Experience

As we approach the nominating process for cabinet members I am reminded of a personal experience. I was sent to Georgia to manage a poultry processing plant and I got all the supervisors together for a meeting. I told them that I had never seen a live chicken up close and that was OK because I was depending on them to run the plant and my job was to get them the time, training and tools they needed to do their job. In a short time I picked up a lot of information about the business and received good cooperation from everyone. There are many examples of people going into positions of authority without intimate knowledge of the business because the skills needed are more administrative and oriented toward getting people to work with one another for a common purpose. Being new to the business has the additional advantage of seeing things in a new way, the old forest for the trees idea.

Looking back

When President Obama visited Japan and when Prime Minister Abe visited Pearl Harbor they both emphasized the importance of looking forward and not dwelling on the mistakes of the past. This is a good strategy and helps to heal and to bring people together with common goals. Most Americans would like to see our country have better race relations but when the subject comes up the conversation always seems to look back at what went wrong. Everyone is aware that the Japanese strike on Pearl was a knife in the heart of America and the use of nukes pierced the hearts of the Japanese but rehashing these events does not help going forward. Everyone is aware that the mistreatment of blacks from slavery including the hundred years after the civil war is a dark spot in American history but it behooves us to put the past behind us and try and create a brighter future for all of our citizens. It works on a personal basis as well. If you keep reminding yourself of some past hurt it makes it all the more difficult to get over. It breeds resentment and being resentful is like taking poison and expecting someone else to get sick.

News cycle

In my ongoing analysis of the transfer of power, I believe that Obama has taken a page from the Trump book. While Obama was vacationing in Hawaii he watched the news cycle spin around Trumps every tweet and decided to get back into the game using the news media’s penchant to always need a new bauble. He first orchestrated the UN vote on Israeli settlements and that got the ball rolling for a few days and next he sent some Russian spies home and that will carry the news for another few days. The sending of these spies home is a good illustration of how easy it is to get the press off and running. The question every hour on the news is, how will Trump react to these actions against the Russians. They seem to think he will set aside his plans for infrastructure, for tax reform, for changes in Obamacare, for changes in NAFTA, for dealing with ISIS and immigration so he can deal with this issue. Not! While these agenda items are far more important they are considered old news that is too complicated to gather headlines, and this will hold until the next bauble comes along and they will once again jump on the band wagon. This kind of reporting has been going on since the 24 hour cable news cycle started and will continue. Remember the good old days when Walter Cronkite was on from 6 to 6:15 with the nightly news and that satisfied most people.

Right of return

The current population of Israel is 8 million and 20% or 1.6 million are Palestinian Arabs. They have the same rights as Israelis and there are Arab members in the Jewish congress. In Israel unlike many Muslim countries, women have equal rights and there are over 400 Mosque in Israel. I bring this up at this time because of something called right of return. In 1948 when it was clear that the State of Israel was going to be a reality, there were about 700,000 Palestinians living in the area and they knew that war would break out so they left and at the same time about the same number of Jews living nearby moved into the area that would become Israel. Those Palestinians who left later declared the right of return meaning that they and their descendants had the right to be Israeli citizens and claim their property. By this time their numbers had grown so they would actually outnumber the Jews and if they were allowed to return they could take over the country at the next election. The Jews denied this right but it was kept as a bargaining chip by the Palestinians but over the years it has just disappeared and no one talks about it anymore.

Revenge

Most people understand that any administration can deal with multiple issues simultaneously and most would agree that it is important to prioritize the various items on the agenda and thus the surprise at Secretary Kerry’s one hour and ten minute speech on the Israeli settlements. Would this emphasis be better placed on things like ISIS, the massacre at Aleppo, the Russian intervention in Ukraine, worldwide terrorism, or China’s incursions in the South China Sea. This opens the door to conspiratorial types who see this as slam against the Israeli leader Netanyahu. This is a speech that could have been given anytime in the past 8 years so why now? I am not sure what is going on but I am hard pressed to believe that the President of the United States would carry out a revengeful act because he is upset with the way Netanyahu behaved when he accepted an invitation to speak before a joint session of congress. As President Obama in prone to say, we are better than this.

Upset

Most of the post-election analyses have been about a few items that when added together would have caused a different outcome. The Comey letter, the Podesta hacks, the private email, not going to Wisconsin, and racism but Hilary gave the most obvious reason before the election when she said, Hillary Clinton asked why she "isn't 50 points ahead" of Donald Trump in presidential election polling, when she appeared in a video conference, The Washington Post reports. Using a sports analogy, if you are on the road against a superior team and you can hang in there until the fourth quarter, you got a chance. This game should have been tucked away in the first half but wasn’t and that is the stuff of which upsets are made.

Poor people

One of my friends asked me what I thought about Trump’s tax plan and how it would effect low income working people. When the tax rates are lowered most people will pay less tax but for those who don’t pay tax the rate has no bearing so what happens to the 50% of people who pay zero income tax. There are two existing programs that help these people. The first is called earned income credit. This program sends money to low income people who work and have children. It can be a significant amount depending on income. If the family income is $50,000 and they have three children they will receive $6,000 net from the government even though they pay no income tax. These payments will remain unchanged. The child tax credit will be increased from $1,000 per child to $5,000 per child and other things being equal this is a large benefit to low income people who currently pay no income tax.

Legacy

As the country faces the end of Obama’s time the subject of his legacy is in the news. I think his legacy will be in two parts. The first will be short term and second more long range. To start with he will be remembered as he is now as a nice guy. He is physically attractive, personable, with lots of charisma, a good family man and a great public speaker. In short he is likeable and that is a big deal for many people. He had 8 years in office during which time there were no scandals. He is and will continue to be the leading figure in the party. As time passes and historians begin to examine his time in office they will move away from his personal likeability and look more closely at his record and it will be mixed but with more negatives than positives. While his signature achievement, Obamacare will be significantly changed the elimination of pre-existing conditions will remain and this is how he will be remembered, so that is a positive. The disintegration of the Democratic Party during his time will be his biggest negative on domestic policy and Syria will be the big problem in foreign policy. He is leaving the country in better shape economically than when he was elected but it took almost 8 years to achieve which is a positive but the blue collar people who were left behind is a negative. He came in with great fanfare, the darling of the national press, promising to unite the country with his campaign slogan of hope and change which is a positive but failed to convince the Republican congress to work with him and the country became more divided. He attempted to reach out to the Middle East and Europe and got a Nobel Peace prize for his efforts but the Middle East blew up starting with the Arab spring and Europe is overwhelmed with refugees. Some will say the fail to leave some troops in Iraq caused the birth of ISIS but others will say that was just the final result of the Iraq war. He tried a restart with Russia and ended up with Crimea and the invasion of eastern Ukraine. He made a friend of Castro and an enemy of Netanyahu.

Compromise

Speculation about how Trump will lead is the latest parlor game and I am all in. One of the main reasons for grid lock in government is the fact that party beats country. Neither party wants the other party to get credit for any success. If the White House comes up with a plan that can help the country the other party is against it and the reverse is true. With Trump we have a man who is totally pragmatic that is he will go in whatever direction is needed to accomplish his objective. This means you can expect him to be very friendly with Chuck Schumer. Soon the Democrats will get over their loss and wake up to the fact that they have the best possible Republican president they could ask for. Trump has never talked about budget cuts, said he was going to leave Social Security and Medicare alone, has promised to rebuild the infrastructure and for the union guys he wants to pull the teeth from NAFTA and the TPP is DOA. Trump has put conservatives in his cabinet to satisfy his base but his policies will be more to the center. When it comes to passing his agenda, Trump will not need the far right because he will have help from the left. There will be a lot of bi-partisanship in the passage of his proposals. One of the first big tests will be the infrastructure spending and that will be followed by tax reform. The first he needs Republicans to compromise and the second he needs Democrats to compromise. These first two challenges will require the art of the deal.

Climate now

Because energy has become so politicized there are frequent reports about the advancements in non-fossil fuel alternatives mostly wind and solar. By just reading these reports it would seem that we are on the way to a new world. Just to remind everyone where we stand, here are some recent stats. Oil 35.43% Coal 28.15% Natural Gas 23.46% Hydro –electric 6.27% Nuke-electric 5.79% Geothermal Wind, Solar Biomass .86% About half of that last category is wind and solar. If you take away the subsidies from the last category it would disappear completely. If we are really concerned about climate change and not just influenced by political beliefs we will move quickly to replace coal and oil with natural gas.

Settlements

The United Nations has a well-earned reputation of being anti-Israeli and the United States, as one of the five permanent members, has regularly used its veto power to save Israel. Yesterday, the United States abstained from voting instead of using the veto and the United Nations declared that the building of settlements in the West Bank to be illegal. The United States Ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Powers said the settlements were detrimental to the creation of a two state agreement between Israel and Palestine and this agreement is the only way to resolve the long standing difference between these two countries. While these settlements are one of many reasons why an agreement cannot be reached there are other reasons and one of the most important is the fact that Palestine refuses to admit that Israel exists. It is not possible for two countries to agree on territory when one country states in its constitution that the other country is not there. There is literally no one to agree with if there is only one party to the agreement. Israel states that according the 1967 agreement reached after the end of the 67 war, the territory known as the West Bank was to be negotiated as part of the peace agreement. The United Nations says that when the war ended the West Bank was no longer negotiable and thus the argument remains. According to the United Nations the building of settlements has been illegal since 1967. This new vote will have little to no effect on Israel as it will continue to build as it has over the past 50 years. Some day in the future when Palestine agrees to the existence of Israel they may use these settlement, to bargain for new territorial boundaries.

Educated

In the halls of the intellectual elites there exist a mass of people who are, euphemistically referred to, as the great uniformed. Indeed polls show that many people interviewed on the street are not well educated in the matters of government. However, a large part of that group does watch cable TV news and they are fairly well informed. It is interesting that Fox News which tends to be conservative has more viewers than the liberal stations of CNN and MSNBC combined. Fox News is so popular that it not only leads in news cable stations but all cable stations which include various entertainment channels. Gallop shows that twice as many Americans identify as conservative verses liberal. This closely aligns with the 70% who are not college graduates. This formal education divide keeps cropping up in different ways. This is a difference I was not aware of until the past election brought it to the forefront.

Mideast strategy

Trump strikes again! Egypt was about to propose that the UN stop Israeli settlements and Obama said the US would abstain from the vote which means it would pass and it would take away a critical negotiating point from the Israelis’. Trump intervened with the Egyptian President and convinced him to withdraw the proposal. Trump has now cemented his relationship with Netanyahu. Trump has selected Rex Tillerson as his secretary of state. Tillerson is an oil man and close friend to the Gulf oil states and has demonstrated to them that he is no friend of the Iranians. Is Trump trying to replace the evil Israel with the evil Iran in the eyes of the Arab world leaders and thus lead to a two state agreement between Israel and Palestine. While the Arab world is no friend of Israel can Trump use the age old division between Sunni and Shia to move the Sunnis toward an agreement with the Jews.

Nukes

When Reagan took office, one of his first announcements was his intent to vastly increase spending on the military. His well-known words of peace through strength became a mantra for his administration. This was followed up with his ideas about nuclear defense which the press promptly ridiculed as star wars. I have always believed that this strategy is what forced Gorbachev to realize that the USSR could not compete with the US on the military stage and led him to his concept of perestroika which meant to concentrate on the economy instead of defense. It was after the fall of the Soviet Union that it was discovered that the Soviets were two generations behind in technology and this explained why they were always opposed to mutual inspections of nuclear sites. I bring this up at this time because of an announcement by Trump today regarding our nuclear arsenal. He said we are going to update both our offensive and defensive capabilities so that no one would consider an attack knowing that their missals would be destroyed before they could reach us and our missals would destroy them. Imagine the look on Putin’s face today when he heard that. Putin knows that Russia has oil, natural gas and obsolete nukes but their economy is in shambles. Trump has been making nice with him and then drops this bomb. Trump is following the Reagan idea of overwhelming the enemy with strength. I am waiting for the press to figure this out which I believe will take a while. Even Krauthammer who is very wise asked today why Trump just didn’t focus on defense. Trump is putting Putin on notice that his nukes will no longer be an effective deterrent. Next he will talk about shipping natural gas to Europe and they will stop buying from Russia.

Trust

Trust in the media has been on a downward slide since the 72% high point in 1976. By the 90’s it was in the mid 50’s and by 2005 it was in the low 40’s and now it has slipped below 40. A similar trend can be seen with trust in government going from 40% down to 15%. One reason for this that is not often discussed it the 24 news networks. They have to keep coming up with “Special Alerts” at the start of every show and thus they just jump from one story to the next. Something that is a big deal today is old news a week later. Recall the report about how veterans were dying while waiting for treatment. That is still happening but it is old news. Trump has taken advantage of this news cycle. He knows that people have lost trust in both news and government so he sends out a tweet and the news media jumps all over it for a few days and then he sends out another. They go especially wild if the tweet is not true but people so believe that much in the news is not true they don’t get excited. In a few days the press realizes that this is not a story and they go after the new shinny tweet bait

Work

I was watching a morning news show and the lady hostess said she was the daughter of former presidential candidate Jon Huntsman. This got my attention because I knew that her grandfather John Huntsman Sr. was a self-made billionaire. He was raised dirt poor by a loving mother in a dysfunction home where his father was an alcoholic. Starting with nothing he built a chemical company from scratch and is today a wealthy man. He has set a goal to give away all of his money before he dies. He has given money to needy people around the world but his number one project is a large cancer research hospital he built in his home state of Utah. To keep in running costs him out of pocket 120 million dollars per year. He is my age and has suffered a number of times from cancer and his mother died of cancer. His son Jon Jr. has spent most of his life in public service working for various politicians including Reagan and was elected governor of Utah for two terms. Jr’s daughter is a TV talking head and his son is a naval pilot currently serving on a carrier. John Sr. has very expensive home that he is selling at below cost to give the money away. He is often criticized because many of the products his company makes and not good for the environment. For example the makes Styrofoam containers used in things like egg cartons. The reason I was interested is that his grandchildren, who could be living a life of leisure are out making careers for themselves. I think one of the finest gifts a grandfather can give is to pass on the work ethic and the Huntsman’s seem to have done that.

Never again

In 1999 in the African country of Uganda an estimated 800,000 people were massacred mostly by chopping them to pieces using machetes and the west stood by and watched. After that the familiar cry of never again resounded across American so in 2011 two women in the Obama administration, Susan Rice and Samantha Powers convinced the President to invade Libya. Seeing that Gadhafi was about to invade the city of Benghazi and kill civilians these women recalling Uganda came up with a policy called, “Responsibility to Protect” and with the help of Hilary Clinton convinced Obama to invade Libya. A short time later a similar situation arose in Syria and the President said Assad must go but nothing happened. Next the President said that if chemicals were used the US would take action and nothing happened. The last four years the west once again watched as innocents were killed by Assad’s military. The cry of never again has taken on a rather hollow meaning.

CO2 emissions

This past summer the US began shipping liquefied natural gas (LNG) to Europe. Until recently the only LNG shipping point was in the Gulf but plans for more plants along the east coast are underway. This will not only be a new market for US products but will compete against Russia. In addition it will allow Europe to reduce CO2 emissions the way the US has done by replacing coal plants with natural gas. The new administration will likely speed up this process! Despite continued economic growth, emissions in the U.S. are on a steady decline thanks in large part to cheap natural gas. The next move is to ship to Asia and Africa, places that are big users of coal.

CIA

Many people have come to the defense of the CIA saying the agency is filled with life time civil servants who are dedicated to defending the country. Trump has said that politics is interfering with their analysis and many say his disparaging remarks are not helpful. Just a few years ago Diane Feinstein, chair of the Senate Intelligence committee said something similar. Sen. Dianne Feinstein on Tuesday morning accused the CIA of violating federal law, detailing how the agency secretly removed documents from computers used by the Senate Intelligence Committee. These represent two examples of people, one from each party, accusing the CIA of misdeeds. Does this mean that politics had contaminated the CIA?

Tolerance

While many liberals are looking around for reasons why the election did not go their way, some are getting past their bias and discovering different sides to issues. These are the people who see the loss of the Middle American non-college educated voter as the reason for the loss. The intolerance shown to this group has opened their eyes to a new view of things. Uber liberal Nick Kristof of the NY Times said in his Sunday article: We champion tolerance, except for conservatives and evangelical Christians. We want to be inclusive of people who don’t look like us — so long as they think like us. If the liberals realize this they will be on the long journey back to getting those voters they called names to come back to their party. Kristof’s article covers a lot more and is worth the read! http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/10/opinion/sunday/the-dangers-of-echo-chambers-on-campus.html?smid=pl-share&_r=0

Art of the Deal

Since Trump is an out of the box type politician many seasoned reporters are having a difficult time trying to figure him out. I have a suggestion and that is to consider his art of the deal approach. Trump expressed concern about Obama notifying the enemy of troop movements. Things like saying we will put so many troops in on such date and remove so many on another date. Trump likes to negotiate much like a union does with a company. The company says we can only give you a cost of living raise of 2% and the union asks for 10% hoping to end up with 4%. When Trump says he will place an import tax of 35% he is negotiating but the press takes it as gospel. When he says he will build a wall and Mexico will pay for it he is negotiating. Talking with the President of Taiwan is the set up to negotiate with China on other matters. With great surprise reporters will ask if he is saying one thing when he means another and the answer is yes. Most people know that what is said during a campaign is often different from what happens after the election. Anyone who has ever been involved in a negotiation understands that the starting point is not where things end up. Most understand that in the bargaining stage some secrecy is necessary but when the final product emerges there needs to be openness. Many in the press are amazed at the openness Trump has exhibited with has cabinet picks. Some even complain that it is too open saying he should not be tweeting about every interview. Once again this is out of the box stuff that is just too much for experienced political reporters.

Flag

The subject of flag burning is once more in the news. The court ruled in 1989 on a five to four decision that flag burning was legal because it was free speech. It is interesting that a conservative Scalia voted in favor of flag burning and liberal Stevens voted against. There will be a new court in just a few years and they may have a different opinion. Polls show that 56% favor a law forbidding flag burning but this is down from 70% in 1990 shortly after the last court ruling. While the judges are not supposed to be influenced by public opinion, in cases where there is no loss of human rights they sometimes listen to the citizens.

Student scores

Half way through the last election it dawned on me that there was a split between the 30% of people who are college graduates and the 70% who are not. A friend sent me the following: The divide is economic, and it is massive. According to the Brookings analysis, the fewer-than-500 counties (16% of U.S. counties) that Clinton won nationwide combined to generate 64% of U.S. economic activity in 2015. The more-than-2,600 counties (84% of U.S. counties) that Trump won combined to generate 36% of the country’s economic activity last year. I might add that it is the 30% who are concerned about climate change and that make sense.

Student scores

I just finished watching a segment about education and comparing the United States with other countries and the US ranks 17th in science and 24th in math. The US ranks 5thin spending per student. Experts offer many reasons for this and to me it is all very confusing. In my four years as a sub teacher I have come up with some observations. High schools have sacrificed learning in order to improve graduation rates. The district has an excellent math program as I have subbed in all math classes from 6th through 12th. If a student gets behind then the problem is compounded because each year depends on the content in the years before. The result is by freshman algebra, which is a required course, there are 6 to 8 students in most classes that have no idea what is going on. They are then sent to some remedial classes and if they show up every day they are allowed to take a math proficiency test and they must either pass it or flunk it twice and then they are allowed to graduate. While these students are in the classroom they are bored and soon start distracting the teacher and other students. The teacher spends an inordinate amount of time trying to keep these students from disrupting the class. This is time not spent in helping students who want to learn. Every effort is made to keep these students in school. There are special rooms they can be sent to where there is more one on one instruction but basically it gets them out of the regular class so the teacher can teach. There are two main reasons for this procedure. First each student brings in $13,000 to the school so expulsion is a no no. Second statistics show that if you can keep a student in school until age 18 the chances of him ending up in prison are greatly reduced. Since $13,000 is far less than the $30,000 cost for prison this is considered a good investment. If I had to name the number one problem, I would say it is students who do not learn respect for authority in the home and thus it carries over to the school and later to the job and too many times to the police officer on the street.

Russian relations

There is a brouhaha going on about Trump’s relationship with Russia but when the Obama administration proposed having better relations with Russia it was seen as a progressive move. Here are a couple of examples people may have forgotten about. In March 2009 Hillary Clinton announced that the Obama Administration was going to push the reset button with the Russians. Obama caught off guard when through an open mike he whispers to Russian President Dmitry Medvedev that relationships will improve after his re-election.

Loyal opposition

There is an old joke something like this, don’t worry I’m from the government and I am here to help. That should strike fear into the hearts of all free people. Republicans who are complaining about the way the press is treating Trump should rejoice in the fact that they are doing their job. Double checking everything elected officials do is the way to protect our way of life. Citizens should also want the out party to check on the party in power and investigate whenever necessary. This idea comes from the British Parliament and is called the loyal opposition. If these officials don’t like the close scrutiny then they can always resign but as a taxpayer I want to know what’s going on in the back room.

Sanctuary cities

According to recent court rulings states are not required to enforce federal laws but they cannot impede federal authorities from enforcing the laws. In the famous case of Marbury v. Madison the Supreme Court stated: “It is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is.” In other words federal law takes precedent over state law. Sanctuary Cities have legally chosen not to prosecute illegal aliens but they may not interfere with the federal government prosecuting these aliens. They have the right not to help the federal government track down illegal aliens but the federal government can then withhold federal funds allocated to law enforcement. Most big cities are controlled by democrats and threatening to take away federal money will get their attention. This is not always the case with republicans as witnessed by the 36 states who refused federal subsidies by not setting up insurance exchanges under Obamacare.

Coal miner pension

In the news today is a story about retired coal miners who are losing their promised health care benefits. This is happening across the county, not only to health care but to pensions as well. Illinois is a case in point with both their public employee plan and the teacher retirement plan. When the state threatened to reduce benefits union leaders pointed out that the state constitution forbids any reduction in legacy benefits, (benefits for retirees). The state went to the federal government for help and in 2014 a new law was passed which allowed pension managers to override the state constitution and now these retirees benefits are in jeopardy. These unions, which includes cities, counties and states negotiated in good faith and now after many years the agreements are being changed. How did this happen! In the Minneapolis School District there are 3,300 teachers and 6,700 support staff. 1,500 of the support staff are members of the teachers union. If the teachers select a candidate who will negotiate contracts that are favorable to teachers and then work to get them elected, they have a very good chance of winning. If each teacher and spouse vote for a particular candidate that is 9000 votes. Now if they get their parents to vote that is another 18,000. Next if they have coffee parties and invite the neighbors plus make a small campaign contribution they can just about guarantee a win for their candidate. The winners usually get 60,000 votes. The proof of this is that No DFL-endorsed candidate for the board has lost in at least 20 years. This union followed the rules and their candidates won and then they sat down across the table to negotiate with the people they just helped get elected and promised they would get them re-elected. The school board said they did not have a lot of money to offer but they could increase the legacy benefits and the teachers agreed. Many years later when it came time to pay the piper the money was not there. This was the reason why a strong liberal like FDR warned against public unions. This happened across the country with city workers, county worker, state workers, teachers and even federal workers under civil service.

Jobs and growth

Trumps great contribution to the Republican Party is putting social issues like abortion and gay marriage on the back burner. Harry Reeds contribution is the 51 votes needed to approve cabinet nominees, the so called nuclear option. While Trump is a moderate on social issues, his cabinet indicates that he is conservative on fiscal issues. He is not a micromanager so he will likely follow the lead of his appointees. He recognizes that climate change is aggravated by fossil fuels but knows that you cannot change over to wind and solar but must move to natural gas and then look for other ways. He knows that the EPA has gone too far and must be reined in. He knows that tax rates must be lowered and you can’t touch Medicare and social security. He knows the way to attack the deficit is not by raising taxes and/or cutting spending but by growing the economy. When people and companies can keep more of their money, people will spend and companies will grow. Companies will bring home the profits they have stored overseas and with reduced regulations will expand and use innovation to develop new products. Looming on the horizon will be higher interest rates and thanks to Bush 43 and Obama the 20 trillion dollar debt will pose a big problem. Once again it will be economic growth that will come to the rescue. It all comes down to good paying jobs.

WW 3

Shortly after Reagan took office he referred to the Soviet Union as the evil empire and all hell broke loose. The national press and leading democrats immediately predicted WW 3. Yesterday Trump got a congratulatory phone call from the President of Taiwan and once again cries of WW 3 came forth only this time things are exaggerated because of social media.

Mistakes

Shortly after 9-11, I went to a Muslim chat room and continued going there 3 or 4 times per week for over ten years. The others in the room expected me to defend the United States on every issue and I surprised them when I did not. I told them that during the cold war the US made friends with a lot of bad people. Our rule was that if you oppose the USSR then you are acceptable. I recall when Mrs. Kirkpatrick, our ambassador to the UN, said of one of the bad guys,” he may be a dictator but he is our dictator”. I willingly admitted that the US has made many mistakes and we are still paying the price for those in the view of world opinion. I also pointed out the many positive things that the US has accomplished. I bring this up at this time because I found similar thinking when it comes to the presidential candidate for whom people voted. They often feel obligated to defend everything the candidate did and said. People should understand that it would be next to impossible to find a candidate who did and said everything they wanted and when something is not right in their opinion they should just say so.

Party over country

Over the years my cynicism about politics has grown and one of the main reasons was that politicians tend to put party above country. No matter who is in the White House the opposition does not want the country to have any successes because the credit will go to the President. The Republicans have opposed Obama on a regular basis and they have been rewarded with big off year election victories. As the Democrats view this will they follow the same approach hoping to win in the off years or will they put the country first and allow Trump to receive the credit for any successes. One of the first indications of which way they will go, will be how they vote on Trump’s desire to spend money on infrastructure. This is something the Democrats have wanted and now they will get the opportunity to help implement.

Real cost

When the federal government brings on a new social program they underestimate the cost to get the bill passed and once people start receiving the benefits it is almost impossible to stop it. The one exception to this was the Medicare Catastrophic –Coverage Law passed in 1989 and repealed a few months later. This plan would pay for additional benefits for seniors including nursing home cost. The plan passed with great fanfare but soon seniors found out they were going to pay for this new plan with a sur-tax of over $1,000 per year. They rose up with such force that the law was trashed. The house voted 360 to 66 to junk it and the senate voted the same 99 to 0. The other plans like social security, Medicare and Medicaid remained as law because they were paid for by the general public or more correctly by deficit financing. While most see this as Democratic politics the Medicare Part D prescription drug plan was passed by Bush 43. The agreement was that it would not cost more than 400 billion over ten years and if it did it could be stopped by any congressman using a procedure called, “point of order”. The chief actuary figured the cost at $530 billion but this fact was hidden until the bill passed and was only revealed two months after Bush was re-elected. The latest addition to this list of benefits is Obamacare and that too is costing a lot more than the projections. So what’s new!

Carried interest

As Trump surrounds himself with wealthy wall-street types the question arises will they promote their own friends or will they follow instructions from the President. Here is a quick test. If they get rid of carried interest, they will be Trumpers and if not he should replace them. My guess is that this as already been decided and they would not have received the appointments if they did not agree to get rid of this type of capital gain. Keep in mind that this is mostly for show since what this tax would bring in represents about 0.04% of tax revenues. In case you have forgotten carried interest which has been around forever allows certain profits of limited partnerships to be taxed as capital gain, 23% instead of ordinary income tax at 43%. If Trump would get rid of the capital gains tax then people like Warren Buffet would pay a lot higher rate that their secretaries, but don’t hold your breath on that change. Recall that a limited partnership is where one group puts up the money and another group manages the money. They buy businesses that they judge not to be operating properly and then make changes and then sell those businesses and share the profits. Normally 80% goes to the investors and 20% to the managers. If this time between buying and selling exceeds one year the profits are taxed as long term capital gains. Now the managers get a fee of 2% that is taxed as ordinary income tax but the 20% they get is taxed at the capital gain rate and this is called carried interest. It is this 20% that some say should also be taxed as ordinary income since many feel that this is also a management fee.

Civil service

While many reporters see the democrats as Trumps great nemesis, the hidden enemy is the life time civil servants who work in places like the state department and the VA. These people refer to the incoming administration people as Christmas help, knowing that they will only be around for a few years and gone into the history books. They know that they can’t be fired, thanks to civil services rules and so they work quietly behind the scenes to maintain the status quo. They tend to be liberals because they know that every time Republicans take control they threaten to cut government jobs and when the Democrats take over they tend to increase government. This is the reason why for years elected officials have promised to fix the VA and nothing happens. Trump has had some experience in this area when he dealt with the unions in NY city but this will be a real challenge and if I had to bet, I would bet on those minions who are entrenched in the system.

Police action

I am upset like many with the developments in Iraq and Syria. The US takes over a city and many civilians are killed and injured. Then the other guys take over and many innocents are killed and injured. Then the US takes over and so on. I saw a picture of cannons pointed at Mosel and in the caption it said there were somewhere between one and two million civilians in the city. This is what happens when politicians are running the operation. Note I did not call it war. In Korea we called it a police action and that name has stuck since, at least in United Nations speak. While doing this we constantly express our concern about minimizing collateral damage. I am getting more upset as I write this so I will quit.

Greed

Some have expressed surprise at President Obama’s rather neutral remarks about Fidel Castro but I am not one of them. Over the years my liberal friends have shown a tolerance toward Communist regimes. I recall one person who was well informed that thought more highly of Gorbachev than of Reagan and even today many liberals credit the breakdown of the Soviet Union to Gorbachev. These are the people who became apoplectic when Reagan called the Soviet Union the evil empire. They feared that such talk would start WW 3. There have been many examples of liberals visiting communist leaders and sometimes praising the social programs they developed. It is a little ironic that most of these people became very wealthy under the capitalist system and they accumulated much of their money during the 80’s which they called the decade of greed.

Castro

I bought my first house in 1959 and that was the year that Fidel Castro came to power so I remember many of the details. American businesses built up the sugar industry in Cuba and by the 1950’s Cuba was the world’s largest exported of sugar producing 20% of the world’s supply. After Castro came to power and nationalized the sugar industry things started to go downhill. The management left and the profit motive left with them. Cuba lost the US as its main customer and began shipping to Russia and other European countries. In the 70’s Cuba tried to increase production but failed. The more they tried to salvage the sugar business the worse things got and the country declined as sugar declined. This has happened many times throughout history. A political leader will take over a country promising the poor people new hope and when the dust settles a few elite remain in power and the poor end up worse off. I recall when Fidel’s brother took over about five years ago he allowed small private businesses to develop and following the Chinese model things are starting to improve. Give people the freedom to take a business risk and let them keep the rewards and good things happen.

Objectivity

Over the past 20 plus years the line between journalist and commentator has blurred and the most recent example is from Christiane Amanpour, a lady described on Google as a British-Iranian journalist and television host, saying, “I believe in being truthful, not neutral. While human beings cannot be objective the news people have maintained over the years that they try but that is no longer the case. Many of the national news people now openly say that they are injecting their personal views into their news reports. In one way this is refreshing as we no longer have to pretend neutrality. A good case in point is NPR, a news outlet, that always maintained neutrality but many listeners had doubts. Whenever Republicans were in office they threatened to cut funding to NPR and Democrats promised to keep and increase funding and so the question comes up, did that affect the NPR view of news?

Media guards

The election of Trump will get the media back on track. It is the job of the media to be tough on all government officials, elected or appointed, and they have been derelict in their duties. With Trump in the White House perhaps they will once again become the watchdogs of our Republic. We don’t need the Supreme Court to tie up their time deciding whether Trump’s holdings represent a conflict of interest, we just need the press to do their job and investigate any claims. My guess is that they will be on top of this. My feelings about government can best be understood by the way I reacted to my friends when I lived in the south. When a guy came up to me and said John, you’re a college boy so you know a lot more than I do, I immediately started backing up. When the government man tells me not to worry, I start backing up. I have said that while the free market is the best economic system we must always look out for corruption and the free press is our guard, as long as they do their job.

School bus

This week a school bus ran off the road and children were injured and killed. The first reports showed the driver to be a young black man and many assumed there were drugs involved. Later reports indicate that was not the case. I drove a school bus and have a possible answer to why he was speeding and on a different route. The drivers in most districts take kids to elementary, then middle school and finally high school. This is why the schools have different starting times. I recall one particular route that required me to speed in order to get to the second school on time. I pointed this out to the district and do not know if anything was ever done about it. If a driver is running late he gets a call on the radio asking what happened. It is possible that this driver faced that problem and not only went faster but knew of a shorter route. I will wait until the final report but I am not ready to convict him at this time.

Road back

President Obama’s approval rating leaving office is 56% and that is a little above average. He is an attractive man with great charisma. He is a good husband and father and one of the best orators of our time. In other words people like him and that is very important in today’s political world. He also leaves office with the Democratic Party in the worst shape since the 1920’s. The party’s record in states is abysmal and the house and senate remains Republican. Obama is the leader of the party but there are few young shinning stars. The leadership is in their 70’s and in disarray. Usually when this happens it isn’t long before the party come roaring back. If Trump can provide good paying jobs the Dems will have a longer road back.

Violent

Today President Obama announced that 79 convicted felons would be released and this brought the total during his time to over a thousand. He has every right to do this. What I object to is the phrase, “non-violent crimes”. In many major cities crimes related to drugs represent the bulk of arrest but these are the causes of much of the drug related shootings. To call a person convicted of selling drugs a non-violent offender is misleading at best. Not only the victims of shootings but the cost to the users represent the seriousness of these crimes and certainly contribute to the violence.

Government private

In Grand Forks, like many university towns, there was a program called Communiversity. This is where professors would put on classes of public interest on the four Sunday nights in February. The last year of this program I was invited to be on the board and to advice on the type of courses that would interest the public. In fact I was asked because they thought I would be good at soliciting donations from local business to advertise the program. In any event I quickly discovered that at the meetings the default position was to postpone things until the next meeting. I was of the opinion that what we accomplished in 6 weeks could have been done the two weeks. I bring this up at this time because of the way in which Trump is adding to his staff. He is way ahead of most former presidents at this time and I believe he will continue at this pace. There is a difference between the way private verses government works. I realize when companies get big enough they start to act more like government but since Trump is a one man show that did not happen to him. He often boast of completing jobs early and below cost and that too is what can happen when you are in charge of the whole operation. When you are in charge of everything, decisions can be made quickly and then you must accept the results good or bad. Trump will find that government moves slow and this may not be to his liking but it may save him and the country from some bad decisions.

Campaigns

It appears that there has been a fundamental shift in how presidential campaigns are run. The percentage of money from super pacs has gone down from 600 million in 2012 to 250 million this year. The Romney campaign spent over one billion and the Trump total was under 800 million. Trump showed that holding rallies that were covered by TV was a new way of competing with TV ads. The complaints about the Supreme Court ruling that allowed for super pacs will die out especially since they benefited democrats over the past three presidential elections. This will also dampen support for campaign finance reform. Money in this campaign was also different in that Trump spent 60 million of his own money. Recall that Ross Perot spent about 100 million of his own money in today’s dollars. Maybe rallies and social media will replace TV in future campaigns. $1.3 B $556 million Hillary Clinton campaign $544.4 million Party and joint fundraising committees $188 million Super PACs $795 M $248.3 million Donald Trump campaign $486.7 million Party and joint fundraising committees $60.1 million Super PACs

Reagan democrats

I think of myself as a reasonably informed citizen but I am having difficulty following the news regarding the so called Reagan Democrats. These people, sometimes referred to as blue collar voters, are credited with helping Reagan, Bill Clinton, Obama and now Trump get elected. Apparently some portion of this group is considered bigoted but no one is sure how many fall into that category. If this is the case and this group is instrumental in winning the presidency then candidates will have to take the good with the bad. The Democratic Party is now setting up plans to win this group back. Maybe it is necessary to take in some undesirables in order to win.

Term limits

Talk about term limits is once more in the news but don’t hold your breath. It takes a constitutional amendment and that means 2/3 rds vote in both house and senate. I was always opposed to term limits as I felt the elections should do this but that was before jerrymandering. This is an example of corruption but there is a simple way out of this mess and that is through technology. A computer can easily draw up districts by population but politicians would have to give up their control over setting up district lines. Once again don’t hold your breath.

Hate crimes

Hate crimes are once again in the news and unfortunately we don’t have up to date data but historically Jews have always led the way. The latest FBI statistics on hate crimes base on religion are from 2014 and show the following: Against Jews 648 Against Muslims 183 Against religion in general 125 Against Christian 102 In regards to racial hate crimes there were 3,400 reported and 66% were against blacks and 21% against whites.

Song

There was an unusual occurrence at the high school today. In the morning the teachers were told to be aware of any activity regarding race or religion because of the election. Later than morning they put on a show for Veterans Day and the choir and band put on a wonderful performance which included singing, “The Battle Hymn of the Republic”. If you are not familiar with the lyrics here is one stanza: In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea, With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me; As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free! While God is marching on. In this day of political correctness I was pleased and surprised that this song was chosen.

I voted

I subbed at the high school today and one of the teachers asked my thoughts on the election. I told them in the end I decided to vote for Trump. I was going to write in the name Kasich but a friend told me that it would be a vote for Trump so I just checked Trump. He said he voted for Clinton and I told him why I thought he might do that. I told him that over the past 30 years that he has been teaching he went to work to a job he mostly enjoyed and with good working conditions. I told him he watched the equity build in his home while his pension got larger. I told him he had a decent health plan along with benefits like vacation, holiday pay and sick leave. I told him he was able to take the family on vacation and help with college expenses. I told him that these things that he rightfully earned with his diploma made him a part of the establishment and that Clinton would keep things going in his direction. Then I told him about the 70% of the population that did not go to college and how all too many of them have watched their lives come to a standstill over the past 45 years as their income stagnated. Even as they made the transition to two income families they still lived pay check to pay check. They were downsized to jobs they didn’t like and all too often in work situations that lacked a way out. They listened year after year to politicians making promises to help them to a better life and nothing came of it and so they finally found a ray of hope in Trump. They were so desperate that they were willing to overlook his many flaws on the outside chance that maybe he was different than the typical politician. Will things change? We will see!

Bubba

The preliminaries are over and it is time for the main event. In the red corner weighing in at 500 pound is Hilary surrounded by her team consisting of the national press, the big money donors, the big banks and Wall Street plus the 30% of Americans who are college graduates. In the blue corner we have weighing in at 100 pounds, Bubba. It is David verses Goliath. Hilary represents the establishment, the in crowd, the big money crowd and the crowd with influence. These are the people who run the country, the people who promise every four years to take care of the middle class. They are the Lucy’s who keep pulling the football away from Bubba. For 45 years Bubba and his clan have watched their wages stagnate while families with one working member grew into two working families. All the while the rich got richer and the gap today is greater that it has ever been. Will Bubba, the guy who never answers the pollsters including exit polling, come out and vote in numbers large enough to make difference? Will he overlook the crude, rude talk, the wild accusations, the obvious lies, the politically incorrectness taken to extreme and go for the slim hope that something might change? Will he drain the swamp!

50's

There is a way that the US can bring back manufacturing jobs. Begin to place import taxes on cheap goods from overseas. This will raise the price of goods to US consumers and their wages will rise accordingly. As people make more money and things cost more the standard of living will not change much. In time US manufacturers will once again be competitive in goods like appliances and electronics. This will spread to hard goods like steel and other heavy manufactured items. Wage price inflation will return and things might begin to resemble the 1950’s, when wages were rising slightly ahead of inflation and people got a raise every year and felt like they were getting ahead. There were jobs for people right out of high school where they could make a decent living. As the US reenters the manufacturing market they will do so with new more efficient factories and prices will increase more slowly than wages. Stores will be filled with products made in America. Lower energy prices will help all manufacturing as well as helping family budgets. While this is going on the infrastructure can be modernized and the GDP will gradually increase to the 4% level needed for solid growth. The economy overall grew by 37% during the 1950s. At the end of the decade, the median American family had 30% more purchasing power than at the beginning. Inflation, which had wreaked havoc on the economy immediately after World War II, was minimal, in part because of Eisenhower's persistent efforts to balance the federal budget. Except for a mild recession in 1954 and a more serious one in 1958, unemployment remained low, bottoming at less than 4.5% in the middle of the decade.

Income

Since the dawn of civilized man there has been a gap between the rich and the poor. To equalize things has never worked because there were always too few rich and too many poor. Various leaders have used this discrepancy in wealth to gain political power but they have always failed to come through with their promises. The latest example is Chavez in Venezuela. He took a country that was struggling and single handedly brought it to its knees. When Bernie Sanders was running he promised to take from the one percent and give it to the 99% but mathematically that would not do much good. This came to my attention last year, when an article appeared in the local paper saying that the six members of the Walmart family had a worth of 90 billion dollars and this was more than the lowest 50 million families in the country. Understand this is not their income it is their wealth mostly in Walmart stock. So let’s redistribute this money and in doing so each family would get $1,900 which they could quickly spend on a new refrigerator. In 2013, 138.3 million taxpayers reported earning $9.03 trillion in adjusted gross income. The top 1 percent earned 20% of the income or 1.8 trillion. Of that 1.8 trillion 46% or 800 billion was paid in taxes leaving the one percenters with 1 trillion. Now if we take all of that and give it to the rest of us we will each get $3,300. A nice Christmas bonus but not life changing like a good job would be. There is one way that income redistribution will work and that is raising the wages paid to people who work at McDonalds and Walmart. Most of the people who work there are middle to lower income people and most of the people who shop there are middle to lower income people and each group is very large. I spend $1,000 per month at Walmart since we buy our food and other household products there. I did some calculations based on Walmart sales in the United States and compared that to the number of non-management employees and found that if they increase the cost of their goods by 6% they could double the wages. I told him that his would mean $60 per month more out of my pocket and I would be happy to pay that if the money went to wages. I doubt that my letter had any influence but shortly after that Walmart came out and gave everyone a one dollar per hour raise.

Smog

30 years ago the cigarette business was starting to die only to be saved by sending product to China. We are doing the same thing today with coal. As the US coal plants close and our C02 emission decline to 1990’s levels we are sending the problem to China. Not only are we shipping Appalachian coal but we are opening up mines in the west and building new shipping facilities to send more overseas to African and India. In order to go solar and wind we must have rare earth metals and we do not want to mine them here because of environmental concerns so we buy from China which now produces 95% of all rare earths. Shifting this air pollution overseas makes our air cleaner but it dirties up the air elsewhere but long term we all live on the same planet.

Bombo's

Will Trump take a page from the Bill Clinton play book in dealing with the new revelations about womanizing? Will he set up a group to confront the “bimbo eruptions” and go after each accuser making them out to be either “sluts or nuts”? Will Mrs. Trump call some of these women “trailer trash”? Perhaps if they do all this Mr. Trump’s approval rating will go to 66% just like Bill’s did when he left office. The actions of Bill Clinton were not in the public news before his election although it was later revealed that many of these incidences occurred while he was governor of Arkansas. A few minor news agencies reported such things but the national press never made it a big issue. Have times changed or is it the change in party?

Experts

While I am concerned about the Russians interfering with our election I am more concerned about our own press. They seem to think that Trump is so bad that they have abandoned their main responsibility of reporting the news and have become active participants in helping to decide who wins. Recent email revelations show that some news agencies have given advanced information to Clinton for some town hall meetings. Emails show that a NBC debate host bragged about going after Trump. If you look at the backgrounds of the top Washington reporters and the people they report on you will find a cultural link. Most are well educated and many in the same schools. They tend to socialize together, frequenting the same restaurants and attending the same lectures and seminars. These people have very little in common with the blue collar tradesmen that find Trump exciting. They are not outdoorsmen who like to hunt and fish. They are not interested in NASCAR or bowling. They don’t live pay check to pay check. Their kids don’t struggle in school and they certainly don’t join the military. These two groups are a world apart and the press people think that Trump supporters represent the low information voters and do not have the education to properly evaluate the big problems facing the country. I have said before that on any big issue the experts are on both sides so anyone has just a good a chance as being right as the experts.

The in crowd

If my choice the Kasich/Rubio ticket were running against Clinton the discussions and debates would be mostly about policy as Kasich would not take the low road against Hilary. This would be great for the voters to hear but in the end not much would change no matter who was elected. The establishment has had many years to help the lower, middle income groups and nothing has improved. It is quite amazing the largest group of workers in the country have seen their wages stagnate for 40 years. But after adjusting for inflation, today’s average hourly wage has just about the same purchasing power as it did in 1979, following a long slide in the 1980s and early 1990s and bumpy, inconsistent growth since then. In fact, in real terms the average wage peaked more than 40 years ago: The $4.03-an-hour rate recorded in January 1973 has the same purchasing power as $22.41 would today. This does not impact the people with college degrees who have seen their wages increase but it is devastating to the lower, middle income group which represents 70% of all those working. These people are as much attracted to Trump as the establishment is repulsed by him. The fact that he is vulgar and makes promises that experts say he cannot keep does not deter his fans who are desperate for change. Making new deals with China or introducing import taxes sounds unachievable to experts but it gives hope to those who have watched their jobs disappear. To all who are doing ok and to the millions who have given up on getting a job, I say relax because Clinton will win and we will have another four years of status quo as the in crowd will maintain control.

Trump's tapes

As the big hoopla explodes over Trumps remarks about women, I am reminded of a book I read many years ago entitled, “The Best and Brightest” by David Halberstam. It was about the Kenndy, Johnson years and some of their private conversations. The liaisons with women not with standing there were other memorable lines. Johnson was riding out on his farm in Texas and stopped to pee and told his secret service guys to take a look as his penis and then said something and I paraphrase here, it’s like a rattle snake. When it comes to the civil rights movement many democrats like Johnson claim to have altruistic motives but here are some quotes that many shed a different light. I'll have them niggers voting Democratic for the next two hundred years". "Son, when I appoint a nigger to the court, I want everyone to know he's a nigger." Every one of my age remembers the language on the Nixon tapes. From what I know about Trump these remarks do not surprise me but what it interesting is the reaction by so many politicians who might be just a little uncomfortable of their private conversations were published, but we have to play the game of I would never say anything that was hurtful to anyone or any group. And if I did it would never be that bad. There are a lot of glass houses around here.

Pre-existing conditions

Former President Clinton is speaking on behalf of Obamacare trying to walk back his derogatory remarks about the program and in part of his speech he mentions the 25 million people now covered who do not have to be concerned about pre-existing conditions. When he says this it is met with applause by his audience. What he fails to point out is that most of these people were previously eligible for Medicaid and there were never any pre-existing clauses in Medicaid. Most people are unaware of this!

Bill C on Obamacare

The remarks by Bill Clinton regarding Obamacare came as a surprise to many but it is part of a plan that has been in the works since before Obamacare even started. When Obama was a state senator he expressed his desire to see a single payer plan called Medicare for all. In 2003 he said: "I happen to be a proponent of a single-payer universal health care program. I see no reason why the United States of America, the wealthiest country in the history of the world, spending 14 percent of its gross national product on health care, cannot provide basic health insurance to everybody. He went on to say: A single-payer health care plan, a universal health care plan. That's what I’d like to see. But as all of you know, we may not get there immediately. Because first we've got to take back the White House, we've got to take back the Senate, and we've got to take back the House." Here is what I wrote last year. In the past I have presented my plan for health insurance whereby companies provide annual payments to employees in the form of health saving accounts but this is not politically feasible. The next best thing is single payer or what is sometimes called Medicare for all. Both Trump and Sanders have indicated they would be willing to go this way. Administrative cost in Medicare is 2% and in the private sector it is 17%. Since private insurance cost about 1.5 trillion dollars this could be a 15% or 225 billion dollars savings. This is enough to provide free health care for all those living below the poverty line. These policies would be much like Obamacare in that they would have high deductibles. This eliminates the casual use of health care. In addition there would be only one government plan so they could ration benefits. Since most health cost occur in the last year of life the big saving in rationing will come from the elderly, the so called death panels. What is not mentioned in this change is that over 2 million jobs in the health care industry would be lost.

Economist

This is a quick message to all of those people out there who feel they are not qualified to talk about financial and economic issues. We have two candidates running for president and the experts on one side says we must raise taxes to get the economy going and the experts on the other side says we must lower tax to move the economy forward. Whatever plan, you as a regular citizen, come up with you have are just as smart as half the experts in the field. FDR was the first president to have an economic advisor and when the idea was proposed to him he said he would take the advice as long as he could have an advisor with one arm. When asked why he responded by saying every economist he ever knew would always preface their answers to questions by saying, on one hand you can do this and on the other hand you can do that, and he added, I already know that.

Real people

I am getting fed up with these eastern elites and decided to vent. Their condescending view of the rest of the country is just too hard to take sitting down. While they openily criticize others as being prejudiced and bigoted they themselves suffer from the same ailment without knowing it. The stereotypes they brand others with seems not to be in their consciousness. They talk about the hillbilly wearing a big belt buckle in his blue jeans, smoking Marlboro’s, standing on the running board of his gas guzzling pick up drinking Bud light. They see guys who shoot deer and ducks to break the boredom of their meaningless lives. They see good old boys coming out of the revival tent barefoot and singing, Praise the Lord. Sounds like they just need their guns and their God to be happy. But they do have lives that matter and lives that enjoy our free country unlike Mrs. Obama who said as she entered the White House that she was proud to be an American for the first time in her life. These are the people who struggle every day to put food on the table and hope and pray that their children have a better life. These are the people who fight our wars. How many Ivy leaguers are in the military yet these people constantly say how proud they are of our military but they would avoid it all cost. The best way to describe these people is to use the words of a John Denver song called Back Home Again. There's a storm across the valley, clouds are rollin' in The afternoon is heavy on your shoulders There's a truck out on the four lane, a mile or more away The whinin' of his wheels just makes it colder He's an hour away from ridin' on your prayers up in the sky And ten days on the road are barely gone There's a fire softly burning; supper's on the stove But it's the light in your eyes that makes him warm. Hey, it's good to be back home again Sometimes this old farm feels like a long lost friend Yes, 'n, hey it's good to be back home again There's all the news to tell him, how did you spend your time? And what's the latest thing the neighbors say And your mother called last Friday, sunshine made her cry And you felt the baby move just yesterday And oh, the time that I can lay this tired old body down And feel your fingers feather soft on me The kisses that I live for, the love that lights my way The happiness that livin' with you brings me It's the sweetest thing I know of, just spending time with you It's the little things that make a house a home Like a fire softly burning and supper on the stove The light in your eyes that makes me warm There, now I feel better. These people don’t know what supper is!

Economy

This would be a great election if it were dominated by policy but instead it is dominated by personalities. Look for example at the two plans to stimulate the economy. Clinton wants to raise taxes and then have the government redistribute that money in ways that the bureaucrats feel is equitable. If left to their own devises the people might not spend this in a proper way. Trump wants to lower taxes and will then rely on the people to grow the economy. Liberals are often concerned that if the people are allowed to spend their own money certain groups would be left out. Clinton’s plan to raise taxes on the rich includes 350 billion by capping itemized deductions at 28% 450 billion capital gains tax 275 billion business tax 80 billion inheritance tax 1.15 trillion or 111 billion per year Latest figures from the government show that total income tax paid was 1.23 trillion and the top one percent paid half of that or 600 billion. Clinton plans to raise taxes on the rich to pay for her economic plan by 111 billion so the one percent will then pay 53% of all taxes while the bottom 50% of taxpayers pay no income tax. I am all for taxing the rich but this will not grow the economy. Instead of making the pie larger it will just change the size of the pieces. It is spending by the private sector that makes the pie bigger. The GDP has been growing at less than 2% for the past year and that will not grow the economy.

Ladder

As the election draws near and the battle rages between the old pro and the new kid on the block, all those who vote the party are lining up in their usual positions but the undecideds are in a dither. The establishment, who for many months poo-pooed a Trump victory suddenly came alive and the press, the politicians, the business people and the bankers are piling on to save their sacred rungs high on the ladder. The college educated who have slowly moved up are going for the pro and those like the chimney sweeps on the bottommost rung are looking to Trump. The big question is will the old Reagan Democrats come out and vote. Most people are passively for and actively against so these folks only vote when their ire is up. They are plenty smart enough to know that if you keep doing what you’ve always done, you’ll keep getting what you always got and they are not happy with what they got.

Credits

The question often comes up as to why half of the taxpayers pay so little income tax. Here is an example to illustrate the point. Married couple with three children earning $60,000 Standard deduction $12,600 Personal exemptions 5 $20,000 Taxable income $28,000 Tax on $28,000 for married filling joint $3,277 Subtract from tax due the child tax credit of $1,000 per child and this couple owed $277 in income tax. Since the average income is $53,000 more than half pay no income tax. The interesting thing about the child tax credit is that it pays even if no tax is owed. In tax language this is called a refundable credit. Here is another example. Married couple with stay at home mom and dad works at Walmart and earns $19,000. This family receives $3,000 child tax credit, plus $6,200 earned income credit. In addition there is a MN working family credit of $2,000 so this person who has reported income of $19,000 has in fact a gross income of over $30,000 and of course pays no income tax. I do not believe it is acceptable for a working man to raise three children on $30,000 per year and I have no idea how they do it but many do. Some have suggested raising the child tax credit to $5,000 and I would not object to that as I believe that a man who works full time should make enough money to support his family. Doing this would cost the government $200 billion dollars per year and they can just print it up since that is what they do when they need money for things like the bank bailout.

Scandal

When Trump started to do well in the polls last summer, I thought that the press would dig into his business dealings, especially in New York City and find all sorts of illegal activities. The city is noted for its corruption, most notably in the construction business and Trump would be up to his neck in shady deals but what they came up with was the scandal in the Trump University. Today on NPR there was a story about some guy who said his father was gipped out of $100,000 by Trump 35 years ago but he had no evidence. The story was run based solely on his word and his remembrance of the facts. Unless they come up with something better than that, this shows some desperation.

Real estate business

Trump and his tax returns. People in the real estate business have special privileges built into the tax laws, the most important of which is depreciation. If I am a real estate agent and build an office/apartment building that cost 10 million dollars using a bank loan to finance the deal, I can deduct from rents received the interest and taxes on the loan. In addition I can deduct the cost of maintenance and repairs and the cost of depreciation. The cost of all of these items except depreciation represents out of pocket cost to me but depreciation is just a paper cost. Interest on a 10 million dollar loan for 30 years at 4%. $570,000 per year Taxes and insurance $100,000 Maintenance and repair estimated at 3% $300,000 Total $970,000 Rent received $970,000 This is a break-even situation but now enters depreciation. Buildings like this are depreciated over a 27.5 year schedule so this is 10 million divided by 27.5 or $360,000 per year. I can now deduct $360,000 from my other income so I can live a comfortable life without paying any income tax. This has been a part of the tax law for many years and credited with the growth in office buildings, shopping malls, apartments and condo complexes. The average voter is not familiar with how depreciation works and would only see that I did not pay any income tax. They would not take into account the risk I took investing in this project. They would not consider the fact that banks would not give such a loan to someone who did not have the character, collateral and credit to repay the loan. This is what Trump means when he says he uses OPM’s, other people’s money. At some point in the future if the building is sold at a profit, the gain is taxed at capital gain rates which are lower than regular income tax rates. This is how the real estate business works.

Light crude

A discussion of oil imports and exports reveals a misunderstanding of the process. The US imports about 9 million barrels of oil per day but only recently was allowed to export oil. The law did allow the export of refined oil products which total about 4.5 million barrels per day. The question arises as to why the US is still importing any oil since fracking offers almost unlimited production. The oil from the US is called West Texas Intermediate (WTI) and is light and sweet. Light meaning low viscosity or thin and sweet means low sulfur. Imported oil is called Brent and is thicker and contains more sulfur. The refineries along the Gulf have long been set up to use imported oil and only in the past few years have been making the change to light crude. This will not only reduce dependency on imports but will help clean up the environment since sulfur is one of the main causes of acid rain. US crude contains more of the high value products like gasoline and jet fuel and US crude is less costly than imported oil. It is a win-win to replace imported oil with domestic oil and this process is underway.

Cost

The news media is expressing surprise at recent revelations that the administration misled the public regarding the Iran nuke agreement. Have they so soon forgotten the misinformation that came with Obamacare. Remember you can keep your doctor, you can keep your plan and the cost will go down $2,500 per year per family. In fact the cost of Obamacare has increased more slowly than before Obamacare but that is average cost. Since there are so many more people who pay nothing for healthcare the average cost is rising more slowly but for those who pay for health care the cost is rising more rapidly.

Dodd Frank

One of the outcomes of the mortgage crisis was the changes in banking led by Dodd-Frank. Before these changes the five big banks held 44% of all banking assets and were considered too big to fail. This meant that they were so large that even if they failed because of management mistakes the government would have to step in and save them from bankruptcy. It was felt that since the bankers knew this they would be willing to take risk that they might otherwise not take if the backing was not expected. In the world of finance this is called a moral hazard. After Dodd-Frank the big five banks now hold 67% of all banking assets. Many of these new assets come from small community banks many of whom were pushed out of business. Over the past twenty years, the share of US lending handled by community banks has fallen by half, from 41 percent to 22 percent, while the share handled by large banks more than doubled from 17 percent to 41 percent. One more example of the unintended consequences of good intentions!

emails and poverty

Here is a quote from yesterday’s news: The official poverty rate in 2015 was 13.5%, down from 14.8% in 2014, the Census report said. While this is certainly good news please understand that the poverty rate from 1960 to 1965 came down from 22% to 15% and then begin to level out and stayed in that range for 50 years. Recall that the War on Poverty started in 1964 and since that time the country has spent The War on Poverty has cost $22 trillion -- three times more than what the government has spent on all wars in American history. New subject: Sometimes when a person in Washington accidentally tells the truth it is considered a mistake. The release of hacked emails has proven that to be true. What people say in public is not what they say in the “private” emails. I think the use of emails will be on the wane from here on out.

Child care

Since I spent many years talking to people about taxes and heath care, I was interested in Trumps new plan and especially the part about dependent care savings accounts. This caught my eye because it is the same concept of health care savings accounts. Recall the idea there is to have employers set aside money each year for each employee to be used for health care and any money not used will be saved for retirement. This encourages users to shop for medical care and to pay for most treatments up front without going through an insurance company. The patient will get the advantage of competition from price shopping and the provider will not be burdened with filing insurance documents. With Trumps child care plan the same idea works. Money is set aside to be used for child care and eldercare and any money left over can be used for retirement. People can choose the child care provider and it can be grandma and she can be paid with after tax dollars. This creates competition which lowers cost. The downside of this plan, like all tax favored plans, is that half of the people pay no income tax so it does not help them. Part of the plan tries to address this by saying that if a person puts a $1,000 into the plan the government will add $500 to the pot so that is like a tax break. The other plans will be paid for by employers. Maybe this will open the door to use health savings accounts to replace Obamacare.

Changing

One of the many ways in which Trump is changing this election has to do with entitlements like social security and Medicare. He has stated that he will not touch these government programs, that he feels they are part of our society and we must find ways to pay for them. For all of my adult life, I have heard that we cannot keep going in debt and for the most part, conservatives believed this and have promoted the idea of changing social security and Medicare. Trump has now reversed this and joined the liberals by taking entitlements off the table. This has caused a great anxiety among the true conservatives and has them in a quandary. The way to solve the debt problem is to increase economic growth. This happened in the last few years of the Clinton administration when the GDP was above 4%, and it can happen again with the right approach. It certainly will not happen with the GDP averaging 2% since the year 2000. In looking at the establishment candidates that included about 14 of the Republicans and Hillary Clinton, there were none who would not continue the status quo. Trump has turned the world up-side-down and this is just what many voters want. They are fed up with the blah, blah, blah they have been hearing from candidates for the past too many years. They are willing to overlook his many verbal gaffs in the hope that something different might come out of this election. The “they” I refer to are most of the 70% of Americans who are not college graduates. If they go to the polls with the same numbers that they go to Trump rallies they can turn the tide against the establishment and put Trump in the White House and after that get ready for fireworks as these displaced establishment types will do everything they can to fight against changing their world.

Graduation rates

The Minneapolis School District graduated 64% of its students which is up 6% from 2014. Many believe that this improvement was due to relaxing standards. Only 50% graduate in four years. Most bond issues in this area pass as people are convinced that many of the problems can be solved by spending. Polls show that people think that the cost per student is about $4,000 but in fact Minneapolis spends $21,000 per student. If people knew this they would be less likely to approve new bonding issues. Catholic Schools in this area cost about $4,000 per year and student performance is much better than public schools and there are a number of reasons for this, the most important of which is parental involvement. Catholic Schools have a waiting list and do not hesitate to expel students with discipline problems and this allows the teacher to maintain a learning atmosphere in the classroom. Any teacher will tell you that when parents are involved and discipline is maintain the students will learn. As a matter of fact they will tell you that it is a pleasure to be in such a classroom.

Gorby and Putin

Here is a recent quote from Trump that many have criticized: "The man has very strong control over a country," Mr Trump said of Mr Putin at one point. "It's a very different system and I don't happen to like the system, but certainly, in that system, he's been a leader, far more than our president has been a leader." Back in the 80’s many of my liberal friends thought more highly of Gorbachev than of Reagan and even today they feel that the wall came down because of Gorbachev not Reagan. The Russian leader was affectionately referred to by these same liberals as Gorby. Here is a quote from Clinton. "We are not putting ground troops into Iraq ever again and we are not putting ground troops into Syria," This is reminiscent of Bush 41 when he said read my lips, no new taxes. This came back to hurt him when he decided to raise taxes when congress promised to cut spending. Unfortunately he not only broke his promise but so did congress but people forgot all about congress.

Status quo remains

As I watch the campaign unfold, I am impressed with the Clinton strategy and how the American people are going along with it. She will not give a press conference and will continue to give speeches to friendly audience where she can blast Trump by repeating all of his stupid statements. She will lie low and continue fund raising, using her billion dollar plus war chest to run TV ads. All those donations from big business, big banks, Wall Street hedge funds and foreign governments by way of the Clinton Foundation will carry the day. The establishment professionals will win again as even the Republican elite sign papers lambasting Trump. When the dust settles all the power will be in the hands of those who have had it for decades and the status quo will remain.

Free college

I was listening to a talking head say that Hillary is offering inner city blacks a $15 minimum wage and free college tuition while Trump is only promising jobs. Taking a closer look at these students going to college, it easy to see that free tuition is not the answer. Many of them drop out of high school and many others have diplomas earned by grade inflation and just pushing people though. They are not prepared for college work. With free tuition these students could go to a community college part time and work full time if they were better prepared academically. I am not that familiar with the situation of blacks in the inner city but I have similar experience that I can relate to. In the early 70’s, I had many clients who were professors at the University of North Dakota and one them, was the man responsible for enrollment in the medical school. This was a time when affirmative action was causing many universities to re-evaluate their student body. The med school had no Native American students and the general population was 5 percent Native Americans. About 60% of these lived on reservations. This man set up a program to bring more Native Americans into the med school but he met with no success. At first he offered a free ride which included all expenses but he could not find anyone interested. Then he looked at getting Native Americans into college and he had some luck there but these students were not interested in a pre-med curriculum. Finally he looked to the neighboring states of Minnesota and Montana but didn’t have much better results. In the years that followed a program called INMED, Indians in medicine, was developed and slowly over time students were found and brought into the med school. This meant they had to take chemistry, physics, biology and math in college. Today about 20% of all physicians in the United Stated have graduated from the University of North Dakota. This same thing would work with inner city black kids but it would take a concerted effort and many years to succeed. While living conditions in the inner city are bad they are no worse than the situation on the reservation.

Chicago murders

Here is a statement from Chicago Police Superintendent regarding violence in the streets. "The historical cycle of violence we have seen in some communities must come to an end," Johnson said. "Repeat gun offenders who drive the violence on our streets should not be there in the first place, and it is time to changes the laws to ensure these violent offenders are held accountable for their crimes." Many of these murders are gang members killing other gang members and it would not be unreasonable to conclude that the authorities are not too upset about that. How else can you explain why repeat gun offenders are still out on the street? Apparently these are some black lives that do NOT matter and this shows that the organized group called Black Lives Matter is more interested in politics than in saving lives.

Press and polls

Watching the news coverage of the election can be very confusing. Polls show that people are most interested in the economy, jobs and terrorism. The press often complains that the real important issues are not discussed and most people know why. Whenever Trump meets with the press they ask about the wall and whenever Hillary meets they ask about the emails. Hillary refuses to have a press conference because she knows that all they will take about is emails and she is smart enough not to go down that road. Trump on the other hand knows they are going to ask about the wall but goes out anyway and keeps getting in deeper. It is easy to see who is used to living in the world of politics. Trump has yet to learn that politics is different than business.

Change

Once again we have to watch candidates for president make the same promises they always make and once again we hope against hope that they can succeed. We are hearing both sides say the immigration system is broken and they are going to fix it and this has been broken for many years. We hear both sides say they are going to fix the VA and this has been broken for many years. Just two years ago the government came out with a plan to fix the VA and not much has changed. They promise good jobs for the middle income people whose incomes have dropped. We are Charlie Brown and government is Lucy pulling the football away from us. We have become cartoon characters. The working people are so fed up with all these broken promises that they will vote for Trump just because he is different. It doesn’t matter that he is a big mouth and hurls insults around, they are desperate and are willing to take a gamble, that by some miracle he may bring about some real change, not just the words hope and change but real change. He is fighting against globalization and by making new trade deals may offer some short term relief to the middle income groups but long term these people will have to get new skills and those most likely will require more formal education.

Classrooms

Having spent the past three years working as a substitute teacher, I have learned some important lessons I want to pass on to my friends who have never worked in the classroom. First off, I work in a district that is above average in teacher education and student performance. I work only grades 6 thru 12 and in seven different schools. This means 49 different classes and that I may hit the same class once every two months. During any two month period I am likely to encounter one class with a disruptive student. Normally I am aware of this student before class even starts. He and it is almost always a he, enters talking loudly and often times pushing other students around. When class starts he is the last to sit down and only after I go over to him and request that he takes his seat. After attendance he will say he doesn’t have his book and wants to go to the locker and get it. I allow that and he takes ten minutes when it should only take two. He sits down and opens a pack of gum and then goes up to the front of the room to throw away the rapper. Then he gets up to sharpen his pencil which he grinds down to a stub. Next he has to go to the bathroom and once again this takes much longer than necessary. Each time he gets up and goes down the aisle he pushes someone’s papers or book on the floor or hits someone on the arm and each time this solicits a snicker or laugh from the other students. Finally he remains in his seat and begins to talk in a loud voice to his neighbors sometimes yelling across the room to another student. After two attempts to get him to stop talking, I ask him to go out into the hall which he immediately does since that is what he wanted from the start. In a short while the assistant principal knocks on the door and says he talked to the student and he will be OK. As he leaves he says, you know he can’t learn anything out in the hall. Other teachers have told me that if this happens too often the principal will wonder if you are unable to control your classroom. Now all of this is not a serious problem for me since it only happens four or so times per year, but for a regular teacher it is a daily occurrence since they have this class every day. The school could choose to expel this student but that would mean the loss of $12,000. They might choose to suspend the student for a day or two but that is frowned upon because it exposes a more serious problem and this is the real downside to the whole affair and why it is avoided at all cost. In my district about 12% of students are black but 50% of those suspended are black. There is a lot of pressure on districts to correct this imbalance and the way the high schools deal with it is to have a special room where these students are sent and there is a teacher in there who deals with them on a one to one basis. Even speaking of this problem in terms of race is risking being called racist so the subject is not brought up. The pressure to keep these students in school is based on the fact that students who drop out at age 16 are more likely to end up in prison than those who stay in school until age 18. The bottom line is that high schools spend $12,000 per year per student to baby sit them until they are 18. Many of these students get diplomas and have the skills of 4th graders. They have been pushed through from elementary school, slowly getting further and further behind and disliking school more and more as the years go by. While this is a problem in my district, if you go up to St. Paul it is much more serious to the point where a teacher’s personal safety is at risk. This is a mess!

Pol Correct

Definition: Race-norming is the practice of adjusting scores on a standardized test by using separate curves for different racial groups The idea of race norming started with the federal government in the early 1980’s and was made illegal by the Civil Rights Act of 1991. This act introduced the idea of Disparate Impact. This says that while a test does not appear to discriminate the fact that there are disproportionately fewer minorities is proof of discrimination. In other words race norming was distasteful this new concept is palatable. The most well-known examples of race norming are the police and fire departments in big cities across the country but the process was carried out in other departments. A test is given to applicants for these jobs and Blacks and Hispanics did not perform well enough to qualify and thus special test were made up for these groups so that they could qualify. In order to make up for inequities, governments often change the rules. In Minnesota the high school graduation rates for minorities is disturbingly low and steps were taken to correct this situation. One of the requirements to graduate was passing a math test and this was a serious stumbling block to many minority students, so instead of making up a new test for this group the decision was made, to allow a waiver for those who failed the test three times to graduate. Sometimes the best way to illustrate the absurdity of such behavior is to take some more extreme examples. It is well known that tall men and attractive women have an advantage in the job market. 80% of male CEO’s are over 6 feet tall. Is that just a coincidence? When hiring two equally qualified men should preference be given to the shorter candidate to a make up for this past bias? How about selecting women who are less attractive? What about overweight people? The majority of managers have good communication skills. Should an effort be made to promote more with poor communication skills? These are ridiculous concepts but where does this practice begin and end and who decides? They may follow the path that politically corrected speech has taken. Everyone knows some examples and here are a couple: A school in Seattle renamed its Easter eggs 'spring spheres' to avoid causing offence to people who did not celebrate Easter. "A UK council has banned the term 'brainstorming' – and replaced it with 'thought showers', as local lawmakers thought the term may offend epileptics."

Flyover

Hurricane Katrina made landfall on August 29th and on August 31st Bush made his now infamous flyover New Orleans. Many in the press and later Bush himself said this was the worst mistake of his 8 years as president. He was on vacation and cut his vacation two days short in order to make the flight. His office said he did not want to land as it would create too many problems for the already overtaxed authorities. Senator Obama at the time roundly criticized Bush for his flyover. When this same Obama was asked why he waited so long to visit the flood area, 10 days, his office said: The president "wants to ensure that his presence does not interfere with ongoing recovery efforts," the White House announced. In another couple of days this will be forgotten and it will hardly be considered a miscue let alone the biggest mistake of his presidency.

Joe 6 pack

People are asking themselves why is it that Trump has such large enthusiastic crowds but is doing so poorly in the polls. My father was a milk man and I was raised in blue collar neighborhood. During my work career I was a plant manager in four different states and got to know the factory workers on a personal basis. I owned a working man’s neighborhood bar for many years and saw the average Joe at his worst and at his best. I feel I can speak with some authority based on life experiences about the plight of the working stiff. Many of these men believed that George Wallace was right when he said there is not a dime worth of difference between Republicans and Democrats. They felt that politicians may be honest when they are first elected but soon become part of the establishment and lose their moral compass. Many of these men quit voting years ago and if some pollster calls them they are likely to just hang up or worse give the person a piece of their mind and then hand up. In addition many polls only call people who have a voting record. Perhaps Trump knows this and realizes that if the people vote with the same enthusiasm that they show at his rallies he will win. It is possible or maybe even likely. Maybe Joe 6 pack is about to make a difference.

Clinton judge

On Friday a federal judge ruled that Hillary Clinton must answer questions under oath regarding her email set up. Some were surprised that a judge appointed by President Clinton would rule this way until they read the fine print. The judge said the questions must be submitted by October 14 and said she must answer the questions within 30 days which takes it past the election. There seems to be no end to the Clinton saga and Americas seem not to care choosing to believe that it is all just a right wing conspiracy.