Elites

The news reports daily about the split in the country based on political parties but I have a different take on this matter. There is a split alright but it is between the Elites and the Peons. The Elites are represented by the 30% of the population who are college graduates and the Peons are other 70%. Elites are most commonly found in the federal bureaucracy, the national news people, the world of academia, Hollywood, most members of congress and other assorted white collar types. The Peons are the working class including most union members, service workers and other blue collar people. The Elites have more formal education, higher incomes and live in better neighborhoods. The Peons spend their lives working for the Elites. They clean their streets, serve their food, do their lawn care, drive public transports and wait on them in retail stores. The Elites have seen their standard of living rise over the past 50 years while the Peons have seen theirs decline. The Elites often refer to the Peons as the less informed plus a number of other not so desirable phrases. The Peons see the Elites as people who think they are better than them. Both sides usually talk past one another and so the stand off.

Votes

The population of California is estimated at 40 million and they have 53 congressional representatives meaning one rep for every 750,000 people. California is home to about 3 million illegal aliens which is the equivalent to 4 electoral votes. All states have two senators and each gets one electoral vote but the rest is based on population so a state like North Dakota with a population of 675,000 has one congressional electoral vote. There are 21 states that have 4 or fewer electoral congressional votes which means that the illegal aliens in California have the same influence on who becomes president as do the legal citizens in these 21 states. Some feel that these illegals should be counted in the census but not in the electoral count.

Electric cars

The best way to deal with climate change is multifaceted and involves solar, wind, and natural gas. Solar panels can be used to pay for home electric use. They cost about $20,000 and have a 12 year payback. This means no more electric bill and the use of an electric car for work while sending no carbon dioxide into the air. The downside is that only fairly wealthy people can afford this. Other uses of electric cars at this time is self defeating. To charge the batteries means using electricity produced at power plants most of which are using coal. Those using natural gas are better but as any physicist knows when ever you change from one source of energy to another you lose efficiency so it better to put natural gas into the car than to use natural gas to make electricity and then put that into the car. The government still insist on pushing electric cars instead of cars running on natural gas and most of this push comes from those invested in electric cars. Tesla is only there because of government support. Last year out of 18 million cars sold in the US only 200,000 were electric. The government subsidized and average of $10,000 per electric car and most of this when to the wealthy.

Growing up

Time is passing me by. I have lived in Hastings for 18 years and have eaten out three times. I have not been to one movie and I don't own a smart phone. I read books and work crossword puzzles. I don't go on trips and I don't take vacations. I can listen to music for hours and not get bored and there is nothing more invigorating than a long walk. The best entertainment is having the grandchildren over for a home cooked meal and yes going fishing. Life is good.

Kavanaugh

With the current controversy surrounding the nomination of Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court it is interesting to google Justice Clarence Thomas. Even though he has been on the court for 25 years and has participated in many cases and has written 4 major court decisions none of these or any other court business appears in the first five pages on google. Almost every article about Thomas has to do with Anita Hill. If Kavanaugh is approved this is likely what will happen to him. Even if these accusations proof to be unfounded his life is forever changed. His wife and daughter's ages 10 and 13 will have to deal with this at school and with their friends. Here is one of the many threats he has received. “Please tell your rapist, lying, cheating, corrupt b—h of a husband to put a bullet in his ugly f—–g skull.” Another email to Amy Kavanaugh: “Hey b—h, did you know your husband was a rapist before you married him

Pot

Cigarette smoking by adults has declined from 42% to 17% while pot smoking has increased from 7% in 2013 to 12% today. Lung cancer death rates declined 45% from 1990 to 2015 among men and 19% from 2002 to 2015 among women. The link between tobacco smoke and lung cancer is well-known. Studies show that marijuana smoke has many of the same harmful substances as tobacco, and often more of them. It appears that we will have to allow for more years of pot smoking to gather data on cancer so as more states allow for pot smoking the lung cancer rates should catch up with cigarettes. Seems like a risky experiment.

Laundering

About 50 years ago I was watching 60 Minutes and they were interviewing a banker in Miami and asked him if he thought it was a little strange when a man came in and deposited $200,000 in cash and the banker answered, "no". This was a time when the drug problem was starting and laundering was a new thing. This past week a bank in Estonia was found to be laundering but my how things have changed. The bank was charged with laundering $234 billion dollars in mostly Russian money. While this is not drug money it represents money stolen from the Russia people.

CEO salaries

To most people the initials CEO refer to the head of a large corporation such as those in the Fortune 500 but there are 1.5 million corporations in the USA. Referring to the top five hundred the average pay is $10 million which is 20 times more than the average employee but the difference does not end there. Here is the tale of two CEO's. John Hess has been CEO of Hess Corporation since 1996 and last year his salary was $12 million. The number of employees at Hess has declined from 12,000 in 2013 to 2,000 today. Last year Hess posted a loss of $1.1 billion. Jeff Bezos has headed Amazon since its inception in 1995 and his salary is $1.7 million and the number of employee has risen from a few to 566,000 while profits last year were $1.8 billion. Salaries of CEO's are not indicative of their contribution to the country.

Corruption

The Mueller investigation into Russian collusion in the election has opened the door to a number of differing opinions on what is going on but setting aside the current situation it has revealed an apparent weakness in the constitution. If there comes a time when the country has a corrupt Attorney General there seems to be no way to deal with such a situation. Any misuse of power in the FBI or the Department of Justice can be covered up by saying information must be kept secret either because there is an ongoing investigation or for national security reasons. Just in the news today about the current battle declassifying documents is the following: Four top Democratic lawmakers are demanding that no Russia-probe documents be released in compliance with President Donald Trump’s order until the director of national intelligence and the heads of the FBI and the Justice Department meet with the “Gang of Eight.” If that holds then the ball is back in the hands of the FBI and they will continue to investigate themselves and even the president cannot interfere.

Companies

In the past few years many large companies have come up with the slogan, "doing well by doing good", but many have yet to take any action. They can start with doing something about the discrepancy between the salaries of CEO's and the average worker which now stands at 271 times the average pay of $56,000 per year. They can shift priorities to a better balance between employees, the environment and stock holders. Studies show that consumers are concerned about how companies view the environment and what actions are being taken to preserve our clean air and water. Stock holders must wake up to the fact that this is their country as well as their stock. The current interest in socialism by the younger people is fostered by the lack of responsibility for the country shown by many companies. The idea that companies only exist for the benefit of the stock holders is no longer a viable goal. It is time for them to step up to the plate.

Corruption

Can the Justice Department be trusted is a question in the news these days and here is one recent case that may shed some light on the answer. In the 2008 senatorial election in Alaska, Ted Stevens the incumbent was defeated. Eight days before the election he was found guilty for failing to report gifts. He had been in the senate for 40 years and lost by 3,900 votes and most believe it was his conviction that cost him the election. Five months after the election the conviction was overturned. An extraordinary special investigation by a federal judge has concluded that two Justice Department prosecutors intentionally hid evidence in the case against Sen. Ted Stevens, one of the biggest political corruption cases in recent history. Too little, too late!

Innocent

Innocent until proven guilty is one of those nice things we like to say without really thinking it through. Daily somewhere in the country someone considered a flight risk is held in jail before they have been tried. In the minds of people if someone is accused there is probable cause of guilt. When all the dust settles if the persons if found not guilty the person is still guilty in the minds of many. The judgment of public opinion is often different than the judgment of the court and actually favors the accuser over the accused. Today there was a law professor who said that in a case of he says, she says, if the argument ends in the middle then she wins. When prominent figures are accused of some misdoing they are tarred for life regardless of the outcome. In the press it is common to see the accusation on the front page and the retraction in the back and this adds to the misconception of guilt. If an ordinary citizen is accused of child molesting and later found innocent his reputation is damaged regardless. This represents the dark side of human nature.

government

I learned in my early school years that the founding fathers warned us not to trust the government. As Thomas Paine said, “Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil.” Because of their fear of abuse, the Constitution’s framers sought to keep the federal government limited in its power. Their distrust of Congress is seen in the governing rules and language used throughout our Constitution. In my life there have been several important episodes to illustrate this point. The first is when J.Edgar Hoover died and all of his misdeeds were made public. The second came with the Pentagon Papers showing how Johnson and McNamara lied about Viet Nam. The next was Nixon and Watergate. Remember when Bush 41 said no new taxes, read my lips. More recently we've had Monica and WMD and this is just a partial list off the top of my head. Ike's great fear of the military industrial complex where big business and big government get together is now joined by big government and big news including print, TV and social media.

Living wage

Talk about the minimum wage has always centered around politics when it should be an economic issue. The average hourly pay is $25 but too many people are far below that. To bring low earners up to that level requires that companies charge more for their products and services and consumer to pay more. If consumers are willing to pay 10% more this goal can be achieved. This will allow companies like Walmart to cover the cost of the increased pay along with the benefits that go with the increase. Are people willing to pay $330 for a $300 TV so their fellow workers can have living wage?

Special prosecutor

In 2003 a covert CIA agent named Valerie Plame was outed and this resulted in an investigation. The "CIA leak scandal", or the "Plame affair", refers to a dispute stemming from allegations that one or more White House officials revealed Valerie Plame Wilson's covert CIA identity as "Valerie Plame" to reporters. U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois Patrick Fitzgerald was appointed Special Counsel on December 30, 2003.[5] Fitzgerald using the power of the Grand Jury indicted Scooter Libby, Chief of Staff to Vice President Chaney. While the investigation was ongoing Richard Armitage, Deputy Secretary of State informed Fitzgerald that it was he, Armitage, who outed Plame. Knowing this Fitzgerald chose to continue the prosecution, requesting that Armitage remain quiet, and caught Libby in a lie on an unrelated subject and Libby was sentenced to prison and lost his law license.

Muslim employees

There is a pending case in Wisconsin where Muslim employees were refused time to pray. The law says: Once a case is litigated, courts have established a two-part test for addressing Title VII claims. First, the plaintiff must demonstrate a prima facie case of religious discrimination. In order to establish the prima facie case, the plaintiff must: (1) hold a sincere religious belief; (2) take steps to inform the employer about the conflict; and (3) be disciplined by the employer for failing to comply with some conflicting requirement.13 At one time in my career, I managed a poultry processing plant where we had 75 employees on the line and we had USDA inspectors in the plant. If the line was short one person the inspector could shut down the whole line until it was properly manned. If one Muslim worker stepped off the line to pray the entire line shut down. The company could have additional employees on stand by to replace anyone who wanted to pray but this would be an additional cost and then open the door for other employee to step away from the line for other personal business.

Puerto Rico

The death toll from the hurricane in Puerto Rice was set at 64 for many months after the storm was over. This data was collected by doctors on the scene but was later challenged by others who said the doctors did not know how to properly determine the deaths by the storm. A group of researches prepared a report. The report concluded that doctors and forensic pathologists on the ground in Puerto Rico didn't have the correct guidance – from either the state or federal government – to accurately classify deaths, leading to the low figure.   These same researchers determined the number of people who died in the six months preceding the storm and compared that with the number who died in the period six months after the storm and found there were 2,795 more. From this they concluded that the hurricane was responsible for these additional deaths.

Revenge

An old adage says to be careful what you wish for. Many democrats want to impeach Trump. He is a president who is like democrats in that the deficit is not a big concern. He says hands off to Medicare and social security. He has offered a path to citizenship not only for the dreamers but also for their parents. He is dismantling NAFTA which pleases labor unions. If veep Pence takes over he is likely to change all of those things and go back to the old conservative positions. Democrats could not ask for a better president than Trump when it comes to policy but they are so upset with Hilary's loss that revenge has clouded their judgment and they are willing to set aside long standing party ideals.

Rebates

Drug companies set the price for their product but they offer rebates to insurance companies so these companies push that drug to the top of the list. The net effect is that the price to the consumer stays the same but the insurance company and the drug company share the profits. It the drug company raises the price the cost to the consumer goes up but the mark up is still shared between the drug company and the insurance company. The insurance company price to the consumer is set and does not include the rebate. For example. The drug company sells its product to the insurance company for $100 but offers a rebate of $20 so the net cost to the insurance company is $80 but they charge the consumer based on $100. The retail price is say $120 and the insurance company claims a profit of $20 but in actuality they made $40. The Trump plan gets rid of rebates. Rebates in the life insurance industry were outlawed many years ago.

Mueller investigation

In 1978 the FISA court (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court) was established to protect against spies. Since its inception 99.97% of all request to the court have been granted. The warrants are used to gather evidence from agents of foreign governments. Once granted the government can monitor any and all correspondence for anyone contacted by the source. They can then monitor all info from the persons contacted by the source and so on to their contacts. There is no need to show probable cause only that this person is in contact with foreign agents. Carter Page was a foreign policy adviser to the Trump campaign and a warrant was issued to monitor his correspondence. This information was passed on to Special Prosecutor Robert Mueller. Trump maintains that this was the start of the Russia collusion investigation but the government says this started with a man named George Papadopoulos who worked for the Trump campaign for three months starting in December of 2015. He was in a bar one night and told a Australian diplomat that Russia had info on Hilary that could be used against her. No such dirt was ever uncovered. This was the beginning of what has become the Mueller investigation.

Books today

When Al Gore wrote his book about the environment called an Inconvenient Truth he admitted that he exaggerated saying it was necessary to get peoples attention. This is a common practice now days to get publicity and it pays off. More recently Michael Wolff the author of the anti-Trump book called Fire and Fury followed this marketing practice. The White House challenged the facts in the book as did others. Here is the NY Times review. New York Times White House correspondent Maggie Haberman, and several other journalists and Washington insiders, do as well. "I believe parts of it, and then there are other parts that are factually wrong," Haberman said Friday on CNN. "He believes in larger truths and narratives. So he creates a narrative that is notionally true, that's conceptually true. The details are often wrong." By the time the book was discredited Wolff had made $7 million

Likability

I recall watching the first TV presidential debates between Nixon and Kennedy and the thought came to me that the best candidate would be determined largely by how they look on TV. My mind wandered to the idea of picking a Hollywood star, telling him what to say and putting him on TV. Little did I know that just 20 years later actor Ronald Reagan would become that person. It is somewhat disconcerting to realize that so much is dependent on how a person looks. This came to light this AM on Morning Joe when they discussed the fact that Senator Ted Cruz, an incumbent,is struggling in his re-election campaign because he is not seen as likable. We can do better.

Open borders

It is often said that the reason immigration reform is so difficult is that both liberals and conservatives have some thing to gain by doing nothing. Liberals get potential voters and conservatives get cheap labor but that is not always the case. Here is a different view from Senator Sanders. So I was disappointed, if not surprised, at the visceral horror with which Bernie Sanders reacted to the idea when interviewed by my colleague Ezra Klein. "Open borders?" he interjected. "No, that's a Koch brothers proposal." The idea, he argued, is a right-wing scheme meant to flood the US with cheap labor and depress wages for native-born workers. "I think from a moral responsibility, we've got to work with the rest of the industrialized world to address the problems of international poverty," he conceded, "but you don't do that by making people in this country even poorer."

60 votes

There was a time early in Obama's first term where the democrats had a large majority in the house and a filibuster proof 60 vote senate and it was during this time that they passed Obamacare. If they had wanted they could have passed immigration reform giving a path to citizenship to the dreamers, they could have passed an infrastructure bill, or a tax reform bill to raise taxes on the rich. The total control of the senate (60 votes) lasted from September 24, 2009 until February 4, 2010. During this four month period the democrats could have passed most any legislation they wanted.

25th amendment

This week Senator Warren suggested that the 25th amendment be invoked to remove President Trump from office. This is part of the constitution and is explained in part four of this amendment. Step one. The vice-president and at least 8 of the 15 cabinet members send a letter to the President pro-tem of the senate and the speaker of the house stating that the president is unable to serve. Step two. Two/thirds of both houses must vote to remove the president.

Status quo

President Obama's speech today had a rather interesting tilt to it. He said that every time the country tries to move forward those in charge resist. Here is the quote. The status quo pushes back. Sometimes the backlash comes from people who are genuinely, if wrongly, fearful of change. More often it’s manufactured by the powerful and the privileged who want to keep us divided and keep us angry and keep us cynical because it helps them maintain the status quo and keep their power and keep their privilege It is now Trump, the outsider, who is fighting against the status quo as he pushes to change the way Washington operates and the establishment is fighting back.

China LNG

China has now joined Europe in getting ready to use liquid natural gas. BEIJING (Reuters) - China National Offshore Oil Company, or CNOOC, plans to build a receiving terminal of liquefied natural gas in the eastern province of Jiangsu that is expected to cost 14.4 billion yuan ($2.17 billion), local media reported on Friday. The project, located in the city of Yancheng, will include a berth to anchor 100,000 ton vessels, land-based storage and a pipeline grid and is expected to be completed in December 2020, the official local newspaper Xinhua Daily reported, without saying how it received the information.

AM radio

In the 1950's people listened to AM radio which played popular music. Saturday mornings were spent tuning into the top 40 hits. In the 60's FM radio began to play music and the sound was much better so AM began to decline and ended up with mostly religious programs with a few doing 24 hour news. In 1987 the FCC repealed the fairness doctrine which said that both sides of any political discussion must be presented. With that change came the new format of political talk radio and this was spearheaded by Rush Limbaugh. He was a right winger who had the talent needed to turn politics into entertainment. Over the past 30 years Limbaugh has done more to interest people in politics while saving the AM radio business than any other individual. Today there are hundreds of Limbaugh's on air everyday. In was in the 90's that Rupert Murdoch recognized the power of Limbaugh to gather a large audience and he started Fox News. The news before that had always been left of center but he saw a niche market and it grew steadily into a major component of news today.

Finding crooks

I am all in favor of finding and bringing to justice those who violate the laws but it must be done in an impartial way. So far, four former Trump campaign associates – Michael Flynn, Paul Manafort, Richard Gates, George Papadopoulos, and Alex van der Zwaan have been charged and Manafort and Zwaan have been found guilty. Strzok Joins List of 25 Top FBI, DOJ Officials Who Have Been Recently Fired, Demoted, or Resigned. Some more investigation is needed here.

War on Trump

When George Wallace ran for president in 1968 he caught the attention of many Americans when he said there is not a dimes worth of difference between republicans and democrats. He got 13% of the vote and helped Nixon defeat Humphrey. Again in 1992 when Ross Perot ran as an independent he captured those same voters and more when he got 19% of the vote and helped Clinton defeat Bush 41. Many voters have been unhappy with the way government is run but no independent could break the hold that the system has given to the two major parties. Many believe that Trump is the equivalent of a third party candidate and if you get past his personality quirks this becomes clear. He is an outsider beholden to no particular ideology. He is what many thought a third party guy like Perot might be, a self made billionaire who would shake up the establishment. All the experts who have spent their lives learning the system are not happy with some neophyte coming in and disrupting their fiefdoms. When Trump announced he was going to cut the staff in the State Department by a third, were they OK with that or did they feel they must retaliate against anyone trying to eliminate their jobs. The Washington insiders are going to band together to protect their turf and oppose Trump at every turn. They will avoid talking issues and use his behavior as the means to bring him down. The insiders include members of both parties, government employees and the national press. The battle is on but the war has not yet been won.

Walmart wages

The average pay of a non-management employee at Walmart is $13.79 per hour. For a single worker in a family of four this comes to $27,580 per year. This family is eligible for a $4,000 child tax credit, another $5,000 from the earned income tax credit along with $2,000 from various other government programs. They pay no income tax but they do pay $2,000 in payroll tax. If the government benefits had to be paid by Walmart it would cost the company $11,000 times the 1.4 million non-management employee or $15.4 billion dollars. Total sales for Walmart last year was $485 billion. If Walmart would increase their prices by 3.1% they could cover this cost and tax payers would no longer have to subsidize Walmart employees.

Wage stagnation

If you take inflation into account, in 1972 the average American worker earned $738 a week. In 2016, the figure was $723 a week. 44 years and a pay cut of 2%. The reason people have finally awaken to this mess is the discovery that government and business have grown and the benefits have gone to the top 20%. This group includes the 30% who are college graduates. The people responsible for this situation are not defined by ideology but by elitism. The top few have designed the economy in a way that benefits them and trade agreements are one aspect of this. The economic uncertainty felt by many is a real threat to those in power and they are not happy. Those in power are fighting back not with policy arguments but with personal attacks calling certain people, mostly those without a formal education, ignorant racist.

Amazon

Amazon is a good current example of how the free market system works. The company started 20 years ago and never made a profit in the first 14 years and even today the profit margin is one percent. Amazon employs 566,000 people and is an example of how skills can affect salaries. Many employees who work in the distribution centers make only $13 per hour but engineers and computer specialist make upwards of $100,000 per year. All full time employees have benefits mostly paid by Amazon. Jeff Bezos the CEO earns a salary of $1.7 million while the average CEO earns $15 million. He is the worlds richest person but his wealth is in Amazon stock. He owns 81 million shares and today's price is $2,040 per share so he is worth $165 billion. If you calculate his earnings against his assets it comes to .001% He is not interested in making a lot of money for himself but rather the challenges of developing new business. Amazon has 471 million shares and those people have seen their investment go from $300 in 2015 to $2,000 today. Many of these shares are owned by pension companies and this helps all income brackets.

NAFTA votes

The president has the power to negotiate trade agreements but congress must approve any agreement as is. They cannot make changes or filibuster. President Obama was opposed to NAFTA. He said it cost US jobs and it helped business at the expense of labor. Hilary wanted to halt any new trade agreements and both promised to amend or back out of NAFTA. The Trump deal will not be approved by congress because republicans see the deal as hurting business and democrats say it doesn't go far enough to help labor. Both parties voted to approve NAFTA, 132 republicans and 102 democrats in the house and 34 republicans and 27 democrats in the senate.

Economy and attitude

Between 2010 and 2018 the number of people working in the US increased from 112 million to 127 million yet the labor participation rate held steady at just under 63%. This means that many who had stopped looking for work re-entered the work force. This growth is a continuation of what started during the Obama years with one major addition and that is attitude. Many of those who felt they were not getting ahead have changed their minds and consumer confidence continues the climb that started in 2010. Confidence has steadily climbed since the recession and has repeatedly reached multiyear highs over the past year. Factors driving the increase include a sharp run-up in the stock market last year, strong job growth, modest inflation and rising property values. Also, a tax-cut package passed by Congress late last year has boosted Americans’ take-home pay this spring. Presidents have little to do with the economy except in one area and that is confidence. Trump the salesman is constantly selling growth and this is affecting the way many people see the economy. Optimism is catchy.

German budget

Germany's auto makers want to abolish the 10% import tax on American cars and the US will stop the import tax on German cars. This is a win for the car makers and a loss for government since the tax is paid by the consumers and goes to the government. The German government wants to keep the 10% import tax on cars since all of that income goes to the government. It is because of import taxes that Germany has a balanced budget, along with the fact that the US pays for much of their national defense. Germany has a annual budget of $400 billion which includes a $45 billion surplus much of which comes from import taxes. The Germans import $50 billion from the US and export $120 billion to the US. Remove the trade imbalance and Germany would go from a surplus to a deficit.