PERSPECTIVE: WHITHER THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA?

One should not be surprised at and at the same time deeply concerned about the outcome of the November 6 re-election of Barack Obama. This President came into office in 2008 talking about spreading the wealth, and now he believes he has a mandate to raise taxes on the wealthy come hell or high water. He has a democratically controlled Senate that will rubber-stamp this idea but a House controlled by the Republicans who are against that idea. The Country is divided, and we elect representatives for the House and Senate who are also divided. Consequently, and shock of shock, they are not working together. Thus we are in for stalemate while we continue to face major problems such as the “fiscal cliff”, a non-job creating sluggish economy, huge and growing entitlement driven debt and a middle east about to explode. This is not the first time that a President has had to work with a divided Congress, but at this critical time leadership from this President will be vital!

The problem is that during the last four years President Obama has demonstrated his inability and/or unwillingness to lead. He proudly let Nancy Pelosi develop the “Affordable Healthcare Legislation” (Obamacare). The nearly one trillion dollar stimulus bill was nothing more than a huge pile of “pork” which nearly everyone agrees had virtually no effect on improving the economic condition. On foreign policy he takes pride in “leading from behind”. We need only observe the fiasco of the Terrorist attack on our Consulate in Libya and the murder of our Ambassador and three other Americans to see the lack of leadership on that issue.

Bob Woodward in his latest book, “The Price of Politics” documented Obama’s rudeness to the Republican leaders from the very first days of his becoming President. This past week we saw it again in both Obama’s embarrassing tax increase proposal, and a few days later we saw it again in the way he dismissed the Republican’s counter proposal. Because of such a high-handed approach, it is no wonder that Republicans not only can’t trust Obama, they can barely stand him.

Despite these perfectly clear deficiencies in his leadership capabilities, especially when contrasted with those demonstrated by Romney, and notwithstanding that Obama may just be following Saul Alinski’s principles for destroying the country, a majority of the voters decided to keep Obama anyway. So, we are stuck with this kind of inadequate and inappropriate leadership.

However, the Country simply can’t afford Four More Years like we have just finished. So what can be done? Perhaps the Congressional Democrats could persuade Obama to hire Colin Powell for some key advisory position in the Administration. Why? Well, Powell has just co-written a book on Leadership. Perhaps he could teach Obama how to lead. Moreover, Powell endorsed Obama thus there may be a buddy to buddy relationship which will help our Country at this dangerous time.

But let’s assume the worst from this President and his clueless entourage. What is in store for the Country? Is it doomed, will it fall apart? Will the takers increase to a point where the makers can’t give any more? Worse, will the makers decide to make it in an other country? In this digital age that is distinctly possible.

The good news is that we have two very important assets which will be vital for not only our survival but for the United States to continue to be the powerhouse we have been for the past two centuries.

These assets are:

• An unbelievable abundance of energy supplies

• The best Universities in the world for creating cutting-edge technology

The energy resources are so enormous that no government will be able to shunt them aside or completely control them regardless of theories that utilization of these fossil materials may cause and/or exacerbate so-called global warming. Specifically, we are talking about the super abundance of natural gas found a mile underground which is already being liberated and additional supplies being discovered a mile or so below that. We are now told that our Country has the largest supply of natural gas and oil on the planet

Compressed natural gas (CNG) is the perfect fuel of our trucks, trains and even automobiles. Already fleets of busses and trucks are being converted to CNG. Not only is it less expensive than diesel fuel and gasoline, it is more environmentally friendly. It produces only half of the so-called greenhouse gases of any fossil fuel, and it produces virtually none of the toxic gases of coal or petroleum. Moreover, it does not require a refinery to convert the oil to fuel. Equally important, it avoids using increasingly scarce food stuffs such as corn and soybeans to make ethanol and bio-diesel.

An ancillary benefit of converting our trucks and cars to CNG is that we can stop importing OPEC controlled oil. This not only will strengthen the dollar, but will permit a complete overhaul of our foreign policy. The United States would no longer need to place expensive military equipment and personnel in Arab territories to protect the supply of oil. We could then let the Chinese and the Russians, who have never supported us, take over that role.

Chemicals and plastics can also be manufactured from natural gas. It is a perfect raw material, and natural gas is perfect for heating the chemical plant boilers, as well. Already Shell Chemical and Dow Chemical have announced multibillion dollar plants based on this low cost supply of natural gas

In addition to the above, the idea of low cost electricity made from natural gas is being eyed by manufacturers who, utilizing the latest digital high tech technology, can now afford to bring manufacturing back to the United States.

As regards our second resource, namely that our universities are the best in the world and at the cutting edge of science, technology, engineering and mathematics, (STEM), the problem is they are not producing enough graduates who major in STEM. Today after spending about

$ 200,000 for a four year college degree only half of the graduates can find employment commensurate with their degree. However, the ones who majored in STEM are having no difficulty finding very remunerative jobs. In fact the demand is so great for STEM graduates in the United States that the starting salary for a chemical engineer needed to design and run the aforementioned Shell and Dow chemical plants is
$ 125,000.

In short, the good news is that the force of this natural gas windfall is so powerful that any attempt by Obama’s Czars to throttle it will fail. Further, we don’t have to reconstruct the K-12 system to solve the stem problem as the Obama administration suggests. We simply have to find a way to encourage the half of college students who are taking courses for which there are no jobs, to take courses for which there are jobs. In other words to major in STEM.

These are the questions that will be considered in future blogs as we examine the broad question of “Whither the United States of America?

PERSPECTIVE: WHY LEADERSIP MATTERS.

Any Committee or Group must have a leader, or else it will not produce what is wanted. The leader of a committee is called the Chairperson. The Committee we are concerned about that lacks leadership is the United States Congress and Senate. The leader of that group should be the President of the United States. The Country is divided, and we elect representatives who match that division. So, we can bitch all we want about the ineffectiveness and stalemate of these two groups, but the only way there can be any progress forward is if a strong leader steps up to lead and knows how to lead. We need only to observe President Obama, and notice that, because he fails to lead, the Country is stalemated.

As President, with a democratically controlled House and Senate, he chose to let Nancy Pelosi develop the “Affordable Healthcare Legislation” (Obamacare) which contains some 2400 pages of stuff that Nancy said had to be passed before we could read and understand it. His nearly one trillion dollar stimulus bill, was nothing more than a huge pile of “pork” which he said he is against. Everyone agrees that it had virtually no effect on improving the economic condition. On foreign policy he takes pride in “leading from behind”. We only need know about the fiasco of the Terrorist attack on our Consulate in Libia and the murder of our Ambassador to see the lack of leadership, and worse, buck passing..

So the Administration is now taking a page out of Bill Clinton’s book, “It depends on what the meaning of we is”. And what does “we” mean? Does it mean the Administration? Does it mean the State Department? The Defence Department? The National Security Council?

It is unthinkable that our Government did not see the latest episode of Terrorist activity coming. There were two prior attacks on our Benghazi facility this past Spring. Moreover, we have a National Security Council that is constantly meeting and supposedly updating the President every day on the status of the “War on Terror”? the problem we have with this President and his Administration is that as far as they are concerned, there are no “Terrorists Attacks”. Remember Fort Hood?

Oops, we know that would be the case: Obama missed the National Security meeting the day after we were told that Terrorists were responsible for the destruction of the Consulate and the murder of our Ambassador because of he had an urgent need to fly to Las Vegas for campaigning. Now, we have been informed that he misses about half of these NSC meetings. Perhaps his missing that meeting explains why Omama, Secretary of State Hilary Clinton our UN Ambassador, Susan Rice and Press Secretary Carey failed to get the message from the NSC and days later kept stating it was not a Terrorist attack but merely a predictable reaction to a nasty American-made anti-Muslim movie.

Not only is this embarrassing, it is an outrage beyond belief, and it is a dereliction of duty! We have been under attack from the Islamic radicals ever since Bin Ladin first declared war on the United States during Clinton’s Administration about 20 years ago. Subsequently, we have witnessed one Terrorist attack on US property after another. It started with the first attack on the World Trade Center then the attacks on two of our Embassies in Africa, then the attack on the Cole, to the 911 destruction of the World Trade Center Buildings, the Pentagon and the diverted Crash in Pennsylvania to the massacre at Camp Hood. In addition there were several thwarted attempts to kill Americans and now the assination of our Ambassador and three other Americans at the Consulate in Benghazi in Libia.

What I have just revealed is what you already knew or surmised. Now, for more evidence of the lack of Obama’s leadership, you can read Bob Woodward’s new book, “The Price of Politics”. Woodward is not a conservative ideologue by any means, but he manages to reveal on page after page that Obama not only doesn’t like to deal one-on-one with members of the other party, he is downright rude to them. Woodward documents that Obama was so rude to the Republican leaders from the very first days of his becoming President, that they not only can’t trust him but can barely stand him.

Moreover, Woodward confirms that Obama and his Administration’s approach to most problems is from a passive position. They wait for things to develop before they even consider acting. We knew this! Recall that during the financial collapse of 2008 John McCain rushed from the campaign trail back to Washington because, as a Senator, he felt obligated to do that. Do you recall where Senator Obama was? That’s right! He remained back on the campaign trail waiting to learn more. Somehow Obama’s followers think this is a very intellectual and “cool”, a sign of his being unflappable. Wrong!! This is the sign of a person who does not know what to do and stalls action on the preface that more and more information is needed. This is a telltale sign of a person who does not know how to lead, is afraid to lead or deliberately wants the system to collapse for some ideological objective. God only know what, but it is totally unacceptable. Worse, in the case of Benghenzi, the dereliction of duty may be impeachable.

It really does not matter just why Obama does not lead. It only matters that he DOES NOT LEAD! At this very challenging time in our Nation’s History we not only need a strong experienced leader, WE MUST HAVE A STRONG EXPERIENCED LEADER

Now let’s look at Romney. He played a major leadership role in hugely successful Bain Capital where he led his business partners to take over failing companies and resurrect them into viable organizations in the face of the extremely competitive worldwide business environment. Then he left that job to help the failing 2002 Olympics, and he led the 2002 Olympics to be one of the most successful of all time, placing a “feather in the USA cap at the same time. Then as Governor of Massachusetts he led the State’s democratically controlled House and Senate to enact laws that set the State on a course to balance their budget, reduce unemployment, improve their public education and pass a healthcare bill that works for the State.

THAT IS A LOT OF LEADING!!

So, what else do you have to know about what the key issue is this election cycle. Obama is not the man we need. He has already demonstrated that he is either incompetent and does not want to lead or that he wants the country to fail so that, “Saul Alinski style” the country can be rebuilt as a socialistic state. Regardless of the “why”, he as already failed us and must be replaced. We simply can’t afford Four More Years

By contrast, there is a man of proven ability to lead, and who has the personality, demeanor, along with the brain power and experience to define the problems and create solutions along with the skill and willingness to persuade persons of differing views to follow.

That man is MITT ROMNEY!!

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PERSPECTIVE: WHAT DOES OUR EDUCATION SYSTEM NEED?

When you listen to our politicians speak about what is needed to produce jobs, you will hear a lot about improving our ‘Infrastructure”. By this they mean improving our roads, bridges, and our K-12 educational system. Lately, especially because of the teachers strike in Chicago, the emphasis is on education. President Obama recently stated that what is needed to upgrade school quality is to add teachers and reduce class size.

To determine what our education system really needs, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation funded a multi-million dollar study to “Learn about Teaching”, and their first report has been published.

Prior to reading this report, I had the chance to hear Melinda Gates being interviewed by Brian Williams of NBC News, and Williams asked her whether there was one single issue that rose above all others with regard to improving education. She responded, “Yes, it is a good teacher”. Then Williams asked if there was a second. Again, she responded, “Yes, a supporting parent”. And as the report mentions: “For four decades, educational researchers have confirmed what many parents know: children’s academic progress depends heavily on the talent and skills of the teacher leading their classroom. Although parents may fret over their choice of school and class room size, research suggests that their child’s teacher assignment in that school matters a lot”

Well, I just about fell out of my chair in shock. I KNEW THAT, AND YOU KNEW THAT! What is fascinating is that any, and I mean any, graduate of the K-12 public education system can tell you who was the best teacher and who made the biggest impact on their life. Now as the report shows, every student knows, as well. It turns out nearly everyone knows it, EXCEPT PRESIDENT OBAMA AND THE TEACHER’S UNION.

It is to the credit of Bill and Melinda Gates that they are providing the wherewithal to probe deeply into what makes a good teacher. Their findings from their Measures of Effective Teaching Project (MET) are found in a research paper that can be downloaded from the Internet. It is quite erudite in its detail and analysis, and qualifies as excellent research.

The three premises of the MET Project were:

• Whenever possible, a teacher’s evaluation should include his or her student’s achievement gains.

• Any additional components of the evaluation (e.g., classroom observations, student feedback) should be demonstrably related to student achievement gains.

• The measure should include feedback on specific aspects of how a teacher teaches to support the teacher’s growth and development in teaching skills.

The MET project measured teaching of mathematics and English in grades 4-8 and then added three courses that serve as gateways to high school, namely, Algebra I, grade 9 English and biology. The following data were collected from the classrooms.


• Student achievement gains on different assessments

• Classroom observations and teacher reflections

• Teacher’s pedagogical content knowledge (knowledge of how to teach, not just their content knowledge)

• Student perceptions of the classroom instructional environment



The MET student perception survey gathered information from the students under seven headings called the Seven C’s which are:

Care: How the teacher treats students

Control: How the teacher maintains discipline

Clarify: How well the teacher explains things

Challenge: How the teacher pushes students to work hard

Captivate: How the teacher keeps school work interesting

Confer: How the teacher determines whether the student understands

Consolidate: How the teacher summarizes what has been learned



What has Been Learned So Far:

• In every grade and subject, a teacher’s past track record of value added (what a teacher contributes to what a student could learn on its own) is among the strongest predictors of their students’ achievement gains in other classes and academic years. In other words, teachers who lead students to achievement gains in one year or in one class tend to do so in other years and other classes.

• Teachers with high value-added tend to promote deeper conceptual understanding on state tests as well. Many are concerned that high value-added teachers are simply coaching children to do well on state tests. However, in the MET analysis so far, that does not seem to be the case.

• Teachers as measured on state assessments, have larger effects on math achievement than on achievement in reading or English Language Arts. It is believed that this finding may be due to limitations of the current state tests which typically consist of multiple-choice questions of reading comprehension, because when using a test that requires written responses, a teacher’s impact is comparable to that found in mathematics.


• Student perceptions of a given teacher’s strengths and weaknesses are consistent across the different groups of students they teach. Moreover, students seem to know effective teaching when they experience it. It turns out that student perceptions in one class are related to the achievement gains in other classes taught by the same teacher. Most important are students’ perceptions of a teacher’s ability to control a classroom and to challenge students with rigorous work.


Conclusions From the Study:
• Children’s academic progress depends heavily on the talent and skills of the teacher leading the class room.

• Individual teachers receive little feedback on the work that they do because teacher evaluation is a perfunctory exercise. Principals go trough the motions of visiting classrooms with checklists in hand only to give the same satisfactory rating to all teachers. This makes it easy for school administers because all they have to do is find out who is good enough to have tenure and seniority.



So Why is it So Difficult to Solve This Problem?



President Obama and his kind believe there should be equal outcomes in all endeavors including teaching. They can’t stand rewarding exceptional performance. That is what all this class warfare is about. Unfortunately for the country and especially for our children, when equal outcomes are applied to teachers, the quality of teachers as a whole sinks to the lowest denominator. The idea of tenure and seniority in any endeavor is not only non-productive, it runs counter to nature. This philosophy is what is causing our schools to fail. It is as simple as that, and it turns out that everyone, even a student knows it.!



Can the Problem Be Solved?

Yes! But we must find a way to do two things:

1. Give teachers the mentoring and opportunity to develop to their fullest capability

2. Pay the best teachers commensurate to their performance as evidenced in the development of their students achievement gains.



To do this the education community must develop and install the administration infrastructure that focuses on and hires administrative personnel who have the knowledge and training to develop the teachers. This may require by-passing the Teacher’s Unions, or it may require privatizing the public schools.


An alternative way to deal with this would be to covert our classrooms to digital. In this case the expert teacher is piped into the class room via TV and is interactive with the student. The lecturing teacher of the past is replaced in the class room by a monitor who keeps discipline, and attends to the needs of those students who fail to understand the information. This information is conveyed to the monitor via computer which tracks each student’s performance as they respond to tests while progressing at their own speed. The fact that it is right up to the latest digital technology will have the ancillary benefit of

When you consider that our country has a severe shortage of graduates with knowledge in science, engineering, technology and mathematics, we cannot delay action to make up for this critical shortage if we are to be competitive in the new global and digital world. No matter which course is taken, something must be done soon because we are rapidly losing our competitive edge.

PERSPECTIVE: WHAT DO LIBERALS WANT?

Many of us conservatives ask: “Just what do liberals want?” They voted for Obama despite his not being vetted properly. No one can be absolutely sure when and where he was born, where he went to college, what subjects he took and what grades he received. He demands to see Romney’s tax returns but refuses to provide the above information. If you happen to have a normal conversation with an ordinary everyday democrat, you are likely to be told that they voted for Obama but are not terribly pleased with everything he has done. However, they will add that: “He inherited a terrible problem and is doing a pretty good job handling it”.

A critical review of Obama’s policies, his lack of leadership and his public pronouncements clearly show that Obama has done a terrible job. And it reveals, if anything, that he is a socialist. The mainstream Media naturally tell us that this is not true. Even a so-called “fair and balanced” newscaster such as Bill O’Reilly is reluctant to call what is going on in front of our eyes as socialism. Unfortunately, many of the liberal class do not dig into the facts because they are preoccupied with living or because they do not see or care to find out what is really going on.

What is going on is far more sinister that the average citizen would or could imagine. The fact of the matter is that we have been fed a pack of lies about Obama’s background, his policies and from whence comes his support. So, what is really going on? David Horowitz and Jacob Laksin in their new book explain in simple language what is going on. The title of the book is: “The New Leviathan”. The definition of leviathan is:

“Something large or formidable, such as a sea monster or a totalitarian state having a vast bureaucracy”

The jist of the book is that large 501C3 tax deductible Foundations such as Ford, Rockefeller, MacArthur, Pew, Woods etc., which were created from funds accumulated by their capitalist founders, are now being led mostly by liberals who fund liberal programs. Most frightening, is the fact that the grants from several Foundations combine to fund the same liberal cause. This creates much larger incomes than that cause would normally obtain, and thus their influence can be much larger than normal. The authors cite The Thomas Merton Center as an example of an umbrella organization of thirty five left-wing groups that sends protestors to disrupt conservative organization gatherings.

However, it turns out that government bureaucrats can hire organizations and personnel from the Foundations for politically related studies. If you are beginning to sense the size of this monster and its influence on government policy, you are correct.

The book details the kinds of liberal causes the Foundations fund that are having such an insidious impact on our personal lives and business ventures. Examples include: Anti Capitalism, Environmental Issues, Anti-War, Global Justice, Public Broadcasting, Redistribution of the Wealth and individual liberal community organizations such as ACORN and a host of Saul Alinisky based entities.

It is interesting to learn from the authors that Bill Ayers brought Obama onto the Board of Chicago Annenberg Challenge, a left-wing Foundation that provided educational grants and was pursuing Alinsky politics in Chicago Schools. Of course, Obama said he did not know Bill. He only casually met him at a neighborhood party. Yeah, sure he did!!!

Let’s consider just one liberal cause of the many discussed in the book to illustrate how powerful these Foundations are. Various environmental groups such as EarthJustice, the Natural Resources Defense Council, and Environmental Defense Fund promote man-made global warming as though it were absolutely gospel. They and massive investment by left-wing foundations have influenced disproportionately the policical debate and conned the main stream Media and many politicians in both parties to believe man-made global warming is a scientifically proven fact.

Many of the persons who have worked for these Foundations end up in positions of power in the United States and State governments. For example, Carol Browner, a believer in man-made global warming, is Obama’s environmental “expert”. She and the other environmental activists in the EPA do everything possible to get programs in place to reduce the green house gases that they claim are the cause of global warming. So, they tried to have Congress pass a law under the Clean Air Act, which controls toxic gases, to add carbon dioxide. When Congress refused to do this, they got Obama to approve an executive order claiming that carbon dioxide is a toxic substance. We should have expected Congress to be beside itself at such an outrageous idea and furious at the encroachment on their authority. But have we heard any complaint about it from them? Nor has the Media chosen to expose this outrageous seizure of power on the part of the Executive Branch.

Ask yourself when was the first time you heard the word photosynthesis? You were probably in grammar school where it used to be taught. To refresh your memory, this is the process where the chlorophyll in plants in the presence of sun light catalyzes the conversion of carbon dioxide taken from the air into carbohydrates which make up the leaves, stems and flowers of plants and the wood in trees, all the while emitting oxygen. Carbon dioxide is also the chemical that every human and every animal emits after the oxygen they intake is converted to carbon dioxide in their body.



There is no way that carbon dioxide is toxic! Perhaps, Browner and her ilk got carbon dioxide confused with carbon monoxide which really is a toxic gas that some people pipe into their cars from their exhausts to commit suicide. In the world of yesteryear when we taught common sense as early as grammar school, even a school kid would have laughed anyone out of the room who claimed that carbon dioxide was a poison.



What is particularly disgusting is how small the amount of man-made carbon dioxide is being emitted. According to the authors, the atmosphere contains about 38 molecules of carbon dioxide for every 100,000 molecules of air. To that concentration man-made carbon dioxide emissions have added only one molecule every five years.

What is sillier is this! If you want to talk about green house gases, you have to include clouds which consist of water vapor, and methane both of which are naturally occurring gases. Methane is emitted from cattle, other animals including humans and the composting of vegetation. Composting is just loved by environmentalists, but they never acknowledge that the methane and carbon dioxide that are emitted are green house gases. Methane and water vapor turn out to be the most effective of green house gases. By the way, each of these green house gases can kill you. It depends on how they are administered. You may recall that lungs filled with water or carbon dioxide that replace oxygen which cause asphyxiation which will cause death. Methane will also cause asphyxiation, but it is in fact toxic.

What is really scary and should be of great concern, is the length that the radical liberals will go to get control of our lives. One needs to know that this brand of liberals, and Obama is their most famous member, is made up of Saul Alinski protégés. Alinski taught that the establishment should be destroyed so that it could be rebuilt on the Command and Control principles of Socialism and Communism. The cap and trade bill which is designed to reduce carbon dioxide emissions for the burning of coal, oil and other fossil fuels, will needlessly increase the cost of living and production for every citizen in the United States. It is just one of their tools to bring down our great country.

It was only seventy five years ago that Hitler and his Nazi Party overtook Germany with the big lie about the Jews. His mantra was that a big lie told often and loud enough becomes accepted as the truth. The United States had to destroy Hitler to get rid of that lie. What can “We the People” do to destroy these lies? That’s right! Vote those associated with the New Leviathan out of our government. Your God Given Right to Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness depends on it!!

PERSPECTIVE: WHILE ROME BURNS.

Is there anything more frustrating than to hear our politicians talk about inane and irrelevant subjects while our economy continues to decline and job growth continues to be weak or non-existent? Actually it is worse than we thought! Did you ever imagine that millions of people would be collecting unemployment insurance for as long as two years with no end in sight? And I will bet that many have heard stories of persons on unemployment who have been offered jobs who did not want to start until their unemployment insurance runs out. Then, how about the 45 million Americans who received food stamps in 2011? That is nearly 15% of our population, and the number is growing! The irony is that the Food Stamp program is administered by the a US Department (Agriculture) while another US Department (Interior) runs the Park System where visitors are admonished not to feed the animals lest they be incapable of foraging for themselves.

Anyone who watches Nature at work knows that you cannot run counter to Nature’s laws very long before you will be greatly harmed. The Food Stamp program and paying people to be idle runs counter to Nature’s Laws and America will surely be severely harmed if we don’t stop this ASAP. Our days are numbered! We have to stop “feeding the animals” so they won’t forget how to “forage” for themselves. Have we forgotten that Man is an integral part of the Animal Kingdom?

Getting our economy growing with the attendant job creation is not only an important issue, it is the only issue! If we don’t get some economic growth and job creation soon, does anyone believe that we will be any more capable of reducing or terminating the food stamp program than we can adjust Social Security or Medicare? To accomplish any modicum of growth and job creation, we will need strong and experienced leadership This Presidential election is doubtless one of the most important we will ever see, and this one is all about leadership. We desperately need the most capable and experienced leader possible.

Obama is not that person! He has no leadership experience, and he has learned nothing about leadership on the job and has demonstrated that he has no clue what to do. Worse he has surrounded himself with incompetence. It is instructive to note that every time Obama opens his mouth he makes a Freudian Slip which tells us that he would not do the correct thing even if he did know how, because he is an ideologue. We saw this in his conversation with Joe the Plumber during the campaign of 2008 when he talked openly about distributing the wealth. Then it happened recently when he blurted out that no innovator or business has succeeded without Government help. This is ridiculous, to say the least, and socialistic to tell the whole truth. He also showed his ignorance of how innovation really works when he claimed that Microsoft and other digital technology companies needed the miniaturization of electronic circuitry developed by the US Government space program and to become successful. Actually, it is the other way around; the US space program needed the invention of the transistor to miniaturize circuitry. That device was invented in the late 1940’s in Bell Labs in New Jersey, a private entity owned by AT&T. You may recognize that the name Bell came from Alexander Bell, whom most grammar school kids could name as the inventor of the telephone.

The Media would have us believe that these statements and comments are “gaffs”. That is nonsense; they are “Freudian Slips” which, as described by Dr. Sigmund Freud, are deeply held beliefs that “slip” out revealing what one actually believes about the subject at hand.

For further perspective on why the President must provide the leadership we need at this critical time, you can see what happened when Obama delegated the development of the Obamacare legislation to Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House and Harry Read, Senate Majority Leader. They produced an abomination that even the democrat members of the House and Senate had to hold their noses and be bribed to pass. It is an old adage that if you assign a committee to build a horse it will invariably come out as a camel. Congress cannot lead, period.

Meanwhile, Romney has the demonstrated experience needed to lead and to turn around disasters. The problem is that the President and the Media have chosen to keep that knowledge from the voters by denigrating and distorted Romney’s record of leadership and turnaround achievements. Moreover, they constantly berate him and distract voters for his not providing more tax returns. They and we both already know what they will show. Romney is extremely rich and pays taxes commensurate with the return on capital he has invested not from a salary. Most of the time he receives no salary for the services he renders. Yes, Romney is rich, but it is not inherited; he gave all his inherited wealtxn ddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddv away to charities. What he currently earned he earned on his own by investing in US businesses. Remember you do not become rich by failing.

Romney’s experience in the business community is amazing. By any standard Bain Capital is a huge success, especially where businesses must deal with intense global and digital competition. Founded in 1984, Romney and his partners started Bain with $37 million of private capital which they raised. Bain then invested in or acquired and often turned around hundreds of failing companies and in the process it created thousands of jobs. Today, Bain manages $66 billion of investor capital.

Bain Capital’s performance is considered so exceptional that it is being used by the Business Schools as an example of how to turn around a failing company in a global economy. Imagine if Romney had been the CEO of Eastman Kodak, a firm that invented and owned the camera and silver based film business from the get go only to lose it to global competition when they failed to recognize the significance of the digital camera. Under his leadership Kodak would probably still be a major US business icon instead of residing on the trash pile of failed US companies.

Another example of Romney’s leadership skills is his saving the Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games of 2002 which were planned for Salt Lake City. Here is what happened. Before Romney took a leave of absence and left his day-to-day tasks as CEO of Bain in 1999, the Olympic program was $379 million short of needed income, and they were planning to scale it back. Those who followed the issue inform us that Romney ran the planning for the Games like a business. He revamped the organization’s leadership and policies, reduced budgets, and he boosted fundraising by alleviating the concerns of corporate sponsors, while recruiting many new ones. With Romney’s leadership and business acumen the Games were turned from a failure to a huge success and put a feather in the “US Cap”. Doesn’t this sound like what is needed for the US economy right now?

The United States is still the most innovative country in the world, with the greatest universities, abundant energy and natural resources, and excellent workers. So, what is causing our decline? Our Politicians and our Media! In particular we are talking about our President, the members of the Senate and the Congress who refuse to take meaningful action.

Nearly everyone knows that the major factors that inhibit our getting the economy back on track are:

• Government taxes and regulations choke private enterprise and make it non-competitive in the global markets.

• The new digital revolution requires skills that the US has a shortage of

• The lack of concrete plans to control our unsustainable and growing debt caused by entitlement programs such as Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security creates uncertainty in the business community.

Clearly, Romney has the credentials that are required to lead, and the business experience that is needed to bring back the confidence that the business community must have to invest in the United States. But to win this election, he must guard against the distractions and untruths that the Media and Obama can throw at him. This is what is happening now. Obama is using class warfare to distract us by making us believe that no one can be successful without the prior government creation of technology and infrastructure. Moreover, the ultimate in badness is if becoming successful makes one rich. Romney fits that pattern perfectly because he is rich and is in the “One Percent” that Obama constantly castigates in his promotion of class warfare. This makes him the perfect person for them to harangue and produces an opportunity for Obama and the Mainstream Media, that is Obama’s compliant partner, to obfuscate the facts and demagogue the issues.

We are pleased that Romney at last has starting to lash back at Obama’a silly slip. But he has yet to spell out a job-creation plan that the ordinary voter can understand. He must spell this out and repeat it over and over in the simplest language possible. My earlier blog about using our abundant supply of natural gas to replace oil for our vehicles would be a good starting point.

Finally, it is crucial that we rid ourselves of those politicians who continue to “fiddle while the conflagration grows”.

PERSPECTIVE: WHAT GENERATION Y WILL NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THE JOB MARKET THEY ARE ABOUT TO ENTER

As a result of globalization and the digital revolution, we are experiencing a paradigm shift in the way business is conducted and how it will be conducted from now on. Many of the private sector jobs that have been lost will not be replaced. This will impact the so-called Generation Y, those born from 1990 to the present. These are our grandchildren, and the structures that mentored their parents and grandparents as they entered the market in their time are no longer there. The reason for my writing this blog is to see if we can provide our grandchildren some ideas of how to deal with this new phenomenon. It is timely because the oldest of our grandchildren are graduating from college or other schools and are about to enter the job market.

For perspective, when we the grandparent generation entered the workforce, we could largely count on being employed by the same firm, and often at the same location, for our entire career. For the most part this was true of our children’s generation, as well. Our bosses mentored us and helped us advance in our careers. But for our grandchildren entering the workforce today, that is a very unlikely scenario. It is highly probable that the job one starts with will not even be in existence beyond five years, let alone at one’s retirement. Consequently, our grandchildren will have to be their own mentors, career planners and managers of their health programs and retirement plans. While they are at the peak of their skill level in terms of the digital revolution which they acquired in grammar and high school, these young folk are poorly prepared to be their own mentors and career planners let alone how to set up health and retirement programs from day one in their first job.

Unfortunately, their parents, their grandparents and their teachers don’t have much of an idea of how to help them. However, there is a book that can serve as a primer for them. It is titled: “The Start-Up of You” with the sub-title: “Adapt to the Future, Invest in Yourself and Transform Your Career” by Reid Hoffman and Ben Casnocha. Hoffman is an entrepreneur, co-founder and Chairman of LinkedIn  and Casnocha is an entrepreneur and  journalist. The book’s website is: www.startupofyou.com

The authors state that: “Whether you’re a lawyer, doctor, teacher, engineer or business owner, today you need to also think of yourself as an entrepreneur at the helm of at least one living, growing start-up venture, your career.” According to the dictionary an entrepreneur is: “Someone who organizes a business venture and assumes the risk for it”.

They authors further state: “With the death of traditional career paths, so goes the kind of traditional professional development previous generations enjoyed. You can no longer count on employer-sponsored training to enhance your communication skills or expand your technical know-how. The expectation for even junior employees is that you can do the job you have been hired to do upon arrival or that you’ll learn so quickly you’ll be up to speed within weeks. Whether you want to learn a new skill or simply be better at the job you were hired to do, it’s now your job to train and invest in yourself.” A further point the authors make is this. “There used to be a long-term pact between employee and employer that guaranteed lifetime employment in exchange for lifelong loyalty. This pact has been replaced by a performance-based, short-term contract that’s perpetually up for renewal by both sides. Professional loyalty now flows ‘horizontally’ to and from your network rather than ‘vertically’ to your boss.” THIS SHOULD COME AS A SHOCK!! Because I doubt that any of us, especially our grand children have ever been told this.

Let’s start by asking why the jobs are not there? Simply stated, it is because entrepreneurs cannot figure out what to do. Newspapers, magazines and books are falling to the new digital technologies and all businesses are determining how and where the new digital technologies will fit to reduce the need for human personnel. In other words the market place is in a state of turmoil for which there is no historic precedent. Worse our Congress and President have no clue what is going on, so they exacerbate the issue by adding unnecessary regulations, take no serious actions to deal with the deficit and muddle the question of whether taxes on businesses should be increased or not. Worse they become easily distracted from the central issue of jobs with petty political matters.

Fortunately, the book provides some great ideas for our grandchildren. The first and foremost, is to know and fully understand your strengths and weaknesses. Anyone who runs a business starts with analyzing the assets and liabilities of the company. When that list has been developed and fully explored, then you can choose the right course that exploits your assets (strengths) and minimizes your liabilities (weaknesses).  One can, of course and should always, continue to work on minimizing one’s weaknesses.

The second important thing that the job seeker must be doing is networking. And the job seeker must keep the network viable and constantly expanding. You never know when someone will know someone who is searching for the very talent that you have.

A third important thing is not to sit around and mope if you can’t immediately find the job that fits your skills, talents or passion. Krysia Mossakowski, a sociologist at the University of Miami, found that a long bout of unemployment in young adults provokes long lasting changes in behavior and mental health. Therefore, it is vital that one have a job any job no matter what, even a non-paying job as an intern, to fill the time while you are seeking the desired job. This will keep you in good health and will look well on your résumé even if it only means that you showed up regularly and on time.

I recommend that our grandchildren who are close to entering this new work world get a copy of the book. You can download it on your Kindle or I-Pad. Parents and grandparents of our young folk should also get a copy of the book so you can add some ideas that might help. All generations might want to read some of the other books that are referenced by the authors, as well.

Our children’s generation will need all the help and understanding that they can get from us at this critical time in history when they alone will be experiencing what their parents, their grandparents and their teachers never experienced or maybe could not even have imagined.

A FEW EXAMPLES FOR FURTHER READING

• “Free Agent Nation: The Future of Working for Yourself”
• The author explores the attitudes toward autonomy, informal networks and self-constructed safety nets of the self-employed.
• “The Brand You 50: Or
  Fifty Ways
  to Transform Yourself from and Employee into a Brand that Shouts Distinction”
• The author says: ‘You should think about what makes you stand out and then aggressively promote those distinctive skills, accomploishments and passions that make up your personal brand-just like a companywiould promote its products and services.”
• “Connected: The Surprising Power of Our Social Networks and How They Shape Our Lives”
• The social scientists who authored this book argue that connections up to three degrees away from us have a profound effect on our mind and body.

Perspective: This Election Should be About JOBS,JOBS, JOBS!!!

Everyone knows a relative or friend who has lost a job or is about to lose one or is being forced into early and unwanted retirement. Therefore, jobs and how to create them is of paramount importance to all voters. Our Presidential candidates should be talking about realistic specific and detailed plans, which can be expressed in every-day language, just how they would deal with this issue. Unfortunately neither Obama nor Romney is doing that!. We don’t expect Obama to lay out such a plan because he is a no-nothing, no-experienced ideologue. Romney could, should and must!! But so far he hasn’t! A sensible plan would resonate with every voter regardless of party. Romney needs to be pressured to state his plan, and the sooner the better.

The good news regarding the jobs issue is that we are within five years or so of having a shortage of workers. For perspective, the Baby Boomers are beginning to retire at the rate of 10,000 per day. The Boomer generation consists of 80 million persons ranging in age from 48-66, but there are only 40 million in the next generation whose ages range from 32-47. So it is clear that there will be a shortfall of workers in the next 5-10 years.

Right now there is a shortage of U.S. workers who have majored in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math, so-called STEM. These jobs are critical to the development of and maintenance of the digital technology that is already in place and is a growing segment of the jobs market. One idea to fill this shortage is to employ persons from China who have been educated in America. This is an outrage when you consider that student loans now exceed one trillion dollars, and currently one in two college graduates have majored in fields for which there are no jobs.

To devise a plan, one must first define why jobs are returning at such an anemic rate from the Great Recession of 2008. A key reason, but not being discussed, is that digital devices have replaced more U.S. jobs during the past five years than have our global competitors. Anyone who is not asleep has to have noticed that robots answering phones and ATM machines dispensing cash have already replaced humans. The Kindle and similar e-book devices a mere four years old are in the process of eliminating every part of the traditional paper book industry from log to library. Meanwhile, our Military are using pilot-less drones to pinpoint and kill our enemies. Then while we weren’t watching or being informed by the Media or our Representatives, the Digital Revolution has produced a driverless car that has driven one thousand miles with a blind man as the only passenger, and IBM has produced a computer that can search historic documents better than humans. Do you think the elimination of fork lift driver and paralegal jobs are and far behind? Recently the CEO of Google, acknowledging that the rate of adoption of digital devices is accelerating, stated that we are only about “ONE PERCENT” along the way!! I capitalized those two words on purpose so we would burn that number into our brains, because we haven’t seen anything yet.

So, why are robots preferred to human workers? Simply stated, they work 24/7 which equates to four times as many hours per year as a human can work. In other words one machine could replace four humans. In addition these digital devices make fewer errors than humans, require no healthcare, pensions, vacations, maternity leave, have no egos that have to be assuaged, and don’t join unions. Finally, they can be fired at will, without severance pay, advance notification or legal expenses in the event that a better machine comes along. The bottom line is that the total cost per hour of a digital machine is significantly below the cost of a US human laborer. That is why we are experiencing the paradox of no job growth while corporations are profitable in a weak market. Productivity is up and labor costs are down.

The United States leads the world in digital technology development and application , and we should turn this lead to our advantage. The labor costs of digital equipment in the US can be equal to or below foreign labor. With that advantage, and with a smart US policy, we could keep manufacturing jobs from leaving the US, and in addition, we could attract jobs back to the United States that were lost to low cost overseas labor.

The second item to consider in the development of a plan is to review our assets and determine how they might fit a jobs creation plan.

Assets:

1. We have the best university education system in the world to create the STEM graduates we need for the digital age.

2. We have the largest reserves of natural gas in the world

Job Creation Plan:

1. Create a US Government/Private Investor program to convert all Cars, Trucks, Buses, Other Vehicles and Gas Stations from gasoline and diesel fuels to compressed natural gas (CNG) by 2024

• Make low interest loans to Private Investors, automotive owners and gas station owners for the purchase of capital equipment required to make CNG conversions

 Permit rapid tax write-off of Private Investor capital required for the transportation of CNG to the distribution locations.

 Waive for a period of ten years any US government mandate or regulation that impedes the plan. This includes, but is not limited to, regulations which prohibit drilling, fracking or transporting of natural gas on private property, US government lands and wildlife habitats.

2. Focus educational financial support on those students who major in STEM

• Develop programs to encourage females, who represent about 55 % of college graduates, to increase the percentage who graduate with majors in STEM from the current 6 % to 15% within 4 years (2016)

3. Promote the development and implementation of digital devices

• To reduce our labor costs to a level equal to or below those of China and other developing countries.

Benefits of the Plan:

1. Using our natural gas gets us off foreign oil and the fluctuations in oil price caused by speculators. Environmentally, natural gas is cleaner burning than gasoline and diesel fuels and produces less carbon dioxide, as well. Moreover, getting off foreign oil would strengthen the dollar.

2. Unemployed Baby Boomers can be given jobs immediately that do not require the high skills of the digital revolution

3. We should focus college degrees on real jobs such as those in STEM versus those in fields where there are no jobs.

4. The substitution of digital devices reduces the advantage that low labor costs the Chinese and other developing countries have

5. The maintenance of digital devices requires high skills, and thus pays well.

6. Because we are educating our children in digital technologies from K-12, they are in the best position of any of their generation in the world capable of imagining where digital devices can be applied and how to maintain them, thus giving the US a competitive advantage over foreign competitors for the rest of the 21st century.

Governor Romney could and should endorse this plan as soon as possible because such a plan would resonate with every potential voter, and the plan could be implemented within six months of a President’s taking office.

The mantra for this plan should be:

Take Back America

Abab Oil NO…US Gas YES

Romney must avoid at all costs being distracted by Obamas’s attacks on how large his LaJolla house is or claiming that Republican men are the reason why women cannot get contraceptives or are paid less than men for the same job. Most importantly of all, he must not get into any environmental donnybrook regarding the alleged connection between the use of fossil fuels and global warming. The jobs issue is a here and now crisis; whereas any serious harm from man-made global warming, if it exists, is decades if not centuries away.

Perspective: What is the True Story About Our Middle Class?

Every chance he gets President Obama exhorts that “The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer”. He implies that the middle class is being destroyed by greedy capitalists. This is extremely dangerous and must be stopped before we have a revolution on our hands. Our President either knows nothing about what is happening to our middle class, doesn’t want to know or he is deliberately fanning the flames of class warfare to benefit his reelection chances. Moreover, he either fabricates facts or he has been poorly educated. For example, he berates the Supreme Court regarding Obmacare demonstrating that he does not understand Constitutional Law despite his having taught it. He shows daily that he does not understand free markets. And when he instigates class warfare over the alleged decline of the middle class he shows that he does not understand history either.

The historical fact is that the United States had a one time competitive edge in the worldwide market that elevated our middle class to a level of prosperity never before known in all of history. It was a fluke, a one time occurrence that lasted twenty five years and is not likely to ever be seen again. What caused this rare event and when did it begin? It was the event that Franklin Roosevelt called a “day that will go down in infamy”. That was December 7, 1941 when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. This forced the United States to enter WWII, and that changed everything!!

Our manufacturing industry was flat on its back from the Depression, and one could not be certain that there was a middle class, let alone anything that could be called affluent. But from the moment we entered the war, our entire nation and its manufacturing capability were converted exclusively to the production of materials for war. Within the next three and a half years, we out-stripped the entire world in the production of war-time material. Our incredible military, using these materials, physically destroyed most of Europe’s manufacturing, and with atomic bombs completed what normal bombing had done to destroy Japan’s manufacturing base, as well. By August of 1945 the war with Germany, Italy and Japan was ended and on our terms of unconditional surrender. Meanwhile, the UK and the Soviet Union were bereft of any semblance of a manufacturing base as a result of what Germany had done to them in the late 1930’ and early 1940’s.

Consequently, the United States manufacturing capability survived the war unscathed, and our industries stood alone, without competition, to serve not only the US but the world markets, as well. In addition the GI Bill provided college and equivalent educations for the millions of returning veterans to man the positions required to fill the huge pent-up demand.

Then, perhaps because we felt remorse for the damage we had wrought to the world’s production capability, we introduced the European Recovery Program, dubbed the Marshall Plan. This Program provided monetary support to help rebuild European economies after the War in order to prevent the spread of Soviet communism. The plan was in operation for four years beginning in April 1948. Simultaneously, the United States funded Japan’s recovery when it occupied Japan from 1945 to 1952.

Therefore, it should come as no surprise that the United States economy would boom while the rest of the world foundered. This went on during the 1950’s and the 1960’s and halfway into the 1970’s, and manufacturing jobs paying good money were created in abundance. The unions which dominated labor in the automotive industry, through threat of strikes and actual strikes, demanded and received better wages and benefits than could have ever been imagined. Suppliers to the car, housing and related industries, which included steel, rubber, plastics and lumber expanded and prospered, as well. As a result of these high paying manufacturing jobs, a new vibrant and prosperous middle class developed in the United States that was more affluent than any middle class before or after it. The returning veterans could afford to wed and begin families, and they were able to purchase homes, furnishings, appliances and automobiles. And their affluence extended to their children, the “baby boomers”, born between 1946 and 1956 that were raised in the new middle class with privileges and educations like no children before them.

Beginning in the 1970’s, however, the unique monopolistic position of the United States began to be challenged by global competitors in virtually every market. In 1972 President Nixon opened the door to China, and by the end of that decade, Europe and Japan were once again world class manufacturers, Taiwan and South Korea were showing signs of industrial viability and China was entering the world market with a dedication that would change everything. Usually the competitive edge of the Asian countries came from their low labor costs which permitted them to price their products below comparable ones made in the United States. Thus began the gradual shrinking of the wages and salaries of our middle class whose employers had to compete. Making matters worse, US manufacturers enticed by special tax deals offered by the foreign countries, began to move entire plants from the US.

Then beginning in the 1980’s, the Personal Computer, Laptop and the Internet entered the marketplace. The world-wide adoption of various digital devices which included the cell phone, ATM’s, and robots that could answer and make phone calls started the digital revolution. By the end of the 1990’s, the creation of new digital applications and their adoption began to occur at an exponential rate. Recent examples include the I-Pod, I-Pad, Kindle, Google, Facebook, and Twitter, just to name a few that are less than five years old. This revolution is changing the nature of many jobs forever, and we ain’t seen nothin’ yet!!

For perspective, and to illustrate the size and magnitude of globalization during this period, the middle class has doubled on the planet within the span of one single generation. This is historic and requires us to rethink everything about markets and jobs, including the stress this demand will have on the supply and price of basic raw materials such as fossil fuels, mined elements, timber and even food. And this is just the beginning because vast numbers of Chinese, Indians and Brazilians are being added to the middle class as we write.
Prior to Obama’s rants, we have not heard much about the impact all of this has had on our middle class. That is because our middle class has been asjusting reasonabley well to their changing job and financial situation.The middle class was aided in their adjustment by: (1) the two income family, (2) the availablility of extremely low cost, good quality manufactured goods such as clothing, toys, electronic goods and even automobiles from Asia via Wal-Mart and the Internet and (3) the ability to draw on their assets for the cash needed to sustain their lifestyle while their salaries and wages remained static, declined or they had to take a lower paying job.

Regarding their assets, what happened was that during the decades of the 1980’s, 1990’s and the 2000’s, assets such as stocks, IRA’s and house values that were purchased during the 50’s and 60’s increased in value beyond anyone’s immagination. For example, a four bedroom home purchased in 1954 in a good neighborhood for $20,000 would probably have increased in value to about $140,000 by 2004 with normal inflation, but it turned out to be worth about $ 240,000 or $ 100,000 more.

Then came the financial crash of 2008. It wiped out these reserves overnight. The Dow Industrial Index fell from 14,000 to 7,000. Pensions based on IRA’s and 401ks owned by the middle class collapsed in front of the eyes. Home values declined to the point where the mortgage was often greater than the market value.

To summarize, the extraordinary level that wages of US manufacturing jobs reached during the three decades following WWII was a rare exception caused by the United States being essentially the only worldwide manufacturer left standing after the war. Then beginning about the end of the 1970’s, the US worldwide competitive position began a thirty year decline caused by a shift of jobs to oversea competitors. The problem has been exacerbated by the recent advent of the digital revolution which has eliminated even more jobs than overseas competition, and worse, it makes the workers unable to reenter the job market because the machines have replaced them or they lack the skills that are required to manage the machines. Basically, this means that our present workers, and this includes recent graduates, need to require new skills to compete globally. This is true no matter whether the field is manufacturing, education, health, book printing and publishing, ordinary business or the wide array of intellectual tasks. So, whether globalization and the digital revolution are good or bad, it must be recognized and fully understood that: “They are here, and they won’t go away!!

We can get through this, but we must avoid a war between the classes. Time itself will correct some of the problem because there are 80 million “baby boomers” that are becoming eligible for retirement and only 40 million of the next generation to take their places. The next phase therefore will be a shortage of workers. There already is a shortage of workers in the so-called fields of STEM (science, technology, engineering and math). Some workers can be retrained to fill these jobs, and we need to encourage college bound students to select majors in these fields. This especially includes females who make up to 60% of our college graduates.


However, there are steps that can be taken now to help those in the middle class who are most affected by the technology changes. The best example of a major one is to get on with the task of developing our own energy sources and stop buying oil from the Middle East. Conversion of our vast natural gas resources to replace gasoline, for example, would create millions of jobs without the middle class having to learn new skills. An ancillary benefit is that the price of natural gas produced in the United States need not be tied to what happens to the world price of oil.

To accomplish this, we must have strong leadership in our government positions, and we must insist that our political, media and educational personnel demonstrate that they understand and can communicate the true cause of what has happened to our middle class. This means that they must do what they can to help the middle class make the transition to the new global world in which we all live. If we continue to hear nothing from our leaders but class warfare talk, we will surely end up with riots in the streets.

It is despicable and unconscionable that political opportunists, including our President, would demagogue the problem the middle class faces by encouraging them to believe that the crash of 2008 was the fault of a conspiracy and that they are the victims. The President and his ilk continue this rabble rousing when they repeat the mantra that the “One percent are getting richer while the ninety nine percent of the population are getting poorer” with the implication that the one percent is causing the problem for the ninety percent. What is so outrageous and egregious is that their objective is a selfish one, namely to gain a political edge. This must be stopped!!

Our ideologue President and his know nothing entourage of czars are demonstrably proving they cannot do and maybe don’t want to do what needs to be done. There is only one answer: They must be removed from office!! This means that “We the People” must get out the Vote to remove Obama this November.

Perspective: How Political Correctness Impedes Problem Solving.

We are at a very serious junction in the life of the United States of America, but never have we been so unable to define our problems. Political Correctness has penetrated our discourse like a cancer. We are no longer able to call a spade a spade. The fact is that if you cannot agree on the words used to describe a problem, it is impossible to define a problem and, therefore, if you cannot define it you cannot solve it. The current debate about contraception provides a window into this language dilemma.

First, the background: As part of Obamacare the Obama Administration decided that, in order to protect her health, every female should have access to contraception, and that each employer should provide it. It came to pass that this mandate applied to the employees of the charitable associations of the Catholic Church that teaches that contraception should not be employed at all, ever. Since the First Amendment of the US Constitution guarantees the separation of Church and State, it followed that the government should not be able to mandate something that goes against the religious principles and teachings of a Church. Confronted with this dilemma, President Obama offered a compromise; the Church’s insurance company would be required to provide the contraceptives, gratis.

In essence what Obama was proposing was that the Catholic Church would pay their insurance company to provide contraception for the employees of the Church free. Legally this is “a distinction without a difference”? Since we all know that here is “no free lunch” it is likely that the insurance company will simply raise their premiums, and who will pay? You guessed it, none other than the Catholic Church! This subterfuge doesn’t pass the laugh test!!

This would have remained a legal debate about the Constitutionality of the plan, but along came Sandra Fluke, an attractive, intelligent, single, thirty year old law student enrolled at prestigious George Washington University, a Catholic school. She testified before Nancy Pelosi’s committee that it costs her $ 1000 per year for the contraceptive devices needed to protect her health, and that she would have to work all summer to earn this amount. Her plight so moved President Obama that he personally telephoned to help her though this traumatic time in her life.

The discussion went swiftly downhill from there. Suddenly the issue changed from one of interpretation of Constitutional Law to one where women were going to be deprived from obtaining contraceptives. And the Republicans were to blame.

Now, if we are talking about a woman’s health related to sexual activity, one would assume that we are talking about the risk of the woman’s contracting a sexually transmitted disease (STD). A cursory review of the subject on WebMD reveals that: The Condom and Abstinence are the only effective methods to avoid STD. The Pill and the IUD, while preventing pregnancy, do not protect the user from the sexually transmitted diseases. On the same website, the reader can also learn about the side effects of the Pill, which includes pulmonary embolism and cervical cancer.

So, why in the world did the activists and the media try to make us believe that women are denied the availability of the one health protection device that prevents STD, namely the Condom, when everyone knows that it is readily available from every drug store and every service station’s rest room, at very low cost? The truth is that what women want is the convenience of the day before Pill, the day after Pill and the IUD, and they want them from their employers free of charge.

From the perspective of problem solving then, do we know what problem we were trying to solve? Of course not! STD is only preventable with condoms or abstinence; therefore, something else must be involved. It was subsequently revealed that the “something” was avoiding pregnancy, but since a condom will also prevent pregnancy, what is the problem?

The irony of this situation, and why this is so sad, is that all that President Obama’s carelessly and poorly thought through mandate will do is to encourage women to use devices which can expose them to extremely dangerous diseases while claiming concern about their health. Women have been and will continue to be able to purchase all the Pills and IUDs they want at reasonable cost, but they should be made aware of the adverse consequences. Clearly the absurdity of this provides more reason than ever to repeal Obamacare as soon as possible before it does more damage to our freedom and our health.

Finally, the principal purpose of writing this blog is to illustrate what damage Political Correctness is doing to our Society. If we continue to muck up our language such as we are doing in this case, we will never be able to define or solve problems. That is unfortunate because the problems this Nation faces right now are larger than we have ever experienced before and require the best of possible definitions.

Perspective: The Third Industial Revolution

Almost anyone who follows what is going on knows that our economy is going through a major structural change. The change involves the globalization of manufacturing, how markets are constructed, the impact of new and widespread communication technologies, the rapid increase of in the application of digital machines and the pressure to use renewable energy. In truth, we are at the beginning of the Third Industrial Revolution. The First Industrial Revolution was ushered in with the invention of the steam engine propelled by wood and coal. The Second by the automobile and with it the petroleum needed for gasoline. The Third Industrial Revolution will be based on our shift from fossil fuel energy. It will have a profound impact on everything we do and every way we manage our lives, our government, our planet and our culture.

The First Industrial Revolution, brought about the shift from cottage industries to factories, lasted about 100 years. Prior to the early 1800’s, cottage industries prevailed for centuries The shift to factories changed the way that goods were produced, where they were produced, how they were sold and who managed it. When the steam powered factories emerged, the folks who worked from their homes moved to where the factories were located. Usually this meant moving from the country to the city. This created a significant culture change.

The steam engine permitted the railroad to be developed, and this created new centers where the trains stopped to refuel and take on water. Subsequently, factories located at these centers. Since the railroads needed improved communication about conditions on the tracks ahead, the telegraph was rapidly installed. This led citizens who lived along the rail systems to have the most up to date information ever. These new factories and railroads and related equipment required a different skill set than the cottage industries. This meant that a better education system was needed which led to our public school system.

The Second Industrial Revolution involved the internal combustion engine which required a petrochemical fuel. This revolution is in its second century, and it will continue until we run out of the fossil fuel needed to drive it. The discovery of oil and how to get it was all that was needed for the automobile to really replace the horse. Auto travel on the crude dirt roads was especially difficult to travel in bad weather. This led to paving the roads, and in the 1950’s construction of the interstate highway system was undertaken. With that development motor transportation took off. In short order railroads felt the stress as semi-trailer trucks were found to be more versatile for hauling the nation’s goods than rail. Home owners no longer tied to the cities, moved to the suburbs with their new transportation vehicles. Consequently, the railroads lost both freight and passenger business. One by one the railroads went out of business. Finally the US government subsidized what was left under the name Amtrak.

For the farm it meant that larger and larger tractors could be used for tilling, planting and harvesting. For the family farm in the 1930’s a man following a horse drawn single plow on foot was the way a 50 to 100 acre farm was tilled. By contrast a tractor can pull ten or more plows. This in turn has led to ever larger farms and fewer and fewer farm hands. The country is dotted with barns left rotting as small 20 cow dairy farms were put out of business by huge farms with 1000 or more cows milked by machine 24 hours per day. In the early 1900’s, 40 out of 100 persons in the labor force were employed by farms. Today, the number is less than 2.

The shift from cottage industry and the horse for transportation required a different way to structure businesses and different ways to manage personnel, communicate, keep records and utilize capital. In the old days, a farmer or cottage industry entrepreneur could obtain capital via a loan from his local bank, and his employee was his apprentice. In the new industrial world, the capital for a railroad or a factory was so much larger that small local banks could not supply it. Similarly, the large number of employees in the factories required a major change in how to train and manage them. The result of the need to manage large numbers of people and huge amounts of capital required business to be restructured from the horizontal system of the cottage industry and small family farm to a vertical one. The larger the company grew the more clerical, secretarial personnel and supervision was required to keep track of the critical details of the businesses. As some businesses became more efficiently organized than others, they bought out smaller ones or merged making fewer and much larger companies until today there is a relatively small group of giant organizations in the major commercial fields from oil and gas production and distribution, to banks, to manufacturing, to healthcare and even education. Moreover, during the past three to four decades we have seen them become increasingly global in their outlook, planning, organization and marketing.
It may be interesting to review the various energy sources that have been historically available. Prior to the invention of the steam engine, horse, mules, oxen and even people provided the energy for moving things. People lighted their homes with candles or whale oil. Their homes were mostly heated with wood. The steam for the steam engine developed by James Watt in 1769 was generated by burning wood and later coal. This invention more than anything else permitted the development of the First Industrial Revolution. The first fuel for the internal combustion engine was ethanol. The leading fuel for lighting was "camphene" (sometimes simply called "burning fluid"). It was a blend of high-proof ethyl alcohol with 20 to 50 percent turpentine to color the flame and a few drops of camphor oil to mask the turpentine smell. Alcohol was an important mainstay for distilleries, and many sold between 35 and 80 percent of their product to the fuel market. In the 30 or 40 years before oil drilling began in Titusville, Pennsylvania in 1858, crude oil found on the earth’s surface was being distilled to produce products for lighting. This included gasoline, but its high volatility and risk of explosion prevented it from being used for lighting. Gradually; however. it was evaluated as a fuel for the internal combustion engine, but it took many years before such giants as Henry Ford became convinced it was a better fuel than ethanol.

The electric light bulb discovered by Thomas Edison in 1879 changed lighting forever. But it was the discovery of alternating current that permitted the fantastic expansion of the use of electricity for all uses. It wasn’t long before steam engines in factories were replaced by electric motors. The turbines to generate the electricity were originally powered by water via dams such as Hoover Dam, or waterfalls such as Niagara Falls. By 1884 electricity could be generated anywhere by using steam to run the turbines. The original fuel for these steam electric plants was coal; then some plants shifted to oil and even to natural gas. All three are employed to this day, and now nuclear energy has been added as a source of steam.

We have been living in the Second Industrial Revolution for more than a century, and it has made possible the globalization of manufacturing and marketing which in turn has made possible the fabulous increase of the size and lifestyle of the planet’s middle class. Amazingly, most of this occurred in the last quarter of the twentieth century, and the expansion continues despite the rise of the oil price from about $3 per barrel 35 years ago to about $ 105 today.

However, what will undoubtedly limit the life of the Second Industrial Revolution is the supply of fossil fuel. The amount of fossil fuel consumed at this time is about equal to the current supply, and it is generally agreed that new discoveries will not satisfy the rising global demand. In fact, the supply is expected to decline. This will cause a rise in price. Therefore, at some point in the near future, non-fossil fuel sources of energy will become economically competitive. These sources include, solar, wind, geothermal, ocean currents, hydroelectric and nuclear.

The Third Industrial Revolution, which is in its infancy, is based on two inescapable driving forces: (1) the diminishing supply of fossil fuels and (2) the Internet. A new book entitled “The Third Industrial Revolution, How Lateral Power is Transforming Energy” by Jeremy Rifkin, describes how Internet technology and renewable energy are merging to create the Third Industrial Revolution. The book cites numerous examples of “green” electrical energy applications that are being developed world-wide, and according to Rifkin, some are even economically viable now. Rifkin feels that we must accelerate this change by adding government laws and regulations to convert our use of fossil fuels to renewable sources in order to avoid the catastrophic climate change our use of fossil fuel is allegedly having.

Rifkin’s basic concept is that hundreds of millions of persons on the planet will produce solar energy in their homes, offices and commercial facilities and then share information about supplies with others via an energy internet, similar to the way information is created and shared online. The idea is that solar panels will be placed upon virtually every building. Wind mills will appear where there is wind and available land. Geothermal and ocean currents will also be tapped. The organization of these new energy sources will most likely be controlled locally. For example, it will probably be common from time to time for a building owner to generate more solar electricity than needed for his own building. That person will want to sell the excess. The Internet, already in existence and worldwide, will be the communication mechanism for information about the excess availability of electricity. One can even imagine selling electricity to a neighbor via e-bay or some such mechanism. Thus, you can see that the supply and marketing of electricity will not likely be carried out by major international organizations but by individuals and local communities. This structure will be horizontal rather than the vertical. And it will probably be the pattern world-wide.

The idea is that new electrical energies will be interconnected by grids, and if more electricity is created than needed, it can be converted to hydrogen via the electrolysis of water. Now, electrolysis would only be viable as a means to “store” electricity during the times when the sun or wind would produce more electricity than the grid could use. The hydrogen fuel can also be used to produce electricity later when the wind does not blow or the sun does not shine, or it can be used for fuel to propel vehicles. These ideas are not pie-in-the sky dreams; the technology has been demonstrated, and in some cases commercial installations exist. However, few if any such installations can compete at the current price of fossil fuel without government subsidies.

This new paradigm, called the Third Industrial Revolution, provides a pattern for how we will transition from fossil fuel based energy to non-fossil fuel energy. But it is going to present the global economy with enormous challenges, both good and bad. For example, we are most certainly going to require more nuclear energy to supply electricity and probably to propel our trains and machinery to till our fields. This would be a logical extension of our current use of nuclear power to transport our submarines and ships. But we will have to learn how to use breeder reactors safely and find suitable means for the reuse or safe permanent disposal of the nuclear waste.

It is hard to predict exactly the price of fossil fuel at which point these non-fossil fuel base energies become viable alternatives. What is certain is that when the fossil supplies are depleted, the equivalent price will be infinite. At that point any source of energy becomes economically viable. The trick is to determine just what course of action governments and industry should follow to have the right technologies in place when the supply and/or price of fossil materials become a major problem.

Unfortunately for such a sound planning path, the environmentalists cannot wait! They argue and are convinced that man-made global warming exists, will cause catastrophic climate change and is caused by fossil fuel consumption. They want to stop its use by taxing and regulating it out of existence immediately. They are willing, in fact eager, to upset our life style and supporting businesses right now by artificially increasing the cost of fossil fuel energy. Regulations to cause such an event would have an horrific impact on the global economy. It would be much better to allow the supply versus demand formula to provide the incentive to replace fossil fuel. This would permit a more gradual change which could more realistically be accommodated by the market. What is important to be sure that we do now is to properly fund the required research to develop the new energy technologies so we have them available in time.

Based on the predicted future decline of fossil fuel supplies, it is clear that we will enter the Third Industrial Revolution whether we want to or not! The question is what kind of world will it be? Both of the prior Industrial Revolutions brought major changes in energy sources, having to learn how to use new technologies and new locations of commercial operations. These changes caused major economic and cultural upheavals as populations had to relocate. We are already seeing some of these same factors at play as we enter the Third Industrial Revolution.

The impact on global food supplies and prices caused by the prohibitive high cost of petroleum may be the greatest problem society will have to face. Currently, ethanol and bio-fuels are proudly added to the list of renewable fuels. But when we do not have or can’t afford petrochemical fertilizers or fuel to till, plant, harvest and process corn and other vegetation required to produce these fuels, food prices will doubtless skyrocket. This will cause a huge change in lifestyle. Amazingly no one is talking or writing about this despite the fact that the population of the planet has just reached seven billion, and the forecast is that we will add another billion within the next 15 years.

In summary, the concept of the “Third Industrial Revolution” provides a realistic vision of how we might cope with the diminishing supplies of fossil fuel and a template upon which to plan for the time when supplies of fossil fuels are inadequate for the global demand. However, there are lots of questions yet to be answered. In addition we probably don’t have all of the required technology to make the transition practicable. Therefore, Rifkin’s belief that we must force this now with government intervention is wrong and not useful. Government can be a helpful partner, but unfortunately it has a history of intervening in markets with deleterious consequences. One thing is certain, this next transition will be equally as complex if not much more complex and significant than the first two Industrial Revolutions. The economic and sociological impact of these radical changes will be immense and will affect every segment of the global society. A major question will be whether we have adequate food supplies. We have time to make the transition in an orderly fashion using market forces to help make the decisions each of us will have to make. However, we had better begin the planning phase now before it is too late. Finally, we have made this kind of transition twice before and have that experience to draw upon. We will be up to the task!




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Perspective: Self-Control

Research conducted by psychologists at numerous universities reveals that most personal and social problems derive from the failure of self-control. Examples include: compulsive spending and borrowing, under achievement in school, procrastination, alcohol and drug abuse, unhealthy diet, chronic anxiety and explosive anger. Poor self-control correlates with just about every kind of personal trauma including: losing friends, being fired, getting divorced and winding up in prison. It is interesting to note that in a recent world-wide survey of over one million persons, their lists of personal virtues included: honesty, kindness, humor, creativity and bravery and so forth but not self-control. However, when these same persons were asked to list their failings, self-control was at the top of the list.

In a long-term study of 1000 children in New Zealand from birth to age thirty two, the researchers found that the children who exhibited the most self control in childhood grew up to have better physical health, fewer sexually transmitted diseases, more stable marriages, higher education and better paying jobs. By contrast more than 40 % of the children with the very lowest level of self-control had criminal convictions by age 32 versus 12% of those children showing the highest degree of self-control.

Self-control keeps one from being swayed from the right course by evil forces which can come from either outside or inside the person. We used to believe that a conscience in an individual was a vital component needed to set the right course, and society spent a large amount of time and money developing consciences and self-control in children. This began at virtually the time the child arrived and continued until the child was an adult about eighteen years of age. In the early days when people resided in villages or farms and everyone knew everyone, virtue was enforced by public disgrace. Nathaniel Hawthorn’s book “The Scarlet Letter” regarding adultery comes to mind. The Ten Commandments also helped keep one on the strait and narrow. The ultimate goal was for each person to develop self-control because it was believed that those who learned how to utilize self-control would be more useful, reliable, morally grounded and responsible citizens.

Beginning in the 1960’s, however, the ideas of a moral conscience and self-control were weakened as society began to celebrate self indulgence. “If it feels good, just do it”. Concurrently, social scientists began to seek the causes for lack of consciences and self-control. They concluded that the causes were poverty, depreciation and failures of the economy, the environment or political influences. In short, the idea was that the individual was not responsible. In fact the individual was a victim. Moreover, we started to believe that we must be careful not to harm a child’s self-esteem, so we rewarded them for nearly anything and everything they did regardless of the quality of the child’s performance

Now, shock of shock, we suddenly are learning that major leaders of our society seem to lack moral compasses and self-control. Do the names Enron, Adelphia , Bernie Madoff, unscrupulous Wall Street derivative purveyors, etc. come to mind? This has prompted our major business schools to add ethics courses to those of business management. Hello!!! They have to be kidding!!! Haven’t’ they heard of the adage, “You can’t teach old dog new tricks?”

A new book entitled: “Willpower” sheds a whole new light on the subject of self-control. The book shows that Willpower is the mechanism that individuals employ to keep them on the right course. The existence of willpower, from whence it comes and how to employ it to maximum benefit are the major parts of the research reported in the book. The researchers have found that improving willpower is the best way to a better life. But willpower is used for other purposes like making decisions. So, willpower is under constant stress. Here are a few highlights of the many suggestions the book offers for the times when Willpower is needed.

Set Clear Goals:
The authors state that the first step in self-control is to set clear goals. Self control without goals would be like trying to diet without knowing the caloric content of individual foods. However, one should avoid setting goals that conflict with other goals, and it is important that one not set too many goals.

Willpower is Like a Muscle:
Willpower can become fatigued from overuse. When that happens we lose self-control. The researchers learned that willpower gives the strength to persevere, and we lose self-control as willpower is depleted. They further affirm that, like muscles, mental energy is also fueled by glucose.

Strengthening Will Power:
Although willpower is not actually a muscle, research has shown that willpower can be strengthened. There are several possible ways this can work. One that works and would be easy to do is to use perfect posture, e.g. “sit up straight”. Persons participating in the experiments who consciously overcame their habit of slouching, showed significantly greater self-control.

Decision Fatigue:
It turns out that decision making saps one’s willpower. The trick is to limit the number of major decisions one might attempt to make while attempting to achieve a goal.

Procrastination:
Each of us has a tendency to procrastinate at one time or another. What happens when we are faced with a hard task, including ones with deadlines, is that we don’t want to tackle the hard task. So, suddenly we discover a large pile of stuff that we have been putting off, and we dive into that rather than to face the primary job. As a result that we have no energy left to work on the major job, and consequently the job gets put off again. Or if it must be accomplished in the prescribed timeframe, the quality is poor and in some cases completely unacceptable.

The suggestion from the research is that when confronted with the major task and its timetable, STOP, DO NOTHING! It is better to stop, maybe take a nap and then tackle the major task when refreshed. Everyone will be happier. You because you got it done and on time, and your boss, because you got it done and on time and with high quality to boot!!

Self-Esteem Versus Self-Control:
For a generation psychologists, including those who were involved in the studies reported in the book, operated on the principle that we need to protect the very fragile young human and must be especially careful not to destroy its self esteem. While growing up society rewarded them for everything and anything. Even failure was rewarded on the basis that the child “tried”. The idea was that if self-esteem were developed in a child, performance would follow.

The authors report that when the psychologists received the data from the research, they were shocked to find that their theories were wrong. They and society at large clearly had the idea backward. The research shows that performance creates self-esteem, not the other way around. Moreover, those persons who participated in the research who earned self-esteem had higher levels of self-control.

Supporting the research is anecdotal evidence from real life that finds that mollycoddled children, now in their thirties, are landing in the psychiatrists’ offices. What has happened is that they are now in the real world where one is rewarded only if one actually achieves a realistic goal. Having reached adulthood, the child can’t handle the rejection the real world delivers for failure to achieve real goals. Thus, they visit their psychologists to try to “find themselves”.

The bottom line conclusion is that self-esteem must be earned and not bestowed if a child is to become a strong, reliable and responsible adult with built in self-control What a shock that is!! The book dedicates a whole chapter to this issue; “Raising Strong Children: Self-Esteem versus Self-Control”, and it may be the authors’ greatest contribution.

The book, “Willpower”, is chock-a-block full of research data gathered from controlled experiments conducted over the past two or three decades. It breaks willpower into its physiological and psychological components and how to use it. The book combines clearly described scientific experiments, practical advice and a path forward from the morass we find our selves in. Based on their findings, there is hope for our society. It is a must read for parents who have the job of raising the next generation as well as anyone who would like to have more self-control.