Mom....make him quit saying mean things about me

People like to have their opinions validated.  If a car enthusiast buys a Porsche, or BMW, or Audi, he'll likely join their brand's car club, too.  He wants to hear others of like mind tell him how cool his car is and how smart he was to buy it.  If they see a magazine on the newsstand that implies their favorite car smoked the competition, he'll buy it.  If it says his car got creamed in a comparison test, he won't.

The same holds for politics.  A supporter of Elizabeth Warren or some other Progressive will probably choose to watch MSNBC and read the Huff Post.  Their go-to validator will be someone like Rachael Maddow.  Liberals can do no wrong; conservatives can do no right.  They're told what they want to hear, and they like it that way.

Ultra-conservatives work the same way.  They only want to hear and read things about Donald Trump that validate what they already believe.  They watch FOX News and listen to Rush Limbaugh.  They're told what they want to hear, they're patted on the back and made to feel all warm and fuzzy, and they like it that way.

So why were there raised eyebrows when it came out that Sean Hannity is also a client of President Trump's personal lawyer, Michael Cohen?  Hannity is a shill for Donald Trump.  That's a fact.  Did anyone really expect him to seek out Whuppie Goldberg's lawyer?

So why was there a "courtroom gasp" when Hannity's name came out yesterday?  His faithful radical conservatives still love him, probably more than ever, and those liberals who believe him to be the devil incarnate will just dig in their heels deeper, too.  This is just the Fact-Free World we live in today.

Instead of all this political bickering, I propose that from now on we only talk about who has the best football team.  That should be something we can all agree on, right?  *wink*

S

Half of us are crazy, and the rest are just nuts!

It's been a few days now since the senseless killing of 9 worshipers at a church in Charleston, SC.  Tragic....racist....simply beyond comprehension.  But it happened, and it has started the conversation anew about gun control.  And IMHO we have again taken the wrong fork in the road.  We're headed towards a dead end where nothing will happen except get everyone even more polarized and pissed off.

We have lost our sense of reality.  As in most instances, we know what we would LIKE to see happen, without seriously acknowledging what actually CAN happen.  There is quite a difference between the two.

My liberal friends think Congress should pass a law restricting certain types of guns, or even outlaw them all together, similar to what has been done in the past in the UK, Australia, etc.  End of problem, and we all live happily ever after.  La-tee-dah!

My conservative friends think Gubment agents will soon be knocking on their door....no....KICKING THEIR DOOR DOWN....in order to confiscate all their firearms.

The first scenario is a pipe dream, and the second is silly.

No law can change people's thinking.  A law is a signed piece of paper, nothing more.  People have to be willing to accept it before it can have any long-term practical affect on our society (think Prohibition), and a huge portion of our population will NEVER give up their firearms.  ("....when they pry it from my cold, dead hands.")  It simply won't happen.  And no one, no amount of force, can go door-to-door and confiscate people's guns.  There would be blood in the streets. 

And for that same reason, no Gubment agents are going to come into our houses and confiscate our firearms.  There aren't enough police or soldiers to do it, and besides, a good many would probably mutiny if they were ordered to do so.

Nor can they prohibit / buy up all the ammunition, making our guns little more than paperweights.  There are already BILLIONS of rounds of every caliber ammunition you can imagine in private hands.  That goal is even more pie-in-the-sky than confiscating our guns!

Instead of chasing those windmills, why don't we pursue something more realistic, something we can all (?) agree on, like keeping firearms out of the hands of known criminals and the mentally unstable?  How difficult would that be to do?  Damn difficult....but much easier than turning the country upside down looking for several hundred MILLION guns and BILLIONS of round of ammo, and creating a civil war in the process.

Known criminals are just that, known.  They should regularly be subject to random searches of their residences, cars, their persons, etc, to insure they are not in possession of guns they are prohibited having due to their status as felons.  A daunting task for sure, but even if marginally successful, likely to yield immediate, noticeable results.

The mentally disturbed....Oooo....that will be tougher.  Who gets to decide who is mentally disturbed?  Their former spouse?  Their next door neighbor with an ax to grind?  Will counselors and therapists rat out their patients who they suspect might be dangerous, without having any real proof?  Will that doctor / patient confidentially thing come into play?  I dunno.  Still, I think this, more than anything else, will make our country safer.  

We must somehow identify those among us who are disturbed enough, desperate enough, hate-filled enough, to resort to violence.  Making this a national priority should start NOW.  We can talk this subject to death and accomplish nothing, or we can get real and maybe see something good come of this tragedy.

S

Chameleon Man

It's funny to me how everyone today wears a label of one sort or another, usually "liberal" or "conservative".  I'll write one thing, and my conservative friends will scream, "He's a raving liberal".  Then a few weeks later I'll give another of my unsolicited opinions and my liberal friends will yell, "Oh no, he's sipped at the Tea Party well."  Truth is my opinions are usually based on a longer ranged, common sense, outcome based models.  Consider this:

I saw this in a recent online business journal....

Our income is grossly unequal and needs to become more balanced.

*I knew it.  He's gone raving liberal.*  Look carefully.  Look at the dates of the last time things got this skewed.  1928-1932, the beginning of The Great Depression.  When the massive, consuming middle class is held down, our economic system bursts under the strain.  We almost saw that in 2008, but were saved (temporarily?) to see stock market highs again today grow into the stratosphere.  Can this go on forever?  Does anything?

Look at our most stable period, 1948-1970.  Our largest employer was GM, and their average pay/benefits adjusted to 2014 dollars was over $50 an hour.  Today our largest employer is Walmart, and their average store employee makes $8.81.  Figuring in their executives and salaried workers, their average pay packet is still only $12.78 an hour.  Numbers like those don't have the buying power to keep our economy going indefinitely.

Beginning in about 1970 (see chart) we became enamored with the idea of "trickle down economics"....giving breaks to the more affluent so they can accumulate even more wealth and use it to create new jobs for an expanding middle class, or so the theory went.  As we now see, many of those new jobs were often bottom-feeding jobs, but *big shock* the 0.1% began their rapid rise to controlling 22% of our wealth.  Again, this can't go on indefinitely.  Never worked, never will.

Change tack:

We need to approve the Keystone pipeline ASAP.  *Oh Jeez....now he's a card carrying Tea Partyer.*  Why?  Because the oil will make it south anyway, only more and more will come here via railroad tank cars, traveling through towns and cities, where accidents and terrorism can bring down havoc on us all.  Common sense says moving oil by rail is NOT ideal.

Plus this is just one more component in some day making us energy independent.  That means more US dollars staying at home vs going overseas to countries that do NOT have our best interests at heart.  It will make us STRONGER, and it's at a time of economic strength that we can begin to phase out all the tax breaks, subsidies, and other perks the wealthy have used since the 1970's to gain a strangle-hold on the middle class.  Over time income will begin to level out, and in the long run we'll all be better off for it.

Is the US going downhill?  Unless we do something, yes, we probably are.  But does it HAVE to be this way?  NO, not at all!  We need to sit together, liberals and conservatives, look at things from a longer ranged perspective and not just from a "what's in it for me now" position, dust off our 'common sense' gene, and make some tough decisions.

It's the start of a new year.  Let's begin it with a new, can-do attitude.  Anyone have the guts to give it a try?  Think we can get any politicians to compromise for our common good?

S

Economics For Dummies

Income inequality....everyone is talking about it these days.  And by "everyone" I really just mean those who can think, and those who don't limit their reading to publications that have some knocked-up starlet on the cover and ads about how to spackle over your wrinkles.

Just to be different, let's not look at it in liberal or conservative terms.  You know, the argument that "we earned it, it's ours, you can't have it" (conservative) or "the Man skims off all the profits and pays the workers a subsistence minimum wage" (liberal).  Let's be pragmatic for once.  How is income inequality REALLY affecting us, besides just politically polarizing us?

The Reader's Digest condensed version?....Not enough people have enough disposable income (income left over after just paying for the bare necessities) to buy enough "stuff" to justify business expansion.  Without business expansion no new jobs will be created and unemployment will remain high, which means many people won't have the disposable income to buy "stuff", which won't create business expansion....  It's a vicious circle.

But our unemployment rate is down from 10% in 2009 (?) to 6.3% today.  That's good, right?  

"Lies, damn lies, and statistics."  Many of those newly employed are working low paying retail / burger flipping jobs, paying a fraction of what they were making before the recession.  Or they are only working part time.  Many have given up looking at all and are living in mama's basement.

But we ARE buying stuff.  LOTS of stuff.  

Umm, sort of, but only by going head-over-heels in debt.  Household (consumer) debt is crushing the middle class.  We're living in a house of cards.  We can't go on like this forever.

So while the middle class hasn't received a raise in 20+ years (after allowing for inflation), the wealthy have seen their income rise by well over 200%.  So much that today the wealthy have lots of money, but no where to invest it.  

Publications such as The Wall Street Journal and The Economist estimate that in the US alone there is somewhere between 1 and 2 TRILLION dollars sitting on the sidelines in short-term accounts.  Worldwide they estimate as much as 20 TRILLION dollars is just sitting there.

That much money (or at least some of it) in the hands of a vibrant middle class could buy LOTS of stuff.  Stuff that would need to be manufactured.  Stuff that would necessitate the creation of MILLIONS of new jobs.  The middle class would again be a powerful consumer engine, and remember, our economy is 70% consumer driven.  Again, it's a vicious circle, but this time in a good way.

Now for an exclamation point lemme throw out some cliches:  "A rising tide lifts all boats".  If the middle class does well so will the wealthy, who own the means of production.  Win-win.
  
"A little piece of a big pie is better than a big piece of NO pie".  If we keep going the way we are....well, let's just say that's how revolutions begin.  Beware of the unwashed masses surrounding your house while carrying pitchforks and torches.

You think that couldn't happen here?  Maybe not directly, but in most parts of the world it's common.  Unemployment in the Euro zone for example is over 10%, and the natives are very restless.  Enough discontent around the globe will definitely affect us.

So, we just grab some of the rich folks money and pass it out to the less fortunate, right?  

Hardly!  That's how you kill everyone's incentive to work.  Reform the tax code, stop giving favorable tax breaks, subsidies, etc to those who don't need them.  There are probably other ways to level the field, too, but that alone would go a long way.

One last cliche:  The rich need to wise up and recognize they are  "killing the goose that laid the golden egg".

That's not a liberal or a conservative opinion.  That's a pragmatic fact.

S

Learning about business from Herb

I usually spend my drive time listening to news / talk radio, and yesterday I heard something that really got me to thinking.  The topic was raising the minimum wage and of course the arguments were the same as we've heard time and time again:

The conservative speaker pointed out that raising the minimum wage would help some, but would cost many jobs in the process, making it a net negative to the economy.  He went on to say that no company can pay employees more wages if they don't make the company any more money along the way.

Then the liberal speaker said workers (inflation adjusted) pay, especially at the lowest level, hasn't gone up in 20 years, while the top tier execs have seen their pay go up 200%+ in the same time.  For these people the American dream is just a mirage.  Working even two minimum wage jobs won't support a family.

Both good points, and the argument ended just as it began....square peg, round hole.  

Wanna know what I think?  I think somebody needs to sit down with Herb Kelleher and pick his brain.

This self effacing, hard drinking (Wild Turkey) smooth talking "naturalized" Texan was one of the co-founders, and later the long-time CEO, of Southwest Airlines.  He grew a handful of employees and 3 leased airplanes into the low-cost (?) juggernaut it is today, with over 550 aircraft and 45,000 employees. And they all love him.  (At least the people do, not sure about the planes.)

Herb wasn't noted for throwing around mega paychecks.  In fact, his employees were traditionally some of the lowest paid employees in the industry.  And he was one of the lowest paid major corporate CEO's, too, never receiving a salary of more than a few hundred thousand dollars a year.  (That "good for the goose, good for the gander" thing.)

When their company did well, and it almost always did, they all shared the profits and received stock options, too.  And with that, they all did just fine.  Herb might come across as just an "aw shucks" kinda guy, but I promise you he is ALL business, he is brilliant, and his people trust him.  The unions worked with him because he was fair.

He took care of his employees, never laying off even one, and if they played their cards right, more than a few retired multi-millionaires.  True!  To this day people fight for a job there, positions are that coveted.

Oh, and Herb retired in 2008 filthy rich, too.  (He had juuuuust a few more options than the rest of 'em, rightfully so.)  Herb proved that business doesn't have to be a zero-sum game....for someone to win, someone else does NOT have to lose.

And I don't think many if any of those 45,000 employees give a damn if he's a liberal, a conservative, or a pink unicorn.  So why can't the rest of us figure it out?

S

There's a snake behind every log....LOOK OUT!

par·a·noi·a [par-uh-noi-uh] 

noun

1. baseless or excessive suspicion of the motives of others.

We have got to be the absolute most paranoid people in the world.  I commented on Monday how much I liked the Chrysler Super Bowl halftime commercial.  I found it to be very inspirational.  It talked about the American can-do attitude, pulling together, working hard, never giving up, etc.  I saw nothing political about it.  It was great!  Plus I'm a big Clint Eastwood fan.

Not so the viewers of FOX News.  I read that it was widely panned by them as a blatant attempt to support the Obama administration and thank them for their bail out from a couple years ago.  Huh?  Where did that come from?  

I have some conservative friends (I'm fairly conservative myself) who I think wake up every morning foaming at the mouth, ready to jump into their camo and paint up their faces and go out an hunt 'em some Socialists.  Then at the other extreme I have some more liberal friends who would swear on a Bible (if they have one) that the Huns are at the gate and will soon be goose-stepping up their front sidewalk.

What is wrong with people these days?  My only concern is that one political party or the other will gain control of BOTH houses of Congress AND the White House, and everything I see/hear/read is indicating that's not going to happen.  Just chill, people.  Go take your medicine, or maybe watch a Chrysler commercial.  Sheesh!  ;)

S