Perspective: Maybe Santa Can Help Find Jobs

Dear Santa,


We Frustrated Citizens are told endlessly that the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer; that CEOs make infinitely more than ordinary labor, and about 15% of our labor force either is unemployed or underemployed. Oh, you hear politicians from both parties give lip service to the idea that our most important priority is to create jobs, but neither comes up with a specific plan. Worse, the government’s focus is on infrastructure. They tell us that the roads and bridges are falling apart, that we are not spending enough on education and that health care should be provided virtually gratis to the poor and to those suffering with preconditions. But most of these would be government jobs, and the government has no money to support such programs. Moreover, the need for such new programs is dubious, as best.

So, Santa you can see our frustration, and why we are asking your help this Christmas.


Signed
Frustrated Citizens



Found in our Christmas Stocking



Listen politicians that you may hear

How you can make lots of jobs appear.

In case you haven’t heard, I won’t be crass.

But you are up to your butts in natural gas.

And it is not in any way profane

To say it is climate-friendly methane.


To use it, though, how shall I express it?

It’s that one simply has to compress it.

Again while trying not to be profane,

You can run trucks cars and even a train.

But you must convert every truck and car

And every gas station, both near and far.



Now, you think that high tech is the path,

And the workers must know science and math!

You’re shocked as though hit with a lightening bolt;

All one needs do is attach nut to bolt!

Not keyed to digital revolution,

These jobs don’t need skills in evolution!



Actually, jobs lost to robots and China

Will be found in gas, and couldn’t be finer .

These are the folk on unemployment checks

Who without work, become absolute wrecks!

The good news is workers don’t have to roam;

For the jobs will be nearby, close to home.



So what does a politician need to do?

Get out of the way, try something brand new!

Give private enterprise the leading task.

Remove regulators, strip off their mask,

Allow fast write offs of investment cash,

Require work for pay. This plan’s not too brash



Assigning those on dole to this project

Provides a real job, regains self respect.

To convert each car, gas station and truck

Will take about ten years, with any luck.

By that time the oldest of the group will retire

While the younger gain skills new jobs require.



When 80 million boomers leave work behind

The 40 million followers will find

It’s easier to have full employment

To each and everyone’s full enjoyment.

Then, Santa smiling, said with full delight,

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!!

Perspective: What Can Be Done When the CEO Fails to Perform His/Her Duties?

If the top officer of a profit or a non-profit organization were derelict of duty or caused the corporate interests, goals or mission to be in jeopardy, that person would surely be replaced as soon as possible. When the top officer is the President of the United States it is more difficult to take such action. In that case the People can make a replacement at the next election cycle, but if the issue is severe, and the next election is in the distant future, the elected representatives of the People might consider Impeachment of and Conviction for “High crimes and misdemeanors”.



The Founders anticipated such a need and placed in the Constitution. Article II Section 4 “ The President, Vice President and all civil officers of the United States shall be removed from office on Impeachment for and Conviction of Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors”. Those who have researched the Framer’s intentions believe that the Framers used the word “High” to mean a person in a high place, not that the crime be high. In other words, the Framers believed the President of the United States is under a special obligation not applicable to the ordinary person, and by this the Framers meant that the President is legally responsible for everything that he and everyone in the executive branch is doing, and moreover, the President is not protected by “plausible deniability”



I deliberately highlighted  the last sentence because this President states that he only knows something if he reads it in the newspaper. If you watch him on TV you will see him say that over and over.



Consider these catastrophes involving the Executive Branch of our Government about which he deigns to know nothing. Is this dereliction of duty?

• Benghazi

• Fast and Furious

• The IRS

• Monitoring Media phones, etc.



Or consider how he unilaterally takes action where Congress has decided not to pass a law. Is this overreaching beyond his Constitutional authority?

• Cap and Trade to achieve his stated goal of destroying the coal industry



Or he avoids performing his duty to see that the laws are faithfully executed by his office. Isn’t he Constitutionally bound to uphold the entire law dully passed by the House of Representatives and the Senate?

• Selective enforcement of Obamacare

• Selective enforcement of the Immigration laws



Lying to the Voters! Doesn’t the oath of office cover truth telling to the citizens at all times?

• Telling the citizens over and over (33+ times) via TV that under the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), their health insurance and doctor would not change, when he knew that they would



Actually the problem may be worse than the misdemeanors listed above. Obama ran and came into office vowing to “Transform America” to achieve “Social Justice”! Moreover, we know that Obama was a Saul Alinski protégé and a friend of Bill Ayers. Both men believed that an institution should be destroyed and then re-built. Alinsky actually wrote a book that is the bible for transforming institutions by destroying them. Its title is: “Rules For Radicals”. If Obama’s intention is to destroy America , and one could make a case for that considering the way he regards the Constitution, that would be Treasonable Act.



The Framers would certainly consider such performance to qualify as Impeachable. But the “Convict of” part would have to be implemented by the democrat controlled Senate



You will recall that a democrat controlled Senate refused to Convict President Clinton who was Impeached for lying to a grand jury about sexually harassing a female intern in our sacred Oval Office! That that democrat party would protect one of their own regardless of what the person did and regardless what the party could gain from his removal is amazing.



I am amazed to this day that the public has never received a proper explanation for the Senate’s behavior. In President Clinton’s case, the democrat controlled Senate could have replaced Clinton with Gore for the last two years of Clinton’s term, and then Gore would doubtless have won the Presidency on his own for the next eight years. In short they could have held the presidency for ten years while they did the honorable thing, namely, supporting women employees who are sexually assaulted by their CEO bosses. No, they were willing to let Clinton escape for violating the very law legislation the democrats promulgated and got passed into law that punished the crime of sexual harassment of an employee. And then, having been found guilty Clinton lied about it before a Grand Jury.



Oh, I forgot! Clinton did tell the truth when he said that “I have not had sexual relations with that woman”. You see the proper word for what he did is so repugnant that God had to destroy a city that had the same name (Sodom) for the same reason. And by the way, had the Senators been there at that destruction and looked back, they would be pillars of salt today. Come to think of it maybe that would not be too bad!



If Impeachment for, Conviction of and thus removal from office is not viable, what is left? There are two alternates, (1) do nothing and hope for the best or (2) elect members of the House of Representatives and Senate in 2014 that will do what they can to minimize the impending disaster.



Doing nothing is not an option, period. Therefore, we must do all we can to elect members of the House and Senate who will do what needs to be done to keep the President and his subordinates from doing more harm. But the problem is a tough one because Obama’s strategy is to use every tool he can to destroy the Republican control of the House in 2014.



So, the battle lines are clear, and we have our work cut out for us!

Perspective: Where Did the Boys Go?

An earlier blog pointed out that we have a 25% shortfall in the number of graduates with degrees in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM), which is keyed to the reduction of the number of men going to college. It turns out that the ratio of men to women college graduates has reversed in the last 40 years from 60 men to 40 women in the seventies to 40 men to 60 women today. Men still favor majors in STEM, but less than ten percent of women major in and graduate with STEM degrees. As a consequence, we have a shortfall. In that blog I focused on what we could do to promote and encourage more females to major in STEM and stick with it so that we would at least have a few more mechanical, chemical, electric, electronic and civil engineers and persons skilled in information technology (IT).But I left unaddressed the question about why the boys have dropped out.



It turns out to be worse than we thought! The boys have not just dropped out of school; they have dropped out of marriage, fatherhood and the American Dream, as well. What is surprising is that boys are also dropping out of school and marriage in Australia, Canada and Europe. Because men are opting out of school, marriage and parenting, women cannot find suitable mates and therefore remain single. Today, the number of single mothers who never married is 44%. For perspective, in 1960 single mothers who had never married were just 4% of the total of all single moms. Of further concern is the fact that out of wedlock births in the United States is reaching 50% and among the blacks that figure rises to nearly 75%. Yes, the men are still having children, but they are not becoming parents, so they are contributing little if anything to the essential job of producing responsible morally-compassed citizens. If we have this large a problem after a mere generation of men not performing as fathers, we can predict that the drop out rate of the next generation of males will be reaching tidal proportions right in front of our eyes. That should scare us to death!!



It is clear that the United States, indeed Western Civilization, does not know exactly why the boys have opted out. But what is really shocking is that Society does not seem to even care enough to find out why or how solve it. When a society has a problem this gigantic and so fundamental to its ability to sustain itself, and no one seems to notice it, or care enough to do anything about it, that society is in deep trouble. To phrase the question more bluntly: Are we witnessing the beginning of the end of Western Civilization?



So, what is different today versus forty years ago? Here are a few key items to consider:



• Boys want to continue to imitate their fathers and grow up to be like them, but today many boys have no fathers living with them

• Boys learn best when learning is “hands on”, i.e. touching, moving, climbing on, and building things. Today schools focus on reading and writing. Boys are not wired for such early exposure to something as abstract as reading and writing. In the 1970’s we did not teach reading in Kindergarten; today we do

• Boys are much more active than girls. Many schools have reduced or even eliminated recess time to make time for reading and writing.

Here are some theories regarding the cause.



The Education System

“Why Boys Fail”, by Richard Whitmire a journalist, written in 2010 does an excellent job of analyzing the problem. Interestingly, he and others believe that the emphasis placed on reading and writing in elementary school benefits girls more than the boys because girls are “wired” to read, grasp and use words at an earlier age than boys. Thus, the sub-title of his book is “Saving our Sons from an educational system that’s leaving them behind”. Here are some of his findings.



• Boys start to fall behind girls as early as third grade, and by ninth grade many boys have given up on school altogether.



• Boys who give up drop out of high school, don’t go to college, and if they do go to college often do not graduate from college



Whitmire explains that the problem shows up in boys from affluent husband/wife families as well as those who come from poor single mother families. However, because the data are lumped together for all the boys, white, black and Hispanic, the impact on Caucasian. boys is masked.



Since the early nineties numerous studies and books have been written that statistically confirm that the boys have dropped out of school. Joseph Torbin, Author of Good Guys Don’t Wear Hats, a Professor of Early Childhood Education at Arizona State University, asks the question “Is it boys or is it School?”, and points to the feminization of our schools and the emphasis on reading and writing at too early an age for boys. Tobin also points to the fact that boys are more active than girls and thus have trouble sitting still. The reduction of and often elimination of recess exacerbates this problem which leads to teacher’s feeling boys have problems that need to be treated. The treatment includes medication via Ritalin.

When Did Feminism Begin?

The 19th Annendment to the US Constitution was the first phase, but the surprise popularity of Betty Friedan's 1963 book The Feminine Mystique triggred the second phase. This wave of feminism was largely concerned with gender inequality in laws and culture and the end to discrimination and spanned roughly from 1960-1980. During this time, feminists campaigned against cultural and political inequalities, which they saw as inextricably linked. The movement encouraged women to understand aspects of their own personal lives as deeply politicized, and reflective of a sexist structure of power.

Subsequent to the 1960-1980 period and beginning about 1990 numerous writers have explored the feminist movement to determine its impact on men. Some of their works are listed in the Sources of Information section of this Blog.





Testosterone Level

One other factor that might be relevant is what is happening to testosterone levels in men. The following is summarized from two authors: Malcolm Carruthers, MD. And Eugene Shippen, M.D. Studies in the 1940's showed the average testosterone level to be at 700 ng/dl, 300 ng/dl higher than for men today. In the past, a drop in testosterone levels to 250 ng/dl was rarely reported before men were 80 years of age. Yet today, it is not an uncommon value for middle aged men, and the decrease in testosterone levels is now occurring at an even earlier age. Up to 50% of all men at 40 now have testosterone levels below what was considered the normal range.



What Can be Done to Reverse the Male Drop Out?



Now, consider this irony!



Man-made climate change began to get Societies serious attention at about the same time that the male drop out began to be observed. And we have been told endlessly about the deleterious affect on human life from man-made climate change. But what huge catastrophic consequence of global warming has been observed with just our human senses of sight, sound, touch, smell and taste? None, only multi-million dollar extremely complex computer models can tell us about the catastrophic events that might occur at some distant future date. Nevertheless, the government spends millions of dollars and adds hundreds of regulations aimed at preventing man-made climate change.



Now, we don’t need a complex computer model to tell us what is happening or what might happen with the boys dropping out. We can observe what is happening with out own eyes. If high school records show that 30% of our males are already dropping out of school and half of our children are born out of wedlock, all of which has happened in the last generation or so, how difficult is it to imagine what the drop out and out of wedlock rates will be in the next generation! One would think that such an event might be catastrophic enough to scare us to want to take some corrective action



Unfortunately today’s politically correct atmosphere makes it difficult if not impossible to discuss the male drop out problem let alone to define it in such a way that you can come to grips with it and do anything about it. Actually, what our government is doing is wrong. Obamacare permits the 26 year-old male to stay home with Mom and Dad to get health care, but it fails to understand that today’s 26 year old “teen-ager” wants to stay at home with Mom and Dad where he can continue to play video games, be engrossed in the toxic culture available via the Internet, not get an education, not get a job, and in no way will he be thinking of becoming a married parent.



Obviously, because of political correctness, government and society at large will unable or unwilling to search for or to correct whatever the root cause of the problem. So the individual parent or perhaps groups of parents will need to learn how to deal with the problem by themselves.





While nevertheless understanding the difficulty of parents doing that, here are some ideas put forth by Dan Kindion, PhD and Michael Thompson, PhD. in a book entitled “ Raising Cain: Protecting the Emotional Life of boys” about what parents might be able to focus upon to help their sons.



• Boys want to grow up to be like their male role models, which is principally their father. Boys who grow up in homes with absent fathers have to try hardest to figure out how to become a responsible male. Single mothers, whether divorced, widowed or never married, should try to find male role models for the boy to emulate.



• Recognize and accept the high activity level boys require, and help them learn how to manage their physicality but not be shamed for exuberance. Become involved with the son’s school, particularly the elementary school to determine what physical exercise can be included in the curriculum. Such exercise will also help daughters. If it is not available in the school, work it into the home with some simple physical tasks that occur daily before and after school.



• Face the fact that your young son’s brain may not be wired for the exposure to reading and writing at such an early age as kindergarten. Find out what your son’s reading level is, and get early help without treating it as an ailment. Get him books with action stories so he learns how much fun reading can be. Get him a Kindle, or equivalent, so books can be easy to get, easy to read and easy to carry around.



• Above all do not let his teachers or especially the child himself think there is something wrong with him just because he is a boy. The bottom line is that boys are not girls and visa versa, thank God!!



Imagine some future historian writing that, “In the 21st century the United States was sitting in the “cat bird’s seat” regarding its newly found supply of fossil fuels and its cutting edge digital technology but could not capitalize on these assets due to a shortage of engineers and technicians caused by their males dropping out of school, marriage, parenting and worse of all, dropping out of the American Dream!!”

























Souces of Information:



Warren Farrell’s various books on the subject from Why Men are the Way They are (1988) to Does Feminism Discriminate Against Men (2007);Helen Smith’s: Men on Strike , Why Men are Boycotting Marriage , Fatherhood, and the American Dream and Why It Matters; Kay Hymowitz’s Manning Up: How the Rise of Women Has Turned Men into Boys; Kathleen Parker’s Save the Males: Why Men Matter and Women Should Care; Leonard Sax’s The Five Factors Driving the Growing Epidemic of Under Motivated Boys and Underachieving Young Men; Christina Hoff Sommer’s The War Against Boys; Hanna Rosin’s The End of Men and the Rise of Women



Male Menopause: Restoring Vitality and Virility. HarperCollins Publishing. London, England. 1996, p.132 and Eugene Shippen, M.D. Testosterone Syndrome: The Critical Factor for Energy, Health, & Sexuality-- Reversing the Male Menopause. M. Evans & Co., New York, 1998. Their findings are summarized here

Perspective:Our Middle East Policy

The current Administration has done everything that they can to disrupt the Middle East. They encouraged the Egyptian Brotherhood to kick Hosni Mubarak out of office, then they led from behind to remove Moammar Gadhafy in Libya, while rebels upset the governments in Tunisia and Mali. Notwithstanding what the rebels did to us in Benghazi our State Department continued to demand that Bashal Al Assad of Syria, who is deeply immersed in a civil war, also be removed from office. Obama announced a military surge in Afghanistan at the same time he announced a pull-out date, and he prematurely left Iraq without securing any kind of agreement to help Iraq. Now, the President wants the United States to unilaterally attack Syria because he is convinced that Assad used chemical weapons against innocent children.

One wonders how long a string of collapsed regimes in the Middle East that Obama wants? Moreover, the Administration seems to pay little if any attention to the true allegiance of the Islamic rebels despite its being known that in every case the rebels throughout these failed regimes are imbedded with a goodly splash of Al Qaeda and their affiliates. If the Administration keeps up this unbelievable policy, it will only be a matter of time until there is an all out war between the Sunnis and the Shiites across the entire region. If this happens, the supply of oil from the Middle East will be severely disrupted, if not cut off altogether.

Watching our President, our elected representatives and their employed “experts’ trying to deal with Syria whom they claim used Sarin, a toxic nerve gas, to kill hundreds of their innocent children is disappointing to say the very least. This must be the most incompetent foreign policy team our Nation has ever produced. They can’t decide what the Syrian problem is, don’t seem to know what to do and can’t decide who should take responsibility for solving it. But if we had a leading from the front President instead of one who leads-from-behind, he would insist that the UN take responsibility for finding a way to stop the use of chemical weapons in Syria, and he would work tirelessly to persuade the rest of the world.

The chemical weapons use in Syria is clearly one for the UN to handle. After all, except for Syria and a handful of other countries, 189 nations signed an agreement in 1997 to ban the use of such weapons. It is interesting to note that in nearly every issue of this type, Obama and his supporting progressives want to delegate such problems to the United Nations. In fact the UN is already involved but has not completed their examination of what chemicals were used and by whom. So, why not let the UN handle the entire problem? Well, that is because Russia and China are blocking any such action, and none of our major allies sees fit to do anything.

Luckily our current Secretary of State, John Kerry in London the other day answered a reporter’s question as to why the UN should not deal with the problem. Instead of ignoring it, Kerry made the gaff that it might work but he stated that he doubted that it would work. Then, within an hour, the Russian foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, called to say in effect, hey, that’s not a bad idea, and then Assad seconded the motion saying that all his chemical weapons could be turned over, and he would join the countries banning such weapons.

We can all thank Secretary Kerry for stumbling onto the correct plan. Assad says he did not use chemical weapons; he is willing to turn them over to an international entity and will join the rest of the nations banning chemical weapons. If all this happens, he will not have them to use again. So, regardless what we think of Assad, the Administration gets the limited goal it says it wants, namely, that Syria never uses chemical weapons again.

Before we leave this Syrian question, lets explore how we got here and what the Administration wanted to happen. Someone used chemical weapons to kill about 1400 innocent Syrian persons including 400 children. Obama is convinced that Assad did it, and that if not stopped, he will do it again. Now, stop for a minute and ask yourself what Assad had to gain by performing such a heinous act? He is already winning the civil war, and he must know that if he used such weapons the US and probably many other countries would go bananas. On the other hand we know that the rebels want the US support. What better way to gain that than to find some chemical weapons, kill some children and make it look like Assad did it.

Regardless of the truth of who did what to whom, the US was ready to take unilateral action, without allies, to bomb Assad assets. Such action in effect would have put the US on the side of the rebels, whether claimed or not. Do we really want to take down another regime in the Middle East and leave it in the hands of the Islamic rebels many of whom are Al Qaeda and their affiliates?

Perspective: Where Do We Get the STEM Graduates?

For some time now I have been writing that the United States leads the world in the creation and application of digital technology, which combined with the windfall we are reaping from the new discoveries of abundant and low cost fossil fuel energy, puts the United States in the cat bird seat in the world wide market we call globalization. Manufacturing is also returning to the United States because of these two advantages. However, there is another factor that is slowing our ability to capitalize on this incredible opportunity. It’s that we lack the graduates with the commensurate skills needed to implement and manage the digital technology and new energy sources to make our economy grow at sufficient speed to meet our Country’s needs.
I am going to start off with a fifth grade word math problem to see if you can figure why we have a shortage of the skills I mentioned. These skills are in science, technology, engineering and math, STEM for short.
“In 1970 there were about 60 men college graduates to 40 women. Today there are 60 women to 40 men. In 1970 about half the boys graduated with majors in STEM while only about 5% of the girls did. Today about half the men graduate with STEM degrees, while only about 10% of women do. How many STEM graduates out of a hundred did we have forty years ago and how many do we have today?”

If you are as smart as a fifth grader, you should have found that there were 32 per hundred graduates in 1970 and 26 today. So, our schools turn out 20% fewer per hundred graduates with STEM majors today than a mere generation ago. As the problem illustrates the reason we have a shortage of STEM graduates is two fold; (1) the men, half of whom normally major in STEM, are not going to college in the first place, and (2) the women who do go to college do not major in STEM.

This problem is not going to be easy to solve, but we must solve it! To be frank, it is not clear that society knows why the men have dropped out. While many writers, notably Bill Bennett, have written about it, they only note that is has happened. If we cannot define the root cause of the problem, we will not be able to solve it. However, it is not clear that society cares enough to even find out why or how solve it.

With regard to the women, it is not that they cannot excel in these majors, but they just do not want to work in those fields. How to get the women to enter and graduate with STEM majors is the challenge. Hopefully, when women learn that they can make twice as much salary with STEM degrees than with non-STEM degrees they might become more interested. If for example, they researched Google, they would find that a graduate engineer’s starting salary probably exceeds $100,000, whereas a major in history or English will usually earn less than $50,000, if indeed there are jobs for these non-stem majors at all. Since both stem and non-stem students end up with the same amount of student loan debt, which graduate is going to be able to manage the loan better?

Now, before the feminists question what right have I, a man, to comment on this, let me state my credentials. I married a Johns Hopkins Medical School 1954 graduate and she, as an MD, immediately entered the medical profession where she practiced and advanced to manage a drug related clinic while I worked as an executive of the DuPont Company. Together we raised three children. One of the children, our daughter, is a Senior Vice President in the field of public relations, who along with her husband, who works at his own profession, are raising their two children. So, I know something about two generations experiencing the stress of two professionals, both in high level jobs, having and raising children together. However, as complicated as managing two careers while raising children is, it can be done. I have always encouraged people, including children, and especially women, to be all they wish to become. Today we need women with STEM degrees more than ever.

The literature is filling up with research to determine why women will not take the lucrative majors, and additional literature is being produced to find out how to motivate them to make the change. However, because of political correctness, genetic differences between males and females cannot even be mentioned. But it seems natural for girls to think of STEM as a “boys thing” because they don’t see many women making careers in these fields. Consequently, many women have no idea this opportunity presents for them. From my point of view it does not matter if it is genetic, because if our Nation is going to be able to capitalize on our assets of enormous energy supply and leading digital technology, we simply must find a way to have women tackle these tasks for the benefit of themselves and the country whether the root cause is genetic or not. The alternate is to increase the number of immigrants who have obtained these coveted STEM majors in our United States schools.

Obama’s idea of what to do to increase STEM graduates is to add pre-school programs. The usefulness of that plan is doubtful considering how Head Start worked out. But in any event, do we have fifteen years to solve this problem? Of course not! A better plan would be to approach females and males in their sophomore year in high school and explain the opportunities we are talking about. Recently I had the opportunity to help a daughter of friends to learn of this opportunity, and I am pleased to say that she is entering college to major in civil engineering. These lessons could and should be integrated into the high school curricula so these young folk can use their high school years to plan for their best post-high school education.

But the high percentage of female college graduates presents another challenge. Women will have to take more of the leadership roles in technology, health, business, education and government than ever before regardless of whether it is good for them or society. This will place a strain on them, and on their families. And then there is the question of how will the human species be perpetuated? Someone has to produce our replacements, and biologically speaking, only a female can perform that duty. Moreover, since it takes eighteen years to turn the helpless baby into a responsible citizen with a working moral compass, who is to be in charge of that? Historically, Mom played the dominant role of raising the children while Dad “brought home the bacon”. For most animals, including man, largely the female assumes the role of the nurturing care-giver for the young. How to deal with this reversal of the natural order of things is the question of our time. It is the first time in all of history we are doing it on such a huge scale, and there are no precedents. We have to solve this problem!

Whether the activists like it or not, the world that they will be entering as managers and leaders was organized by men centuries ago. It will not be possible to change it to the way women might like or how women might have organized it had they been the organizers centuries ago. Now, if you have trouble following what I am talking about, consider the language used in the business world. “We are at war with our competitor”; “We are arming ourselves with a new market plan to attack so and so.” This is the language of men because they have had to fight “wars” with nature, and other men to survive and protect their women and families for millennia. We all know that women do not normally use that kind of language. The language is loaded with blunt and aggressive terms, indigenous of the male animal, and the organizational structures look like a military chain of command.

Another problem pointed to by the AAUW and many women’s organizations is the salary gap between men and women. It is real as the data show,* but we do not fully understand why. It may relate to what we talked about earlier, namely the rules of the game made by men centuries earlier. However, I encourage women not to become mired in this problem because I believe this gap will narrow as women learn how to play the game by negotiating what they want in job assignment or salary, and as their bosses become more sensitive to the advantages that women bring.

The good news for our young women and men who will be assuming these new roles is that there is a growing body of literature sponsored by the American Association of University Women and other organizations that can be found via Google that is very useful to understand what women face and are experiencing. One of the best is a full length book entitled “Lean In”, by Sheryl Sandberg that I highly recommend. Ms. Sandberg is an extremely bright young woman, now in her forties, who currently is the COO of Facebook. Her experiences in college, business school, government, with Google and now Facebook along with her getting married and having children while in the high pressure of her work world ,provides first-hand knowledge of what is going on and how to deal with the issues women are facing.

In short, women becoming leaders in the global economy that has been dominated by males for centuries, is a new ball game. How the men play and have played the game for centuries is radically different than how the women would play, and that can’t be changed overnight. Women will find that they have to speak up if they want their point of view heard or, if for example, they think they deserve a raise, or, in extreme cases they may need to change jobs to get what they want and deserve, even if that feels unnatural for them. Ms. Sandberg talks about this!

In closing, I recommend that if you know a high school female who is getting good marks in math and science, and doesn’t hate these subjects, that you inform her of the opportunities in science, technology, engineering and math. Chances are she may not know about them. To really catch her attention, simply down load the numerous studies that have been made. As I mentioned earlier, many are sponsored by women’s organizations as the AAUW from whose report the following salary data have been obtained.



*Source: U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2013, Women in the Labor Force:A Databook (Report 1040) (Washington, DC), Table 11

Note: Each STEM occupation  employed more than 85,000 people in 2011 according to the U.S. Department of Labor. In some large STEM professions, such as biological science, chemical engineering, and engineering management, no significant gender difference in median earnings was found.

Perspective: The Fossil Fuel Supply is Virtually Endless.

Did you ever think that you would live to hear or read such lines as “We will never run out of oil, and fracking is safe”? Well, the title on the cover page of the May, 2013 issue of the Atlantic was “We will never run out of oil”, and in late July, 2013 the Associated Press reported that a landmark Depatment of Energy study showed no evidence that chemicals from the fracking process contaminated drinking water in aquifers in western Pennsylvania.

WOW! Do you realize how significant these two reports are? The mainstream Media is telling us that we have an enormous supply of fossil fuels, and that digging them out of the earth in the United States is safe. This means that we are no longer dependent upon oil from the Middle East, and more than anything else, this also means that a sensible Energy Policy for the United States could be implemented at last.

Oh, but you say, what about global warming which is allegedly caused by the carbon dioxide emissions from the combustion of these fossil fuels? Well, let’s assume that global warming is man caused and that carbon dioxide is the culprit. The question then is, can we control CO2 emissions? Actually, we know of a number of possible ways to manage carbon dioxide emissions. Yes, it’s true that these ways are not currently economic and will require research to bring the ideas to fruition. But so are so-called “green’ technologies currently uneconomic, but the government funds these and most have gone or are in the process of going bankrupt.

So do you squander government research funds on wind and solar projects that are uneconomic, where the available energy that could be produced from these sources could ever meet the rising demand for energy the economy of the US requires and where transporting the energy from the wind and sun sources to the end-user is impracticable, or do you want to conduct research to make fossil fuels environmentally acceptable, where the supply is virtually infinite and the transportation facilities are already in place?

If this sounds like a no-brainer to you, go to the head of the class!

Does anyone believe that our government doesn’t know that we have all of this fossil fuel supply and that research could be supported to take care of the CO2 emissions question? Of course the Department of Energy, Congress and yes, even our President, all know this! So why then are they not jumping on the fabulous opportunity? Something else is going on!

I hate to be cynical, and I definitely don’t generally believe in conspiracies, but the answer is staring us right in the face. Ever since President Obama has come onto the political stage he has mouthed one thing, namely, that we must transform the United States to obtain social justice. What better way to transform the country without our being willing than to frighten us with dooms day scenarios about Climate Change caused by CO2 emissions.

But how can the government control CO2? By taxing it! But how do you levee a tax if Congress is the only government agency that can levee taxes, and they have refused to do that? The answer, the President can have the Environmental Protection Agency label CO2 a toxic gas.

But every school child knows that CO2 is not a toxic gas! And besides, what fool would believe that since without CO2, life on this earth would not exist? I hate to let you in on this, but Obama takes all of us for fools!

So, do we and our Congress want to twiddle our thumbs while Obama, single handedly, blocks our country from using our massive fossil fuel supplies and our leadership in digital technology, which together, will allow the United States to experience its greatest century ever? If we do, the current voting generations should be ashamed and the generations that follow should hate us!

Perspective: Is Congressional Gridlock Bad?

It should be clear to anyone following what is going on in our Federal Government that nothing significant will be accomplished during the second term of President Obama. The question is this: Is that bad? According to the Media and Obama himself this is terrible considering the huge problems that the Nation faces. OK, so what are the huge problems?

• Immigration? Since this problem has been festering since 1986, can this be considered a crisis?

• Guns? Inasmuch as most murders are committed with hand guns by black on black in our major cities where hand guns are banned and by an isolated few mentally ill persons who get their hands on someone else’s gun, can this be considered a crisis that Congress could solve?

• Global Warming? Carbon dioxide is considered to be a major factor in greenhouse-caused global warming, so why did Obama fail to get a law passed to reduce it’s production when his party controlled both houses? Does that sound as though the Nation considers global warming a crisis?

• Obamacare? The plan is to provide thirty million persons, who don’t purchase insurance, with medical care mandated by the government program. Since most are young and healthy and decide not to buy insurance, is the need to insure this group a crisis?

• Foreign Policy? Since we now have all the oil and gas we will ever need, is worrying about what to do about the Arab Spring in the Middle East a crisis worthy of our attention and involvement?

The Media and the President are obsessed that the Congress cannot get its act together to work on and develop plans for these so-called crises. But from the point of view of “We the People”, shouldn’t we be pleased with this gridlock? If Congress did indeed create plans to solve the above crises, would you want to bet whether the plans would be ones we would like and could afford?

We have seen this before. Consider how earlier solutions for the aforementioned crises have worked out.

• Immigration: Regan’s plan to deal with limit illegal immigration in 1986 actually resulted in the number of illegals expanding from about 3 million in 1986 to about 12 million today.

• Guns: The ban on high power guns ten years ago did not stop the use of such weapons

• Global Warming: The Government’s selection of such clean-energy “winners” as Solyndra and the other solar energy producers have all ended in financial disasters at enormous expense for the tax payers.

Now, there actually are two crises that need be addressed!

• The National Debt and the Deficit!

• The lack of jobs for the under skilled, coupled with the lack of skilled workers for the high-tech jobs that exist!

The best answer to these two crises is to get the Congress out of the way! The collateral to this is that we don’t want the President to do anything that “We the People” don’t want either.

The less tax payer money spent to solve problems that need not be solved, the more likely we will be able to balance the budget and make inroads on reducing the National Debt. Likewise, the less the Government does to regulate and tax business, the more likely the private sector will create jobs for the unskilled unemployed, and the more likely industry will be able find and train persons to meet the high skilled jobs that are currently expanding faster than there are workers who have the needed training and skills in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) to fill them.

If we understood the principles involved here, we would stop berating the Congress, and instead compliment them for blocking the work that we don’t want. Maybe then their rating in the polls would rise from about 10% to about 90%.

In a sentence, the best news is that Congress is gridlocked and thus can do no harm. And oh, by the way, did anyone ask how the members of Congress got their jobs? That is correct. “We the People” elected them. Now, if “We the People” wanted our representatives to do what the Media says Congress should do, wouldn’t you expect that “We the People” would select candidates who would do what the Media says we should want? Isn’t it just possible that Congress, as a body representing us, is doing exactly what we want done, namely NOTHING?

Oh, maybe if they do NOTHING, they should be paid NOTHING!

Perspective: What Would the Founders Say?

I wonder what the Founding Fathers would think about what is going on with our current Administration. If we still taught Civics and the Constitution in high school, perhaps more of us would be as fearful about government’s power as the Founders were. The Founders feared government so much that they added amendments to the Constitution to protect the people. Consider these:



First Amendment: “Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech or of the press.”



Second Amendment: “The right to bear arms shall not be abridged.”



Forth Amendment: “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause supported by Oath.”



Tenth Amendment: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States, respectively, or to the people.”



Let’s begin by listing a few items that we have recently learned about that would have given the Founders concern.



• The Government has obtained access to phone messages and e-mails of certain members of the press without prior notification or Court Warrant.

(1st Ammendment)



• The government wants to register all who own arms. (2nd Ammendment)



• The Government has obtained access to our phone messages, e-mails, Facebook, etc. without prior notification, probable cause or Court Warrant.

(4th Ammendment)



Now, let’s visit some recent actions of the Executive Branch of the government that should give us pause viz a vis the 10th Ammendment.

• Who authorized the IRS to extend their purview to harass certain political groups

• Why is the President expanding the use of drones to kill enemies on foreign soil without informing anyone, including the leader of the foreign country involved?

• Why is the president unilaterally, without consulting Congress, authorizing a tax on coal with the announced objective of shutting that industry down? By the way when his party controlled both houses of Congress, that body voted against this scheme

The Founders would have been appalled at these power grabs by the Executive without congressional approval.

Now it is true that during wartime Presidents such as Lincoln and Roosevelt did exercise extreme powers. In the case of Lincoln suspending the right of habeas corpus in the civil war, and Roosevelt imprisoning Japanese Americans in WWII.



In the case of Obama one does not know if we are war or not. He never labels those who do want to attack us as “Terrorists” and then just recently he announced that the war against Terrorism is over. OK, if there is no war just bad criminals that can be handled by the police, does the Administration have to violate our Constitutional Rights to manage criminal activity? This is the central question that we need to ask ourselves as We the People.



If history were still taught, students would know that this would not be the first time that a democracy was taken over by a dictator. What if Obama, a Solinski protégé, decided he had to abort the Constitution in order to transform the country in the name of “social justice”. Wait, Obama’s campaign pledge in 2008 was that he would transform the country in the name of social justice! Transforming the country is exactly what Hitler had in mind for Germany when he, as duly elected Chancellor of Germany, burned down the Reichstag, the equivalent of our Capital Building, and took over the government. And you know how that worked out!



Now, we can just complacently sit by and watch our government do these un-constitutional things and go about our business in a blasé fashion and just trust the government, or we can demand better answers and better behavior! Remember Ben Franklin’s advice: They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither safety nor liberty. Our Founding Fathers are probably rolling over in their graves and probably at mach speed considering the complacency of the press and the main stream citizenry.

Perspective: What Graduates Need to Know

Our grandson, Alec Schadelbauer,  graduated from High School this year as did many of our friend's children. I wrote this poem for him and them. It is may be applicable to college graduates, as well.

       CONGRATULATIONS

HIGH SCHOOL GRADUATES 2013

What you have accomplished is immense

And now you are ready to commence.

You’ve taken and handled every test

And have given every one your best.

You’ve mostly followed parent’s advice

To stay away from all sin and vice.

And next year you will be able to vote

Which means you must paddle your own boat.

You now have what you’ve always wanted

To chart your own path, quite undaunted.



There are some things you’ll want for your boat

In order to simply stay afloat.

So that your life does not fall apart

You will need a path that you will chart.

And lest you pilot a “Ship of Fools”

Be certain to stow all of life’s tools

Oh, don’t forget your Moral Compass

Lest you become complacent, pompous!

And keep someone close, you might guess,

To whom you can send an SOS.



You will sail a digital and global sea

The likes of which none ever did see.

You will not want to just drift

With the world in a paradigm shift.

You will have to be your own captain

In whatever job that you are in.

Your net is not to catch a fish.

It’s a “network” for which you must wish.

And work at and continue to explore

Today, tomorrow and evermore.



Luckily, you have a tool in hand

The Smart-Phone helps know-how to expand.

But when you need more than your remote

That’s when you’ll want God in your boat.

And you can have more joy than strife,

If you face all problems in your life.

And if you love your neighbor as yourself,

And don’t place your talent on the shelf,

Then we know that you will succeed

And will have smooth sailing at God-speed.



Wayne Pearson

June, 2013

Perspective: What Middle-east Foreign Policy?

The Benghazi event, which stems from the “leading from behind” strategy to topple Libya’s dictator, Gaddafi, raises the question just what is our foreign policy for the middle-east? Actually if you look at it even casually, it is an abysmal disaster.

The fist act of the newly elected President Obama was to go to Cairo, Egypt and apologize for all the harm the United States has done to the Muslim world. Then he demanded that Mubarak, the dictator of Egypt, step down. The Egyptian Brotherhood accommodated that wish and toppled the dictator which marked the beginning of the Arab Spring. Promptly the Brotherhood made terrible comments about the US, burned our flag and threatened our embassy. Shortly after this, Gaddafi’s troupes threatened to liquidate the rebels in Benghazi, so Obama convinced some NATO allies to liberate the rebels in Benghazi with airpower. We then added our drones and Gaddafi was assassinated. As might have been expected, Jihadists,associated with Al Queda, attacked our facility in Benghazi killing Ambassador Stevens and three other Americans. Then when rebels launched attacks to unseat Assad, the dictator of Syria, Obama encouraged them, but since Russia and Iran side with Assad and Al Queda has infiltrated the rebels, what can the US realistically do to stop the death toll which is reaching 100,000?

Meanwhile, Obama pulled all of our troupes from Iraq before their own forces were ready and capable of protecting their citizens only to find that the radicals, probably infiltrated by Al Queda affiliates, were already killing hundreds of Iraqis. Then after authorizing an immense expansion of the troupe level in Afghanistan, Obama promptly announced we are going to leave and provided a timetable allowing the Taliban to plan when to jump back in.

If this were not enough, Obama significantly expanded the use of drones in Muslim related foreign lands to conduct the war against alleged Islamic Jihadists without notifying the sovereign governments of those lands or worrying about collateral damage to innocent civilians or being concerned whether the terrorist is an American citizen or not. This drone program has heightened the anger the Jihadists have for the US and will doubtless grow more terrorists.

During this four plus year period, praise has been heaped on Secretary Clinton, to quote the song, “for traveling a million miles for one of those Arab smiles” while being oblivious to and having no knowledge of the danger her ambassadors are in. And after one was assassinated along with three other Americans in Benghazi, she shouted at the Congressional investigative panel: “What difference does it make?” Does Obama and Hillary expect to get pats on their backs for a middle-east foreign policy that can best be expressed by:

“What difference at this point does it make that the Middle-east in shambles?”

Finally, after contributing to the havoc that exists throughout the middle-east and disregarding the indisputable fact that the Arab Spring is infiltrated with Al Queda wantabes, Obama has the unmitigated gall to announce a week or so ago that the war against terror is over.

For perspective, if any corporate organization’s Chief Executive did this much damage to the corporation’s well being and to its image, that person would be unceremoniously fired on the spot.

Now, since observing the enormous damage Obama’s foreign policy has wrought to the middle-east and how it jeopardizes the world’s oil supply, we have just recently discovered y that the United States has a larger supply of oil and natural gas than all of the middle-east and then some. Can you imagine this? The US is no longer dependent upon the middle-east for its energy supply! How lucky can we get? This windfall of fossil fuels presents a once in lifetime opportunity to change our foreign policy in the middle-east.

We could just walk away and let those left behind try to crawl out of the rubble, but a more prudent and civilized approach would be, as good citizens of the world, to offer to help form a partnership of those who need middle-east oil. That partnership would consist of China, India, Japan and needy European countries, where the United States should only act as a facilitator. We should have only one stipulation, namely that the partnership becomes responsible for protecting the good middle-east governments and especially including Israel. Who believes the current Administration could pull this off?

Perspective: What is the Benghazi Story?

In the old days, before our government was inundated with lawyers, we would not require unequivocal proof that something might not be true. If those earlier folk noticed an odor that smelled like horse manure, they would not jump to the conclusion that the aroma probably came from breakfast cereal. The aroma from Benghazi is not breakfast cereal and every one of us knows it.

This is what do we know about Benghazi. The day of the attack those on the ground in Benghazi reported to their superiors, and that includes the President and Secretary of State, that our embassy in Benghazi was under attack and the that attackers were affiliated with Al Qaeda with whom we have been at war for 17 years. With this news our President went to bed to rest up for the strenuous fund raising trip to Las Vegas the next day, and he was never heard from again. Meantime, the military, not having a clue as to the number or strength of the attackers, jumped to the conclusion that they could not get there in time to save anyone. Meantime, our Ambassador and three other Americans were murdered.

A few days later we Americans were informed about this disaster by Susan Rice, Ambassador to the UN, who stated that the attack was instigated by a person who created a video that was upsetting to Muslims. Thank God we captured that idiot and have him licked up, but of course we can not find or capture the culprits who killed our Ambassador.

Of all of the scandals the Whitehouse is involved in, namely, the egregious treatment of AP and Fox correspondents and the out-of control IRS, Benghazi is the worst. No correspondent or tax payer was killed in the AP and IRS scandals, and we will probably never find out who told the perpetrators of these heinous acts to do what they did. But in the case of Benghazi, the Commander in Chief and the Secretary of State were in charge and were the key deciders. Their abandoning of their posts is tantamount to dereliction of duty. In the private world they would be fired unceremoniously on the spot. But of course they will not be fired. Worse, they will be defended on the basis that since nothing could be done, why try? And according to Secretary Clinton “What difference does it make anyway?”

If you think that that the aroma surrounding this fiasco is coming from breakfast cereal, you should contact your Ear, Nose and Throat specialist!!!

Perspective: Who Should Control Obesity...You or the Government?

Perspective: Who Should Control Obesity… You or the Government?


Today, we are told poor diets lead to the increasing amount of obesity in this country. Moreover, being overweight, which affects about 50% of us and leads to obesity, is alleged to be a major cause for the rapidly increasing medical expense. Since more and more of medical expenses are being paid by the Government through Medicare and Obamacare, and that these programs will go bankrupt in a decade or so, something must be done about obesity. Consequently, it will only be a matter of time until the Government will decide that they must control what we can and cannot eat in order to prevent Medicare and Obamacare from going bankrupt.

The assumption that obesity is a major cause for the forecast financial catastrophe is somewhat dubious in my view for the simple reason that the life expectancy of obese persons is predicted to be shorter than the average healthy American. Financially this means they won’t collect as much Social Security and won’t live long enough to require knee and hip replacements and other expensive treatments for other maladies associated with old age.

But let’s set that aside to consider the question of who is to blame for this obesity problem? There are two new books that have just hit the market that virtually state that it is not our fault that we are obese. One book has the title of Salt, Sugar, Fat by Michael Moss It claims that it is the fault of those evil purveyors of processed food. The other entitled Obsessed, by Mika Brzezinski, says these awful processed foods are addicting, and we succumb to them. Since both authors are Progressives, it is not surprising that their answer to this problem is for the government to control what we eat, and Mike Bloomburg, the pseudo Republican Mayor of New York City, surely agrees.

Let’s examine the thesis of Moss’s book Salt, Sugar, Fat. He claims that the food processors aim at what is called the “bliss’ point in the taste and satisfaction of their food product. The actually conduct massive studies involving thousands of persons enrolled in controlled tests to determine just exactly where that bliss point is as measured in precise terms of the amount of salt, sugar and fat in the food. I don’t know about you, but I am astounded to learn this. I thought, naively, that Kraft and General Mills formulated foods to taste just awful!!

I will bet that no one has ever seen an American sitting at a dinner table, at home or a restaurant, reaching for the salt shaker, the butter dish or the sugar bowl to heighten the taste and satisfaction of the food served to them. Or how about this, you are at your grandmother’s house and she serves food that she prepared from scratch that is beyond belief in taste and satisfaction. How did she do this? My grandmother served this to me in the 1930’s. But guess what, she did not even have a cook book. She did it by feel with what magic ingredients? If you had checked her pantry you would have found that she stocked flour, sugar, salt and yes fat. Not butter mind you, but LARD. That’s right, LARD which came straight from the pig they slaughtered on the farm a few weeks ago. Oh, and did I mention that she lived to the ripe old age of 94?

Now, what about the addiction factor, claimed by Mika Brinszki? Well, what do you know, I was addicted to my grandmother’s cooking, and could not wait to visit her in her kitchen. If fact, I would visit her there now were she still able to cook such heavenly meals. And, oh by the way, I notice that we mostly select our favorite breakfast cereal to take home from the grocery store. I wonder why?

Typical of our polically correct society and our propensity to search for the culprit rather than look in the mirror, we have these two authors along with Mayor Bloomberg leading us astray. As Pogo the cartoon Possum would say, “We have met the enemy and he is us!”

So let’s examine us! 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.” There is no question that the development of self-control is critical in order to have reliable and responsible citizens. Self-control keeps one from being swayed from the right course by evil forces which can come from either outside or inside the person. These forces can include the evil food purveyors who want us to become addicted to their food.

Let’s spend a moment on what is the cause of obesity. This is a simple problem in physics. A person’s body requires a certain amount of nutrients to sustain itself. If the body’s intake of nutrients exceeds this amount, the body stores the nutrients for another day. This stored material is called FAT!!

IN A WORD, IT’S THE CALORIES, STUPID!!

Now, I have no doubt that programs designed to help persons to diet do cause weight loss. The problem is those same persons cannot seem to keep the weight from returning. That is because none of the programs deal with the root cause, namely we lack the WILL POWER to control how much we eat. Each of these programs provides crutches which lead us to believe that there is something magic about their program. But these crutches do nothing to help us develop our will power. So when we toss the crutches aside, we fall right back to where we were.

Reminds me of the preacher who admonished his parishioners to call on the Almighty to cure their aliments. A person at the back of the Church called out that he had just witnessed a miracle. It seemed that there was a cripple on two crutches, who upon hearing the inspiring message, tossed one crutch away and then tossed the other away, as well. The preacher exclaimed that he had to see this man, where is he? Another parishioner called out, he is back here flat on his ass!

We used to believe that self-control was a vital component needed to set a child on the right course, and society spent a large amount of time and money developing moral compasses 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. 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, 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.

There is a better book than Moss’s or Brzezinski to help with obesity. It is actually called “Willpower”. This book 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. And it would doubtless help the person trying to control weight.

The government wants to be in every room in our lives, let’s not let them into our dinning room!
























































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Perspective: Why Can’t We Get It Straight?

If it walks like a duck, if it quacks like a duck and if it looks like a duck what is it?

Obama would call it a catastrophe of nature! How about this? If it looks like an act of terror, it terrorizes you and you catch the terrorists in the act, what is it? Obviously to Obama, it is a bunch of Republican gun owning zealots who don’t want background checks.

Is our President too young to remember that in 1996 Bin Laden issued a fatwā entitled: "Declaration of War against the Americans”. This document was signed by five people, four of whom represented specific Islamic groups, and it was faxed to supporters across the world.

The first attack in this war occurred on August 7,1998 when two of our embassies were truck bombed by Islamic Jihadists killing hundreds of US employees. This was followed by the terrorist’s suicide bombing of the USS Cole which cost the lives of 17 fine American sailors and then on September 11, 2001 planes piloted by Muslim Jihadists destroyed the two Trade Center buildings, severely damaged the Pentagon and crash landed in a field in Pennsylvania, all in all killing over 3,000 persons. In addition, we lost about 5,000 of our finest military fighting wars against the Islamic Jihadists in Iraq and Afghanistan. Fortunately, we have managed to thwart the Shoe Bomber’s plan in 2001, the Time Square Bomber’s in 2010 and Underwear Bomber’s in 2012. But then in 2009, a Muslim shoots and kills his fellow soldiers at Fort Hood.

Now, it turns out that the Boston Marathon bombers look like Muslims, they came from a Muslim Country went to Muslim Madrassas and attend Muslim services in Mosques, and their tools for terrorizing mimic those of known Muslim terrorists. Do you notice a pattern? Wouldn’t your first thought be that they might be part of Bin Laden’s Muslim Jihad? Not so to our President who initially stated, it’s a catastrophe! Oh, and the Fort Hood massacre is just a workplace accident.

A student taking a course in Logic or earlier generations who still held sense in common would have nailed this in a minute. Unfortunately for problem solving we are inundated with Political Correctness where nearly every term had been changed, e.g. an act of terror is a “disaster or a castrophy”, or murdering a viable fetus is “choice”. By this reasoning the surviving bomber is not an Islamic Jihadist! He is just a US citizen who is a nice guy who had a bad night with a bad brother. They were in the business of making and transporting bombs, but two accidentally fell out of their knapsacks while they stopped to view the Boston Marathon, and the others were to be delivered to New York City. However, they were too poor to own a car, so they simply “borrowed” one to make that delivery.

Are we living in Alice’s PC Wonderland, or what?

It is a fundamental fact that if you cannot define a problem, you cannot solve it. And equally important to understand is that you must use clear and unequivocal terms. If you don’t employ these principles you don’t have a ghost of a chance of being able to understand the problem let alone to solve it. Another principle of problem solving is that among the entire list of possible theories that can be generated to explain the phenomena, the simplest has the highest probability of being correct.

With all the evidence of attacks on Americans following the Bin Laden Fatwa, why do we have so much trouble calling this what it is? It is war!! This is not just a bunch of unrelated April Fool Pranks! How often do we have to see this movie before we get it? The entire planet, including the United States, is the battlefield, and these Radical Islamists who carry out these acts of terror, are enemy combatants. In an ordinary war, if a country declares war on us, we try to capture or kill the enemy combatants on the battlefield. Now, what does it matter whether the enemy combatants are US citizens who have been “self-radicalized” or where the battlefield is? Those who are radicalized or are inclined to become so do not have to live in a tribe in the Middle East to become an Islamic Jihadist! We live in the digital world, and this can link every Islamic Jihadist in the world. Further, if we believe that these US citizens have joined the Radical Islamist group who are out to kill us, they have committed treason regardless, of age, or that they look like nice guys or where they reside, and they should be treated accordingly.

If you want to know how sick and stupid we have become just notice how we handled the interview of the surviving Boston Marathon Terrorist. We had just learned that he and his brother had plans to do similar damage in New York City and God only knows where else when our Government intervened and read him his Miranda Rights, thus preventing us from obtaining pertinent information he might possess. Had this terrorist been treated as an enemy combatant, we might have learned what other heinous plans they had, and most importantly what was his brother’s connection with Chechnya and the larger worldwide Islamist Jihad.

In summary, what we need to do to combat the Muslim terrorist is to just have the guts to call a duck a duck. Since Bin Laden declared war on us 17 years ago, one Muslim Jihadist after another from all over the world, which includes the US, decided to fight in Bin Laden’s war. Is it a stretch then, to conclude that any Muslim Jihadist caught in the act of terrorizing, regardless of Nationality or Geographic location is a Bin Laden soldier, and therefore is an “enemy combatant”? The entire world knows how to deal with enemy combatants, why don’t we?

One more thing! If the radical Jihadists represent only a fraction of the worldwide Muslim population, and more importantly, if their motives and terrorist activities are repugnant to the majority of the Muslims on the planet, then why does that group, who should be our allies, remain silent? Has anyone seen or heard a Muslim Imam come out to decry and disavow the attack on the Boston Marathon?

Perspective: How Do We Keep the Middle Class From Dropping Out?

As mentioned in an earlier blog, the Middle Class in the United States achieved an historic wage earning level after WWII because the US had the only manufacturing capability on the planet unscathed from the War. Today, about 20 million Americans, mostly in the Middle Class, are out of work or working part time. It is worse than these numbers show because most of these people have skills that no longer meet the current global and digital market needs.

This shows up in the numbers. The most recent jobs report states that last month about a half a million potential workers stopped looking for work, and as a consequence, the jobless rate dropped. Based on this math, one would assume that the answer is to have all who can’t find work to stop looking. This would drive the unemployed percent to zero. Then we could forget all about the problem!

Or could we? Those in the Middle Class that stop looking for work altogether will just end up in another group, namely those classified as disabled and are thus obtaining Social Security or those who are considered poor and are obtaining food stamps and all the rest of government handouts. Obama claims that these unemployed are being exploited. Nevertheless, he does nothing tangible about their plight except to preach that they can “pull themselves up by their boot straps, if only the rich will provide the boots”. Can we stand to have the Middle Class be dependent upon the government? Worse, can we afford to have them drop out? Of course not!

Those who have been reading my blogs know that I believe we have our priorities all wrong. Contrary to what the environmental enthusiasts tell us, our lifestyle will not cause the world to collapse within our lifetime, but I can assure you that if the problem of how to help our Middle Class is not seriously addressed and soon, the cost of supporting them and their children and their children’s children will permanently harm the lifestyle we have all come to love.

As an historic fact, jobs for the under skilled have been shrinking during the past 100 years. Farm labor, for example has dropped from 33% of the total labor force to less than 2 % today. By contrast professional and skilled labor has increased to 70 % of the total work force. Because of the digital revolution and the robotization it brings with it, we can expect the skilled class to increase to about 75 to 80% while non-skilled labor shrinks to about 20-25% of the total work force.

Interestingly, jobs that require high skills are increasing faster than we are graduating those with the skills in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) which are required for the jobs. The number of these jobs is expanding rapidly because the digital revolution is now upon us in full force. A new factor in this equation is that manufacturing jobs that moved overseas are beginning to return to the US. It turns out that manufacturing is most efficient when located in the same proximity as design, engineering and marketing. Also, the cost of overseas labor is rising, and the cost of shipping is also rising due to rising oil prices.

Another factor affecting high tech jobs is the extremely low cost of ethane. This is a component of natural gas and a major building block for chemicals and polymers. Consequently, major chemical manufacturers are lured to build plants in the US. The group includes Dow and Shell, major US companies, but it also includes BASF, a German company, which is the world’s largest chemical manufacturer. As an aside, let me mention that these plants will hire many chemical engineers at starting salaries above $100,000 per annum.

In a sentence, we have a dilemma: We have a shortage of jobs for the unskilled workers, and a shortage of workers for the skilled jobs. This has happened so swiftly that the economy and the Middle Class have been unable to adjust to it.

The fact is we are experiencing a paradigm shift in the type of skills required to meet the market needs as the chart graphically illustrates.

                                                                              PERCENT OF US LABOR MARKET.



                                                                                         1910                            2010

Unskilled, or Low Skilled

Farm Labor                                                                         33                                 2

Other Labor                                                                        15                                  8

Operators, Foremen, Craftsmen                                          25                                 20

Sub-Total                                                                           73                                 30



Professional, Managerial, Clerical, Marketing                      27                                  70



Source: Occupational changes during the twentieth century

Ian D. Wyatt and Daniel E. Hecker



Looking at these data tells us that we have been moving from a society that functioned very well with low skilled labor to one where modern technology and even robots require highly skilled workers. In the early part of the 20th century, a one-room school six or eight grade education was all that was needed to get a decent job. But in the 21st century, a High School education may not be enough. A Trade School, Junior College and in many cases, even a College degree is required to obtain a job of “American Dream” quality..

You do not have to be an Einstein to know what is in the immediate future. Just look in your child’s hand and you will find a device that seems to be affixed to as though from birth. This amazing device reminds us old folks of the radio wrist watch of Dick Tracy days. In a way the Smart Phone is in fact a kind of two-way radio. But it is infinitely more than that! It permits the owner, even a child, to access the entire world’s knowledge on any subject in a matter of seconds. Contrast this to what the the kid had access to in the one-room school with one teacher teaching 8 grades. But the wonderment of it is that it is predicted that these so-called “phones, a mere five years old, will be in the hands of five billion earth dwellers within the next ten years. What else do we need to know to realize where this is heading at mach speed?

So, what in the face of this dramatic change in the workplace can be done to help the Middle Class to get back to work right now? Fortuitously, we have the opportunity and the need for a large amount of such under-skilled labor because of the discovery of the huge quantities of natural gas and oil right here in our back yard. To get this low cost product to market requires massive amounts of infrastructure that does not exist.. This includes piping the products to users such as the chemical and electricity producers and to export markets. Piping is also needed to get the gas to locations where it can be used for automotive fuel. This fuel, called compressed natural gas CNG, is already being used in trucks and busses, but the shortage of infrastructure to create the CNG and get the refueling facilities in place is slowing the adoption of this low-cost, environmentally friendly automotive fuel. And as the March 23rd article in the Olean Times explains, the shortage of infrastructure is showing up right here.

“The biggest drawback to the use of compressed natural gas (CNG) is that while there is an estimated 10,000 vehicles in the State of New York capable of using CNG -10% of the vehicles in the Nation- there are only about 100 CNG refueling stations in the State, and one-third of those are public”

The work to build this infrastructure does not require a college degree. Mostly it requires know-how that the jobless already have. Therefore this group of workers could begin work at once.

To increase the number of persons who are skilled in STEM is another matter. Two actions are required.

• Find a way to convince females who represent half of college graduates to take and graduate with        majors in STEM. Currently, the percentage is only about 5%

• Change the immigration policy so that foreign students who major in STEM can stay and work in the United States.

As stated at the beginning of this blog, our priorities are out of whack. The idea that our infrastructure of roads and schools must be fixed as a priority is silly. We have had one major bridge collapse in the last ten years with minimal damage to human life. And we do not see traffic backed up because the roads are crumbling and therefore impassable. Another silly idea is that we have to spend billions on new pre-school programs. We know from Head Start that the kids who are not in that program reach equality with those who are in about 1-3 years. We have always known what to do to improve our schools and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation’s study has confirmed it! The schools need two things, namely, a good teacher and a good parent. The way the Foundation determined who was a good teacher was to ask the students. As a former student, I am shocked, shocked to just now learn that students know which teachers are good and which were not!

Now, you would think that the US Government would leap at this once in a lifetime opportunity to do something special to help the Middle Class. Unfortunately however, based on the way our governmental leaders talk and act and the low priority they have given this problem, one has to assume that they have no clue what is going on and what has to be done about it. Maybe we should give them Dick Tracy watches.

Perspective: Easter Bunny Banned in District Schools

News Item:

"The Indian River School District’s concern over issues of religious expression in the schools — a matter discussed and debated for the past three years — reached new heights this week when officials mandated on Tuesday that no school in the district can host or celebrate the Easter holiday with egg hunts, candy or the Easter Bunny, etc.The recommendation was made at the suggestion of the district’s administrative superintendent, Susan Bunting, on strong advice from attorney Jason Gosselin. It follows a recent partial legal settlement, announced at last month’s school board meeting, that was an attempt to bring the district’s policy on religion “more in line with the U.S. Constitution” after two Jewish families filed suit claiming the district had pursued pro-Christian policies."

Exactly what does the Constitution say about this?

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof”.

Wow! That is a new one!! Celebrating a religion is equal to Establishing a religion! Letting the Bunny into the school is tantamount to the government establishing a religion? How scaring can it get? But hey, if the Jews are so upset, why not give their “Jewish Bunny” equal time? Oh, by the way, did you know that Easter is not even mentioned in the Bible?

This would be hilarious and just the stuff for Saturday Night Live, if it were not so serious. But the Controllers and kill-joys just can’t leave us alone. As Ronald Regan would say, “There they go again”!

Let me ask you to imagine that you knew nothing about Easter and then were told that every child believed that they if they put fancy baskets in the right place on a designated night in Spring then a bunny rabbit could lay decorated eggs in them and put candy in, as well. You are correct! You would surely want to ban such a practice straight away to prevent the child from growing up a complete loony. And what if they wanted to bring that filled basket to school to show their friends? Oh, my God!!!

If Easter is not found in the Bible, then where did it come from? Now, wouldn’t this be a perfect question for school children to ask? Is it too much to ask that a school board president, a superintendent, a principal and a teacher know that we live in an age when we have all the knowledge the entire world has ever known right in the palm of our hand where in a matter of minutes we can learn the truth about any subject? And would not this be the perfect time to have the kids use the I-phone they have glued to their hands and get them to stop texting with it long enough to look up the origin of Easter?

When I heard about the controversy over the celebration of Easter, I immediately grabbed our I-Pad to look up the origin of Easter, and in about three minutes found the following, which I quote verbatim:

“Spring is in the air! Flowers and bunnies decorate the home. Father helps the children paint beautiful designs on eggs dyed in various colors. These eggs, which will later be hidden and searched for, are placed into lovely, seasonal baskets. The wonderful aroma of the hot cross buns mother is baking in the oven waft through the house. Forty days of abstaining from special foods will finally end the next day. The whole family picks out their Sunday best to wear to the next morning’s sunrise worship service to celebrate the savior’s resurrection and the renewal of life. Everyone looks forward to a succulent ham with all the trimmings. It will be a thrilling day. After all, it is one of the most important religious holidays of the year.” Easter, right?

“Wrong This is a description of an ancient Babylonian family—2,000 years before Christ—honoring the resurrection of their god, Tammuz, who was brought back from the underworld by his mother/wife, Ishtar (after whom the festival was named). As Ishtar was actually pronounced “Easter” in most Semitic dialects, it could be said that the event portrayed here is, in a sense, Easter.”

“Of course, the occasion could easily have been a Phrygian family honoring Attis and Cybele, or perhaps a Phoenician family worshipping Adonis and Astarte. Also fitting the description well would be an Israelite family honoring the Canaanite Baal and Ashtoreth. Or this depiction could just as easily represent any number of other fertility celebrations of death and resurrection—including the modern Easter celebration as it has come to us through the Anglo-Saxon fertility rites of the goddess Eostre or Ostara. These are all the same festivals, separated only by time and culture.”

In other words, this yearly event has been celebrated for thousands of years by nearly every group on the globe as a fun time. The timing connects with the ending of Winter and the beginning of new life at Spring. So why not celebrate with all the humans on the planet who have done so for millennia?

The problem is worse in the first six grades. First the schools dropped recess and found that the boys had to be given Ritalin. Then the Christmas tree was tossed out of the school, and now the Easter Bunny must go. How boring do we want our elementary schools to be? If the kill-joys are permitted to go on like this, children will have no fun in school at all! Hasn’t anyone noticed that our kids spend more time texting than having fun with other kids doing silly things such as playing tag, decorating Christmas trees and showing off their Easter baskets? And you wonder why the drop out rate is high? As Sherlock Holmes would say: “It’s elementary (school) dear Watson.

How about this for an answer for the school board president? If these controllers won’t let your school teach religion, maybe they will permit you to teach history? If our schools are truly interested in educating our children (versus indoctrinating them) but cannot teach anything about religion, why not let them teach that mankind has been celebrating the spring equinox for as far back as history has been recorded? Moreover, is it too much to ask that our teachers, administrators and school boards have enough courage and be creative enough to get around these “controllers”? Now, here’s an idea!! Replace the word Easter with it’s ancient (i.e. historic) predecessor, Ishtar and go right on with the Ishtar bunnies, Ishtar eggs, Ishtar baskets and Ishtar egg hunts!

PERSPECTIVE: MANUFACTURING AND THE MIDDLE CLASS

President Obama constantly tells us that the “Middle Class” is in terrible shape and the people who qualify as middle class must be helped in every way possible with US government financial support. His idea is that the middle class is in such bad shape that we must take money away from those who could invest capital to make jobs for the middle class and instead just give that money to the so-called Middle Class.

Now, if Obama were really serious about helping the middle class, he might have noticed the Marcellus Shell development which will provide us with an abundant supply of the lowest cost most environmentally friendly energy on the planet. This combined with the development of new manufacturing technology is causing manufacturing to return from off shore. Both could be accelerated if Obama would get his government out of the way by eliminating unnecessary regulations and taxes on both the developers of our huge reserves of natural gas and the investors in the new manufacturing opportunities. This is what really would help the Middle Class!

The reasons why manufacturing is actually returning to the United States after a three decade hiatus are:

• The United States leads the world in digital technology which reduces the speed from product design to manufacture.



• We are learning that when manufacturing is separated from design and engineering, which are evolving with the needs of the market, manufacturing cannot stay apace.



• The natural gas windfall in the US reduces the cost of energy for manufacturing and also produces raw materials for the chemical industry.



• US labor productivity continues to grow, thus becoming an ever smaller part of manufacturing cost



• There is a better relationship between management and hourly workers who play a larger role in product and engineering design



• The cost of labor is rising in China and other low labor cost countries



• The price of oil is rising, thus increasing the cost to ship product from China and other off-shore manufacturers to the US

Much of the information that will be provided in this blog about the return of manufacturing comes from an article in the December, 2012 issue of the Atlantic written by Charles Fishman. The article states that as recently as five years ago the conventional wisdom held that there was little short of a hamburger that could be manufactured competitively in the United States. But there is a major flaw in the idea of off shoring. It has been thought for several decades that engineering and design could be done in the US and the actual assembling of the product could be done anywhere. It turns out that when you separate assembling from engineering and design to chase low labor costs, you lose the evolving development of manufacturing itself. This occurs slowly at first but the gap grows and you never get back. What is dawning on smart American Companies, according to the author, is that when you outsource the making of a product the whole business goes with it.

The article highlights GE’s decision to bring back their GeoSpring water heater from China to Appliance Park.”. Only a few years ago GE was trying to sell Appliance Park, but now, after years of offshore production, General Electric decided to move much of its far-flung appliance manufacturing operations back home. Fishman states that GE hasn’t just changed course, they have “pirouetted”.

A problem became apparent from the start. GE had forgotten how to make the GeoSping heater. So, a new style team was assembled and assigned to develop and manufacture the product. The team consisted of design engineers, manufacturing engineers, line workers and staffs from marketing and sales. Management was deliberately absent. The team realized immediately that the manufacturing design was all wrong. So they went to work to redesign how the product should be made. The final result was that they cut the cost of materials by 25% and cut the work hours to assemble the product from10 hours in China to two at Appliance Park. Consequently, GE could set the retail price 20% bellow the China-made retail price.

The article reports that there are other factors favoring producing a product in the US beyond just costs. Historically the design of a product would last seven years or more. Today, that time has shrunk to about two to three years. It turns out that factories have a learning curve also. It takes a while to settle into a new product or design. This means that a factory is just getting the hang of a new product just as a new product or design is being introduced. What the companies are finding is that this is virtually impossible to manage that problem if the assembly is off shore.

There is another factor that enters into the equation of where to manufacture a product. That is the need to shorten the time from a product’s inception to when it hits the market. Three dimensional printing is a new technology of computerized molding to produce a prototype on the basis of designs on a computer screen. With this technology a prototype can be produced in a matter of minutes, and variations can be tried to eliminate flaws. Consequently, factory management can determine the cost the next day.

Another major difference between the situation today and that of 15-20 years ago is the relationship of management and labor. The atmosphere is different. Management is aware of the problems of offshore production and therefore tries to create a better workplace environment. Importantly also, hourly workers play a larger role in the decision making.

There is an example from the article that epitomizes how the new team approach improves manufacturing, and it is worth mentioning. GE wanted to try to make a dishwasher more competitively. So they assigned a team at Appliance Park to see if they could develop a better lower cost dishwasher. Hourly workers were included in the team. As originally designed, the door had four visible screws. The marketing people wanted the door to have no screws. The workers liked the idea. Four screws takes a lot of assembly time.The engineers came up with a design with one hidden screw and a rod. The whole thing was sleeker, and cheaper. It would not have been possible, however, without the team members all located in the same place.

It turns out that GE is not the only company that is moving the manufacture of many of its products back to America. In-sourcing solves a number of problems. It simplifies transportation; it gives people confidence in the security of their ideas; it is easier to manage costs; and it is easier to get the right product to the right customer.

Last October, my nephew, Barron Smith gave me a chance to visit four machine shops in the Dallas area where he also operates such a facility. During this tour I was able to see first hand the latest cutting and shaping technology for manufacturing parts. This is something everyone should see, because all of the opportunities and problems that American manufacture has to deal with are on display. The new technologies for forming, shaping and cutting a piece of material to meet some specification are just amazing. And these shops are not just working with ordinary iron or steel anymore. The materials include complex and constantly changing alloys and even plastics. The sophisticated use of the computer in managing some of the complex machinery is inspiring, and one gets the feeling that we “ain’t seen nothin’ yet”. As a consequence of this, the workers must be skilled, and more than that, they have to be able to adapt to new methods of working with newer materials such as alloys and plastics as well as the addition of computerization in the operation of the machine itself.

Which leads to a problem that the shop owners have, namely, how to get and keep workers who are capable of doing more and more sophisticated tasks? Each manager in the plants lamented the fact that he cannot see where the new employees will come from considering the state of our K-12 system and the under supported Vo-tech schools. One of the owners has become so discouraged about his that he has set up his own Vo-Tech school right on his plant site with a professional educator to head it up!

In summary, American manufacturing is making a come back, and it could become bigger than ever before. We are witnessing a virtual revolution in the creation of and manufacture of products which will lead to more good jobs in America than ever thought possible only a few years ago We still have innovative persons at all levels in the process as the GE example shows, and such innovation is not exclusively held by the big companies such as GE. I observed the same thing in our machine shops in Dallas. What is new is that the jobs will be more sophisticated than ever before as more and more the workers become an integral part of the designing of the product. This means that these will be well paying jobs for those with the skills, and who are willing to work.

Finally, it would help if the main stream media and our legislators would take the time to catch up with this exciting and vitally important development. For example, if our legislators understood these principles, they could help by removing barriers that thwart the development and expansion of US energy development and manufacturing. Tax and regulatory barriers that make American manufacture less competitive globally should be removed. It would also help if our school system placed more focus on VoTech and less on college where only half of the graduates can find work commensurate with their training. Research that helps expand manufacturing efficiency should be supported and even subsidized where appropriate. Such cooperation between industry and government would do more to expand the middle class than anything else President Obama has in mind. Moreover, with the development of low cost energy and if manufacturing comes back, our economy will start to grow with the attendant rise in revenue which will help ameliorate our debt problem.