Debt

The Supreme Court ruled today, as expected, to shoot down Biden's plan to cancel student debt. Biden said, I will stop at nothing to find other ways to deliver relief to hard-working middle-class families. A much better way to help working families is to cancel credit card debt. While student debt is $1.78 trillion the credit card debt is only one trillion. It is the working poor who would most benefit from canceling credit card debt and these are people who will not have the earning power that college grads will have. 90% of lawyers and doctors have student debt and they will have the ability to repay. 35% of credit card debt is carried forward month to month meaning most of these people are paying 20% interest on this debt.

Bidenomics

The democrats are changing their strategy. Instead of talking about issues like social justice they are moving toward the economy. Some say this is a mistake because the voters are upset about the fact that wages are not keeping up with inflation. Biden is toting his bidenomics but the people don't feel it. They still see food and gas prices higher than they were before Biden. This will not sell and soon the democrats will be back to systemic racism, abortion and LGBT issues. The old, effective arguments of oppressed and oppressor, will once again take central stage. The sad part about this is that convincing Blacks that they are victims and cannot help themselves does them an injustice. Using division to get votes may be an effective strategy but it hurts the country. It is looking backwards and opens the door for republican candidates to present their ideas for the future.

Biden

Republicans in congress seem to be living in a dream world. They believe that if they come up with the smoking gun that proves that Biden accepted bribes from foreign countries that Biden would be impeached. In fact he may be impeached for any number of reasons but the senate will not convict. The news about the bribes would not be covered and democrats would say it was all political and the Department of Justice would not prosecute. Hard core democrats feel that no matter what Biden has done it could not be a bad as Trump. They are now committed to Biden's re election and no matter what happens that commitment will not change. Even failing health will not stop the Biden campaign. They will just hide him until after the election.

Documents

Back in January of this year Robert Hur was appointed special prosecutor to investigate the way Biden handled the government documents he took home when he was a senator and vice president. Unlike the Trump investigation there have been no leaks. Hur has issued no statements and so the public assumes he is conducting a serious investigation. Hur said at the start, I intend to follow the facts swiftly and thoroughly. Not sure what swift means here. If he concludes that Biden as a senator removed documents will that mean an arrest and charge since such removal is a felony. Not likely. 18 USC § 1924 deals with the unauthorized removal of classified documents. Under this statute, it is a crime for any officer, employee, contractor, or consultant of the United States government to knowingly possess classified documents and remove them without proper authorization. Classified material shall not be taken home, and you must not work on classified material at home

Theft

There is a new and exciting career path for those living in California cities like Frisco. You can steal $900 and this is a misdemeanor and if on the slim chance you are arrested you can be back on the street with the no cash bail. Mayor Adams of New York said that last year 327 repeat offenders were responsible for 30% of the more than 22,000 retail thefts across the city — a 45% increase from 2021 and a 77% increase from 2018, according to city data. This new career path is growing rapidly and will continue to grow until such time as the criminals are incarcerated but if you do that you will have a disproportionate number of Blacks being arrested not because the cops are targeting Blacks but because the Blacks are committing most of the thefts. This will not bode well for equity.

The Rich

There are questions as to why the rich got richer in the past ten plus years and they were helped by government policies. The money supply stayed around $3 trillion for most of my life but in 2020 it rose rapidly peaking at $21 trillion in 2022. Interest rates were almost zero from 2008 until 2022 when they started to rise to the present 5%. During the years of low rates many investment types used this cheap money to make money but the average Joe just watched his savings earn nothing and so the rich got richer. Stock markets tend to rise when there is easy money, as yields for depositors and other savers fall, they may seek yield elsewhere in the markets. Easy money also helps boost most firms' profits and allows them to borrow and invest more cheaply. Billionaires generally derive most of their income from asset appreciation, rather than salaries or bonuses. Unlike ordinary income, asset appreciation is not taxed until a gain is realized through the sale of the asset. To avoid or delay the hefty tax obligation resulting from the capital gains incurred, they borrow against their wealth and use the proceeds to not just pay for their expenses but also to reinvest in new ventures. In this way they keep their tax bills low, continue to benefit from the appreciation of their invested assets, plus increase their overall net worth with the additional investments made with the loan proceeds.

Babies

Public Square is a conservative company promoting conservative businesses and they have announced that any employee who has a baby or adopts will receive a $5,000 bonus. This is significant in ways other than the obvious political. The birth rate in the US has dropped to the lowest level at 1.6 where 2.1 is needed to replace the population. Other companies pay a bonus to those who have abortions since they see more children as a threat to the climate but they turn away from the threat of not having enough people to replace those who are dying. One of the real joys in life is having a child and that is now frowned upon. If the world would turn to nuclear power, having babies would once again become one of the joys in life. It is sometimes difficult to understand what is happening to society.

Bureaucrats

The bureaucracy has grown to powerful and has become a de facto forth branch of government. Trump challenged this power when he threatened to drain the swamp and the bureaucrats responded by attempting to rig the elections in 2016, 2020 and now 2024. In 2016 they came up with the claim that Trump was a Russian puppet and that he and the Russians colluded to win the election. Subsequent investigations proved this to be a hoax. Then in 2020 the bureaucrats claimed that the Hunter laptop was disinformation and banned social media from saying other wise. Although the pandemic slowed the Trump agenda many feel the hiding of the Hunter information was critical to Trumps defeat. Now comes the 2024 election and the bureaucrats have charged Trump with a crime hoping that his voters will desert him. The bureaucracy must have their sails trimmed and Trump is the only one who can do that. They need to be relegated to their original purpose which was to assist the other three branches of government. The most concerning part about the power of the bureaucrats is the way the press has joined forces with them to maintain their power. The demise of the free press may be the most damaging aspect of these past few years. In the past they would show their bias by spinning but in today's world they just ignore reporting anything that doesn't fit their agenda.

Pickle

Presidents Day is one day set aside to honor who many believe are the two greatest presidents George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. Others say it is a day to honor all presidents. Martin King Jr has one day to celebrate just him. Then we have Black history month and now we have gay pride month. We also have national pickle day. Does all of this tell us something about our priorities.

Racism

The recent back and forth between former President Obama and Senator Tim Scott illustrates the difference in how these two see the situation of race in the country. Scott is forward looking and talks about all of the progress that has been made in the past 75 years while Obama focuses on the past reliving the discrimination against Blacks. It is much like President Biden who used the phrase Jim Crow 2.O. Certain Black leaders see the race issue as a political win and want to continue to divide the country along racial lines, the oppressors vs the oppressed. A common phrase is that American suffers from systemic racism and if you are white and don't understand this you are probably a racist but you just don't know it. This is a powerful argument because there is no way you can prove you are not racist. Everyone knows that there is much to be done to improve the lives of minorities but reliving past sins is not the way to make positive changes. A good place to start the conversation about racism is to discuss the situation in the schools. How about getting some of those inner city kids who are serious about education into the schools in the suburbs.

Child labor

While I have been cognizent of the fact that young children are working in the cobalt mines in Africa so Westerners can have electric cars, I have overlooked a more serious problem close home. Over the past couple of years over 250,000 unaccompanied minors have crossed our southern border and many are being subjected to abuse and trafficking. Here is from the NY Times. Alone and exploited, migrant children work in brutal jobs across the US. Arriving in record numbers, the are ending up in dangerous jobs that violate child labor laws, including in factories that make products for well-known brands like Cheetos and Fruit of the Loom. Other sources report even more serious problems. The most common victims of sex trafficking are children because they are more vulnerable. The US Department of State estimates between 14,000 and 17,000 victims are trafficked within the United States each year. An estimated 72% of these victims are immigrants. These border problems also cause many women to be assaulted and the deaths of many thousands of US citizens from drugs like fentanyl while providing billions of dollars to illegal cartels.

Education

People are always saying that education is the great equalizer, the road to the American dream and no where can this be seen as clearly as the difference between Asian Americans and Hispanic Americans. Both groups are mostly immigrant, both have brown skin and neither group has been affected by slavery yet the Asian group exceeds White Americans education and the Hispanic group trails far behind in education. Asians income exceeds Whites and Hispanics lag behind. One explanation is that it is a cultural thing, that Asian families more strongly emphasize the importance of education. There are examples of successful Black Americans and they often attribute that to their parents demanding high performance in school offering further proof of the importance of education. The best way to close the income gap is to close the test score gap and one way to do this is to get more minorities out of the inner city schools and into the suburbs. The professional educations have tried various experiments over the years without success. Time for a new approach.

Gays

The gay community has made many gains over the past 30 years, things like legal gay marriage, but they have run into a snag. As cultural values change regarding sexual preferences the one red line that always remained was paedophilia. Children were off limits and in fact it is a crime to have child porn on your computer. With the onset of changing genders this line is under attack. Some feel it is okay to perform sex change surgery on minors and this has caused a great deal of concern among parents. Many procedures are allowed without parental consent. In some cases the parents are deliberately left out of the discussion. Polls show 68% of Americans oppose gender changing procedures. Many feel that teachers are not qualified to discuss such issues and should refer student questions to parents.

Debate

It is not surprising that Biden does not want to debate Kennedy because the incumbent president does not normally debate in a primary. What is surprising is that 72% of democrats want a debate. Their support for Biden is based on the belief that he can beat Trump but down deep they really want another candidate and they are looking for a way to dump Biden without being disloyal to the party. If Biden did poorly enough in a debate with Kennedy it could open the door to another choice. It's not going to happen as their will be no debate regardless of what democrats want. The main question is will there be a debate during the presidential contest. The Commission on Presidential debates will not release a schedule until November.

Documents

There have been many cases where people were prosecuted for having classified documents or information in their possession. One case that made the news was a sailor who took pictures of the nuclear sub he was stationed on. While the Justice department routinely prosecuted misuse of classified documents there have been some high profile cases in recent history. Since 2005, the FBI and the Justice Department have launched at least 11 such investigations, some targeting high-profile former U.S. officials, including a former national security adviser and a former CIA director. Here are a couple of recent examples. April 2005 – Former U.S. national security adviser Sandy Berger pleaded guilty to knowingly removing classified documents from the National Archives and Records Administration and he paid a $50,000 fine and lost his security clearance. March 2015 – Retired U.S. Army General David Petraeus, a former CIA director, pleaded guilty to one count of unauthorized removal and retention of classified material Petraeus was sentenced to two years of probation and a $100,000 fine. Presidents have wider privileges but Biden has documents he removed as vice president and senator and each document is a felony. We often hear about equal justice under the law and no man is above the law but that is not the case with Biden. Here is a quote from Biden. My administration will continue to do the hard work to ensure that equal justice under law is not just a phrase emblazoned in stone above the Supreme Court, but a reality for all Americans.

Petroyuan

The mystery of Saudi Arabia. In 1945, FDR reached an agreement with Saudi Arabia to provide aid and they would sell their oil only for dollars thus the term petrodollar came into usage. When the US promised aid they meant military protection against any country who tried to take over the Saudi oil. Almost all of Saudis military equipment is from the USA. This means that all spare parts will also come from the USA and it means that Saudi is dependent on the USA for their national defense. Thus the conundrum. For years Saudi has maintained good relations with the USA for protection but now they are getting friendly with their arch enemy in the Middle East, Iran. Over the years most experts believe that the only thing that kept Iran from attacking Saudi and taking their oil was the fear of retaliation from the USA. Is that fear still there. Will Iran take over Saudi oil. China recently brokered a deal between Saudi and Iran to resume relationships. Has Chine agreed to protect Saudi from foreign invasion and in return change petrodollar to petroyuan.

Oligarchs

It is normal for authoritarian leaders and dictators to covet the neighboring territories. China is eyeing Taiwan, for Russia to look at the old Soviet Empire, Iran wants the Middle East and North Korea want South Korea. This is not the case with democracies. France doesn't want to invade German and the US doesn't covet Canada. At the end of WW 2 the allies didn't look for new territory but the Soviets took over half of Europe. These countries all start out with socialism and end up with communism. What do the citizens think of this form of government. Just look at the former Soviet Union. The shelves in their stores were barren and they put up a wall to keep the people from leaving. North Korea is a mess and China has a one man rule and he will do whatever to keep power. He has already disposed of any rivals. Over and over again free market capitalism has proven to be the best type of government but every time the income disparity gets too high the siren call of socialism lures the people into a downward spiral of self destruction. The latest victim was Venezuela where the economy was strong buoyed up by the oil business. The government then decided to nationalize the business so they could share the profits with the poor people. The people were all for this and gave power to the government. In a few short years the economy crashed and the money left the country, Starting in 2014, members of the country's elite and public officials embezzled more than $1 billion from Venezuela's state-owned oil company. The scheme exploited the country's foreign exchange system. The same thing happened in Russia when the Soviet Union collapsed and now there are Russian billionaires (oligarchs) living the good life in places like London while the people are struggling. It always ends up the same way. Like Orwell said, in socialism everyone is equal but some are more equal.

Documents

The rules about dealing with classified government documents is in the news and some what confusing. We are told that all presidents take home classified materials but are suppose to later return them. Some did and some didn't. Let's assume that outgoing President Smith wants to pad his retirement fund so he selects some juicy stuff about a dozen countries with the plan to later sell this information. But he is no fool so he gets all his documents at home and then transfers them to a thumb drive and returns all the originals. Maybe he just has a small amount of critical information so he just commits that to memory. To further add to the confusion former President Clinton took home information on tape and kept it. A group brought a law suit against Clinton to retrieve the tapes but the court said that the tapes were Clinton's personal records and he could keep them. But in a 2012 opinion, the trial judge overseeing Judicial Watch’s lawsuit ruled that even if the tapes should have been designated to be presidential records, she could not order the National Archives to recategorize them. It appears that some refinement in the rules is needed

Prison

One of the reason for collecting statistics is to learn from the past to help make future decisions. The murder rate in the 60's, 70', 80's and 90's was about 9 per 100,000 population. Beginning the late 90's this dropped quickly to 6 per 100,000 and stayed that way until the present day. Most see the 1994 Clinton Crime Bill which allowed states to get tough on crime as the reason for the overall decline in crime. The incarceration rates double since 1990. The obvious conclusion was that if you put criminals in jail you reduce the crime rate. So far so good. Then about ten years ago people realized that there was a disproportionate number of Blacks in prison. While Blacks represent 13% of the general population they were 35% of the prison population. The immediate response was racism even though Blacks are convicted of 50% of all murders and over 90% of those are Blacks killing Blacks. Along comes the solution in the form of social justice. The answer is to reduce the prison population and to quit sending Blacks to jail and thus felonies are being reduced to misdemeanors and no cash bail is the norm. Suddenly there is an increase in crime. There are close to 2 million in state prisons 38% are Black and here is a short list of reasons. Rape and sexual assault 163,000 Murder 158,000 Assault 146,000 Property theft 142,000 Robbery 132,000 Public order 110,000 Drug sales 98,000 possession 34,000 Burglary 80,000

Debate

In a free and open society differences are resolved through debate. There is normally a wide variety of opinions but as discussions continue the majority moves to the center where the two sides face off to reach a final decision. Abortion is a good example. There are some who feel that life begins at conception so any abortion is murder and others feel that abortion can be used at any time for convenience sake. Most people have views somewhere in between the extremes and in time agreements will be reached that satisfy the most people. This is currently being done on a state by state basis. This works as long as the conversation remains logical and civil. If the discussion is about the border but the opening remark is anyone who is for restricting border access is racist the conversation ends and there is no debate. Often times when people resort to name calling it means they cannot present a strong argument in their favor. Resolution requires a willingness to listen to the other side. When you hear words like racist, sexist and homophobic you might as well just go home.

CNN

Since the early days of cable TV CNN was found to be the most trustworthy with 62% and MSNBC at 49% and Fox at 27%. The audience for CNN was 51% democrat, 18% republican and 23% independent while Fox was 39% republican, 33% democrat and 22% independent. During these years surveys showed that CNN was judged as mostly neutral in its coverage. Fox came on in 1996 as a conservative alternative and began taking viewers from CNN. In only a few years ratings dropped to the lowest level in 2012 and CNN has never recovered. A year ago the new CEO came on with the promise to move to the center but everything went down hill and ratings continued to fall. Today he was fired and no one is sure what is going to happen next. They have lost the trust of cable viewers and that may take years to recapture.

ND

I watched this morning the North Dakota governor announce his run for the republican nomination for president. Like most, I had never heard of this man but I was quite impressed with his background. It is another story of only in America and a small town kid starts his own company and succeed in creating thousands of jobs. He like most of us had to work hard growing up and had the support of a loving family. With those two ingredients and living in the USA anything is possible.

Virtue

Virtue signaling is a phrase used currently to describe a public expression intended to show good character and the moral correctness of one's position. A good example is a sanctuary city. This means they welcome all comers and will show them the hospitality they deserve. This was all well and good until migrants started being bused to these cities and then things changed. These are mostly liberal cities so their first response was to immediately ask the federal government for money. The latest attempt to deal with the problem is in NY City where the mayor is looking to place migrants in the homes of private citizens. Since the city votes 80% liberal there should be an overwhelming response to this plan. These people will gladly open their homes to the poor and downtrodden migrants. The mayor says he will pay $40 per night per migrant but I am sure the people will refuse the money because in their hearts they just want to help. The fact that these migrants have not been vetted and may be child molesters or people with past criminal records will have no bearing on the home owners. Get past the sarcasm and understand that it is easy to virtue signal when it does not require action.

VP

The democrats are coalescing around Biden as their guy and this could lead to a president who was not capable of doing the job. It is a long time until the next election and if Biden is showing the early signs of dementia a lot could go wrong. Once these people have committed will they be forced to stay the course no matter what. If Biden's health worsens will he just be hidden away from any public appearances. Once elected he can quickly resign and the VP will take over.

Aliens

In the news this week are reports of alien ship parts on earth. The have been around for a couple of decades but the government has kept it secret. A scientist will tell you that these reports are not believable. Our nearest star is alpha centauri has an earth size planet called proxima b and it is located in an orbit that would allow for liquid water to form. This suggest the possibility of life. Since alpha centauri is 4.37 light years away a ship traveling at 1 million miles per hour would take 30,000 years to get there. If the centaruians had the capability to get here they would certain have radio and those radio transmissions would reach earth in 4.37 years and the US has been looking for radio ways from space for many years and none have been heard. The earth has been sending out radio waves for many years and the first waves have traveled 130 light years. If anyone picked up on them and decided to answer that would mean stars within 65 light years allowing for time out and time back. There are about 2,500 stars within that radius and no messages have been received. As much as I would like to believe in alien civilizations my math tells me they have not been here.

CRT

The talk is about CRT in schools but we have the same thing in society. If you look at the past you can make a good argument that there is systemic racism in the country but if you look at the progress that has been made you see a different America. Teaching CRT in school means covering in detail the bane of slavery, the poor black schools, discrimination in jobs and housing and the Jim Crow laws. If all the history of the past 75 years is added then the picture looks different and that is teaching history. It is telling about the problems and following up with the attempts to solve the problems. Brown v Board of Education and the civil rights laws are two good examples. Having mixed marriage become more acceptable along with affirmative action are steps toward changing attitudes. When you look at how America stands today you see a country that has taken positive measures to right some of the past mistakes. You won't see systemic racism but a country moving away from racism. It is still there but much less so. There are groups who gain power by using racism but they are a small minority. It's time to remove CRT from the schools and from society.

Bureaucrats

It has been my contention that over the years the bureaucracy has increased its power to the point that it is now the forth branch of government and perhaps the most influential. Recently it has been joined by the press which is trying to protect these bureaucrats from having their influence exposed. They can only operate in darkness because according to the constitution they have no real power. Their job is just to serve the other parts of government but the congress and the presidents over the years have seeded their power to the bureaucrats because it was easier than doing the hard word of governing. That is why they fear Trump because he promised to drain the swamp. He was an outsider who could not be controlled. These bureaucrats are now under attack by the congress and they will fight like a cornered animal. They are convinced that only Biden can defeat Trump and like the last time they have a plan B in case Biden fades. They will partner with the press to have Trump arrested but even that many not work and so the are in a panic. As more whistle blowers come forth their only recourse will be to vilify the whistle blowers.

Blackrock

There are three investment firms that own America and they are Blackrock, Vanguard and State Street. These three are the major shareholders in 40% of all publicly listed firms in the United States. Five years ago these firms began urging corporate leaders to assess the societal impact of their businesses, embrace diversity and consider how climate change could affect long term growth. Some early results of this new strategy are in the news these past few weeks and it does not look good. Bush beer and Target have seen experienced big stock losses because they tried unorthodox advertising based on diversity. The real danger here is that politics is interfering with the free market and hurting business. When companies decide to put some social issue in front of return on investment they must be more careful. These big three are encouraging investment companies to shy away from oil stocks in the name of climate change. Those who followed this advice lost out on a huge stock rise over the past 3 years. Exon for example was went from $39 to $115 since 2020.

Rest of the story

Paul Harvey was a radio new personality who had a segment each day on his broadcast called, the rest of the story. He would tell the first part of a story and when he later told the rest it changed the story completely. He illustrated the fact that you need the whole picture to determine the true meaning. If a man rapes and kills an innocent girl and the father of the girl kills the rapist those are both murders but under quite different circumstances and should be judged accordingly. When a woman has an abortion because of a mistake is different than a woman who uses abortion as a form of birth control. The first goes through the painful process of decision making while the second sees it as an inconvenience. You cannot bandy about words like murder and abortion without including the context. Sometimes those on the periphery of an action are faced with difficulty. The doctor who performs the abortion sucks out a mass of human tissue and then must go through it to count all the parts, all the little feet and fingers and make sure all the parts are found. Can this person look at this collection of parts and not see a baby. Is the ability to deny this a matter of cognitive dissonance. Things are not as simple as they first seem.

Napalm

I was too old for the Vietnam War but I remember it vividly because it was on the news every night as we counted the dead, 20 per over the eight years but when they announced the dead they always added that ten times that many Cong died so we felt victorious. We started in a typical patriotic manner assuming our leaders knew what they were doing never knowing until years later how wrong we were. The Generals were out in force saying how America was fighting for democracy and would win. How could we not win, we were the good guys. And then one day I changed and it was not gradual. It was five years into the war in 1972 when I saw on the evening news a picture that would later become infamous. There was a little Vietnamese girl about 10 years old running down the road slowly burning to death with napalm stuck to her skin. From that day on, I realize the whole war was a big mistake that we never really know what we were doing. Many people saw that same picture and the American people were fed up and wanted out. Nixon promised to end the war with honor in his 1972 re election and the number of dead soldiers dropped to almost zero so we cheered that but the stench of the war lingered on. 365,000 Vietnamese were killed in that war. Will this be the fate of the Ukrainians. As we look at the war in Ukraine my only hope is that the equivalent of the napalm girl will hit the evening news and wake up the American people.

Cuts

The idea that lowering taxes will increase government revenues because of increased business activity has come to fruition in the case of the Trump tax cuts which lowered corporate tax rates from 35% to 21%. In the 20 years leading up to these cuts the average revenue increase was less that 3% but since then revenues have risen to 4.5% and projected to increase to 6.5%. This is an one time case but worth considering in future budget talks.

AI

This is a special message to all of those super intellectuals out there who are concerned that we the ignorant masses will be deceived by misinformation. Your job is going to get a lot tougher in the near future. It appears that AI can and will be used to create both audio and video of sophisticated false pictures and stories designed to mislead those of us who are incapable of determining what it real and what is not. You special people may have to put up a site where we, the naive can go for help. While it is possible to be fooled the people that I know use their common sense and if something seems a little crazy do what most people already do, check out other sources before jumping on the band wagon. Most people are fooled because what they are told fits so neatly into their belief.

Get him

Back in 2017 Senator Schmuer gave an ominous warning that was a brief glimpse into the bureaucracy when he said, “Let me tell you, you take on the intelligence community, they have six ways from Sunday at getting back at you,” Schumer told MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow. When Trump campaigned and said he was going to drain the swamp he became the prime target and they have bloodied him good. Schumer knew full well of what he spoke. Cheering them on were the press, academia, Hollywood, the Trump haters and social media. The fact that the government resorted to misinformation, innuendo and censorship made no difference to people who would normally be leery of such activity. Get Trump whatever it takes was the model. Was this a one time thing or will this be used in the future.

New schools

As I worked in 15 high school in the southeast suburbs I became aware that many inner city families would like their children to go to school in the burbs. Teachers were aware of this and talked about it often. The schools out here are like the Taj Mahal. The best buildings, equipment and teachers and most are relatively new. The parents of inner city students who are serious about education and there are many want to send their kids to the burbs but transportation is a problem. I would like to see a new school built designed to accept inner city students. It would only be for serious students and use only a core curriculum of English, math, science, industrial arts and social studies. No extra circular activities. Discipline problems means going back to your old school. Enrollment will be on the lottery system. Teachers will line up to get in a school like this. The students will be picked up at their local school each morning and returned at the days end. Typical courses would be: 4 years English (reading and writing) 2 years math (algebra and geometry with 2 years electives (algebra 2 and calculus) 4 years science (general science, biology with chemistry and physics as electives) 4 years social studies (US history US geography Economics Personal finance Family law Civics). 4 years industrial arts Based on demographics in the St Paul area the students will be 75% Black. Something must be done as the testing gap is embarrassing. Time for a new approach.