Mortgage crisis

Leading up to the mortgage crisis of 2008 the big New York banks were making so much money they developed an insatiable appetite for more and more mortgages. This led to lower standards for qualifying for loans and finally reached the unbelievable ninja loan. No income, no job and no assets and you could still get a loan and buy a house. You could have any house that you wanted because you just fudged in the income needed for the loan. You could do this even though you didn't even have a job. Why would anyone do this? Because houses were increasing in value so rapidly that you only had to hold on to your house for a year and you could sell it at a profit. When the bubble is growing everyone wins but when it burst the low and middle income groups pay the penalty. 10 million lost their homes and they were mostly low income and many of those were people of color. On the other hand those who caused the problem like Lehman CEO Richard Fuld left with $500 million dollars. In testifying before congress he said it was $250 million which was not true but if you have enough you can lie to congress and get away with it.

Repo 105

Banks regularly use repurchase agreements referred to as repo 105 agreements. Say a bank has a short term need for cash, say a week. They transfer some asset, say bonds, to the Fed and Fed transfers cash to the bank. There is an agreement stating the times and amounts and this agreement is called a repurchase agreement. Private companies also use repo's. This led Lehman Brothers into bankruptcy and precipitated the mortgage crisis of 2008. Lehman like many big banks borrowed money to buy mortgages which they then used as assets to trade for cash using repo's. Leverage is a term used to show the ratio between assets and debt. Lehman had so many mortgages on their books and so little cash that the leverage was 40 to 1. They only had one dollar to pay off $40 of debt. This was not allowed so when it came time to issue its quarterly report something had to be done to lower the leverage. The normal thing would be to sell assets to show more cash on hand. Instead Lehman used repo's instead of sales. Just before the report was issued they would transfer assets out and cash in with the plan to reverse the process after the quarterly was published. The public would see a report with acceptable leverage and think everything was in order. The CEO of Lehman, Dick Fuld, said he did not know this was going on so he was not charged with any crime. E-mails sent to Fuld warning him of the danger of using repo's this way were ignored. Fuld testified that he never read emails because he didn't know how to find them on his computer. This confirms what lawyers say when you testify that you say you either didn't know or you can't recall.

Border crossings

People are perplexed by the presidential spokesperson who today said that people are not coming across the southern border. Aside from Fox most media do not cover the border on a regular basis but if she would admit that people were coming in the other news people would have to cover the story. Why weren't there follow up questions by other reporters to clarify that people are crossing the border. One reason is that reporters want to get their questions on the news and so they know to ask about Jan 6 or Mar-a-lago. They know that their networks do not want to cover border stories. Many people who do not watch Fox may not be aware that this is a problem at the border or if they do it is a minor thing,

Low cost college

The best way to get a college degree without going into debt is to work full time and go to school part time. You take 6 hours in the fall, 6 hours in the spring and 3 hours in summer and in 8 years you graduate. Then you apply for a job and your resume shows you have 8 years work experience at McDonald's where you dealt with the general public with all of the associated foibles. You learned how to get along with your fellow workers and provide for your own needs. What does a potential employer see in that resume?

Economy

Here is what Senator Warren said about canceling student loan debt. “What the data show us is that, because of student loan debt, there are many people who don’t move out of their mama’s basement, who can’t save up money to buy a home, who don’t start small businesses, who don’t start a family. You relieve the debt burden some for those people, and we have more economic activity,” she said. Note in particular the last sentence...we have more economic activity. If this is the case why not cancel credit card debt, auto loan debt and even mortgage debt. This would lead to a booming eoncomy.

Debt reduction

The administration says that the money to cancel student loan debt will come from the reduction in the debt. If you assume this to be true it confirms what most people have always suspected that the government cannot reduce the deficit because they always find another way to spend any reduction. That is the mind set that precludes any deficit reduction regardless of how great the economy may perform.

Who pays taxes

A congressman in Ohio is running for senate and he represents a middle to low income area. He said he opposes the plan to cancel student debt because it is unfair to those people earning 30 or 40 thousand a year. He said he has a plan that will help everyone by giving a tax break. Apparently he doesn't realize that the income group he proposes to help doesn't pay income tax. The person conducting the interview didn't question him about this, more than likely, because they didn't know it either.

Page wire tap

The Steele dossier comes to light January 2017 just before Trump takes office, saying Trump conspired with Russia to win the election. The government uncovered many contacts between Trump associates and the Russia. Investigations into the dossier revealed that democrats paid for the research, funneled information to Steele's sources and then urged the FBI to investigate Trump's connections to Russia. The Durham investigation revealed that the primary source for the dossier was Igor Danchenko who repeatedly lied to the FBI about where he got his information. Mother Jones magazine first revealed the dossier as an opposition research project funded by Democrats. The money came from Hillary Clinton's campaign to a law firm, Perkins Coie to the a research company, Fusion GPS and the to Steele. Court records show that some information in the dossier came from Charles Dolan a PR executive with expertise in Russia affairs and a decades long Clinton family friend. Dolan was connected to the now infamous pee tape claiming that Trump had affairs with Russian prostitutes. This is the circular way misinformation gets into the press. Democrats dig up dirt on Trump and this is given to the FBI who leaks it to the press who then uses it as a reason to investigate. While this was going on in the fall of 2016 a Clinton campaign lawyer met with the FBI and gave them information about Trump operatives working with Alfa Bank in Russia. The lawyer, Micheal Sussmann, has since been charged with lying to the FBI. The FBI investigated and ruled out any improprieties. Later the FBI tracked down Danchenko who said the information he gave was hearsay and just talk and word of mouth. The bottom line is that James Comey confessed that the FBI had not corroborated much of the Steele dossier before it was submitted as evidence to obtain a FISA warrant to spy on Carter Page in the final weeks of the campaign. Comey admitted that the dossier remained uncorroborated more than six months later when he was fired by Trump. The DOJ now says it did not have probably cause to surveil Page. It turns out that Page was working for the CIA and the FBI failed to tell the court. The DOJ now believes it didn't have probable cause to think Carter Page might be acting as an agent of a foreign power, which was required to surveil him.

Panama papers

Many people have wondered what ever happened to the Lolitta Express. This was the plane that Jeffrey Epstein used to ferry important people to his island where it is alleged that there were underage girls. The FBI raided the house and found tapes and photographs. This whole affair just went by the wayside. A few years before this episode the Panama Papers were leaked to the press. This was about 12 million documents listing personal financial data from 130 billionaires, 330 politicians, celebrities and members of royal family and even some religious leaders. It exposed the large Chinese bank HSBC and a money laundering hub. A thorough investigation resulted in two arrest. The first was a 65 year old illiterate farm women who would come in several times per week and make cash deposits of millions. The second was a 17 year old high school drop out who would drive a truck full of cash from mainland China to Honk Kong. Over his many trips he deposited $13 billion US dollars in cash. This was all about money in offshore accounts with many showing hundreds of millions of dollars. No bank officials were charged but the bank was fined $2 billion dollars. The bank has assets of $2,500 billion and they are still operating on the fringe. This kind of activity is not new. Back in the 1960's when 60 minutes first started, I remember watching Mike Wallace interview a Miami banker and he asked the banker if he was suspicious when a man came in and deposited $200,000 in cash and the banker answered not a all. This story about the Panama Papers disappeared so fast that most people never heard of it. People often ask if we have a two tiered justice system.

Lawsuits

An easy way to get a good understanding of a complicated issue is to read a fictional book about the subject. Class action lawsuits can be tough to understand but John Grisham's book, "The Litigators" is one way to figure out how this works. It is an easy read like most of his books and gives the reader a clear understanding of how the attorneys make their millions.

Fairness

For many people, income inequality is a matter of fairness and that is why there are those who do not favor canceling student debt. They say what about those who never went to college or those who paid their own way. Fairness is what people want but not all the way. The average family income is $60,000. If the laws were change so that every family made that it would be the ultimate in fairness. All those making less than $60,000 would be for this but those making more than $60,000 would be opposed. If we passed a law that took all the money from the rich the lower income people would not be any better off but would they feel better. People often describe the depression as a time when everyone was poor and they weren't that aware of the rich. They only time they saw the rich was in movies but that was like make believe. The compromise is to bring the upper incomes down a notch or two and for many the best way is to tax the rich and give the money to the poor. Thus the income tax which began in 1913 is the way society has chosen to close the income gap. This is not working as well as intended since much of the wealth of rich people is not dependent on income. The Walmart family wealth is $240 billion and their income is derived from the 1.4 billion shares of Walmart stock that they own. Each share pays $2 so their annual income is $2.8 billion dollars. If you taxed this at 90% they would still keep their wealth along with $280 million in dividend income. The most recent answer is to tax wealth. Senator Warren has suggested a 6% wealth tax each year which means the Walmart family would pay $14 billion per year in wealth tax. They would sell stock to pay that. Walmart stock goes up that much each year so they would maintain their $240 billion.

Pot

They lace drugs with fentanyl to give them a higher high. This brings back customers. This is now being done to marijana almost guaranteeing it to act as a gateway drug. Pot smokers better be on guard and careful where they buy their stuff. People mixing this are not careful and it takes only a small amount of fentanyl to be fatal.

Flaring

As Europeans watch the price of natural gas rise to ten times what it was last year the Russians, at the pumping station near the Finnish border where the Nordsteam 1 pipeline begins, are burning off $10 million dollars a day of natural gas by flaring. Putin is sending a message to Europe that if you want to continue to sanction Russia you will pay through higher natural gas prices. He has no concern about the environmental problems this flaring may cause and this is mindful of Saddam when he left Kuwait and set fire to all the oil wells. Dictators and autocrats do not have to answer to anyone

Press bias

The story within the story within the story is where the real problem is. Hunter Biden is a young man with a drug problem and ended up getting money from business arrangements with China. That is the first problem and by itself is not worth investigating. The fact that the money he got may have ended up in his fathers account is problem two and that should be looked into. Then the press covered up problem one in order to effect the election and that is problem three and that is the most serious. When the national press helps to decide a presidential election by withhold exculpatory evidence it is time to wake up and take note. The press finds itself in the awkward position of not being able to investigate a serious situation because they are part of the story. They are the ones who said it was all Russian disinformation when they knew it was stuff made up by opposition research. They received Noble prizes for their misinformation and then a year after the election said the lap top was real which meant that their award winning information was not real.

German bikes

Milton Freedman was one of my favorite economist. He was a big believer in free trade. He maintained that if country A could make quality widgets cheaper than any other country then they should make all the widgets for the world. He recognized that there would be difference in labor cost and environmental regulations but what he never suspected was government subsidies and currency manipulation. In 2001 China entered the WTO with the understanding that they would follow the rules laid out by the organization but they immediately tossed the rules aside. They devalued their currency to make their exports cheaper and they offered government subsidies to manufacturers so they could sell products on the world market at below the cost of production. There is a German bike company that has a reputation of producing the finest bikes in the world. The bikes use frames made in China and they are assembled in Taiwan and shipped to Germany where they pay a 10% import tax. China is the worlds largest bike manufacturer and could easily run the German company out of business but if they ship their bikes directly to Germany they will be charged a 50% import tax and this is the only reason why the German company is still in business. Germany has many import taxes so they are net exporters. Last year Germany exported $1.376 trillion and imported $1.203 trillion giving them a positive balance of trade of $173 billion which is one of the reasons that Germany has budget deficit of only $40 billion. By comparison the US has a trade deficit of $860 billion. Trump understood that China was cheating and he imposed a ten percent import tax on $300 billion of goods coming in from China. Until China agrees to play by the rules that other countries must follow they should be subjected to taxes on all of their exports.

Ukraine war

The war in Ukraine is causing a great deal of hardship on other European countries as the supply of natural gas coming from Russia diminishes. The average US household pays about $125 per month for electricity but in Europe it is ten times that amount and about to go much higher as winter comes on. It is quite surprising to many that these consumers are willing to make such a personal sacrifice to defend the Ukrainians. When the US agreed to send $40 billion to Ukraine, I posed the question would each working family in the country be willing to write a check for $300 to cover that. Here is a better question. Is financing the war in Ukraine worth paying $1,200 per month from now until the war is over. What would the response from Americans be on that question.

Teachers and school

As parents get more involved with their children's schools only a few are questioning what is happening but the number of concerned parents is rising. As of now it is like polls concerning congress. Most people are happy with their congressman and their teacher but it is the other guys that are the problem. When parents read about some strange incident in some school they are upset for a short time but forget it when they realize it is not happening in their schools. Most of the time when some teacher or principal acts in a way that most parents would find unacceptable there is not much coverage in the press. Most teachers deal with student problems the same way they deal with problems at home with their own children and in most cases this will suffice. The current problems are the result of teachers being asked to cover subjects that are outside the scope of academics. If this comes down from the top then parents can help and if it comes directly from the teacher the principal can help. Teachers would much prefer not to have to be the parent and to limit their responsibilities to the schools curriculum. Teachers could not survive in their profession if they did not have a deep sincere desire to help children and so they can be counted upon to do what is best for the student. If they are doing otherwise some outside influence is generally the reason. There are a small number of teachers who carry their personal life beliefs into the classroom and parents would rightfully object. Teachers get in trouble when they tell students which religion or which life style or which political party is preferred and almost all teachers know where the lines are so this rarely happens.

The big reset

Most people understand how higher interest rates effect home and car loans but business is also effected. Most growing businesses use borrowed money and they don't pay off the loans they just roll over the debt which means the loan they had the last 6 months at two percent will now cost three percent and this continues each time they renew the loan. When cheap credit is used to build business the economy thrives but when the cheap money is used by investors to make more money this detracts from business growth. This creates a shift from the production economy to a financial economy but it was certain industries that would be effected. A big financial institution that makes money by buying and selling stock does not produce any goods. About five years ago the worlds central bankers decided that they needed to take a more active role in climate change and they decided to move money away from industries that produce carbon and toward industries that have a low or zero carbon foot print. Programs were introduced that would promote non-carbon producing industries like wind and solar. It became increasingly difficult of the fossil fuel industry to get loans which acted as a deterrent to increasing production. Meanwhile about $20 trillion dollars was directed toward various financial institutions and these investments led to the inflation we are now experience since they were spending money and not increasing production which meant a shortage of goods. The change in policy in the Fed is often referred to as the big reset.

New axis

Back during the height of the cold war in 1956, Khrushchev famously said, we will buy you, referring to the western powers. We are now faced with a similar situation. The new axis is China, Russia, Iran and North Korea. China's announced goal is to become the worlds super power. Once again it is a battle between free people and those ruled by autocrats. Will freedom win out this time. Many Americans spend their energies bad mouthing the United States accusing the country of systemic racism while half of the people regale the other half with insults. We have a Russian diplomat negotiating a treaty between the US and Iran. We have major companies producing most of their goods in China. The US has more diversity than any country and many feel we are not open to the world. We rant about our contribution to CO2 but never mention we have made the greatest progress while China continues to build coal plants around the world. There is no country where the average Joe has a better chance to make a good life than here in the good old USA but too often people see only the down side of living here.

Cameras

Polls show that 92% support body camera's on cops. When used properly, body cameras can deter police misconduct and uses of force, provide evidence to hold officers accountable when misconduct does occur and exonerate wrongly accused officers, and help the public understand how police operate. I agree and feel for the same reasons we need cameras in the classroom. This would show the world how one disrespectful student can disrupt the whole class. It will show how much time the teacher must spend with this one student, how many times the student must be told to stay in his seat, how many times he must be asked to stop talking and how many times he asks to go to the bathroom. If the parents of the other students in the room witnessed this they would demand this student be removed from the room and this would cause no end of distress to the principal and this would be one of the main objections to cameras. The teachers could then concentrate on the lesson for the day.

Fentanyl

I just saw an interview where the drug expert said that most of the fentanyl comes into the country through legal ports of entry. He based that statement on the fact that most months are like this past July where the agents sized 1,800 pounds at the border crossing and other agents sized 340 from illegals sneaking into the country. There are 40,000 got aways each month that the government knows about and some unknown number they don't know about. Did any of these illegals who made it a point to avoid detection have any fentanyl. Each pound of fentanyl has a street value of $25,000. If you only have a few pounds it is a good nest egg to get started in your new life here in the US

Credit

Credit is the life blood of any modern economy so the more available credit is, the better off the economy is. Banks are where most businesses go for credit but banks are limited by law and can only loan 90% of their assets. This is another way of saying that Banks are required to maintain a reserve of 10% and this is called the Bank Reserve Requirement. When a bank makes a loan there is the risk that the borrower may not repay the loan so banks like to minimize this risk. When the Exxon Valdes oil tanker accident happened Exxon needed a line of credit to pay potential law suits so they went to JP Morgan who agreed to back Exxon. This then limited JP Morgans ability to give loans since they had to meet the reserve requirement of 10%. They decided to go to other companies and ask them to take on a part of their risk which was the beginning of what became to be called credit default swaps. Other companies agreed to buy these swaps and a new industry was born. Once other banks saw how they could free up capital to make more loans they jumped on the band wagon. Soon credit default swaps were being sold and traded around the world and within 6 years the market had grown to $60 trillion with a T. The interesting and dangerous thing about this new market was that it was unregulated. This worked out so well that the next step was to use the swaps to spread the risk of home mortgages. This then allowed all sorts of mortgages without any government over sight and everyone remembers how this turned out when 10 million Americans lost homes they never should have had in the first place. The government came to the rescue but not to the home owners. They just bailed out the banks because, remember, the country had to have credit.

Amazon

I have wondered for sometime why I have such an inordinate amount of interest in Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos and it came to me today as I watched a short history of his company on Youtube. He was a young man only 30 years old when he quit his job because he had the idea of selling books on the Internet. His company went the first 14 years without making a profit. He survived by convincing investors to back him. When profits arrived they were reinvested to grow the company. Fast forward to today when Amazon is a multi-billion dollar company, the epitome of free market capitalism. The guy came up with an idea that at the time most thought was silly, he persevered, worked extra long hours for years and finally succeeded. Now the socialist come swooping in to grab up his money and give it to people who did not have the ideas, the ambition, the time or the way to do something on their own. This explains socialism in the way it truly is, that is, its a scavenger, a beast that survives on the hard work of someone else. Once they use up all of his money everyone will be poor and will wait around for the next Amazon to feed them.

Market edge

Hedge funds have been in the news of late. A hedge fund is a limited partnership of investors that uses high risk methods, such as investing with borrowed money, in hopes of realizing large capital gains. Hedge funds have been around since the 1940's but only became popular about 30 years ago. They are started by a group of people who are willing to put up money to invest in businesses who cannot get financing through the regular channels. This means they are high risk high return. Since this is private money as opposed to public companies the governing rules are less invasive. Nothing illegal about this but in the late 1990's some of these managers used a new tactic to game the system and it borders on illegal or it is definitely illegal. They discovered that gathering information from various sources could give them what became known in the business as "edge". They would contact old school mates, friends who had high positions with companies they were interest in and even used seduction to gather information. So using info from many sources they could get the jump on the market. Something as simple as knowing that company A beat earnings in advance can be an edge. The SEC caught on to this gimmick and started to wire tape these managers and many have gone to jail but they only caught a small number of those who are using this scheme. In big life insurance companies there is a separate account where they invest large sums in the market. The people that manage these accounts are not allowed to discuss investment strategies with other employees in the firm. There is an invisible barrier between these people called the, "China Wall". Mr. A tells his friend that he will be lunching at a certain place with other members of his group and they will be discussing how they will invest certain funds. His friend shows up at lunch and has a nearby table and accidentally overhears the news. He then passes this on to others who make investments accordingly. This is the kind of stuff that the small investor is up against. Who ever said life was fair.

Friends and family

Here is an article from the Washington Post in 1994. The White House yesterday released documents showing that First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton parlayed a $1,000 investment into nearly $100,000 in less than a year by trading in cattle futures and other commodities in 1978 and 1979. When most people saw that they suspected something not right but nothing was done about it. How did this happen. One possible answer is a common practice call friends and family accounts. A hedge fund manager sets up an investment account and it has two parts, one called the public account and one called the family account. The companies where the stock goes up and the trades made money were assigned to the family account and the others are lumped into the general account. This is only one of the ways that traders in the know make money and if you are a small investor you are not playing on a level field.

Bottom up government

There are some who feel that the federal government is gotten so large it can no longer function effectively and they offer many examples to back up their point of view. One way to improve the efficiency is to look at what has happened to business over the past 50 years. It used to be that how business operates was determined by large corporations. It is said that President Coolidge said that the business of America is business. Charles Wilson, CEO of GM said something to the effect of as GM goes so goes the nation. Then along came Walmart and they turned the business world up side down. Instead of the corporation producing products and then telling retailers to sell them, Walmart told the corporation what to produce based on what they knew the customers wanted. This is bottom up business and just what the federal government needs to right itself. Let the people through their elected representatives in congress decide how the country should operate. Quit taking direction from bureaucrats in DC and start demanding that congress do its job. This will put a stop to reelecting the same people over and over. A recent example of how this can work is how the pandemic allowed parents to get involved in school boards and how that is changing education. Government from the ground up works best and it is time to return to the days when the country was new and we the people were in charge.

Executive power

The federal government employees work for the president (executive branch) and as congress bickers over which party gets credit leading to gridlock these bureaucrats gain power which indirectly gives more power to the president. The Constitution specifically assigns all legislative powers to the Congress but Congress is bogged down fighting for credit. Party is more important than country and thus power is delegated through vague laws and mandates. Presidents from both parties happily issue executive orders to get things done that have bogged down in Congress. Many people feel the less Congress does, the better off we are but that is not true if the bureaucrats take over. Even discussing the bureaucracy has become political with liberals pushing for more government and conservatives for less. As long as the bureaucrats can keep these two groups fighting they can keep growing and gaining power.

Impeachment and the senate

Some elected officials are planning on impeaching Home Land Security secretary Mayorkas if the republicans take over the house but that is just political show talk. While it only takes a simple majority in the house to impeach a cabinet member, it requires a two/thirds majority in the senate to convict. So they can have the flashy TV to impeach, much like what happened with Trump but there will be no conviction in the senate. It will be a waste of money and give the congressmen a chance to give speeches on national TV but nothing of substance will come of it. The time could be better spend doing something about the broken immigration system. Experts say the illegals do the work that US citizens will not do. If the pay is raised high enough citizens will gladly do the work and consumers will have to pay more for their vegies. The people in the US spend about 7% of their budget on food whereas people in Europe spend 10 to 15%.

Bureaucratic power

Many people are concerned about bureaucrats running the country instead of elected officials and the recent student loan forgiveness plan is an example. This comes about because congress writes the laws but others, mostly bureaucrats, interpret and enforce the laws. The recent student loan program is a good example. The White House says the president has the power through the Department of Education using the following excerpt. The department can: “...modify, compromise, waive, or release any right, title, claim, lien, or demand, however acquired, including any equity or any right of redemption.” The preamble to that quote is: “In the performance of, and with respect to, the functions, powers, and duties, vested in him by this part, the Secretary may—" So far this is clear as mud. Experts say that the department can only change the law if congress authorizes the change and this is why the courts will decide this issue. The bureaucrats have become so powerful that many changes require the courts to step in so instead of having government by the people through their elected representatives we have government by the courts. This is only the most recent example of a long string of cases going back many years but getting more common each passing year.

Thin air

When the Biden administration came to power the country began its march toward utopia. The first part of the march was using Modern Monetary Theory where the Fed creates money from thin air to use for what ever purpose the government feels is needed. With the announced student loan forgiveness plan we have achieved the second part of the march where debt disappears into thin air. We are now in a position to resolve all financial difficulties with thin air.

Text

There is a problem in schools with smart phones and most teachers would prefer if these phones were banned. Sometimes a little humor will do more to solve a problem than a lengthy investigation. Miss Suzy, a Gen Y er has a dozen friends over for the evening where they plan to look at their phones. When texting became popular, my first thought was that it would help students with their reading and writing but that was not to be the case. If you look at what they punch in with their thumbs you would understand that this cannot help with writing. One saving technology coming down the road may salvage the whole tech issue. They will get to the point where you voice your text on your end and the other end uses voice to hear the text. We will then have progressed back to talking except there will be an intermediary in a satellite 18,000 miles up. At the dinner table everyone could save $30 per month by talking to each other if they just forget about texting.

Debt

The recently passed Inflation Reduction Act was introduced to congress on September 27, 2021. Car companies watched the progress of this bill and when they felt it was going to pass they acted. In June GM and Ford raised the prices of the EV's by $6,000 to $8500. The Act passed in August of 2022 and will offer a $7,500 tax credit on new EV's. Now the government is considering reducing student debt by $10,000. What will that do to college tuition. There is an old saying that if you owe the bank $10,000 you are in debt but if you owe them $10 million you have a partner. The student debt got to $1.7 trillion and that as they say in bank parlance means they were too big to fail and became a partner. Personal credit card debt is currently $900 billion with an average debt of $5,200. When this reaches a high enough number will the government pay off the debt. There are 45 million Americans with student debt and 180 million Americans with credit card debt. All of the reasons for canceling student debt can be used to cancel credit card debt. That will get a lot more votes.

IRS audit

The Earned Income Tax Credit is for low income filers. For a family with two children the credit is Earnings Credit $20,000 $5,988 $30,000 $5,021 $40,000 $2,915 In 2021 28 million families got $60 billion dollars in EIT credits. The IRS audits 1.4percent of these which is 380,000 and most of these are by mail. 42% of these taxpayers do not respond to audit questions and forfeit their refund. If you claim the earned income tax credit, whose average recipient makes less than $20,000 a year, you’re more likely to face IRS scrutiny than someone making $400,000 Last year, the IRS audited 381,000 recipients of the EITC. That was 36 percent of all audits the IRS conducted, up from 33 percent in 2011, when the budget cuts began. Another big source of income for the IRS is audits on the child tax credit. Families with less than $400,000 income qualify for this credit. Auditing for these two credits is so lucrative that the IRS audits the poorest families at five times the rate for everyone else

Fenanyl

Out of sight, out of mind is an old adage that rings true in all too many situations. For most Americans the problems associated with drug abuse are out of sight and thus the scourge of fentanyl is something that is not of great concern to most. In the past few years fentanyl has come to the attention of many but prior to that it was other more common opiates. The United States consumes 85% of all the world's natural and synthetic opiates, which in 2015 factored in 33,000 deaths. Most of the fentanyl in the US came from China but a couple of years ago China made it illegal to manufacture fentanyl so now you must go on line and purchase the starter chemical from more than 100 sites in China. These chemicals are then combined by people who know little to nothing about chemistry to synthesize fentanyl. Fentanyl is mixed with other less powerful opiates like heroin and sold as a powder or pressed into pill form. Since fentanyl is 100 times more powerful than morphine it can be used to increase the pushers supply of heroin. Using the ingredients purchased on line from sources in China a three step process is used to make fentanyl. It uses complicated organic chemicals and complex reactions such as alkylation and reductive amination. It is estimated that 80,000 died from fentanyl overdose in 2021. If for no other reason this should be the incentive to get control of the southern border.

Auditors

There are four major companies that audit the books for most big corporations and every year some big scandal erupts and the causes are two possible conflicts of interest. First the company being audited pays the auditor and second the auditor provides financial advice. In the US a good example is Enron and they and their auditors Anderson both went broke. I am not sure of the intricacies in this business but I do have knowledge of how this works with large insurance companies. A big life insurance companies has two accounts. The first is called separate accounts and it includes money that customers give them to invest. The second is called the general account and this is where the money to pay claims is invested. The general account is conservative in nature and is mostly triple A corporate bonds, government bonds and real estate. The real estate investments are large office building and shopping malls. Here is where the potential problems lie. The company invest $100 million in a new office building and it goes on the books at that price. The company may have hundreds of such investments. Some years later the building has increased in value and now goes on the books at the new value. Some properties increase in value and some decrease but the insurance company decides the new book value. There are three main auditors that determine the ratings of insurance companies and the best known is AM Best. The rating company cannot afford to appraise all of the real estate every year so they accept the values given to them by the insurance companies. Suppose the insurance company wants to increase its reserves. They appraise and any properties that increase in value go on the books at the new value but properties that decrease in value remain on the books at the old value. If Best challenges, the company can say that next year they will use a different auditor. In January of 1990 AM Best gave Executive Life Insurance Company it highest rating and a little over one year later the company went bust.

Secret documents

If the documents that Trump has are as serious as the government seems to think they are why were they kept there. They could easily have been put on a memory card and the papers burned. If a former president has seen important secret documents how does the government erase the information from the president's memory. Trump could have handled this situation like Hilary did. First off she said she did not delete any subpoenaed emails. She received the subpoena on March 4, 2015 but the FBI said her emails were deleted “between March 25-31, 2015” — three weeks after the subpoena. The FBI issued its findings in July 2016. Broadly, it said classified information had been improperly transmitted, but carelessness, not an intent to skirt the law, was the cause. Will Trump be judged by his intent? Clinton’s office disclosed on March 10, 2015, that she gave the State Department 30,490 work-related emails on Dec. 5, 2014, and “chose not to keep” 31,830 emails she deemed “personal.”

Covid and the elderly

Looking back over the pandemic, it is instructive to compare Florida with California. Florida opened schools to in persons instruction in the fall of 2020. Florida was the third highest state for in school student days and California was last. Florida returned to indoor dinning and open beaches while California remained closed. Florida opposed masks and vaccine mandates but not California. Disney World opened in July of 2020 but Disney land stayed closed until April of 2021. Florida as a larger population of over age 65 residence with 21% vs California at 15%. Both states have much in common. Large population, nice weather, beautiful beaches, celebrities, Disney parks and lots of citrus trees. The two states had very different strategies for handling the pandemic but it's hard to tell which came out better after a thorough look at the data. Both states concentrated on vaccinating the elderly with both achieving a 91% rate. This is likely the most important reason why the states had similar Covid results. The biggest difference between the states will come to fruition in the next few years as more data is presented showing the damage done to children who were kept out of school. Common sense told us that the real danger is to the elderly and that is where the emphasis should have been from day one. While children under 18 represented 19% of Covid cases they accounted for only .26% of deaths and 75% of those children had underlying health problems. Lessons learned for the next time....concentrate on the sick and elderly.

Marx

Karl Marx was born in 1818, a time when the nobility throughout Europe were losing power and revolution was in the wind. When a small group is very rich and the vast majority are poor the country is ripe for change. Marx believe that the unfair distribution of wealth will only end when the poor people rise up and overthrow the rich. The industrial revolution of the 19th century encouraged working people to demand a bigger share for their labors. The best example was the Russian revolution in 1917 when the TSAR was dumped. More recently we have Venezuela. The dream of socialism dies when it becomes too successful. Under socialism the redistribution of wealth is the incentive but it is capitalism that creates wealth so when capitalism dies so does socialism. The United States today would be a perfect example of what changing to socialism will do. We have so much wealth that for the first ten or maybe 20 years it would be utopia for the poor people. Instead of each family having $60,000 annual income they would have $200,000. The average net worth of the working class is about $20,000 but if the wealth were evenly shared each person would have $140,000. As the country moves toward socialism the desire to earn more and to create more diminishes. The US for years has successfully balanced the two concepts of socialism and capitalism but it has been creeping toward socialism. While the uneven distribution of wealth has been increasing over the past 40 years it is far less than in the past. Since 1980 the share of wealth by the top one percent has increased from 17% to 32% but in 1890 it was 51%.

Polar bears

About a year or so ago some public service announcement appeared on TV where there was no sound but just a picture with the caption, enjoy the Zen. There were four of these but after a couple of weeks one disappeared. The four were a picture of a large flower, a picture of some long green reeds, a picture of some dolphins and a mama polar bear with two cubs sitting on her back hugging each other. The best of the four was the bears but that was the one that was discontinued. Was that because the bears looked too comfy when they are supposed to be suffering? What other reasons?

The 60's

I'm getting tired of hearing about how divided the county is but I understand why it is on the news. It is there because all of the talking heads are too young to know any different. These people were not around in the 60's especially 1968. The 1960's saw the most serious and widespread series of race riots in the history of the United States. They started in the Watts riots in LA in 1965 and accelerated when King was killed three years later. At the same time the Vietnam-era antiwar movement may count as the largest sustained protest movement in the history of the country. The protests went on for 9 years from 1964 until 1973. The year 1968 remains one of the most tumultuous single years in history. Two assassinations (Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy) a bloody war, racial unrest and countercultural protest. Yet this doesn't hold a candle to the divisions cause by the Civil War. We need a documentary on the 60's on national TV to put these times in their proper perspective. It wouldn't be so easy to hype what is going on today if more people knew about the 60's.

EITC

The Earned Income Tax Credit is for low income filers. For a family with two children the credit is Earnings Credit $20,000 $5,988 $30,000 $5,021 $40,000 $2,915 In 2021 28 million families got $60 billion dollars in EIT credits. The IRS audits 1.4percent of these which is 380,000 and most of these are by mail. 42% of these taxpayers do not respond to audit questions and forfeit their refund. If you claim the earned income tax credit, whose average recipient makes less than $20,000 a year, you’re more likely to face IRS scrutiny than someone making $400,000 Last year, the IRS audited 381,000 recipients of the EITC. That was 36 percent of all audits the IRS conducted, up from 33 percent in 2011, when the budget cuts began. Another big source of income for the IRS is audits on the child tax credit. Families with less than $400,000 income qualify for this credit. Auditing for these two credits is so lucrative that the IRS audits the poorest families at five times the rate for everyone else

Wealth

A family of four with two children under age 7 can earn $90,000 and pay zero income tax. This is because of the child tax credit which is $3,600 for each child under age 7. The same family with two children over age 7 but under age 18 can earn $80,000 and pay no income tax because the child tax credit for children between ages 7 and 18 is $3,000 per child. 40% of all tax payers earn more than $90,000 and they pay 90% of all income tax. While many people have a net worth of more than one million dollars only 150,000 Americans earn more than one million per year. If you passed a law stating that all earned income over $1 million would be taken by the government no one would earn over $1 million. A better way to nail the rich is to go after assets with something like Senator Warren's proposed wealth tax. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos has $166 billion in wealth mostly in the form of Amazon stock. A wealth tax of 10% would give the government $16 billion dollars that they could then redistribute to get votes. This would be $16 billion less that Bezos would have to grow his business and create new jobs. It is not likely that any new tax the government comes up with will be used to pay down debt. It is most likely it would be used to create new programs to spread the wealth around.

Tax rates

The tax rates have gone up and down over the years mostly going up during time of war. In WW 2 the top rate was 94%. After the war Eisenhower did not want to lower rates because it looked like it was just for the rich so instead many different deductions were introduced which are pejoratively referred to as loop holes. The top rate held steady at 91% until the Revenue Act of 1964 where the top rate was lowered to 70%. The Economic Recovery Act of 1981 lowered the top rate from 70% to 50%. Then the Tax Reform Act of 1986 lowered the top rate to 28%. Since then it has bounced around in the 30% range with the top rate today of 37%. The top 20% of wager earners pay 91% of all income tax. The cry of pay their fair share is often heard but just how much is that. My answer to the question of who is rich is anyone who makes twice what you do. If you make $50,000 anyone making more than $100,000 is rich. If you make $25,000 anyone making $50,000 is rich. From my perspective no one needs more than one million dollars per year but of course if I made that much I would consider the rich as anyone making more than $2 million.

CNN

Fox News is far and a way the most watched cable news station with a viewership that is twice the combined viewers of MSNBC and CNN. In July this year Fox went up one percent year over year while CNN dropped 15%. Since Trump left office CNN viewership declined from 2.5 million to 700,000. Even now they spend an inordinate amount of time covering the former president. If Trump would announce that he will not run for president CNN would lose most of the rest of its viewers. The new CEO at CNN recognizes what is happening and is taking steps to change the station back to what it was before Trump. CNN was the ultimate victim of what is called Trump derangement syndrome.

Change

Time passes and people change. As a young man anything new was a challenge and I would investigate. I recall the first time I saw a digital watch and I went to the library to find out how it worked. This attitude stayed with me for most of my life but I saw the first change when technology caught up with me. I was the first and only agent in our office in 1982 to have a computer but slowly as more tech came along I started to lose confidence in my ability to keep up. In time it was no longer worth the effort to keep up as things were changing faster and faster. The same thing was happening in society as a whole. First it was finding out that alcoholism is a disease and not a moral weakness. Next when my nephew came out and I understood what the gay life was all about but recently even social changes have become more than I can handle. When first graders are taught about gender affirmation and young people are using medical procedures to help them change genders I am lost. At age 85 I have become one of those old people I used to criticize, the kind of people who just don't understand the younger generation. I shudder to think of what is coming. They are already talking about designer babies. Will human and animal DNA be combined to give humans certain valuable animal characteristics like an athlete with cat like quickness. Has Aldous Huxley's , "Brave New World" come to pass.

Transgender

It started some years ago when the government allow under age girls to get an abortion without their parents approval but has now moved on to even more complicated surgery. A school district in Minnesota worked with local government and medical professionals to help a 16-year old boy “transition” to the opposite sex – without parental consent and without a court order legally emancipating him. The boy’s mother, Anmarie Calgaro, began fighting back, first in state courts and then in federal courts. The procedure is quite complicated. Male-to-female sex reassignment surgery The testicles are removed, a procedure called orchiectomy. The skin from the scrotum is used to make the labia. The erectile tissue of the penis is used to make the neoclitoris. The urethra is preserved and functional. Often times when women have abortions they develop regrets and this could happen to a 16 year old but to date most are satisfied with the change. Although social transition and hormonal-suppression are considered reversible interventions, gender-affirming surgery is permanent. This type of surgery has been going on for 15 years but not well publicized.  There are about 9000 transgender surgeries being performed annually across the United States (US). The latest statistics indicate that 0.6% of the US population identifies as transgender. While some experts want to wait until age 18 for the surgery they suggest hormone treatments begin at age 14. The main objection centers around underage treatments.

Media

Our main stream media at work. Left-leaning media networks, including MSNBC, ABC, and CNN, finally realized that the Inflation Reduction Act does not actually reduce inflation, but not until the massive spending package had already been signed into law.  Is this part of the reason that trust in the media has reached an all time low of 15%. Does not reporting in a timely manner equate to disinformation.

Germany

The price of natural gas in Germany is ten times what it is in the US. Two years ago the price was the same. The average cost of natural gas used for home heating is $56 per month which means in Germany it is $556 per month. The difference is enough to buy a new car. Germany is quickly building new facilities to receive imports of gas from other countries including the USA. These are scheduled to open in 2023. This year the US will become the worlds largest exporter of natural gas with more facilities being added. The US currently exports natural gas to 41 countries including China.

FBI

Because of recent events the FBI is suspected of unethical activity and based on the past this is a legitimate concern. J Edgar Hoover was the first head of the FBI and he held that position for 48 years until his death in 1972. After his death much of his unorthodox activity was uncovered. He used his power to spy on people and then use that information to control them. Some recent examples of FBI ineptness are missed opportunities to prevent mass shootings, the sexual-molestation probe into Olympic gym doctor Larry Nassar, misconduct of agents in the standoffs with armed militias in Oregon, agents facing charges of obstruction and leaking and most recently Russian influence in the 2016 election. In just the past week several whistle blowers working at the FBI confided in Senator Grassley that there was a cover up going on regarding the Hunter Biden case.

Drugs

The leading cause of death among 15 to 45 year old white males is fentenyl and the leading cause of death among the same age Black males is homicide mostly fighting over drugs. In both cases the root cause is drugs.

FBI

When the FBI is undertaking an investigation they can always refuse to answer questions using the reason that it is an ongoing investigation. Then they can selectively leak information that will strengthen their position when it comes to getting an indictment by the grand jury. This is normal operating procedure. They have the entire law enforcement power of the federal government and they can leak to help their cause. They can also lie to you during an interrogation but you best not lie to them. If you are falsely accused you may go broke paying legal fees and in the end if you are found not guilty then you are just out that money. You can then attempt to sue for false arrest but you better get prepared for more legal fees. They have unlimited time and resources and can drag out a case.

EPA slush money

The newly passed Inflation Reduction Act provides $27 billion dollars to the EPA to reduce green house gas emissions. The annual budget for the EPA is $10 billion dollars. How are they going to spend all of this money efficiently. Will they have to hire and train new staff. Will they just hand out money to various groups who will return the favor with campaign contributions as was the case when Obama gave $500 million to Solyndra. This is why the criticism that the Act is just a giant slush fund for the democratic party is gaining credence. What does a government agency do when their annual budget has just increased 270%.

Beatles

With all the news about transgender stuff I find I have to look up new terms to try and figure out what is what. In the process I was reminded of the old Beatle song, "Get Back" with the lyrics that say, Sweet Loretta Martin thought she was a woman But she was another man All the girls around her say she's got it coming But she gets it while she can I suppose if this came out today the Beatles would be victims of cancel culture.

Universal income

I just finished a book on income inequality and the author suggest that there is enough for everyone but it is not properly distributed. In the US the total income is $17.6 trillion and if that were spread among the 330 million people each would get $53,000 which means a family income of over $200,000 which would be almost four times as much as the average family income of today which is about $60,000. Statistically speaking equality could be obtained. The question that arises is not one of equality but how would a society function if every family had $200,000 annual income. Would this stifle innovation. Why would you take the risk of starting a new business. Would young people try to become professional athletes if their salary would be the same as everyone else. Would a student want to go through the riggers of medical school. How would all the different jobs be filled. Would you rather be a garbage collector or a police officer. The idea of a universal income is not practical but minimizing the problem of income inequality can be helpful. In 1950 the CEO pay was 20 times the pay of the worker but today it is 350 times more. Should a pro quarterback earn $50 million per season. Should boxer Floyd Mayweather earn $200 million from one fight. These are some extreme examples to prove that the narrowing of the gap can be done without destroying the incentive to earn. The down side is that it would require placing salary caps on these very high earners.

Depression

Today's authors along with the media have created the different generations and this leads to comparing one with another. They have names for them starting with the baby boomers, Gen X, Gen Z and so on. Discussions range on about who are the best workers, the best students, the most responsible and on it goes but one generation stands out like no other and they are called and rightly so, the Greatest Generation. These are the people who lived through the great depression and fought the great war that defeated the enemies of freedom around the world. The poor people in the US today live like royalty compared to those who lived through the 1930's. There was a big difference between those who lived in the city and those who lived in the country and that difference centered around the garden. Even a small plot of ground could provide enough food for the family but in town you had to rely on soup lines and other government hand out programs. On the other side the towns people had free entertainment on the radio but there was no electric power on the farm. In those days the culture demanded that dad worked and brought home the bacon and mom took care of the family. When the jobs disappeared, dad no longer felt like a man and this caused no end of psychological problems which often resulting in alcohol abuse. There was a lot of trading and sharing going on to accomplish the main objective which was to feed the family. I lived in town but my dad who was a milkman had a job and that was almost like being rich.

Axis countries

Contemporary history for me begins with the start of WW 2 at my age four. United States relationships with the rest of the world are much like Forrest Gump's box of chocolates. You never know what you will get. Our great enemies were the Axis countries of Germany, Japan and Italy while our friends were Russia and China. In Europe the US came with men, money and equipment to rebuild and this led to the new Europe we have today, a place of freedom and capitalism. In Japan the same thing occurred as the US installed a new government based on democracy. The US saved China from the Japanese onslaught and later built up their economy by creating businesses there and buying their products. Russia refused help from the US because they feared the power of the free market to destroy communism. It would take 50 years before communism would fall but the remnants remain to this day limiting the economic opportunities in today's Russia. Russia with a population of 147 million has a GDP of $1.5 trillion as opposed to California with a population of 40 million and a GDP of $3.4 trillion. During the war Germany and Japan were our enemies while Russia and China were our friends but today it is the reverse. Like Forrest said, who knows.

Covid cure

Looking back on the past 30 months of Covid and with the benefit of hindsight many feel we would have been better off to treat it as if it were just another type of flu. The emphasis would have been on the sick and elderly and vaccines made available for those who wanted them. No shut downs, no closing schools, no social distancing and no mask. Some feel that politics got in the way and the press exaggerated the political aspects. The country went to extreme lengths and still Covid spread across the country and is still spreading.

Space

For those who are interested in such stuff take a close look at the progress the world has made in just the last few hundred years. My father was born in 1900 when there were no cars or radios and he died in 1969 after man had landed on the moon. Look at computer developments in the last 50 years. When I was a freshman at the University of Illinois in 1955 a professor there developed the transistor which led to the chip which has revolutionized our lives. Now we know that there are some 100 billion stars in our galaxy and an estimated 100 billion galaxy and recent new telescopes tell us that most stars have planets. It is not only possible that there are other intelligent life forms out there somewhere it is possible that these intelligent being have been around for millions or billions of years. If their expertise increased at the rate that we on earth experienced what have they accomplished. Science tells us that we cannot have visitors from other galaxies because the distance is to great but these more advanced groups could have developed method of transportation that we cannot fathom. Don't ask me why I wrote this. Its just the way my mind works.

Critical

Cancel culture has come home to all of us. We now find ourselves in the awkward position of being afraid to say what we believe. The fear of being ridiculed as insensitive and/or ignorant has stopped some communication. Poll: 71% of Americans Say Political Correctness Has Silenced Discussions Society Needs to Have, 58% Have Political Views They’re Afraid to Share. Here is some controversial thoughts to make you think. Who are these people who decide what is okay to say and what is not okay. If you are a bible believing Christian who believes that homosexuality is a sin why should you be afraid to state what you believe. Many Christians believe in the concept of hate the sin and love the sinner. Recently science has suggested that there may be a criminal gene. If this turns out to be true will the laws be adjusted to account for this. Will criminal activity be excused as a genetic defect. Will those who criticize criminals be castigated as ignorant fools who see themselves as morally superior to criminals. Not separating the person from the act is what leads to prejudice. You can challenge a persons actions without denigrating them as human beings. I once told a new manager that when the customer criticizes your products or your business practices you should thank them and make the necessary changes to improve your business but if they criticize you as a person you can stop them and explain the difference. The product you sent me was defective in the way it was packaged, how it performed and the price is too high. All well and good. In fact you don't know what you are doing. Not good.

New jobs

People are wondering why the economy is slowing down and there are almost 500,000 new hires each month. How can all of these new jobs be created when the labor participation rate keeps going down, a trend that started 20 years ago. The answer is. Roughly 47 million people quit their jobs last year: During the pandemic many people retired and they have not been replaced. In December, roughly 6.3 million people were hired into new jobs, out of a total of 10.9 million job openings, leaving 4.6 million roles unfilled.  When a person quits a job and then is hired into a new job they add to the stats of new hires.

Chaney Manchin

When the shoe is on the other foot. A few weeks ago republicans were praising Joe Manchan for his principled stand on Build Back Better. One Democratic House member called him “anti-Black, anti-child, anti-woman and anti-immigrant,” while others called him untrustworthy. This past week democrats were praising Liz Chaney for her principled stand on Trump. Republicans wanted to kick her out of the party.

CDC

The CDC announced today an over haul in their organization. The problem they encountered is that there main concern is protecting the health of the American people with no concern about the consequences. It is like a manufacturing plant where the manager is only concerned about quality. He strives for perfection to the point where most of his production is rejected by the Quality Control department. The Plant Manager is responsible for quality and production and most of the time one enhances the other but if he is only concerned about one the plant will collapse. The solution is that you cannot put the CDC in charge of the country because they will set up rules to protect everyone from everything and since we live in an imperfect world the whole thing will become chaotic. The same thing happens in cities with building regulations. If you only have city inspectors setting up the rules you will have a situation where building comes to a halt. These inspectors would sit around in a room and decide regulations based on safety only. Should we use 2 by 2's or 4's. Better go with 4's. Should we use 6 inch block or 8. Better go with 8. What is needed is someone who will actually build a house sitting in the room to challenge each new regulation.

Border

Recent polls show that climate change is not in the top ten areas of concern but immigration ranks number six. What is interesting about this is that climate change is all over the news while the problems at the border until recently are rarely covered except by Fox. As Fox continues to show video's of the illegals crossing the border and as Texas sends more illegals to more cities the immigration problem will become more important to the American people.

Afghan

This week we celebrated the one year anniversary of our departure from Afghanistan and it brought back memories of the disorganized departure. This happened because the president wanted to announce on the 20th year of the war that we were out and things went to fast. Here are some of the consequences. Biden promised that the U.S. would exit Afghanistan in a safe and orderly way, that there would be no hasty rush to the exit, and that it was "highly unlikely" that there would be a Taliban takeover of the entire country — let alone this quickly. “There’s going to be no circumstance when you’re going to see people being lifted off the roof of an embassy,” Biden said. “It is not at all comparable.” Biden continued in his July 8 event: “The likelihood there’s going to be the Taliban overrunning everything and owning the whole country is highly unlikely.” When asked if the Taliban would take over ...... Afghan troops have 300,000 well-equipped — as well-equipped as any army in the world — and an air force, against something like 75,000 Taliban,” Biden said. August 2021..On August 19, President Biden vowed U.S. forces would stay in Afghanistan beyond his August 31 deadline to withdraw if any American citizens were still trapped in the country During the Bergdahl situation Biden agreed with Obama that Americans would never be left behind so we traded four terrorist for one soldier who some say was a deserter. There are still US citizens left in Afghanistan.

Masks on kids

There are 258 million adults in the US and 15% or 38,700,000 remain unvaccinated. Five percent of these or 1,935,000 have lost their jobs because they refuse to get vaccinated. Most companies are dropping their mandates for vaccination. Will their employees who quit over this issue be allowed to come back to work. California Versus Florida, a Covid Reckoning The two states had very different strategies for handling the pandemic, but it's hard to tell which came out better after a thorough look at the data. The divergence was most pronounced in schooling where Florida opened schools and removed masks early on. The science around mask wearing was distorted by politics. The number of children getting Covid was small and mostly limited to kids that had underlying health problems. It is more difficult measure the adverse effects of masks on children if there are any. In Britain it was not a political issue. Britain's two major political parties generally believe that face coverings hinder young children's ability to communicate and learn and mask were not worn. In England experts found a total of 25 youngsters died from the virus between March 2020 and February 2021. But the majority had underlying health conditions which made them vulnerable to the virus. Nothing was said about teacher safety.

Drill drill

In a not so well publicized part of the Inflation Reduction Act President Biden reinstated the largest oil and gas lease sale in U.S. history, essentially steamrolling the need for environmental review, by signing the Inflation Reduction Act into law on Tuesday. Not only will 80 million acres of the Gulf of Mexico previously held up will now be open to drilling as will drilling in Cook Inlet in Alaska. Inflation Reduction Act Advances Stalled Offshore Oil and Gas Lease Sales This will help increase the supply of natural gas and oil which will bring down prices and make natural gas available to help wean Europe away from Russian gas. If the infrastructure bill recently passed is going any where the government needs to steamroll away the need for environmental review as it just did with drilling.

Clinesmith

Kevin Clinesmith an FBI lawyer who was found guilty of forgery in the Trump-Russia probe has been restored to good standing meaning he can once again practice law. He admitted on August 2020 to falsifying a document that was the basis for a surveillance warrant against former Trump campaign official Carter Page. Once the government had permission to surveil Page they could then surveil any and all people that Page contacted and this lead to surveilling most of the people in the Trump administration including the White House. Since his appointment in May of 2017, Special Counsel Robert Mueller racked up a lengthy record of court wins, but none of them answered some of the central questions the public had about his investigation into potential collusion between President Donald Trump or his campaign and Russia. The three year Mueller investigation that started with surveilling Page ended with no collusion. This special prosecutor would never have been appointed if it hadn't been for a forged document presented to the FISA court. Even with the advantage of secretly listening in on private conversations they still were unable to come up with proof of collusion.A

Chaney

The complaint that the republicans had against the January 6 committee came to a head last night when the 3rd ranking republican in congress Liz Chaney was defeated in her reelection by more than 30%. Recall that the resolution allowed the republicans to appoint five members and the democrats to appoint 8 but when Republican house leader McCarthy sent up his five appointees they were all rejected by Pelosi and she allowed only two republicans and they were the two who voted to impeach Trump and these two were Adam Kinzinger who decided not to run again and Liz Chaney who was roundly defeated.

Teachers

The big brew ha ha in Minneapolis is about the teachers union replacing seniority with race when it comes to lay offs. This is not worth the news time since it will be struck down by the courts because it is so blatant. This sort of thing has been going on in the military for many years but since it was government it never became an issue. It happened in industry in the 70's with affirmative action but it never overrode union seniority procedures and it had more to do with hiring than lay offs. The purpose in all cases was an attempt to make up for past discrimination. It was done because it was easy to get around problems by using the right words. After I retired I looked at a number of different jobs and there is a law against discrimination based on age but on several occasions companies whose policy was to hire the best qualified people told me I was over qualified.

Job skills

I am concerned about Gen Z people coming into the work force. When I was in industry and we hired new people we looked at two areas. The first was academic and second social skills. As far as academic we wanted people who could read and write. By that I mean can you read a ten page essay and write me a one page summery. Every thing else you need to know we will teach you. The reason we liked to hire engineers is not for what they learned in school but the fact that this was proof they could learn. The second and more important area, social skills, is what we really looked at because this is not something we can teach on the job. As a plant manager most of my time was spent trying to get Joe to get along with Jim. It was extremely important that people be able to work as a team and often times my job was just soothing egos. Young people learn social skills in school and especially high school and this is where my above mentioned concern lies. We learn about how to understand and empathize with others by communicating with others. We learn about body language and facial expression and these help us to understand the words between the lines and this is how we develop social skills. Only a few years ago when students were given free time the last few minutes of class they would start visiting with one another but today almost all of them just look at their smart phone. They may have a handle on the read and write part but not so sure about their ability to get along in the group.

Car insurance

I contacted my car insurance company, Progressive, to inform them that I replaced my 08 Honda Civic with an 07 Toyota Corolla and was told my rate would increase from $426 per six months to $575. I asked if this was because everything is going up or because of the car and the lady told me it was because of the car. I asked why that is and she said the computer figures the rates and so I asked her who told the computer and she said she didn't no. Yes, I was being a smart ass but I am amazed at how much they spend trying to get new customers and how little concern they have for existing customers. When I called I waited for some lengthy time listening to a computer voice tell me that my call was important. When the finally answered, I couldn't adequately reply to any of the questions so I used a little trick I picked up and just said, representative. But I couldn't fool them the voice asked for more details to I said I want to cancel my insurance and a voice said, I will connect you to the next available agent. After waiting a considerable time while hearing a voice say my call was important a lady answered and I had the above conversation. Later I looked on line and after filling out a few generic forms no one called even though each site promised that a agent would call me. Since I received no calls, I assumed that my existing company had the best rates. So I will just pay the extra amount had fix breakfast.

Warrants

Here is what Eric Garland, Attorney General, said on TV about warrants. Where possible, it is standard practice to seek less intrusive means as an alternative to a search, and to narrowly scope any search that is undertaken. This confirms the forth amendment which states in part but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized. Here is what the warrant says. It authorized FBI agents to confiscate “any government and/or Presidential Records created between January 20, 2017, and January 20, 2021,” the entirety of Trump’s four-year term in office. What constitutes a valid search warrant? A valid search warrant must meet four requirements: (1) the warrant must be filed in good faith by a law enforcement officer; (2) the warrant must be based on reliable information showing probable cause to search; (3) the warrant must be issued by a neutral and detached magistrate; and (4) the warrant must state specifically the place to be searched and the items to be seized

Race and hair

About a year ago, I was watching Chris Cuomo on CNN and Afghanistan was in the news and Cuomo said that some Americans don't want Afghan refugees and he surmised that was because they had brown shin. Turns out, apparently not known to him, that Afhganies are Caucasian just like North Africans are. Today on NPR a lady they were interviewing about Afghanies said that some people are upset with them because maybe their hair is not light enough. We have now progressed from prejudice against someone because of the color of their skin to the color of their hair. There are people who place too much emphasis on race and this is an example.

Union seniority

One of the basic concepts of unionism was the seniority system. When it came to overtime work those most senior got the time and a half pay. When it came to layoffs the least senior were the first to go. This whole idea has now been challenged by the Minnesota teachers union. According to their rules, effective in 2023, white teachers will be laid off first regardless of seniority. This is an example of equity where equity means equal results. The thinking is that in the past teachers were discriminated against because of skin color and this is a way to make up for past mistakes. The fact that current teachers had little or nothing to do with past practices is irrelevant. It is the argument for reparations.

Nixon

When many liberals talk about Richard Nixon they say he is the republican president who resigned in shame but they don't mention how they appropriated many of his programs. Nixon was the most pro environmental president since Teddy Roosevelt. Nixon is responsible for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the National Environmental Policy Act, the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, the Marine Mammal Protection Act, the Endangered Species Act and that Legacy of Parks Program. He appointed Warren Burger as Chief Justice and this was the last liberal court. Nixon started the nuclear arms control agreements with the Soviets and opened diplomatic relations with China. He set the stage for the arms reduction pacts and careful diplomacy that brought about the end of the cold war.

New IRS agents

The IRS expects to pay for the new agents by increasing audits. The lower income people do not owe taxes but they collect refunds from the earned income credit (EITC) and child tax credit. Often times these credits are obtained illegally by using fake social security numbers. If you claim a child under the age of six you can get $3,600 in tax refund even if you do not owe any tax. For a child over 6 but under 18 you get $3,000. The EITC for one child is $3,700.

SUV's

This is from Pew research. Two-Thirds of Americans Think Government Should Do More on Climate. Here is the number of sedans and SUV's sold in 2021. Average city and hwy MPG Cars 3,424,888 28 SUV's 8,703,294 22 Each SUV uses 136 gallons of gas per year more than a sedan based on driving 14,000 miles per year. If the 8,703,294 people who bought SUV's had bought sedans that would save 136 times 8,703,888 = 11.8 billion gallons of gas. That is like removing 23 million cars from the highways

PC words

Certain groups have always felt that the name of something can determine how that something is perceived. Recent examples are French Fries that became Freedom Fries, illegal immigrant to irregular immigrant, man hole to utility hole and sex change has become gender reassignment. The latest is to change the name of monkeypox. The name has yet to be determined but here is the reason given... "avoid causing offense to any cultural, social, national, regional, professional, or ethnic groups, and minimize any negative impact on trade, travel, tourism or animal welfare." These changes can be used to get rid of unkind expressions or they can be used to challenge freedom of speech or both. Euphemisms are regularly used by people but the words they replace are not forbidden. For example you can say he passed away instead of he died but you are still allowed to say he died without being put down by those who speak differently. Things have gotten out of hand and here is a recent example of something currently under discussion. Should clinicians be using the word ‘woman’ in medical language? Are phrases like ‘human milk’, ‘parental’ and ‘hand-held notes’ preferable to ‘breastmilk’, ‘maternal’ and ‘maternity notes’

Power

Power corrupts was a phrase used to describe what happened the the Catholic Church but it is not limited to religion. The power of the nonelected federal bureaucrats has now reached the point of corruption. When power is challenged you can expect stiff resistance quite capable of using what ever means is necessary to maintain the power. The best recent example is Trump. He could only attack this group because he was an outsider and not entangled with past dealings. It required a strong willed person bordering on ruthless to withstand the assaults from all the groups who felt threatened. First off the career federal employees who combined forces with the national press, big business including silicon valley, Hollywood, social media and the democratic party leadership all joined forces to protect their power. Members of the press, many of whom, had spent a career cultivating politicians to gain access to inside information found themselves on the outside looking in. From the start Trump revealed he was not like other politicians. He was brutally open with his thoughts which he expressed many times a day on Twitter. This infuriated the press because he passed them by going directly to the people. Many times he was too open. It was as if a thought popped into his head and he immediately tweeted it. This cabal of anti Trumpers breathed a sign of relief when Biden won but now they are once again awakened. Their old fears have returned and they are closing ranks to face the possibility that Trump may be elected for a second term. Someone like DeSantis promotes policies similar to Trumps but he would be eaten alive by the bureaucrats. He may be elected but things will go back to the way they always were. George Wallace once said, there's not a dimes worth of difference between the republicans and democrats and that is because he recognized that it is the bureaucracy that really runs the country. These career types understand that as long as they keep the proletariat fighting among themselves they will keep their power.

Bureaucrats

Since WW 2 the federal bureaucracy has been gaining power and influence. It was accelerated with the Great Society of the 1960's and grew more after Watergate. Since the Patriot Act it has ballooned into a forth branch of government and these lifetime federal employees like their new found status. This whole process was rudely interrupted when Trump came along with his promise to drain the swamp. This sent warning bells throughout government and they reacted to protect their little fiefdoms by going after Trump. They picked a good time as about half the country sided with them not because they liked the bureaucrats but because they disliked Trump. In the past seven years we have witnessed the Justice Department led by the FBI and joined by the democrats investigating Trump and this led to two impeachments in which they knew would not be approved by the senate. These bureaucrats are afraid of a second term for Trump and they are tying to discredit him through their January 6 investigation. This is not going well and some feel the search of Trump's home was an attempt to gather information to bolster the January 6 investigation.

Truth

It is very difficult to determine truth and here is an example using Hilary's private server. The right wing Daily Caller says Hilary's private server was hacked. The FBI said Wednesday that it has no evidence Hillary Clinton’s private email server was compromised even though President Donald Trump tweeted a news report that alleged the Chinese had hacked it. Former FBI Director James Comey should not have suggested that hackers could have compromised Hillary Clinton’s private email server, the Justice Department’s inspector general said in a report published today. A Romanian computer hacker who revealed the existence of a private email server used by Hillary Clinton when she was secretary of state is expected to plead guilty to hacking-related offenses, a U.S. law enforcement official said on Tuesday. When the F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, said on Tuesday that his investigators had no “direct evidence” that Hillary Clinton’s email account had been “successfully hacked,” both private experts and federal investigators immediately understood his meaning: It very likely had been breached, but the intruders were far too skilled to leave evidence of their work. If this last statement is true it explains why all of the statements are true.

Intent

When Jame Comey came out and said that Hilary had broken the law but no court would convict because she didn't intend to, I thought that was bunk but I have since learned that he was probably correct. I just imagined myself telling and officer who had stopped me for speeding telling him I didn't intend to speed. It turns out there are two aspects to criminal law one part called "actus reus" and a second part called "mens rea". How you prove guilt in court. When a defendant is charged with a criminal offense, the prosecution must prove that the defendent both committed the act (actus reus) and had the required mental element of intent (mens rea). The mental element is that the defendant intended or foresaw the natural consequences of the actus reus. Comey felt he could not prove that Hilary had the intent to break the law and he was probably right since knowing what was in her heart would be difficult to access. Trump is now in a similar situation and the government will have a tough time proving his intentions and thus will likely not proceed with a prosecution although things involving Trump often lead to a different approach. The is not as simple as this appears. For example if Jill slaps Jack she doesn't intend to hurt him but the slap is battery and she is guilty. If a person has consensual sex with someone underage no intent is needed since an underage person cannot give consent.

Politicians

When I was a young man people, older and supposedly wiser, would often describe politicians as all being crooks and I would quickly come to their defense saying that while some are crooked most are not. Later in life I concluded, that while most who enter politics do so with the idea of making a positive contribution to the country, many fall under the seductive influence of the Washington culture and all too many drift away from their original intentions. Since the main objective of news agencies is get and keep an audience the news is about the bad stuff. As Walter Cronkite once said, I hope I never have to come on the news and report that 5,000 airplanes flew today and none crashed. Most people today, unlike myself, do not watch that much political news. For those who do we are deluged with republicans pointing out the lies of the democrats and democrats pointing out the lies of republicans. It is easy to fall back into the days of my youth when people said all politicians are crooks.

Trump search

When Trump lost the election in early November of 2020 many predicted that various right wing groups would become violent. All through the rest of November they watched and waited and then December came and went with no violence. Finally on January 6 the riot came and all who were predicted gave a sign of relief. The riot only lasted a few hours but it would be enough to bring about months of congressional hearings highlighted with prime time TV coverage. These are on going and will continue until the upcoming elections in November. Now the same thing is happening with regards to the search of Trump's home in Florida. Liberal news outfits are predicting violence and pointing out the rhetoric on Trump's social media outlet as a reason to close it down saying words will lead to riots. Other stations are saying that the search of Trump's home was justified whether it was the best way or not to do the job because he is such a threat to democracy that following normal protocols is not necessary even if it means crossing over the line.

NY Times

The New York Times wrote this week that your lawn is killing the planet and having a nice suburban green lawn is racist. Take that all of you dandelion haters. This problem has been well documented for years and they are finally getting around to bringing it to everyone's attention. Here are some simple facts. There are 62,000 square miles of grass (the size of Wisconsin) and lawns consume 3 trillion gallons of water each year (enough for 150 million swimming pools), 200 million gallons of gasoline (the same as 300,000 cars) and 70 million pounds of pesticides. Add to that the fact that Mr and Mrs Suburbia use 36 billion gallons of gasoline (same as 55 million cars) for motorized recreational vehicles. If these same people all drove sedans that would save another 10 billion gallons of gas, (15 million cars)

Trump raid

Politicians live and die with the news cycle. President Biden had his best week since the US left Afghanistan last August and the Justice Department squelched his victory lap by going into Trump's home. If there had been any concern about Biden's low ratings they would have postponed the search of Trumps home a couple of weeks. This adds credence to the administration claim that they didn't know about the raid.

NYC illegals

As more information comes out regarding the illegal immigrants in New York City the picture becomes more clear. Apparently over 7,000 illegals came to NY City before last week and they came either on buses with tickets provided by various charities or buses and planes provided by the federal government. Last week the first bus load of illegals sent by Texas Governor Abbott arrived in NY City and this week another bus load bringing the total number of illegals sent by Abbott to 100. NY City Mayor Adams immediately asked for federal government aid to help with his over crowded facilities. He said the Abbott was using these people has pawns in a political game.

Michael Flynn

Human beings are designed in a way that permits contradictions and that is why your lawyer will tell you to use your constitution right to remain silent. When a person is interrogated over a long period of time it is inevitable that some contradictions will arise and if you are talking with the FBI you can go to jail. Lies like this are so common that they are referred to as process lies. These lies can be material or not but in either case you lied. In the case of Michael Flynn there was a long list of people who thought his lies were material and they were all democrats who did not like Trump. Does politics sometimes determine whether something is material or not. Flynn confessed to lying and was convicted. Later an FBI agent involved in the case said that Flynn did not lie. After two years of investigation, during which time Flynn went deep in debt with legal fees, the Justice Department dismissed the case but then a judge refused to dismiss. It was then that Trump pardoned Flynn. How this all started was revealed by FBI director James Comey. Former FBI Director James Comey admitted in a recent interview that he personally made the decision to send a pair of agents to interview President Trump’s national security adviser Michael Flynn in 2017. Asked to describe how two FBI agents ended up at the White House to interview Flynn in January 2017, Comey, speaking to MSNBC’s Nicolle Wallace during a forum discussion Sunday, said flatly: “I sent them. Comey went on to acknowledge the way the interview was set up – not through the White House counsel’s office, but arranged directly with Flynn – was not standard practice. He called it “something I probably wouldn't have done or maybe gotten away with in a more … organized administration.”

Muslims killed

Over the past three days four Muslim men were shot in New Mexico and the town is in turmoil. Muslims are living in fear of their lives. This has been a nation wide news story every day this week. "These shootings are disturbing," Albuquerque Police Department Chief Harold Medina said in a Saturday news conference. "We are putting every possible resource into these investigations." The FBI is assisting in the investigation New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham also said on Twitter that she was sending additional state police officers to the city. This past week 6 Black men were shot and killed in Chicago and this happens every weekend but there was a short one sentence item in most of the national news. Are Blacks living in fear in Chicago?

Trump records

Watching the press coverage of the raid on Trumps home in Florida is quite interesting. First off they say the White House was not aware of this raid. If that is true it is a good example of plausible deniability. If things go bad the White House is clean. Second if there is something in those documents that can be called a smoking gun then Trump should have taken a lesson from Hilary. Recall the White Water lost and found documents. If there were any damaging emails Trump should have said he erased a lot but only stuff that was about his personal family affairs. If that is the case then all of those people who said Trump was not very smart were right. Finally, knowing how the government is famous for red tape, it is hard to believe that Trump has the only copy of these records. In 1996 the FBI issued subpoena's for Hilary's billing records going back ten years and they could not be found. Hilary said she could not find them and two years later after Clinton was elected they suddenly found them. Recall that in March of 2015 Hilary erased subpoenaed emails saying they were just personal stuff.

Science not

The world of politics is a world filled with subjectivity. Emotion often overrides logic with bias and prejudice running wild. People make commitments based on their heart and when the facts show they are on the wrong team they are unable to change sides. They feel they must defend their guy no matter what and they must degrade the other side no matter what. Discussions of policy are replaced with rants about personalities. Likability replaces competence. None of this is surprising to me but when the same thing happens in science, I am dumbfounded. Science is based on facts, logic, reason and testing of every theory, so everyday when I see scientist talk about the threat of global warming and possible solutions, I am amazed that they fail to mention nuclear power. It can't be a matter of safety since nuclear power has been around since 1951 and there has never been anyone injured or killed in this industry. The problem of waste products pales in comparison to wind and solar. All of the nuclear waste produced to date would fill a football field ten meters deep. The expert I heard today said he has solar panels on his house and he drives an electric car. Is he even aware of the problems with the mining and disposal in the wind and solar industry. Does he believe that airplanes can fly on batteries or that heavy construction equipment, railroad engines and ocean liners can run on batteries. Is he aware that wind and solar require millions of acres of land and they must be many miles from the use point meaning thousands of miles of power lines. I realize that many scientist have sold out for grant money and favors to green groups but that can only be a small number of scientist. Where are the rest. There is some reason that has nothing to do with science that causes these people to remain silent.

IRS

With the recent addition of 87,000 new IRS agents many commentators are saying you have nothing to be concerned about as long as you file correctly. Be careful. In the law you are considered innocent until proven guilty but with the IRS the opposite is true. They accuse and you must prove your innocence. With the law you have the right to remain silent but with the IRS you go to jail if you fail to speak up. If you only have one source of income and that is your job there is not much that can go wrong when you prepare your taxes but anything more complicated can lead to problems. There are many examples of people who called in with tax questions and got different answers from different IRS employees. Other answers you give can lead to problems. Here is a personal example. I owned a business that was on one of two lots which were the same size. In filling out the tax return it is necessary to separate the land from the building when depreciating since land does not depreciate. I contacted the IRS and they told me to put down what I thought was right and they would let me know if they disagreed. Fortunately I had the spare lot to help with in determining the value of the land and use the taxable value of the extra lot to determine the value of the lot that the building sat on. Remember that the IRS uses what they call suspicious activity to determine who gets audited. Even if you are innocent and you are chosen for an audit it can be stressful and may be expensive if you have to hire legal help. Don't do anything that may be considered suspicious. Good luck with that.

Socialism

The 1980's were the hay day of the USSR. With a population of 286 million in 1989 vs the US population of 246 million. At that time only 19 million were members of the communist party. The higher ranked members which totaled 3 million had the best of everything while most people were stuck with shortages of basic things like food and shelter. In 1975 only one in 54 Russians had a car while the ratio in the USA was one out of two. It is well documented that Soviet government officials were served by separate grocery stores to the rest of the USSR population and shelves there were well stocked as opposed to the stores where the average person shopped. Needless to say, the healthcare afforded to top party members was of much higher quality. Child care was provided for party members. George Orwell in his book, "Animal Farm" said under socialism everyone is equal but some are more equal. This is the kind of government that appeals to countries where most of the people are poor and a very small minority have most of the goodies. To them anything is better that the status quo and they are ripe for picking by some populist promising to share the wealth. It has happened many times and the result is always the same. People lose their desire to excel, lack ambition and settle back and accept a just get by attitude.

Climate science

The new Inflation Reduction Act is another handout in the wrong direction. It promotes the idea that wind and solar are the answers to the problem of climate change. There is an estimated $30 billion in production tax credits geared toward increasing the manufacturing of solar panels, wind turbines and batteries, as well as the processing of critical minerals, such as lithium and nickel, used in electric car batteries. There is also $10 billion in investment tax credits for the construction of facilities where those and other clean technologies would be made.  The bill would make available $20 billion in loans to build new U.S. facilities to make clean vehicles, as well as $2 billion in grants to reconfigure existing car factories for the same purpose. This money could have been directed toward nuclear power but instead will be sucked up by various green businesses and then will just disappear the same way it happened when Obama spent $90 billion on his new green energy plan. As long as politics is pushing aside science in the goal of solving climate problems the result will be just wasting money and getting in the way of a true solution.