Guns and murder

Gun control is not high on my list of priorities but I do believe that law abiding citizens should have the right to own a gun. The following indicates that the problem is guns in the hands of criminal and the drug business. If you live in Brazil and want to own a gun you are faced with the following. Right now, Brazil actually has tough gun laws. If you want to own a gun legally these are the requirements: - a fixed address. - proof of legitimate income. - no criminal record. - a mental health test. - proof you know how to handle a gun and shoot it. - evidence of why you need a gun. For example, a police report of an attack against you. Even if a prospective gun owner supplies all this information, the police can arbitrarily deny a request for a gun permit. The population of Brazil is 200 million vs the 320 million in the US yet Brazil had 60,000 murders almost all with guns in 2014 vs the US 11,000 murders with guns. Here is a quote: "Brazil doesn't have a gun problem. It has a problem of illegal guns in the hands of criminals, especially drug traffickers," he says. Another quote: Dr. Fabio Ataide, a judge in Natal who teaches criminology, says guns overwhelmingly kill young black men in Brazil. Until the problem with illegal drugs is resolved the problem of criminals with drugs will not be resolved with new laws.

Smell test

I have often mentioned that the free market system does more to help people than any other system but that the number one enemy of free market is corruption. Brazil is currently experiencing the disastrous results of large scale corruption. A cartel of companies was formed and through coordinated efforts over charged the State owned company Petrobras for products and services. The extra money was used to bribe people within Petrobras to cover up and then some of the money was filtered back to politicians who also covered up the scheme. This has all been exposed and their House of Cards is tumbling down. Many will be fined and many sent to prison but much of the money has been spend on extravagant life styles and the people of Brazil who own Petrobras will be the victims. This was one of the reasons I was concerned about the government offering money to renewable energy companies without minimal oversight. While there was nothing that I know of that was illegal there was the appearance of private deals since many of the recipients of this government largess donated to various political candidates and groups. It is similar to candidates who receive large contributions from Pacts and say this does not affect how they vote. Nothing illegal but it doesn’t pass the smell test!

Comfort zone

There is a strange correlation growing between how conservatives are treated on college campuses and how the Republican Party is treating Trump. The campus is supposed to be a place for all different ideas but lately things have changed. Certain speech is forbidden including conservative speakers. The GOP has preached for many years that they want to be the big tent party that they welcome everyone and yet they reject Trump who is bringing in all sorts of new voters. In both cases what they want is more people who think like they do. It goes back to the old story that people like to be in a room filled with people who think like they do. That is their comfort zone.

Glimmer

My choice for the Republican ticket at the start of this cycle was Kasich/Rubio. Trump has introduced a new approach to campaigning and it has turned things upside down and it has brought doubts into how the system works. This doubt has now affected the way I look the process. I watched Kasich this morning and he said all the things that I want to hear in the way I want to hear them but I have doubts. For many years I have heard candidates say things I want to hear but nothing really changed. The middle and lower income groups just keep going downhill while candidates promise that things will change. I believe they all mean well but they seem unable to get the job done. When I look at candidates like Trump and Sanders I see a glimmer of hope that maybe they can actually make changes. I think many others feel that way and the votes show it. Note that I said glimmer!

Email charges

When Hilary Clinton is asked about her mails she says, "The emails that I received were not marked classified. The CIA says, “The word classified doesn’t appear on the document. The word would be confidential, secret or top secret and it may have a code word attached to it because it comes from say, a photo reconnaissance satellite. But anybody who has been at senior levels of government knows that.” The FBI cannot bring charges against anyone. They can only refer the case to the Justice Department which in turn must present the evidence to a Grand Jury and then they can bring charges. No Justice Department, no Grand Jury, no case. Right now Obama is playing both sides of the fence. He is allowing the FBI through his Attorney General to conduct an investigation but Justice is not taking part and without Justice there is no case. FBI Director James Comey is tough and smart and if there is a case to be made he will make it and it will be bulletproof. If that happens and Justice does not act, the general public may object but in a few weeks it will fade away.

War or not

In recent times when the United States is considering sending troops somewhere the press people begin asking questions. While such questions can be answered in generalities they cannot and should not be answered with specifics. Here is what a typical reporter wants to hear from a president. Yes were sending in 200,000 ground troops with air and sea support. The troops will be there for 23 months and we expect 1,500 casualties and 7,000 wounded. The cost will be $354 billion including $67 billion in lost equipment. This is the result of recent military actions which were controlled by politicians instead of generals. If the US decides to send in troops there should only be one pre-requisite. If you go to war, go all out to win, otherwise stay home.

Gut feelings

When a person works for a large company and makes a mistake they offer the following defense. I thought the product would sell because R&D said it was nutritious, marketing said it was what research predicted a need for, production said they could make it at cost and sales felt it would sell and he is forgiven. For an individual proprietor he would say I felt in my gut it was right but I was wrong. A corporate man would be fired with that explanation. Now turn to Trump. The press is always asking him, as they should, how are you going to do these things and Trump cannot answer. He has built his career on going with his gut and he cannot outline a plan in advance because it depends on the circumstances at the time. This is the way he has run his businesses over the years and this is who he is. This behavior is particularly aggravating to the so called intellectual elite but many ordinary people often follow their instincts. One time my sister-in-law told me she was asked by a local TV station to comment on a regional event and she refused saying she didn’t know that much and her opinion would not matter. I got upset with her and told her the following. On any important issue there are experts who have spent their lives studying the problem and come up on opposite sides of the issue. I went on to tell her that if she would use her 60 years of life experiences along with her God given common sense she would be just as likely to come to the right decision as the experts.

Trump/Reagan

The Republican establishment is misreading Trump. When Trump decided to run he knew he would not stand a chance as a typical politician and so he chose to use his knowledge of the media and use different approach. His bombastic, egotistical often times vulgar manner has them fooled. They think these are the reasons for his popularity but in fact his message is what is propelling him to the front. It is the same message that Reagan used. Here is a letter I wrote to the editor in 1981 just after Reagan was elected and it is relevant today. The election results from last November have been analyzed primarily based on their impact on the two major political parties. In any general election some always vote Republican and about an equal number always vote Democratic and they cancel out each other. This leaves the independents to determine the outcome. They tend to vote issues for and against, but mostly against, and I call these against issues the fed-ups. They are fed-up with people who consider themselves victims of some injustice, and who refuse to accept responsibility for their actions. They are fed-up with children who refuse to show respect toward their elders, and for adults who fail to behave in ways that deserve respect. They are fed-up with teachers that must spend all their time being parents instead of teaching. They are fed-up with teen boys in jeans who rob liquor stores going to jail while men in white suits who rob S&L's go free. They are fed-up with courts that are more concerned with the rights of criminals than with the rights of victims. They are fed-up with political correctness run amok. They are fed-up with jails so full of pot smokers that we must release hardened criminals because of lack of space. They are fed-up with elected officials who take money from PAC's and maintain that those gifts do not affect how they vote. They are fed-up with a system that gives jobs to lesser-qualified applicants because of some real or perceived past injustice. They are fed-up with tax dollars being spent on illegal aliens, to provide benefits that bona fide citizens must do with out. They are fed-up with constitutionalist who maintain that religion should stay out of government instead of government staying out of religion. They are fed-up by not receiving a proper return on the investment of their tax dollars. In general these independent voters view government in the ways it affects their personal value system, and for the most part they don't like what they see.

Solarcity

The solar panel industry and the electric car industry depend heavily on government assistance, mostly in the form of subsidies and a good example of this has surfaced in Nevada. Billionaire Elon Musk chairs a company called Solarcity in Nevada and the state has a net metering law. Net metering policies force utilities to buy electricity produced by rooftop solar panels at retail rates, which means companies can’t cover the fixed cost of operating the electrical grid. Since only relatively wealthy people can afford the high instillation cost of roof top solar panels the rest of the general population subsidizes the cost by paying higher electric rates. In many states net metering has been set up so that regular ratepayers subsidize the few wealthy homeowners who can actually afford to put up solar panels on their homes. A large electric power company recently won a court battle which greatly limits the ability of net metering and this has affected companies like Solarcity. The policy change shocked investors who ditched Solarcicty stock and devalued the company by roughly $165 million in a single day. Net metering policy changes could be implemented in 20 other states which would dramatically alter the economics of rooftop solar according to MIT Technology Review.

Killing civilians

In the news are reports that Trump had to reverse his statement about purposely bombing civilians, mainly the families of ISIS members. He was told this was illegal and he changed his mind. The laws regarding war were codified in 1899. Laws and Customs of War on Land (Hague, II), July 29, 1899 There are many rules in this code and here are just a few. a. To employ poison or poisoned arms; b. To kill or wound treacherously individuals belonging to the hostile nation or army; c. To kill or wound an enemy who, having laid down arms, or having no longer means of defense, has surrendered at discretion; d. To employ arms, projectiles, or material of a nature to cause superfluous injury; In WW 1 and WW 2 these rules were broken on a regular basis by all sides. It is agreed to by experts that the US could have won WW 2 without firebombing civilians in Germany and Japan but they did it to save the lives of American soldiers. The same can be said of the use of the Atomic bomb. Would American citizens, if asked today, change their minds and agree to sacrifice the lives of American soldiers to save civilian lives.

Import tax

Politicians lie and none do it better than Hilary and Trump. Talking heads know this but they keep asking the candidates for their position on issues. What is to be gained by listening to people who lie. When a candidate makes a promise and then fails to carry out the promise all he has to say is things changed and so I had to change. Obama has said that there is a big difference between campaigning and governing. The big change is what you said then and what you say now. I can only hazard a guess as to the things Trump is saying and here is my guess on the economy. Political realities dictate that we cannot solve our national debt problem by cutting entitlements like social security, Medicare and Medicaid, so we must look for other answers. The obvious is to grow the economy. A sustained growth rate of 5% would take care of the debt problem and the answer to that is to bring back manufacturing jobs. I have always been a fan of Milton Friedman who was the free trade guru, but it works one way in the theoretical and another way in the real world. While the United States is closely following the idea of free trade our trading partners are not and Trump sees this more clearly that most politicians. The original thinking was that the United States would lose out to other countries because our wages were too high and so over the years our industries moved to countries where wages were low. This was a boon to the American consumer who benefitted from cheap products. Just look at flat screen TV’s at Walmart. If we had kept producing TV’s here they would cost a lot more but the people who made them would be earning more and able to pay more. The Friedman way was tried and is not working so Trump has a plan to reverse this trend and get back to making things in the US. He plans to place import taxes on all goods from China which will raise the price of those goods and make them non-competitive. This will encourage US manufacturers to start making TV’s once again. The whole idea will spread to other industries and slowly the US manufacturing business will be revitalized and once again the middle and lower income groups will see real growth in their standard of living. As the US builds new plants using the latest technology the cost per unit will come down and wages will rise. Most economists will say this will not work but what we have is not working either, at least for the middle and low income people.

Medicare vs private care

It has always been my position that the best health care plan would be through employers and have a high deductible with health saving accounts. This would give total control to the individual and allow for competition but this plan is not politically feasible so the next best thing is Medicare for all as proposed by Bernie Sanders. Here is some interesting information on cost. The news comes from a new study by Aon AON +0.85% Hewitt (AON), a benefits consultancy, which said average health care costs are projected to increase 6.7 percent to $11,176 per employee in 2014. Of the total premium, employees are projected to pay 22.4 percent of the total, or $2,499. The worker premium is rising about 10 percent from $2,303 this year. Add these together and you get $13,675 as the average cost for the average citizen. Now compare that to the cost of Medicare where 50 million people are covered at a cost of $600 billion or $12,000 each and consider that most of a person’s health care cost comes in the last two years of life. While this is not as cost effective as the plan I proposed and does not allow for individual decision making it certainly is better than what we currently have. Sometimes if you can’t get the best you need to settle for second best.