coal producing far less carbon dioxide, far less acid rain and far fewer heavy metals like mercury and lead. Shipping oil to Asia would have a significant impact on global trade while cleaning up the air pollution that is killing millions in China and India. Japan is replacing their nuke plants with coal when they could be using oil. Africa is building new coal plants. While all this is going on countries are holding meetings discussing the problem of climate change. Does anyone see the makings of a deal here? Is it possible that an outsider like Trump, the man who wrote, “The Art of the Deal”, could come up with a plan to save the planet from what President Obama says is our greatest threat? Are we so tangled up in our politics that we can’t see the forest for the trees.

War

I hear daily on the news that we are at war but the word war is a nebulous term whose meaning has changed over the years. Some say you are not at war until congress declares war but the last time that happened was WW 2. Some say Korea was a war and others say Viet Nam. Younger people talk about the war in Afghanistan and Iraq. Sometimes the phrase is trivialized like the war on poverty and the war on drugs. As I look back over the years and view all of the conflicts it seems that the last time we could declare victory was back to WW 2. Just how did that war differ from the battles that followed? The answer is complicated but one of the big differences was the willingness to deliberately kill civilians. One of the main strategies in getting complete surrender was to purposely target civilians. News stories about the big war all mention the use of atomic weapons but only a few describe the tactic of fire-bombing cities. While an estimated up to 200,000 were killed by the A-bomb, millions were killed in the fire-bombing of cities. In this war 60 million people were killed and most were civilians and this does not count the millions more who were injured. As war has become more civilized, excuse the oxymoron, it has become more difficult to totally defeat an enemy and so we are left with these endless conflicts and we best get used to it. The war on terrorism will likely go on for generations.

6th Grade

This week the Trump phenomenon reached new heights in my personal affairs when I was showing a movie to the 6th graders. The movie was “Home Alone 2” and in the middle of it Donald Trump shows up for about 2 seconds in the lobby of a large hotel and all the students in unison say there’s Donald Trump. It is my guess that you could question a 1000 sixth graders on the street and ask them to name some presidential candidate and you would get no answer. I admit that I have never seen The Apprentice TV show and don’t know how many in 6th grade have watched it but to me it is amazing that students this age would recognize Trump in a 2 second cameo role.

Trump skeletons

One of the great mysteries concerning the current political climate is why no skeletons have been found in Trumps closet. There must be a whole bevy of reporters searching everything he has ever said or did and yet nothing. Could all of those big business deals be all legit? He has two ex-wives and they both think he is OK and his five children seem to be above reproach.

Coal vs oil

Two very different events came together yesterday which indicate the total misunderstanding of the climate change problem. First the CEO of Ford announced they will spend 4.5 billion dollars on electric cars. This in and off itself is not that peculiar but the reason he gave was ridiculous. He said that since oil was a non-renewable resource he had to prepare for the day that it ran out, which he suggested would be in ten or so years. The Green River Formation in the Western United States has 3 trillion barrels of recoverable oil and that is enough to cover our needs for 2,700 years. The second thing was the congress passing a budget bill that included changing the existing law which prohibits the export of oil. The recent climate conference in Paris pointed out that the US has lowered its carbon emissions by switching away from coal and that Africa and Asia are increasing their carbon emissions by using coal. It is well known that oil produces less carbon dioxide than coal and the US is now in a position to send oil to these coal using countries. Perhaps this is the first step to moving toward natural gas which is much better for the environment than coal or oil. In all discussions about fueling the economy we must not lose track of the fact that the ultimate solution is hydrogen which will come in the future. Here the only bi-product is water.

Strong and wrong

Bill Clinton said, "When people are insecure, they'd rather have somebody who is strong and wrong than someone who's weak and right," That is a tough choice but I agree with Clinton. My reasoning is that if I am strong I can change my mind when presented with new information but if I appear weak, I won’t be able to change. Using the current candidates for President, consider the differences between Trump and Carson. A guy like Trump could change his mind about a temporary stop to Muslims coming into the country but Carson could never project strength like Trump is doing. It is one thing to change your mind on an issue but quite another thing to change your personality. Even if you tried that, the people would see right through it. I don’t know what these two candidates are really like but Trump is perceived as strong and Carson is not. It might just be a lot of bombastic talk but the perception is that Trump is strong and Carson is not and more to the point, Obama based on recent polls, is seen as weak on terrorism.

Church fires

There was a Muslim Church set afire this week in California and this made news. Here are some other quotes from the news. Since 2003, 13 mosques around the country have suffered arson or bombing attacks. A spate of arsons this month at six predominately black churches in the St. Louis area has raised concerns that these incidents could be racially motivated. But they are by no means the first arsons at places of worship this year. As of July 14, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) had ruled 29 of 79 fires at houses of worship in 2015 to be arson, although some investigations were ongoing. Indeed, about half of all the fires at houses of worship in the past 20 years were intentionally set, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of data from the ATF. Of the 4,705 reported fire incidents at houses of worship between 1996 and 2015, 2,378, or 51%, had been ruled intentional as of July.

Paris meeting

On President Obama’s inaugural tour of Europe he said that America was arrogant. "there have been times where America's shown arrogance and been dismissive, even derisive" America is once again showing it’s arrogance by praising the recent environmental meeting in Paris. Lest we forget the western world went through the industrial revolution between 1750 and 1850 and it was done by using coal. Now we have countries in Africa and Asia that are going through their version of the industrial revolution and we point out to them how we have made improvements by switching to natural gas. If the true intention of this meeting was to confront the problem of global warming the whole thing would have centered around moving away from coal and onto oil and finally natural gas, but this is not what is going on. The purpose of this meeting was to transfer money from the developed world to the developing world and they succeeded with a promise of 100 billion dollars a year. Of this amount only 10 billion has been pledged and 3 billion of that is coming from the US. Another problem with transferring money to developing countries is that all too often the money is siphoned off and ends up in the hands of some unscrupulous leader. The President will not be depending on the senate to ratify this agreement as a treaty since that takes 67 votes and the last time this was tried was with the 1997 Kyoto protocol. A senate vote on the protocol was defeated 95 to 0 so the treaty was out. I find it interesting that the President says the Republican controlled senate will not pass this agreement when in fact the last time not one Democrat voted in favor.

Refugees

Trying to make sense out of the current controversy surrounding the closing of borders to Muslims is not as straight forward as if first seems. For example, President Obama some weeks ago suggest that we bring in 10 to 25 thousand refugees from Syria. There was some concern raised but most people felt it was the right thing to do. Then the terror attack in California came and muddied the waters. Next it was reveal that the engagement visa was not properly vetted and that caused more concern. Now we find out that many blank Syrian VISA’s and the printing machines needed to make VISAs are in the hands of the terrorist. It would be reasonable for President to call for a temporary halt in the refugee program until these issues can be clarified. Just to illustrate how complicate this can get, what if the president decided to temporarily halt the Syrian refugee program but offered an exemption to Syrians who are non-Muslim. Some would say even if you wanted to do this, how would you determine which Syrians are non-Muslim and of course the same question can be asked about which Syrians are really Syrians. Many of these refugees left with only the clothes on their backs and have little proof of who they are or where they come from. It seems it would be difficult to vet people who have so little background information. The government was caught unawares by the engagement VISA. Will there be other surprises down the road?

Crimes against Jews

There are about 6.7 million Muslims in the United States and about 5.4 million Jews. In the last few years, specifically anti-Muslim crimes have made up about 13 or 14 percent of hate crimes considered to be committed with a religious bias. That amounts to nearly 100 anti-Islam hate crimes each year from 2011 to 2013. As for crimes against Jews: The ADL counted 912 incidents in 2014, up from 751 in 2013. “The United States still continues to be unique in history” as a safe place for Jews, said Abraham Foxman, the ADL’s outgoing national director. “It’s still different here than anywhere else, but don’t take anything for granted, and be concerned,” Foxman said. Even though crimes against Jews are 7 times more frequent the crimes against Muslims get all of the publicity.

Non-voters

In the 2012 presidential election 126 million people voted and 93 million did not. The reason many give for not voting is they feel that there is no difference between candidates, no matter the party. Recall that George Wallace who ran as an independent said, there is not a dimes worth of difference between the democrats and the republicans. These same people may be looking at Trump as someone who is different and if 10% of them would come out and vote it could win the election. This may be one of the reasons that the Republican establishment does not want him to get the nomination because the fear he could win the election. This is contrary to what the experts say, since they are predicting an easy win for Clinton if Trump is the nominee but of course these people seem to be wrong about many things these days.

Iran and the rest

The recent remarks by Trump regarding Muslims have some people saying that this will cause a rift between the United States and our gulf ally’s and that is likely but when President Obama signed the treaty with Iran that caused a much bigger rift. The Shia Muslims of Iran are more threatening to the Sunni Muslims of the rest of the Middle East than any remarks made by any American. These countries are so afraid of the Shia dominated Iran that they are willing to allow Israeli airplanes to fly over their territory if they choose to attack Iran’s nuclear sites. It takes a lot of fear to align Israel with Saudi Arabia but the Iran nuclear deal has done just that.

School fights

St Paul teachers have threatened to strike because of unsafe working conditions caused by violence from students ST. PAUL, Minn. – Have the taxpayers of St. Paul spent nearly $3 million over the past five years to bring chaos and danger to their schools and students? Apparently so. In 2010, the St. Paul school district began a contractual relationship with the Pacific Educational Group, a San Francisco-based organization that tries to help public schools deal with achievement and disciplinary issues involving black students. PEG packages and sells the concept of victimization, for a very high price. Since these programs have started, the number of suspensions have dropped and other types of discipline have been softened. The result is that students who get into trouble are kept in school and incidences of fighting have increased. Here is what the group hired by the school district PEG believes. According to PEG, white culture is based on “white individualism” or “white traits” like “rugged individualism,” “adherence to rigid time schedules,” “plan(ning) for the future,” and the idea that “hard work is the key to success.” The minority cultures, according to PEG, value “color group collectivism.” This entails “fostering interdependence” and group success, shared property, learning through social relationships, and making life choices based on “what will be best for the family” or the group.

More on schools

Thankfully, I was wrong about the student who hit the teacher and he will be expelled. St. Paul Schools Superintendent Valeria Silva said in a letter sent to teachers Wednesday that a student was expelled from the district Tuesday. It would be the first time since Nov. 2009 that the school board has voted to expel a student, a district spokeswoman confirmed. This is some info from police records. Choi said that the juvenile case was the 27th to be presented to his office this year under a gross misdemeanor statute that protects school officials from being assaulted or harmed. He said that the cases have almost doubled in the past year, and also represent a 60 percent increase over the previous five-year average. These people are at a loss to explain what is going on but it could be that students have figured out that the chances of being expelled are very low. Here is a result of a story from 2013 about the Twin City schools. Nearly 14 percent of African American students in the district were suspended last year, according to district data obtained by MPR News. That compares to just 2 percent of white students. This was very disturbing so the district decided to take steps to reduce the racial discrepancies. Here is a quote from the schools attorney. “We cannot and will not tolerate this type of behavior in any of our schools.” That should take care of the problem.

Gun control

The issue of gun control comes to the forefront each time there is a shooting incident but nothing much ever happens. As a boy I had a shotgun and enjoyed the times I went hunting for rabbits, squirrels and quail and so I have nothing against guns but I am against the misuse of guns. Most agree that it is too late to ban guns even if it were possible since there are an estimate 300 million guns in the country. To try and confiscate those would be an impossible task. In order to get a better picture of the situation, imagine that there was no second amendment and there were no guns in the country. They were banned from day one. Anyone found with a gun would under arrest and charged with a felony. Would this eliminate the problem? Well, we have similar situations that we deal with on a regular basis. Drugs like heroin, cocaine and meth are and have been illegal for many years, yet the country is over flowing with these illegal substances. I would guess that if all guns were illegal, the criminals would still have guns. We could have a war on guns just like the war on drugs but it would likely not eliminate the problem of criminals having guns. The net result is that talking about gun control allows the people in power to appear to be doing something but in reality it just permits them to avoid looking at other solutions and when all the dust settles, nothing changes.

Cities

A famous quote says, power corrupts and this has proven to be true. One of the early examples was the Church of Rome and today we see what has happened to big cities which have operated under one party control for all too long. The liberals who lead these cities, combined with the power of unions have slowly and methodically corrupted the system. The recent revelations about the police are just the latest manifestation of this downward spiral. Chicago is the poster boy for this mess and gang violence combined with underfunded pension plans, the performance spread between white and students of color, the herding of low income people into the reservation type projects represents the latest in a string of crises. The Mayor recently announced the largest tax increase in the city’s history under the misguided concept that spending more money will solve the problem. This tax and spend policy is going on in big cities around the country and it will not change until there is a change in the leadership and that is not likely. The citizens of these cities, the majority of who are low wage minorities, have been convinced that the local government will take care of them, despite years of not doing so. It is even reflected in national polls that show that our black citizens roundly support President Obama even though things have gotten worse for them. While mostly white middle and upper income people have been benefiting from the recent job growth, those living in the inner cities have lost ground. Their unemployment is more than twice the national rate and their families have been torn apart.

Highway bill

Gasoline consumption has held steady or slightly declined over the past 20 years but the federal tax has remained the same at 18 cents per gallon resulting in a shortfall. Total miles driven, has declined and gas mileage has improved. The costs associated with road construction and repair, have risen but gas tax revenues have held steady. The shortfall has been around 16 billion dollars per year but the bill that is about to be passed will allow 300 billion over the next 5 years which should be enough to cover the shortfall and have some left over for new construction. This will be a boon to local economies around the country since most of the construction goes to local contractors. The gas tax has been criticized in the past for spending on things like highway beautification and transportation museums but this has amounted to less than ten percent of the funds. States who had on average added another 30 cent per gallon tax, often misuse the money more so than the federal government. For example Texas spends 25% of its gas tax money on schools. This was a bi-partisan agreement and shows the congress can work.

Rich giving

Back in 2010 a group of billionaires led by Gates and Buffet got together and formed a club of people who were willing to give away at least half of their wealth. This group, which now numbers more than 100, was recently joined by Face Book’s Mark Zuckerberg. He agreed to give away 99% of his 45 billion in stock and while I admire this, keep in mind that this still leaves him with 450 million dollars. This group has so far pledged over 500 billion to charity. This is certainly not their last two copper coins but it is something to be admired.

Coal and such

The President spoke today at the climate change meeting in Paris and said that the cost of solar has come down over the past ten years. Power from fossil fuel cost about $100 per megawatt-hour and solar has come down from $500 to $200. What he didn’t say was the solar represented 0.4% of total power in 1997 and it remains at 0.4% today. One of the main reasons the cost is lower is that government subsidies helped pay for the installation of solar panels and once installed the maintenance cost is low. The President then conflated the lower carbon dioxide emissions over the past years as having something to do with solar but this is not true. The most important change has been switching power plants from coal to natural gas and this was done primarily for economic reasons. The rapid increase in domestic natural gas production in the U.S. over the past 5 years has led to a rapid transformation of how electricity is produced. Coal has lost its perch as the undisputed champion of power generation, falling from 50-plus percent of total electricity generation to around 35 percent. Natural gas has grown from only 15 percent of total generation in 2005 to 30 percent in 2012. The lower cost of operating power plants comes from the increase in the availability of natural gas due to fracking and the lower labor cost at the plant associated with switching to natural gas. A report by the American Action Forum found that under the Obama administration coal mines shed 3,702 jobs from 2008 to 2013 and power plants shed 39,684 jobs. While natural gas was replacing coal in US power plants, coal exports increased from 40 million tons in 2003 to 125 million tons in 2014. While this coal is still being used the jobs have transferred from the US to Asia. This kind of activity is what labor unions claim is the uneven playing field with which American workers must contend. Jobs are being moved to China and so is the coal. The reasoning that this is reducing carbon dioxide emissions is flawed and these union people understand that.

Responsibility to protect

I have often heard people conclude that if women were running the world there would be fewer armed conflicts and that may be true but one recent example shows the opposite. It is called the “responsibility to protect doctrine”, pushed by three women in the Obama administration that led to the invasion of Libya. The press is full of reports about how Clinton, Rice and Power pushed Obama to war. The New York Times, citing insiders, reports that Obama shifted to intervention in Libya only under pressure from the trio: “The change became possible, though, only after Mrs. Clinton joined Samantha Power, a senior aide at the National Security Council, and Susan Rice, Mr. Obama’s ambassador to the United Nations, who had been pressing the case for military action, according to senior administration officials speaking only on condition of anonymity.” These women felt that many innocents in Tripoli would be overrun by government forces led by Gaddafi and explained that it was the duty of outside forces to intervene. The result was the overthrow of Gaddafi and the total chaos that now exist in Libya. Many suspect, that it was this disastrous outcome, that caused Obama to back away from his threat against Assad in Syria, which resulted in the deaths of 200,000 innocents, the displacement of 2 million, the massive influx of refugees into Europe and the rise of ISIS. So much for the “doctrine of responsibility to protect”. It is quite stunning that mistakes of this magnitude can be made and no one seems to be held responsible.

Politicians love gridlock

Politicians love gridlock. This furthers the conflict between voters on both sides but alienates those undecideds. When the two parties are at war the faithful are used as pawns. There are two approaches. The first is the teen defense where all they have to do is show that the other side did it and then it is OK. The second is to blame the other side. This is why a candidate like Hilary Clinton can be the front runner when polls show she is considered dishonest and untrustworthy and the one word used best to describe her is “liar”. This is why no matter how absurd Donald Trump’s statements become, his followers stick with him. This is why those who voted for President Obama continue to side with him regardless of his many foreign policy misjudgments. People’s loyalty to their side is so strong that they can no longer use good judgment. When backed into a corner with evidence, they, using the current vernacular, “double down”. In business, a good manager is more than willing to change his mind when new evidence is presented but in politics the press will portray that as flip-flopping and so politicians spin every change as no change and expect their followers to line up behind them but there are signs that the people have caught on and are now turning their ire toward Washington. It could be that the masses will no longer be tricked by their own unwillingness to change and move into the ranks of the undecided.

Democratic socialism

Senator Bernie Sanders, Democratic candidate for president is often called a socialist when in fact what he proposes is a democratic socialism similar to the European Union. There are many ways to compare these two systems of government but one of the simplest is GDP and population. The United States with 318 million people produces 22% of the worlds GDP and the European Union with 505 million people produces 24% of the worlds GDP. On a per person basis it is $54,000 per person in the US vs $37,000 per person in the EU. In the United States all government spending including federal and state is 35% of total GDP and in the EU it is 49%. Gross Domestic Product, (GDP) is the sum of all Consumer spending plus Government spending plus interest and plus export/import. Compared to the US the EU has moved 14% (49-35) from Consumers to Government. People in government always want more power and they get that by getting more money to spend. It is their belief that they know better than the people on how money should be spent. If you believe that the government knows better how to spend your money than you do then you will lean toward democratic socialism.

Immigrants

I have heard, once again, from my friend in Europe, a lady who is well informed and well educated. She says the problems of today started many years ago when the birth rate in European countries declined to the point where they wanted immigrants and many from various Muslim countries were welcomed. Unlike America, where immigrants tend to blend in to the so called melting pot, the European immigrants stayed in their areas and maintained their language and culture. This led to high unemployment and poverty and in time disillusionment with their situation. Now these people have become easy prey for groups like ISIS and the results are individuals who would rather die for a cause than continue to live as second class citizens. When immigrants come to America they want to stay in their own area and maintain their language and culture but economic pressures forced them to integrate with the general society and many worked their way out of poverty and were able to provide better lives for their children. Even the recent influx of immigrants across our southern border, have recognized that in order to move up the economic ladder they must learn English.

Oil trucks

The news has reported for almost two years that ISIS is getting much of their money from the sale of oil and yesterday this report appeared: ISTANBUL — Intensifying pressure on the Islamic State, United States warplanes for the first time attacked hundreds of trucks on Monday that the extremist group has been using to smuggle the crude oil it has been producing in Syria, American officials said. According to an initial assessment, 116 trucks were destroyed in the attack, which took place near Deir al-Zour, an area in eastern Syria that is controlled by the Islamic State. Some are questioning why this kind of attack was delayed for this long?

What-if

As I listened to President Obama speaking about changing strategy in Syria, he began to play the what-if game. What if I send troops to Syria and then what they move to Yemen and if I send troops there what if they move to Africa and so on and I was reminded of my days as a financial planner. I would talk to people about setting up a will or a living trust and they would start with the what-if questions and after 20 minutes of that, they would say they are not prepared to do anything at this time but would think it over. The end result is that they never got their will or trust set up. It was always easier to wait and see and I think that kind of summarizes Obamas plan for Syria.

Church committee

As WW 2 came to a close and the cold war was born the United States intelligence agencies took on a greater role in protecting the country by making friends with a lot of bad guys. If anyone was opposed to the Soviet Union they were our friends. This growth in espionage led to abuse of power and in 1975 The Church Committee, led by Senator Frank Church stepped in to defang the CIA. Many rule changes were made and two of those made it difficult to stop the 9/11 attacks. First, Church rules prevented the CIA from communicating with the FBI which caused confusion about the Muslim in Minneapolis who took pilot training. The second and more important is the fact that the Church Committee discouraged US agents from working with known criminals to gather intel. After 9/11 the pendulum swung again and intel gained importance. Because of the many years when working with criminal types was forbidden, the US was behind on intelligence gathering people and electronic surveillance proved inadequate. The incident in Paris was caused by lack of intelligence and this will be changing with more power going to intel gathering agencies. The west was repeatedly warned by ISIS that there would be attacks on their homelands but there was not enough intel to prevent attacks. When and I say when, not if, the US is attacked, it will be a wakeup call but if they come across the southern border the US will look pretty foolish and a wall will be going up a big hurry. Too little, too late.

Deportation

A recent controversy has developed around the deportation of illegal aliens and during the 8 years of the Truman administration 3.4 million illegals were either deported or left voluntarily. Since the population of the United States at that time was half what it is today that would be an equivalent of 6.8 million being deported today. The interesting thing about this information is that it was brought to the attention of the news media by Trump. It is odd that no one in the press searched this out as they did with Carson’s youthful claims and Hilary’s claim of wanting to join the marines. Perhaps now that it is out, there will be more reporting on this issue. Then they can move to the deportation of 2.1 million that occurred in the Eisenhower administration. It is difficult at best to get inside the head of Trump but being the great negotiator he says he is, this might be his starting position and compromising by getting the wall up and then deporting all illegals convicted of felonies. (Such illegal entry is a misdemeanor, and, if repeated after being deported, becomes punishable as a felony.) The next step could be to introduce some of the ideas floating around which will allow the illegals to gain citizenship status.

Trump as president

My guess on how the average person would see themselves handling the problems presented to a new president and they might be projecting these solutions onto a person like Trump. The new President Trump tells Mexico that we purchase 900,000 barrels a day from you and we will begin paying you 10 dollars per barrel less and use that money to build a wall. When the wall is complete we will go back to paying full market value. We have enough oil to supply our needs without yours so feel free to ship yours to Europe or Asia. He tells China whenever you manipulate your currency we will add an import tax equal to the same amount. He tells his military experts to come up with a plan to destroy ISIS and he will back them recognizing that in the process innocent civilians will be harmed for that is part of war. He would tell government agencies like the EPA to set up rules that will promote economic development while protecting environment not the other way around. He would tell leading businessmen that when they are caught with their hands in the cookie jar they will be going to prison and not some white collar country type but the real thing. He would tell the big banks that they must break up and work with government agencies to achieve that end. He would expand the energy sector by moving from coal to oil to natural gas, a process which is already underway. He would continue to research other methods like wind and solar but they would not receive preferential treatment. He would push for states to increase the minimum wage. He would push for a single payer national health plan sometimes called Medicare for all. He would eliminate the capital gains tax rate and lower payroll taxes. He would lower the corporate and individual tax brackets. He would install defensive rockets throughout the NATO countries that surround Russia and increase the military aid to these countries. He would withdraw from the United Nations and rent them space in New York if they wanted to stay. Note that many of these things are considered sacred cows to conservatives and liberals but a person like Trump is neither or both.A

dealers vs users

Taking on the problems in the criminal justice system is not at the top of the list for most candidates but it deserves some attention. The main complaint is that many of those in prison are just drug users and they should be in treatment centers not jails. It is difficult to find data that separates drug users from drug dealers and this is an important factor. Both of these crimes are called victimless because when a dealer is convicted there is no victim standing in the court room but there are victims scattered around the city that could be called into court. It is commonly agreed that much of the street crime in cities like Chicago is caused by drug dealers and users. Dealers fighting over turf cause many injuries and deaths and these represent the victims who were not in court at sentencing time. The President is releasing many of these criminals and if they are users they will likely become users once again and if they are dealers they should not be released until they have served their time but even that won’t help much since the recidivism rate for both of these groups is high running about 70%. When someone says that the President released prisoners convicted of drug crimes, it is important that they break that down into drug dealers and drug users.

Old ways, new ways

I believe that the American people have outgrown their politics. The young people coming up, especially the millennials, have moved on but the main stream politicians are still caught up in their old ways. The Republicans are still dealing with cultural changes like gay marriage, race and abortion while the Democrats are struggling with free trade, guns and stagnant wages. Young people are fed up with leaders who put party above country and the established politicians don’t know any other way. Young people see the arguing in Washington as childish and the people in charge want to point out the mistakes of the other party. Young people want the government to stay out of their business and the government thinks these people need their guidance and protection. Young people can’t believe the mess that things are in and all the result of good intentions by well-meaning people who like generals are still fighting the last war. They know their college debt is a result of government provided financial aid and they know that social security is not realistic and they know the jobs of the future are not like those of the past but the leaders in Washington haven’t figured that out. The country is in a transition stage and it will take a few more years for the leadership to figure out how to deal with the new ways.

Fancy

All the experts keep saying that Obama doesn’t have a foreign policy but I have figured it out. I call it the Fancy dress policy. This is based on the county song about a mother who was destitute and dying and she had 16 year old daughter whose assets are well described. The mother used the last dollar they have to make Fancy a red dress and sends her out into the world with her last words of advice. She tells her daughter, just be nice to the gentlemen friends and they will be nice to you. I believe that Obama is following the mother advice on his foreign policy. He seems to believe that if the United States is just nice to the rest of the world they will be nice to us.

Cruz tax plan

It is not easy to compare tax plans by various candidates but Ted Cruz came out with one yesterday and I see it as follows. A married couple with no children earning $50,000 currently pays $3,502 in federal income plus $3,825 in payroll tax for a total tax of $7,327. Under the Cruz plan this same couple would pay $1,400 in federal tax plus $1,071 in payroll tax for a total of $2,470. Don’t get too excited yet. Cruz also proposes a value added tax (VAT) of 16%. He says the corporations will pay for this but the old story is that corporations don’t pay tax they just pass the cost onto their customers. The VAT is based on consumption that is you pay for it when you buy something and since most couples earning $50,000 will spend all their after tax money they will pay $50,000 less $7,327 or $42,673 and 16% if that is $6,827. Assuming they spend all of their net income their total taxes will increase from $7,327 to $9,297. Now let’s look at one of those rich people called the one-percenters, a married couple earning $500,000 a year. Under current tax law this couple will take home $244,000. Under the Cruz plan this same couple will pay 10% on the net income and 16% VAT. If they spend all of their money they will net $370,000 which is $126,000 more.

Growing the economy

Wages for low to upper middle income workers have been stagnant for 35 years and each president during this time period has promised to resolve this problem by growing the economy. Prior to the 80’s there were two ways of doing this. It was called priming the pump at the top or priming the pump at the bottom. The first suggested that if businesses have more cash they will invest in new facilities and this will provide new jobs and competition will force waged up. The second was to lower taxes and thus give more money to consumers who will spend more causing businesses to expand and thus more jobs and higher wages through competition. Both of these methods worked during the first half of the 20th century. When Reagan tried priming the pump at the top it didn’t work. Businesses had discovered that it was more efficient to buy an existing facility than to build a new one. They avoided the cost of construction and had a ready-made well trained work force. No new factories meant no new jobs. Clinton followed Reagan in the 90’s and tried priming the pump at the bottom by lowering taxes on the middle income groups but wages remained static. This should have worked out better since there were no recessions and we had the dotcom growth in the market but the results were that wealthy people’s income rose rapidly but middle income did not. The Bush 2 years were stunted by the great recession caused by the mortgage crises and this distorted things. His plan was to reduce some of the health care cost born by companies and use this to increase wages. Companies had been holding back on wage increases to pay for increases in health care. He pushed through two major tax cuts, one in 2001 and a second in 2003 trying to prime the pump from the bottom. He was hit with the 9/11 disaster and then the great recession so the results were skewed. Obama’s approach was to transfer funds from one group to another. He pushed for more unemployment benefits, forcing companies that do business with the government to pay higher wages, raising the minimum wage, extending overtime pay to low level managers and in general using government rules to raise income for middle income workers. To date this has not worked. The Republican candidates are saying that they will removed restrictions placed on businesses by the EPA and other regulatory agencies, they will simplify the tax code, invest in infrastructure and allow the free market to work it’s magic. Hilary will do the same except she will impose more regulations not less. In addition she will build on the Obama plan to raise the minimum wage. Both parties will push for infrastructure improvements. Neither party has said much about expanding the energy business and shipping natural gas and oil around the world. Too bad!

Sweden

Bernie Sanders often talks about the utopian life in Sweden where health care is free, college tuition is free and childcare beginning at age 3 is free. The question is, who pays and the answer is everyone. Swedes who earn a salary on par with the average municipal worker contribute the equivalent of 70 percent of their monthly salaries in taxes, a new study has found. This means that if you earn $50,000 per year your take home pay is $15,000. Swedes have decided that the government knows how to spend their money better than they do and in many cases that may be true but do Americans what to give up that right. Here, if you want to go without healthcare and buy a Cadillac you can do that. It may be foolish but you have the right to make personal decisions. People like Sanders believe that the average person cannot care for themselves and they need the government to take care of them. Whether this pays off is challenged by the fact that the average Swedish student graduates with more debt than an American student. This is because other expenses like food, rent and transportation are so much more costly.

Hats off to Sanders

Hats off to Berry Sanders! I have been critical of Sanders for saying that he will pay for his programs by transferring money from the rich to the poor but now I no longer have to say that because Sanders has become an honest broker. Someone must have shown him the math. Sunday on ABC’s “This Week,” Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) said his tax increases would “hit everybody” because he would raise the payroll tax to pay for paid family and medical leave. The payroll tax is the 7.65% that comes out of everyone’s pay check called FICA. This is where the real money is because this group includes all those who earn money. It is composed of 6.2% for social security and 1.45% for Medicaid. Using this approach, Sanders will be taking money from the low and middle income groups and giving it to low and middle income groups. This is the old liberal concept that believes that the government knows best on how to spend your money. They will do it more fairly, the key word being fairly.

Classroom

On the news today there was a situation that took place in a high school classroom, that in the past, I would have had a different take on but now that I have spent some time in the classroom, I see in a new light. A female student was disrupting the class and the teacher asked her to leave the room and she refused. He notified the office and they sent in a policy officer, (yes most schools have a police officer on staff and in the building). The officer asked her to leave and she refused and he picked her up and dragged her from the room. I say drag because she held tightly to her chair and both she and the chair were removed. The response to this scene from the public was surprise at the physical confrontation. The question is, how else could this have been handled in a way that would avoid the physical contact. Perhaps they should ask all the other students to go to another room and leave her there alone. While this confrontation is unusual it is not uncommon for one or a few students to disrupt the class. This means that the teacher must spend most of the time trying to control the behavior of a few while the others are left to fend for themselves. These students who are trying to learn might be better off going to the library and working alone without the teacher. One of the many responsibilities of parents is to teach their children to respect authority and if this is not done then these types of classroom disruptions are predictable. These same students will most likely have confrontations with law enforcement in the future. The stage was set for this young woman’s problem long before she ever came to school.

Outsiders

Over the past several decades voters have expressed their displeasure with Washington culminating in the last few polls showing congressional approval in single digits. Even individual members are only rated at 25% by their constituents. Most experts agree that there is an anti-Washington feeling spreading throughout the country. When congress is graded at less than 10% approval it must be across party lines and therein lies a dilemma. If democrats are unhappy with Washington why are they promoting Mrs. Clinton? She has spent the last 25 years in powerful positions in the Capital, including 8 years as first lady, 6 years as a senator and 4 years as Secretary of State. This tells me that party loyalty is stronger than dissatisfaction with Washington. It tells me that desire for change in Washington is exaggerated by news reporting. It tells me that people are not concerned with Clinton’s ties to Wall Street. It tells me that the public concern about her honesty is not a big deal. I have heard over and over that the reason for the rise of people like Trump and Carson is because people are fed up with Washington but that must not be the case if Clinton is going to be the nominee. The idea that this is the year of the out-sider is suspect since Clinton is anything but an outsider. The only way for this to make sense is if the out-siders drop out of contention and the republicans nominate a career politician to compete against Clinton but who says the voters have to make sense.

Cover-up

It was in the summer of 1972 that the Watergate break-in occurred and Nixon was paranoid about the upcoming November elections. Instead of just explaining that some of his underlings screwed up and taking the blame he went into cover-up mode. The same thing happened with the Benghazi incident. It happened just before election and Obama was in a panic thinking that the Republicans would use this incident as evidence that he was weak on defense and thus the cover story that has caused so much trouble for Secretary Clinton. In politic s like any other business the cover-up is often worse than the crime.

More in social security cap

If you are a business owner you pay 12.8% of your first $118,000 income into social security. This is $15,100. If the earnings cap on social security is removed then the business owner who earns $500,000 will pay $64,000 per year into social security. This happens because self-employed people pay both the employees amount which is 6.4% but then they also pay the employers matching 6.4%. Looking at an example of what we would all call a rich person, that is, a businessman who earns $500,000 after deductions we see the $64,000 in social security tax plus $14,500 in Medicaid tax, plus $4,500 in excess Medicare tax, plus $155,000 in federal income tax, plus $30,000 in state income tax, plus $10,000 in alternative minimum tax for a total of $278,000. This means the take home pay from a person who has a net income of $500,000 is $222,000. While most would be thrilled with this amount of income, most have not taken the risk of owning their own business and when you know that four out of five businesses don’t make it past five years, most would not try it. In addition these business people are where the new jobs come from and they should be encouraged.

Social security cap

One of the many ways to shore up the social security fund is to remove the income cap. Right now people pay 6.4% of their income into social security up to $117,000 of income. If social security tax was collected on all income this would bring in about 100 billion dollars per year. While this would be collected from the 1% it would not affect the super- rich or top one tenth of one-percent who are often referred to as the billionaires. These people get their income not from wages but from capital gains and social security is not taxed on capital gains. Once again this tax would be fall hardest on those who earn between $500,000 and one million per year and these are the job creators. If you want to have the billionaires pay into this fund the law must be changed to collect social security tax on capital gains. Recall that capital gains are monies earned from investments as opposed to wages.

Climate

I am personally convinced that the addition of man-made carbon dioxide to the atmosphere contributes to the slow warming of the planet. I have suggested that the use of methane hydrate is the solution to this problem but those who push for wind and solar refuse to look at other solutions. They are slowly twisting in the wind as they try to justify their position that the end of the world as we know it is at hand and will come to fruition by 2050, at least that is the latest dooms day date. For years they talked about global warming but when the temperatures leveled out they renamed the problem climate change. This allows them to selective choose various weather events to prove their point. A quick google check proves that other than wild fires other climate events have either not changed or gotten better. Case in point, major hurricanes! In a stroke of luck, no major hurricanes rated Category 3 or higher have struck U.S. soil during the past nine years, a new study finds.This is the country's longest "hurricane drought" in recorded history, or since 1851, the researchers said. The previous record lull lasted eight years, from 1861 to 1868, they said. Here is a quote from the congressional committee designed to study climate. • Globally, weather-related losses ($) have not increased since 1990 as a proportion of GDP (they have actually decreased by about 25%) and insured catastrophe losses have not increased as a proportion of GDP since 1960. • Hurricane landfalls have not increased in the US in frequency, intensity or normalized damage since at least 1900. The same holds for tropical cyclones globally since at least 1970 (when data allows for a global perspective). • Floods have not increased in the US in frequency or intensity since at least 1950. Flood losses as a percentage of US GDP have dropped by about 75% since 1940. • Tornadoes in the US have not increased in frequency, intensity or normalized damage since 1950, and there is some evidence to suggest that they have actually declined. • Drought has “for the most part, become shorter, less frequent, and cover a smaller portion of the U. S. over the last century.”2 Globally, “there has been little change in drought over the past 60 years.” This argument over climate change is promoted by politicians who get campaign money from wind and solar projects and from writers who get grant money from the government for twisting information to reach certain conclusions.

Union pay

In my heart of hearts, I have always been pro union but only private unions. I feel there is no place for public unions. Chrysler is threatening a strike and one of their top demands is to increase the salaries of starting workers. This is to make up for the slight they gave these people when they worked their way out of bankruptcy. While the government gave the best deal to the union, at the expense of the stock and bondholders, the union sacrificed the new employees in the process. They agreed that new employees would start at $15 per hour which was half what existing employees received and they are now demanding to make up for this transgression by asking for $19 per hour. I hope they get it without a strike.

Minimum wage

I have often said that taking money from the rich and giving it to the poor will not work because there are too few rich and too many poor but there is a way that redistribution of income can work and that is by raising the minimum wage. Typically employees of fast food places and retail stores like Walmart are paid low wages and would benefit from an increase in the minimum wage. These outlets serve many millions of people and most of these are low to middle income people. If McDonalds raised the price of their hamburger by 50 cents they could double the wages of the non-management employees. If Walmart raised their prices by 6% they could double the wages of their non-management employees. Since the group paying the extra money is very large the transfer of funds would be significant. Instead of $10 an hour these employees would be earning $20 an hour. This is a transfer of wealth from middle and upper middle income groups to lower income groups. This will have little to no effect on the so called one percent since these people don’t frequent McDonalds or Walmart.

Students

I noticed an interesting trend while observing the students. The first part is not new as the young black guys feel they don’t have to study because they will be professional athletes. The second is new as the young white guys who feel all they have to do is play computer games because they are going to make millions doing that. I know this because whenever they finish their assignments, I take a few minutes and ask them what they see in their futures. These answers are usually given by students who show little to no interest in their school work. Unfortunately many of these will be disappointed

VA

As the almost daily reports of problems with the Veterans Administration health care system are reported, please recall that during the run up to Obamacare the press often portrayed the VA as a good example of how well government health care works. This was just one more bit of misinformation that surrounded this program. The number of uninsured decreased from 17.5% to 11.5% which means that 18 million who were previously uninsured are now insured. About 6 million of these people were eligible for free insurance under Medicaid and another 6 million lost their private insurance through their employer and another 6 million are people who had no insurance and signed up and most of these are getting some subsidy. The Medicaid sign ups were people who were eligible before Obamacare but chose not to sign up because there was a small fee and pre-existing conditions were covered. Thus they would just wait until they needed the service and then they would sign up. At this time we still have 35 million uninsured and they are the people whose income is high enough that they don’t qualify for subsidies. As the tax penalties for being uninsured increase more of these people will sign up. Most of these people are deterred by the high deductibles. They feel if they have to pay the first $5,000 each year that this is not really insurance. In fact it is the best kind of insurance to buy since the high deductible keeps the cost down while protecting a person from a catastrophic illness or injury. The people on Medicaid pay zero deductible and those with subsidies pay partial deductibles so the problem is for those whose incomes are high enough that they get no subsidy. Many of these people are now buying a new kind of insurance plan that helps cover the deductible. The others just use medical care when absolutely necessary. There is a belief that prevention promotes better health and while this may be the case on an individual basis it is prohibitively costly on a general basis. For example a test for TB cost about $20 and there are about 2,000 cases annually in the US. If we tested 320 million people to find those 2,000 the cost would be 3.2 million dollars for each case discovered. While prevention is good it is not cost effective.

Pope and family

As I listen to the Pope and his emphasis on family, I am reminded of Mary Wright Edelman. She is the lady who founded the Children’s Defense Fund. This is the group that Hilary Clinton is so enamored with and often talks about. She was the youngest of five children and her father was a Baptist Minister. She grew up in South Carolina when everything was segregated and her family had only the bare necessities. Her father told her that while she would be discriminated against that education was the big equalizer and she worked hard and became a lawyer. She spent most of her life fighting for equality among the races. I read her first book and it was a dichotomy. In the first half she talks about how the blacks survived by combining the strength of family and church. In the second half she writes only about how the government should do more for families. Little did she know that when the government stepped in with the Great Society the black family would be ripped apart. Even when she witnessed the deterioration of the black family she did not connect it with government rules about poverty and what was needed to receive government benefits. While she may not see the damage done to the black family, the Pope is well aware of over 70% of children born into families without a father. He knows that lack of education leads to drugs and crime but Mrs. Edelman feels that what is needed is more government programs.

Papal economics

I don’t know who the Pope’s economic advisor is but something isn’t right. The poorest counties in the world contribute practically nothing to air pollution. Throughout Africa, most of South American and Southeast Asia, where there is very little in the way of industry, there is very little air pollution. These countries cannot be accused of adding to the problem of climate change. The developing countries of the world, countries like the United States, Western Europe and to a greater extent China and India are the polluters. The people living in the non-polluting countries are suffering from lack of food, lack of proper housing and very little in the way of medical care. The number one cause of death in Africa, are communicable diseases and the main cause is unclean drinking water. Dirty water kills millions of people every year in these countries. Infant mortality from lack of proper nutrition kills babies before they have a chance to get a start in life. Diseases like measles, malaria, whooping cough, tetanus, meningitis and syphilis, diseases we mostly thought were gone kill millions. In these non-polluting countries there are no schools for most children, no laws to protect children and many of these countries women are second class citizens. For most of my life, the developing countries have sent food and medical supplies to the poor countries and in 1955 life expectancy in Africa was 38 and today it is 60. This is a direct result of the excess food production in the United States and Canada. The United States could convert everything to natural gas and lower air pollution but that would not help the people who need clean water and medical supplies. The best way to help those people is to get them jobs that pay a decent wage and the way to do that is to use free market capitalism. The perfect example is North and South Korea. The people in the north are starving while those in the south are thriving. These people are the same culture, same religion and same ethnicity but one chose communism and the other chose capitalism.

Papal economics

I don’t know who the Pope’s economic advisor is but something isn’t right. The poorest counties in the world contribute practically nothing to air pollution. Throughout Africa, most of South American and Southeast Asia, where there is very little in the way of industry, there is very little air pollution. These countries cannot be accused of adding to the problem of climate change. The developing countries of the world, countries like the United States, Western Europe and to a greater extent China and India are the polluters. The people living in the non-polluting countries are suffering from lack of food, lack of proper housing and very little in the way of medical care. The number one cause of death in Africa, are communicable diseases and the main cause is unclean drinking water. Dirty water kills millions of people every year in these countries. Infant mortality from lack of proper nutrition kills babies before they have a chance to get a start in life. Diseases like measles, malaria, whooping cough, tetanus, meningitis and syphilis, diseases we mostly thought were gone kill millions. In these non-polluting countries there are no schools for most children, no laws to protect children and many of these countries women are second class citizens. For most of my life, the developing countries have sent food and medical supplies to the poor countries and in 1955 life expectancy in Africa was 38 and today it is 60. This is a direct result of the excess food production in the United States and Canada. The United States could convert everything to natural gas and lower air pollution but that would not help the people who need clean water and medical supplies. The best way to help those people is to get them jobs that pay a decent wage and the way to do that is to use free market capitalism. The perfect example is North and South Korea. The people in the north are starving while those in the south are thriving. These people are the same culture, same religion and same ethnicity but one chose communism and the other chose capitalism.

Papal economics

I don’t know who the Pope’s economic advisor is but something isn’t right. The poorest counties in the world contribute practically nothing to air pollution. Throughout Africa, most of South American and Southeast Asia, where there is very little in the way of industry, there is very little air pollution. These countries cannot be accused of adding to the problem of climate change. The developing countries of the world, countries like the United States, Western Europe and to a greater extent China and India are the polluters. The people living in the non-polluting countries are suffering from lack of food, lack of proper housing and very little in the way of medical care. The number one cause of death in Africa, are communicable diseases and the main cause is unclean drinking water. Dirty water kills millions of people every year in these countries. Infant mortality from lack of proper nutrition kills babies before they have a chance to get a start in life. Diseases like measles, malaria, whooping cough, tetanus, meningitis and syphilis, diseases we mostly thought were gone kill millions. In these non-polluting countries there are no schools for most children, no laws to protect children and many of these countries women are second class citizens. For most of my life, the developing countries have sent food and medical supplies to the poor countries and in 1955 life expectancy in Africa was 38 and today it is 60. This is a direct result of the excess food production in the United States and Canada. The United States could convert everything to natural gas and lower air pollution but that would not help the people who need clean water and medical supplies. The best way to help those people is to get them jobs that pay a decent wage and the way to do that is to use free market capitalism. The perfect example is North and South Korea. The people in the north are starving while those in the south are thriving. These people are the same culture, same religion and same ethnicity but one chose communism and the other chose capitalism.

Religion

Presidential candidate Ben Carson was asked about a Muslim being president and he botched the answer. If he had said as long as his religion does not interfere with his responsibility to carry out the constitution it would be no problem. This could be said for affiliation with any group in regards to a person running for any office. I thought we as a country had advanced beyond such questions after John Kennedy was elected. Here is a news item from 1960. John F. Kennedy's presidential bid was challenged by Protestant leaders who charged that he would be a tool of the Vatican. Concerns were widespread about Catholic leaders demanding political loyalty on issues involving church doctrine Apparently we have not moved as far along as I thought.

Afghan boys

Several years ago I wrote a short essay on the concept that the United States was supposed to respect the culture of other countries. This was at a time when the government was trying to appease some of the different things taking place in Muslim countries. I used absurdity to press the point that not all cultural differences can be ignored. I said if we saw soldiers tossing babies in the air and catching on bayonets would we be obligated to intervene. While this was a ridiculous idea, the news today is striking in its ridiculousness. American soldiers are told to turn a blind eye to the practice of Afghan soldiers who tie up young boys and rape them as this is a part of their culture. This story was in the New York Times today but similar stories have appeared over the past few months. An American soldier who intervened on behalf of a young Afghan boy was discharged from the service. Rampant sexual abuse of children has long been a problem in Afghanistan,particularly among armed commanders who dominate much of the rural landscape and can bully the population. The practice is called bacha bazi, literally “boy play,” and American soldiers and Marines have been instructed not to intervene — in some cases, not even when their Afghan allies have abused boys on military bases, according to interviews and court records.

Wealth

the famine in the The Pope is coming to the United States and one of his concerns is the poor and how much the rich have. He is worried about greed making the rich, richer and the poor, poorer. He needs to do the math before he starts espousing solutions. Here are some simple facts which I have presented before but need to be reviewed at this time. Eighty people hold the same amount of wealth as the world’s 3.6 billion poorest people according to an analysis just released from Oxfam. Thirty-five of the 80 richest people in the world are U.S. citizens, with combined wealth of $941 billion in 2014. Remember now this is wealth not income, so it includes everything these people own and if we take it all away and give it to the 317 million other Americans we will each get 941 billion divided by 317 million and that equals $3,000 each. Does the Pope understand that the best way to help the poor is through an expanding economy that supplies good paying jobs and history has proven that the best way to do that is through the free market capitalist system. This system has pulled more people out of poverty than anything else. Without this system there would have been no industrial revolution and Malthus would have been right. Recall that Malthus was the guy who in 1800 said that the population would expand faster than the food supply and millions would starve. Another example is Henry Ford, the man who almost single handedly destroyed the ideas of Socialist Karl Marx. Marx said the free market would always cause the poor to be slaves to the rich but he never expected a case where the workers would make enough money to buy the products they made. Ford started paying wages that allowed this to happen. In 1915 Ford started paying $5 per day when a Model T cost $390 so a worker could purchase a car with 78 days pay. Today the average household makes $50,000 per year and a car costing $20,000 requires 100 days pay. The road to a more equitable distribution of income is a good paying job and that must be done in the private sector. You can’t make the poor wealthy by making the wealthy poor. As has always been the case there are too few wealthy and too many poor.

Elections

As I observe the political process unfold in this year’s presidential rumble I hear the big weakness of Donald Trump is his lack of knowledge about foreign policy and I am reminded of Robert McNamara. He was the CEO of Ford Motor Company and then became Secretary of Defense and then President of the World Bank. He had a managerial talent known as administrative skills. It was not his knowledge of the subject matter but his understanding of people and how organizations work that allowed him to move through such diversely different groups. There are many assets needed to be this type of person, things like being a quick learner, and know how to select qualified people. I am beginning to see these qualifications Carly Fiorina. While she was fired for the changes she made at HP the current CEO, Meg Whitman says what Fiorina saved the company during the economic downturn and since the company has showed solid growth. I am still looking at Kasich with Rubio as VP to be the winning combination.

Immigrants

In the past I have shown you emails I received from my friend in Croatia. She likes Obama because he said the US should not try to tell European countries what to do. She was glad he did not try to interfere in Syria. In her latest she expresses serious concern about the Muslim immigrants pouring into Europe and she wants the US to come to their aid. Many Americans feel that countries around the world don’t want the US to interfere except when they face a problem and the first thing they do is call for the US to help. This sort of confirms that belief.

FOIA

The free press is the watch dog that protects the people from an over reaching government and one of its most important tools is FOIA (freedom of information act) established in 1966. This Act has come under attack with the Clinton emails. The State Department has affirmed her right to delete personal emails and now the Justice Department has come to the same conclusion. What they did not explain is how this is to be done. Left unexplained it opens the door for individuals to decide for themselves what emails are personal and may be deleted. If this is allowed to stand it permits people leaving office the ability to cover up any questionable activity and thus weaken the FOIA. It should be pointed out that since Clinton used a private server it is not subject to FOIA rules. Most people were not surprised when the State Department went along with Hilary but many were surprised when the Justice Department agreed. The feeling was that the Justice Department headed by Attorney General Lorette Lynch would demand a procedure to oversee any deletions. Now there is suspicion that politics is interfering and if the FBI investigation starts to be compromised then it will be assumed that there is some kind of cover up.

Ethinicity

The country is excited about having a woman president as it should be just as the excitement flowed around the first African American president. But what about the other groups. Except for one German American and one African American all of our presidents have been from the British Isles. We have 10 million Polish Americans, 10 million French Americans, 17 million Italian Americans, 50 million German Americans and 43 million African Americans. I bring this up because this year we have 8 candidates whose ancestors do not come from the British Isle. They are Carson, Cruz, Fiorina, Jindal, Kasich, Pataki, Rubio and Santorum.

Wealth

I just listened to a speech by Senator Sanders who is running for president and I learned something new. He is not talking about the redistribution of income but he is talking about redistribution of wealth. Now here is a way to make a difference with the poor people. The top one tenth of one percent own 6 trillion dollars of assets. If we take all of that and give it to the bottom 99.9 % each working family would get $40,000. This is not sharing their income but their assets. In other words we could take all of the Walmart stock from the Walton family, we could take the 50 billion of stock from Bill Gates. We would also get their other non- stock assets. We could take the billions from the young tech wizards and real estate moguls like Face Book owner Mark Zuckerberg and Warren Buffet. Of course this is a onetime thing since next year these people will be broke. Now you might say let’s don’t take it all so pick a percentage say half. Now each working family will get $20,000. Then you can take the other half next year but then the money is gone. Since we are talking about working families this does not include the 20 million who are not working or the 70 million who are retired. If we want to really help the poor we need to get the assets from the top one percent not just the top one tenth percent. If we take the assets from the top one percent and give that to the poor each working family would get $120,000. Now we talking but remember next year it is all gone. The point is that I don’t think people understand the difference between income and wealth when Senator Sanders speaks. My guess is that most people would be uncomfortable taking assets from others.

Liar politics

It is reported daily that the American people are fed up with government and feel that Washington is filled with a bunch of losers. Responsibility for this problem lies with the voters. Recent polls show that Hilary Clinton is considered dishonest and untrustworthy. When asked what one word best describes her, the word is “liar”. These same polls show she is the leading candidate for the presidency. Why would we expect good government when we elect people of questionable character?

40%

The one open road to the White House for Trump. In a typical presidential election fewer than 60% of eligible voters make it to the polls. Those 40% who stay home represent the people who think that all politicians are bums and it doesn’t matter who wins because they are all controlled by big business and big labor. They feel their vote is just a waste of time. If these people see Trump as someone who is different and will make a difference they might be motivated to go to the polls. When experts talk about turn out they are referring to people who normally vote and not about those who never vote. Are these silent 40% riled up enough to go out and vote? We will see.

CNN debate

Here is an interesting new twist. Donald Trump is putting his mouth where CNN’s money is, demanding that all profits from the broadcast of next week’s GOP debate go to veterans. ADVERTISEMENT Following news that CNN has been capitalizing on Trump-mania by raising ad prices for the Sept. 16 debate to 40 times their normal rate, the GOP front-runner sent a letter to the news network’s president, Jeff Zucker, to insist that he share the wealth. “While I refuse to brag,” Trump writes, “this tremendous increase in viewer interest and advertising is due 100% to ‘Donald J. Trump.’ ” Will Trump refuse to show up if CNN doesn’t comply with his request!

Personal belief's

I have watched with interest the case of the county clerk in Kentucky who refused to issue a marriage license to a gay couple. She objected on religious grounds. Today in the news an airline stewardess refused to serve alcohol to a passenger based on her religious beliefs. The cases differ in that the first is a government employee and the second a private business employee but both have the same solution. They can resign. The case in Kentucky should never have come to the attention of the public because the lady could have asked her assistant to sign the application. The couple involved could have avoided any controversy by just going to another county but both sides wanted to make an issue out of it. My way of looking at these situations is that when your personal beliefs run up against the law then you should follow your heart but be prepared to pay the penalty. The colonist broke the law and rose up against the king and many paid with their lives. Blacks in the south who sat in on white restaurants and broke the law were harassed, sometimes beaten, jailed and occasionally killed. On a less violent basis government whistle blowers often times lose their jobs and end up deep in debt paying for legal fees. It takes a great deal of personal courage to stand up against the establishment and to follow your heart but in our society you must pay the penalty and in some cases the end result was a change in the law.

The fifth

Clinton aide Bryan Pagliano is taking the fifth rather than testifying before congress and I don’t blame him one bit. A few years ago Scooter Libby an aide to Vice-President Chaney was accused of revealing the identity of a covert CIA agent named Valerie Plame. The special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald recognized the national stage he was on and even though Richard Armitage came forth and admitted that it was he who outed Mrs. Plame the case went forward and during several extensive cross examinations Libby contradicted himself and was convicted of perjury and spent 30 months in jail. If Bryan testifies and anything negative about Mrs. Clinton comes out he will find himself and a most precarious position. He will have to hire expensive lawyers and will be vilified in the press and the famous Clinton machine will go after him.

Big Government

I suggested some time ago that perhaps our form of government is in adequate to deal with 300 million people and wonder what kind of changes could be made to improve efficiency. I have taken a closer look at the various federal agencies and what I see is not good. Veterans Affairs: Stories of poor treatment of veterans appear regularly in the news. Education: The gap between white and black students keeps widening and college cost are going through the roof. Energy: We have almost unlimited supply of methane that can be used without adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere but the government spends all its efforts on wind and solar so they can reward certain campaign donors. Transportation: Roads and bridges are in disrepair and our elected officials only talk about it. Just model a plan after the Interstate Hwy system like Eisenhower did. Health and Human Services: Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security are all going broke and officials just keep kicking the can down the road. Homeland Security: Billions are spent on Airport Security and recent test show that 67 out of 70 times agents got weapons and explosives on the plane. Labor: The President added new members to the board while congress what out of session and then later had to reverse the process leaving many rules that were enacted in limbo. This board has become a partisan political group that is currently anti-business. Commerce: This group couldn’t even figure out a way to sell insurance across state lines which would make the industry more competitive and lower cost for consumers. Agriculture: The government pays billions of dollars to large corporate farms not to grow crops. More billions on school lunches that the kids don’t like and thus don’t eat. Justice: The Attorney Generals office has become politicized to the point where it fails to enforce laws that The President doesn’t like. Defense: Senators who force the military into using equipment they don’t need because it is manufactured in their home districts is a common occurrence and only one small example of waste and corruption. State: We have ambassadors around the world who are appointed for their campaign contributions, who know little about the country they are assigned to and can’t speak the language.

Elections

As I observe the run up to the coming presidential election, I am reminded of something that I wrote, tongue in cheek, about 20 years ago. I was watching a TV show where President Bush 41 was talking with Magic Johnson about AIDS and the thought came to me that there sat The President earning $200,000 a year and Magic earning 2 million and why is that? Then the answer came to me loud and clear. While Magic could be President there was no way that Bush could play point guard for the Lakers. In our society you can earn a lot of money if you can do something that very few others can do and I reasoned that anyone could be president. As I look at this year’s field of contestants, I think that what I said as a kind of joke, has now come to pass. I believe that a reasonably intelligent person could use their personal life’s experience along with their God given common sense and be president. In the past this was not possible because the political system would not allow it but that seems to be changing.

Illegals

There are certain individuals living in the country who are classified as non-resident aliens. Examples are people here on student visas or work visas. These people earn money here but do not have social security numbers so in order to file income tax they use an ITIN, and individual taxpayer identification number. This means that their employer withholds payroll taxes from their wages. They pay into social security, Medicare and Medicaid but they do not accumulate any benefits. In order to get an ITIN a person must fill out a Form W7. If an illegal alien fills out this form they must lie and check the box non-resident alien and they then received an ITIN. If these illegals have a child here then that child becomes an American citizen and when the child grows up he/she can sponsor their parents who can then become citizens. Once these people become citizens they can apply for their payroll tax benefits to be re-instated. It is easier to do if they keep a copy of all of their W-2’s to prove their earnings and withholding.

Math

Years ago when I was filled with youthful optimism, I felt that a college degree was best described as making green greener. What I meant was a good education would help a person understand things in a way that they could see the beauty in the world. It takes art education to see the beauty in a painting. It takes an understanding of literature to get the full pleasure out of a good book. For these reasons I felt a solid liberal arts curriculum would be the best formal education. I have now changed my perspective. Students graduating today with degrees that provide little opportunity for gainful employment while they are stuck with unpaid loans are a drag on the economy. If a student is going to invest four or five years and a couple hundred thousand dollars, they best get a degree in science or engineering or perhaps business. It is sad that it has come to this but the writing is on the wall, having a degree in theater arts is not going to get it done. We live in a high tech world and this requires people who have a solid understanding of mathematics and schools are not getting the job done. Mathematics is the language of science and too many of our students are math illiterate. I have been substitute teaching for the past two years, mostly at the high school level and I see to many students who are getting passed along and they have little to no understanding of basic math and this means they will choose majors in college that will leave them in debt and without a job. School districts around the country are bagging about improved graduation rates but they fail to say that the kids may be graduating but they are math ignorant. We are fooling ourselves and will not compete with other countries like China and India until we recognize the importance of math. There is still opportunity for those who go on to professional schools like medicine and law but for those with bachelor degrees, math is essential.

Mexico

Donald Trump has stated that he would build a wall along the southern border and have Mexico pay for it and this was considered a joke by many talking heads. The US imports 900,000 barrels of oil per day from Mexico and the current price is $50 per barrel. The border is 2,000 miles long and a double wall/fence would cost 4 million dollars per mile or 8 billion dollars. The US now has enough oil to completely replace the imports from Mexico so they are in a strong bargaining position. The US could tell Mexico that they will pay 10 dollars less per barrel over the next two and a half years and use that money to build the wall.

Centrifuges

The current nuclear plan with Iran has many difficult parts and is not easy to figure out but there is one aspect that is totally confusing and that has to do with what is called, “breakout time”. This is estimated time it would take Iran to enrich enough uranium to build a bomb. The President says the current breakout time is three months and his plan will extend that to one year. The nuclear program in Iran was started in 1950 with the help of the United States and in 1985 they began the centrifuge program. They have been working on this for 30 years and now we are told that they are 3 months away from completion.

Crime

In the past couple of years a half dozen high profiled cases of white police officers killing black males have led to the rallying cry of “black lives matter”. What is rarely mentioned is that half of all homicides in the country are committed by black males and over 90% of these are killed by other black males. This means that in the past year there were over 5,000 black men killed by other black men. One of the cases that made a lot of news was the white officer who shot an unarmed black man while he was running away. This was widely condemned and I might add was disgusting to watch. This officer was charged with murder. During this same time period a criminal who escaped from a New York State prison was also in the news. This unarmed man was shot in the back while he was running away but in this case the victim was white. The difference according to the news was the crime. In the first case the crime was a non-violent offence and in the second case the criminal was a convicted murderer. Some might say that if the second man had been black his named might have been added to the black lives matter list. A conjecture that can’t be known.

Senator Sanders

Senator Sanders, a democratic candidate for president is misguided in his attempt to spread the wealth around. He is suggesting raising the top income tax rate to somewhere between 50 and 90 percent depending on what speech you listen to. Now I am all for raising taxes since I pay very little income tax but to say this is going to help the poor is misleading at best and lying at worst. Anyone who does the math knows that there are too few rich and too many poor but there is one area where wealth distribution will work. It is the transfer of money from people who earn $50,000 to $75,000 per year to people who earn under $50,000. This is now going on in several states and others are jumping on the bandwagon. This occurs when states raise the minimum wage to $15 per hour for workers at places like McDonalds. Since there are large numbers of people in each of these groups the transfer of wealth will work. Where it does not work is the transfer of wealth from the top one percent to the 99 percent. If you took all the money that the top one percent earned and gave it to the rest of us, we would each get $5,500. The mistake that Senator Sanders is making is in talking about income tax. The very wealthy, the so called millionaires and billionaires pay very little income tax since most of their income comes from investments and not wages. Raising the income tax will affect corporate executives, professionals like lawyers and doctors and most of all, small business owners. These are the job creators and this would adversely affect the very people that Sanders purports to help. Instead of helping people by offering good jobs he will just send them some money that the government has collected in taxes from the job creators. The government does not create jobs. People always follow the populist campaigner who says he will take money from the rich and give it to the poor but every time this has been tried it fails. The latest attempt was Chavez in Venezuela. He was elected in 1998 on the promise of sharing the wealth and things went very well for about 10 years and then the economy fell apart. He had nationalized industries, most notably the oil business and used that money to help the poor but that came to an end when the money ran out. To quote Margaret Thatcher, “socialism is a great form of government until you run out of the other guys money”.

Methane hydrate

METHANE HYDRATE Climate change is an ongoing concern for many Americans and most agree that the man-made production of carbon dioxide is a contributing factor. There is an old adage that says, politics will ruin good science and the case of climate change, confirms this. To propose the answer to the problem is wind and solar, is strictly a political maneuver, to move government research funds to private individuals, who will in turn, funnel money into campaign coffers. The solution to the problem posed by climate change is simple. Move from coal to oil to natural gas. This process is already underway without much help from government. It is fueled by economics. The conversion of coal fired power plants to natural gas has reduced air pollution to 2004 levels and will continue. Many cities have converted their garbage trucks and buses to natural gas and companies are building locomotives and semi-trucks to run on natural gas. The government has wasted 150 billion dollars on renewable energy experiments and this money could have been spent more wisely, moving the transportation industry toward natural gas. Internal combustion engines using natural gas run more smoothly with less wear and tear. Fuel efficiency improves and exhaust is cleaner. Natural gas eliminates the problems of acid rain and heavy metals and in the process lowers carbon dioxide emissions. The United States has recently issued permission to build a large gas liquefaction plant where natural gas is liquefied and shipped around the globe. Countries like China who are suffering from smog can replace their coal with natural gas. The people of China will benefit most from this, since their air is contaminated with heavy metals and acid rain produced by the use of coal to fuel their power plants and the problem gets worse, as China brings on a new coal fired power plant each week. China has now surpassed the United States as the leading air polluter. Because of efforts around the world, most notably the United States conversion of power plants to natural gas during the year of 2014 the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere did not increase. The new science of fracking has vastly increased the amount of oil and natural gas and this is most evident in the United States, which has now become the world’s leading producer of both oil and natural gas. Almost all of this increase in production has been on private lands but this in only a small portion of these natural resources, most of which are located on government lands, the most important of which is the Green River Formation located in Wyoming, Colorado and Utah. It is estimated that there is enough oil and natural gas in these fields to supply the world for hundreds of years. This change in the energy business will occur in two stages. First the United States will change the current laws which prohibit the export of oil and start sending this to China so they can replace their coal plants with oil. Second the United States will build more natural gas liquefaction plants and export facilities in order to ship natural gas to Europe. This will reduce Europe’s dependency on Russia for natural gas and help solve some of the political problems currently presented by Mr. Putin. Opening up these two markets will allow the energy industry to expand, which will create new high paying jobs and spur economic development, while keeping the cost of energy low. This will also help the balance of trade problem that has plagued the United States since the 70’s. While this is going on the United States will continue the transition to a natural gas economy. The fore mentioned change in power plants will continue and be accelerated, while the transportation industry will stay on the road to replacing oil with natural gas. The first step will be the installation of liquefied natural gas pumps at the 6,000 truck stops around the country. The estimated cost is 4 million dollars each or a total of 24 billion dollars. The next move is to convert the 120,000 auto gas stations over to natural gas at a cost of $500,000 each or 60 billion dollars. This is not new science since there are about 20 million cars running on natural gas around the world today. Most homes are now heated with natural gas and the rest will be converted. An interesting sideline, is that for 500 dollars, a home unit can be purchased that will allow the use of natural gas from the home heating line, to fuel the car in the garage and eliminate the need for a trip to the gas station. As the rest of the world sees the advantages of the natural gas economy they will follow the lead of the United States and in time the whole world will be running on natural gas. When coal and oil are burned, sulfur and nitrogen compounds are spewed into the atmosphere and these mix with the moisture in the air to create acid rain. Natural gas poses no such problem. In addition coal and oil produce heavy metals like mercury and lead and once again not so with natural gas. Natural gas does produce carbon dioxide but at 40% less than coal and 30% less than oil so that still poses a problem and the solution to that is methane hydrate. The chemical name for natural gas is methane and methane hydrate is a form of methane which is found under the ocean floor in the shallow waters of the continental shelf. The continental shelf refers to the water around the continents, which extends out several hundred miles at three to six hundred feet in depth. These waters are filled with tiny living creatures whose remains settle to the ocean floor and over millions of years have created a mass of decaying organic material hundreds of feet thick. As this material is digested in the absence of oxygen, a chemical process called fermentation takes place and the main by product is methane. The gas does not rise to the surface because the low temperature and high pressure causes it to join with water molecules and form complex structure called methane hydrate. It is estimated that there is enough methane in these shallow waters to supply the world’s needs for a thousand years. Japan is a country that imports most of its energy needs and this has become even more important since the tsunami threatened their nuclear industry, so they are one of the leaders in the new technology of extracting methane hydrate from the continental shelf. Other experiments are being conducted by a Texas University in the Gulf of Mexico and the United States government is carrying out tests in the waters around Alaska. The current science is to pump carbon dioxide down into the organic mass and extract the methane from the hydrate structure. This structure prefers carbon dioxide over methane and thus each methane molecule is replaced and released by a carbon dioxide molecule on a one for one basis. This allows the collection of the methane while simultaneously capturing and storing the carbon dioxide, in a process known as sequestration. When this process becomes more fully developed the growth in fracking will come to a halt as the move to methane hydrate will be the more efficient method of producing methane. At that time the move from coal to oil to natural gas and finally to methane hydrate will be complete and there will no longer be any additional carbon dioxide going into the atmosphere, as each molecule produced will be sequestered. The air will now be free of acid rain chemicals, heavy metal contaminants and finally no increase in carbon dioxide. When all of this information becomes commonly known, the push toward the extraction of methane hydrate will accelerate and the path of coal to oil to natural gas will be cut short. The whole industry will recognize the economic advantages as will the consumers around the world. Cheap energy has a positive effect on all industries as well as transportation. All that is needed is to get past the politics and onto the science and the world will be a better, cleaner place. The millions of Chinese who are dying from air pollution will be saved and the many others in India will be able to avoid the mistakes made in China. The developing countries of Africa which are now gearing up to build coal plants can avoid this expense and move directly to methane which is available off their coast. This will make them energy self-sufficient and allow their industries to grow more quickly. The world of methane hydrate is the future. What are we waiting for?