Bureaucracy Buries the Human Spirit with Paperwork

From FEE.org:

Bureaucrats have a fixation on numbers and rules. Viktor Frankl, a Holocaust survivor, describes this termination point:

The emaciated bodies of the sick were thrown on two-wheeled carts which were drawn by prisoners for many miles, often through snowstorms, to the next camp. If one of the sick men had died before the cart left, he was thrown on anyway—the list had to be correct! The list was the only thing that mattered. A man counted only because he had a prison number. One literally became a number: dead or alive—that was unimportant; the life of a “number” was completely irrelevant.

The following words represent the generally acknowledged mindset of a bureaucrat: “Rules are rules, fella. I don’t make ‘em. I just enforce ‘em.”

Rules, Lists, and Paperwork

As Ludwig von Mises has taught us, bureaucracy is not a large, hierarchically structured organization, whether of big government or big business. It is the government’s method of managing its affairs, which means it is the “peaceful” method of managing coercion. Laws of the land, a budget for each bureau, and regulatory rules dictate to citizens what they can and cannot do. Disobedience brings punishment. The method is top-down; the higher authority must be obeyed.

Business management is bottom-up, deriving its legitimacy from customer satisfaction, the only means in a free market of earning profits. Policies, not rules, are guidelines informing everyone in the company, from president to stock clerk, how to function in order to achieve optimal customer satisfaction and therefore optimal profits.

If a large, hierarchically structured business today seems bureaucratic, in the sense of being inefficient and insensitive to customers, look for the government’s demands for compliance to laws and rules. Compliance means obedience to a higher power, which consequently deflects attention from customer needs and wants. This is what makes businesses in a mixed economy take on the “rules are rules” mentality.

So why the bureaucratic indifference to people? Paperwork is the only yardstick bureaucracy has to measure its “success.” Laws and rules are commands that compel citizens to obey, and citizens usually do obey to avoid punishment. Paperwork records the compliance—but it must be correct.

The objective yardstick of a business is its bottom line, profits, which means it is successfully meeting its customer’s needs and wants.

The Bureaucratic Society

A bureaucratic society is a rule-bound society. Freedom and creativity are not valued. (Creativity, after all, means breaking rules.) The more bureaucratic the society, the more rule-bound it will become. The socialist state, therefore, is a society dominated almost entirely by laws and rules. The more laws and rules, the more total the regulation of human affairs, the less value it places on its citizens’ lives.

Total bureaucracy—the totalitarian socialist state—is dictatorship by excessive law. This describes Nazi Germany during World War II, as well as the USSR and many similar regimes in the twentieth century.

The list has to be correct because all paperwork has to be correct. William Shirer made this clear in The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, when he described gangs of German secretaries dutifully typing orders to send Jewish people to their deaths.

Even a few members of Kerensky’s provisional Russian government, who were discovered by illiterate Bolshevik revolutionaries during the 1917 October Revolution, were compelled to write their own arrest papers. The paperwork had to be correct!

In a bureaucratic society, thought is neither required nor appreciated, only compliance. Thus, paperwork has to be correct for the lower-ranked official to avoid punishment and for the higher to justify his or her actions, by reference to a law or rule.

Concern for the person behind a bureaucratic number is minimal or non-existent. Just ask students at state-run universities what it is like to be a number on a roster. (And the rosters do have to be correct!)

………………….

For more on the relationship between bureaucracy, socialism, and dictatorship, see Mises’ 1944 book Bureaucracy. Here is his one-paragraph summary and conclusion (p. 125):

The champions of socialism call themselves progressives, but they recommend a system which is characterized by rigid observance of routine and by a resistance to every kind of improvement. They call themselves liberals, but they are intent upon abolishing liberty. They call themselves democrats, but they yearn for dictatorship. They call themselves revolutionaries, but they want to make the government omnipotent. They promise the blessings of the Garden of Eden, but they plan to transform the world into a gigantic post office. Every man but one a subordinate clerk in a bureau, what an alluring utopia! What a noble cause to fight for!

[read more]

The subject of the article fits nicely with Moore's Laws of Bureaucracy few of which state:

• So a typical bureaucracy with 12 levels has a 99.5 percent chance that one or more sociopaths are in each control path. The actual percentage is somewhat lower because the sensor and effector information paths often overlap.
• So the effectors, who actually deal with the public, will be totally constrained in their behavior by rigid rules. Thus, they will have no heart.

In other words, since bureaucracies don’t see people as individuals but as numbers, stats, etc. people in that bureaucracy will either be sociopaths or slowly become them. Also, according to Moore, bureaucracies are inefficient, big, growing, out-of-control, and immortal—or want to be immortal. I agree. President Trump will find this out if he hasn’t already. Draining-the-swamp will be an uphill battle. Bureaucracies don’t want to die.

If you're going to sin, sin against God, not the bureaucracy; God will forgive you but the bureaucracy won't. – Hyman Rickover.

I never saw a bureaucracy produce a single barrel of oil. - Rex Tillerson.

Government proposes, bureaucracy disposes. And the bureaucracy must dispose of government proposals by dumping them on us. - P. J. O'Rourke.

Why Non-Competes Are Anti-Competitive

From FEE.org:

Non-Compete Agreements Limit Competition

Competition is the life-blood of a free market economy. The pushes and pulls of resource supply and demand work to efficiently digest risks and opportunities in the economy.

Non-compete agreements limit competition in labor markets by artificially decreasing labor supply creating situations of sub-optimal labor use. Workers are bound to jobs, working environments, and pay levels that are unnatural to the wider economy and businesses are unable to hire the best talent to produce the best results.

Non-compete agreements vary in scope but generally are contractual agreements between an employer and an employee governing when and where an employee is allowed to work. Effective non-competes are limited in their temporal and geographic scopes with a narrow focus in what they attempt to accomplish and what knowledgeable parties they are given to.

Benefits of non-compete agreements might include the protection of trade secrets, an increased incentive to invest in worker training and education, and the protection of client and sales lists.

Decreased Worker Mobility

Workers who have signed non-compete agreements cannot test the job market to fulfill their labor potential. After signing a non-compete, workers have to either stay at their current job, not work, or transfer outside the confines of a non-compete that likely encompasses the areas they are most skilled and experienced.

Because workers can’t test the market for the most preferable jobs, they are more likely to stay at their current job and accept inferior working conditions and lower wages.

Normally in a free market, we would argue that if an employer does not pay market rates or offers bad working conditions they will be naturally pressured towards more efficient outcomes. Whether that is in raising their standards, becoming less successful as employees leave, or reshuffling who they employ. With non-competes, however, the threat of workers leaving is lowered because their alternatives are artificially limited, which decreases the market pressures on companies to improve.  [read more]

The article says: “Non-competes benefit businesses by distorting labor markets in the same way that labor unions benefit organized labor by distorting labor markets.”

Terrorism Part I: Foundations of Islamic Terrorism

Americans first suffered at the hands of Islamists in 1785. They were kidnapped and ransomed or sold into slavery. Goods were stolen from merchant ships and the ships confiscated repeatedly.

Prior to gaining its independence, America was under the protection of the British Navy in the region and didn’t have to deal with the attacks. But in 1785, Britain let it be known that the Americans were no longer their concern.

The problem became so severe that Thomas Jefferson sailed for London to meet with the ambassador from Tripoli. There he learned the pirates belief that their actions were founded on the laws of their prophet and written in their Koran. These Islamic laws stated that all nations not acknowledging their authority were sinners, and it was their right and duty to make war upon them, making slaves of all they could. And every Muslim slain in battle was sure to go to paradise.

Sound familiar?

So American administrations lapsed into a policy of appeasement*, bribing the pirates and paying an annual tribute amounting to 20 percent of the nation’s GDP — the equivalent of $760 billion today.

In 1801, President Thomas Jefferson had had enough and stopped paying the tribute, and the Pasha of Tripoli declared war on the United States. America entered her first foreign war. By 1805, the U.S. Navy had won the war and subdued the pirates into signing a treaty to end all tributes and violence against U.S. ships sailing the Mediterranean.

However, peace only lasted two years, with radical Islamists attacking American ships, signing treaties and violating those treaties, only to be stopped again by American force. This cycle went on through the presidency of James Madison, ending only with the French Invasion of Algiers in 1830.

Even America’s Founders — Washington, Jefferson and Madison — had to deal with Islamic extremists. Even they had a hard time understanding what they were up against and how to deal with it. Our Founders also learned that when the interests of nations, in their case Britain and France, don’t align with their own, terrorist activity is not only not dealt with, it’s actually encouraged.

Source: Terrorism Part I: Foundations of Islamic Terrorism.

Why would the Islamists back then attack American ships? America didn’t invade the Middle East for oil (as the Left would say). America was just minding its business. Hmmm.

*Appeasement never works. If anything it shows your enemies that you are weak—or worse a joke.

Disruptive Technology

Principles of Disruptive Technology:

1. Companies Depend on Customers and Investors for Resources. In order to survive, companies must provide customers and investors with the products, services and profits that they require. The highest performing companies, therefore, have well-developed systems for killing ideas that their customers don't want. As a result, these companies find it very difficult to invest adequate resources in disruptive technologies lower margin opportunities that their customers don't want - until their customers want them. And by then, it is too late.
2. Small Markets Don't Solve the Growth Needs of Large Companies. To maintain their share prices and create internal opportunities for their employees, successful companies need to grow. It isn't necessary that they increase their growth rates, but they must maintain them. And as they get larger, they need increasing amounts of new revenue just to maintain the same growth rate. Therefore, it becomes progressively more difficult for them to enter the newer, smaller markets that are destined to become the large markets of the future. To maintain their growth rates, they must focus on large markets.
3. Markets That Don't Exist Can't Be Analyzed. Sound market research and good planning followed by execution according to plan are the hallmarks of good
   management. But, companies whose investment processes demand quantification of market size and financial returns before they can enter a market get paralyzed when faced with disruptive technologies because they demand data on markets that don't yet exist.
4. Technology Supply May Not Equal Market Demand. Although disruptive technologies can initially be used only in small markets, they eventually become competitive in mainstream markets. This is because the pace of technological progress often exceeds the rate of improvement that mainstream customers want or can absorb. As a result, the products that are currently in the mainstream eventually will overshoot the performance that mainstream markets demand, while the disruptive technologies that underperform relative to customer expectations in the mainstream market today, may become directly competitive tomorrow. Once two
   or more products are offering adequate performance, customers will find other criteria for choosing. These criteria tend to move toward reliability, convenience and price, all of which are areas in which the newer technologies often have advantages.

Only by recognizing the dynamics of how disruptive technologies develop, can managers respond effectively to the opportunities that they present. Specifically he [Mr. Christensen] advises managers faced with disruptive technologies to:

• Give responsibility for disruptive technologies to organizations whose customers need them so that resources will flow to them.
• Set up a separate organization small enough to get excited by small gains.
• Plan for failure. Don't bet all your resources on being right the first time. Think of your initial efforts at commercializing a disruptive technology as learning opportunities. Make revisions as you gather data.
• Don't count on breakthroughs. Move ahead early and find the market for the current attributes of the technology. You will find it outside the current mainstream market. You will also find that the attributes that make disruptive technologies unattractive to mainstream markets are the attributes on which the new markets will be built.

Source: The Innovator's Dilemma. The Revolutionary Book That Will Change the Way You Do Business (1997) by Clayton M. Christensen.

Interesting book.

According to What Is.com a disruptive technology is “one that displaces an established technology and shakes up the industry or a ground-breaking product that creates a completely new industry.” For example, email transformed the way we communicating, largely displacing letter-writing and disrupting the postal and greeting card industries.

Along the same lines, Industry Week.com has an article called “Disrupt or Be Disrupted: Eight Principles of Disruptive Innovation.”

Inflation, Price Controls, and Collectivism During the French Revolution

From FEE.org:

Governments have an insatiable appetite for the wealth of their subjects. When governments find it impossible to continue raising taxes or borrowing funds, they have invariably turned to printing paper money to finance their growing expenditures. The resulting inflations have often undermined the social fabric, ruined the economy, and sometimes brought revolution and tyranny in their wake.

The political economy of the French Revolution is a tragic example of this. Before the revolution of 1789, royal France was a textbook example of mercantilism. Nothing was produced or sold, imported or exported, without government approval and regulation.

Government Extravagance and Fiscal Ruin

While the French king’s government regulated economic affairs, the royal court consumed the national wealth. Louis XVI’s personal military guard numbered 9,050 soldiers; his civilian household numbered around 4,000—30 servants were required to serve the king his dinner, four of whom had the task of filling his glass with water or wine. He also had at his service 128 musicians, 75 religious officials, 48 doctors, and 198 persons to care for his body.*

To pay for this extravagance and the numerous other expenses of the Court, as well as the foreign adventures financed by the King (such as the financial help extended to the American colonists during their war of independence from the British), the King had to rely on a peculiar tax system in which large segments of the entire population – primarily the nobility and the clergy – were exempt from all taxation, with the “lower classes” bearing the brunt of the burden.

One of the most hated of the taxes was the levy on salt. Every head of a household was required to purchase annually seven pounds of salt for each member of his family at a price fixed by the government; if he failed to consume all the salt purchased during the previous year and, therefore, attempted to buy less than the quota in the new year he was charged a special fine by the State. The punishments for smuggling and selling salt on the black market were stiff and inhumane.

As we saw, in a previous article, when Louis XVI assumed the throne in 1774, government expenditures were 399.2 million livres, with tax receipts only about 372 million livres, leaving a deficit of 27.2 million livres, or about 7 percent of spending. Loans and monetary expansion that year and in future years made up the difference.

In an attempt to put the government’s finances in order, in July 1774 the king appointed a brilliant economist, Anne-Robert-Jacques Turgot, to serve as finance minister. Turgot did all in his power to curb government spending and regulation. But every proposed reform increased the opposition from privileged groups, and the king finally dismissed him in May 1776.

Those who followed Turgot as controller-general of the French government’s finances lacked his vision or his integrity. The fiscal crisis merely grew worse and worse. As Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881) summarized it in his study of The French Revolution (1837):

“Be it ‘want of fiscal genius,’ or some far other want, there is the palpablest discrepancy between Revenue and Expenditure; a Deficit of the Revenue . . . This is the stern problem: hopeless seemingly as squaring the circle. Controller Joly de Fleury, who succeeded [Jacque] Necker, could do nothing with it; nothing but propose loans, which were tardily filled up; impose new taxes, unproductive of money; productive of clamor and discontent.

“As little could Controller d’Ormesson do, or even less; for if Joly maintained himself beyond a year and a day, d’Ormesson reckons only by the months . . . “Fatal paralysis invades the social movement; clouds of blindness or of blackness envelop us; we are breaking down then, into the black horrors of NATIONAL BANKRUPTCY?”

It was the chaos of the king’s finances that finally resulted in the Estates-General’s being called into session in early 1789, followed by the beginning of the French Revolution with the fall of the Bastille in Paris in July 1789. But the new revolutionary authorities were as extravagant in their spending as the king. Vast amounts were spent on public works to create jobs, and 17 million livres ($3.4 million) were given to the people of Paris in food subsidies.

The Ideology of the Total State over the Individual

During the Jacobin Republic of 1792–1794, a swarm of regulators spread across France imposing price ceilings and intruding into every corner of people’s lives; they imposed death sentences, confiscated wealth and property, and sent men, women, and children to prison and slave labor. In the name of the war effort, after revolutionary France came into conflict with many of its neighbors, all industries in any way related to national defense or foreign trade were placed under the direct control of the state; prices, production, and distribution of all goods by private enterprises were under government command. A huge bureaucracy emerged to manage all this, and that bureaucracy swallowed up increasing portions of the nation’s wealth.

This all followed naturally from the premises of the Jacobin mind, which under the shadow of Rousseau’s notion of the “general will” argued that the state had the duty to impose a common purpose on everyone. The individual was nothing; the state was everything. The individual became the abstraction, and the state the reality. Those who did not see the “general will” would be taught; those who resisted the teaching would be commanded; and those who resisted the commands would perish, because only “enemies of the people” would oppose the collectivist Truth.

The French Revolutionist Bertrand Barere (1755-1841) declared in 1793:

“The Republic must penetrate the souls of citizens through all the senses . . . Some owe [France] her industry, others their fortunes, some their advice, others their arms; all owe her their blood. Thus, then, all French people of both sexes and of all ages are called upon by patriotism to defend liberty . . .

Let everyone take his post in the national and military movement that is in preparation. The youth will fight; the married men will forge arms, transport baggage and artillery, and provide subsistence; women will work at the soldier’s clothing, make tents, and become nurses in the hospitals for the wounded; the children will make lint out of linen; and the old men, again performing the mission they had among the ancients, will be carried to the public squares, there to enflame the courage of the young warriors and propagate the hatred of kings and the unity of the Republic.”

All laws, customs, habits, modes of commerce, thought and language were to be uniform and the same for all. Not even the family had autonomous existence; and children? They belonged to the State. Said Barere:

“The principles that ought to guide parents are that children belong to the general family of the Republic, before they belong to particular families. The spirit of private lives must disappear when the great family calls. You are born for the Republic, and not for the pride and the despotism of families.”

Here was the birth of modern national collectivism and allegiance and obedience to the “people’s” State. In January 1793, when a messenger was sent to inform the revolutionary French forces in the east of the country, who were facing the invading armies of anti-revolutionary foreign monarchs, that the French king had been executed, one of the French officers asked, “For whom shall we fight from now on,” if not the king? The reply was, “For the nation, for the Republic.”  [read more]

So, with the kingship the people were oppressed. After the king was dethroned the people were still oppressed. So, what changed? Other than the system of gov’t of course.

*It’s good to be king.

History of Labor Unions Part IV

Labor unions brought many positive changes to America, but at a very high cost. Violence and corruption have permeated unions and, in many cases, hampered the incentive to excel. Virtually nothing can remove a paying union member from a job, regardless of performance or behavior. Additionally, Americans are denied the right to work without paying union dues.

Socialist, Marxist, communist and progressive infiltration and ideology spilled into the government due to massive and unprecedented political contributions from unions. Rampant racism kept blacks from joining and laws like the Davis-Bacon Act in 1931, further prevented non-unionized blacks and immigrant laborers from competing with unionized white workers for scarce jobs during the Depression.

Has it all been worth it? Do the victories of unions in the workplace outweigh the heavy cost? Unions had their place and time in American history, but that time may well have passed.

Source: History of Labor Unions Part IV.

The Left is pro-choice when it comes to abortion, but not when it comes to joining labor unions or even school choice among other issues. Definitely a person has no choice when it comes to the Unaffordable No-Care Act. The Left believe citizens shouldn’t have a choice because they believe the masses are too immature to make their own choices or worse they believe they are like cattle who need to be herded. In truth, the Left elitists are the ones who are immature.

Your computer's blinking LED lights are putting you at risk of hacks

By Mark Jones on Komando.com (Feb. 24):

Cybercriminals are extremely sneaky when it comes to their scams. It's hard to predict which corners of the digital world they are lurking around.

That's why researchers are always trying to figure out future attacks before they actually occur. You're not going to believe the latest proof-of-concept attack, it's almost like a scene right out of Mission Impossible.

Researchers at a university in Israel discovered this potential hack of the future. It incorporates a sneaky, data-stealing drone.

How the latest proof-of-concept hack works

That's right, for this hack to work the scammer uses a drone to help steal information. But first, the targeted computer must be infected with malware that is planted via USB drive or SD card.

I know, I know, this is a super elaborate scheme. As we said earlier it's only proof-of-concept at this time, meaning it's feasible but has yet to be implemented.

How the attack would work is, the criminal infects an "air-gapped" computer with data-stealing malware. Air-gapped means the computer is never connected to the internet. These are typically used to store sensitive information that hackers can't get to online.

Once the malware is installed on the computer, a drone is sent to spy on it. That's because computers have a small Hard Drive LED indicator that the malware uses to send sensitive data through Morse type code. The drone records the code and bam, the hacker has stolen your information.  [read more]

Scary. Basically, to avoid this attack you make sure the LED isn’t visible and be careful of inserting any USB drive and SD card that you aren’t familiar with—that’s the probably the most important caution.

Aristotle Understood the Importance of Property

From FEE.org:

While he hopes that wise policies may help to improve the conditions and actions of men, Aristotle recognizes that man possesses a human nature that cannot be molded or bent or transformed to conform to some ideal of a perfect State populated by transformed people in the way that Plato believed was in principle desirable and possible.

Aristotle and the Importance of Private Property

This idea comes out most clearly in Aristotle’s discussion of private property, and in his rejection of Plato’s call for a communist social order in which material things are held in common. Aristotle argued that if all land was owned communally with work performed jointly, there existed the potential for animosity and anger among the participants.

Why? Because then individuals would feel that they had not received what was rightly theirs since work and reward would not be strictly and tightly connected, as they are under a system of private property.

Aristotle saw property rights as an incentive mechanism. When individuals believe and feel certain that they will be permitted to keep the fruits of their own labor, they will have an inclination to apply themselves in various, productive ways, which would not be the case with common or collective ownership. Said Aristotle:

“When they till the ground together the question of ownership will give a world of trouble. If they do not share equally in enjoyments and toils, those who labor much and get little will necessarily complain of those who labor little and receive or consume much ...

“Property should be ... as a general rule, private; for when everyone has a distinct interest, men will not complain of one another and they will make progress, because everyone will be attending to his own business ...”

Break this connection between work and reward and you weaken the productive impulse, and instead plant the seeds of envy and anger among men concerning the distribution of what they have been made to produce in common.

Private Property and Human Benevolence

There was another reason that Aristotle defended the right to private property against the claims of Plato. He believed that a right to property often led to a spirit of benevolence and liberality toward others. Aristotle explained:

“How immeasurably greater is the pleasure, when a man feels a thing to be his own ... And further, there is the greatest pleasure in doing a kindness or service to friend and guests or companions, which can only be rendered when a man has private property. The advantage is lost by the excessive unification of the State.”

Aristotle seemed to think that there was a healthy balance on the issue of property in society when property was private, so as to reap the benefits from the greater productivity and work that would be forthcoming under such a system. At the same time, he believed that the fruits of property should be generously shared with others by a spirit of benevolence on the part of the those who had prospered from the ownership and use of property, in the form of hospitality and charity.  [read more]

Interesting article. The article also goes into the character of man within society among other topics.

History of Labor Unions Part III

How did unions come to wield so much power and influence over American politics? How did union leaders gain more access to the White House during the Obama administration than administration officials, Democratic senators or family members? The answer is simple: money.

The most frequent visitors to the Obama White House were Andy Stern, president of the Service Employees International Union, and his second lieutenant, Anna Burger. Also at the top of the list was president of AFL-CIO Richard Trumka. Trumka admitted that he visited the White House two or three times a week and had conversations every single day. In the 2012 election, according to The New York Times, labor leaders expected unions to spend $400 million on national, state and local elections.

The left loves to accuse the Koch brothers of buying elections, claiming they surpass any other political donors on the right or left, but the claim is ludicrous. The Koch brothers have personally given $3.2 million to politicians and parties over the past 15 years. The Huffington Post estimated union spending on elections and lobbying at $1.7 billion.

According to OpenSecrets.org, the number one political donor in American politics since the 1990 election is SEIU, with total contributions of $234 million — all but $2 million went to Democrats.

Source: History of Labor Unions Part III.

Big Labor’s excuse for all the money spending is that they have to keep up with the oppressive corporations’ spending. The truth is Big Labor spends more. Which is funny because I thought the Left is poor. Hmmm.

Here’s a FEE.org article (Feb. 15): “Unions Play Politics While Membership Tanks.”

4 Broken Obamacare Promises That Town Hall Protesters Should Remember

From The Daily Signal.com (Feb. 15):

While the House and Senate plan to repeal and replace Obamacare, members of Congress are hosting town hall meetings with their constituents and have been greeted by hostile crowds.

These folks seem to have amnesia about Obamacare’s glaring failures.

Here’s a quick refresher on Obamacare’s top four broken promises.

1. Costs are exploding. The typical family today pays about 35 percent of their income for health care.
2. Competition and choice are declining. On Tuesday, news broke that Humana will be leaving the Obamacare exchange markets next year. This was just the latest in a growing list of insurers who are jumping ship from this massive public policy failure.
3. Forget about keeping your plan. In 2014, the first year that Obamacare was fully implemented, the Associated Press reported that there were at least 4.7 million canceled policies across 30 states. The law’s insurance rules and mandates forced many insurers to cancel plans that people liked and wanted.
4. No, you can’t necessarily keep your doctor.

[read more]

Let’s hope Congress can for once and for all repeal and replace the nightmare called Obamacare or if you prefer the Unaffordable No-Care Act.

This Kind of School Choice Is Superior to Vouchers

Commentary from Corey DeAngelis on FEE.org (Feb. 2):

Private school choice programs in the United States come in four basic forms: individual tax credits, tax credit scholarships, vouchers, and Education Savings Accounts (ESAs).  Voucher programs are the most well-known type of private school choice.  While voucher programs are desirable for individual students and the societies in which they reside, ESAs have a few important advantages that make them more effective, according to economic theory.

Voucher and ESA Definitions

Vouchers allow families to use a fraction of their public school funding for tuition at a private school of their choice.  ESAs allow families to allocate a portion of their public school funding amount to a government-authorized savings account, if they choose to opt out of their public school.  ESA funds can be used for various education-related expenditures such as private school tuition and fees, online learning, tutoring, and even college costs.

Five Economic Advantages of ESAs

While the flexibility of ESAs appears beneficial relative to vouchers, it is important to examine the economic implications of the policy.  Here are five reasons why ESAs are expected to outperform vouchers:

1. Specialization:  Education and schooling are not the same thing.  While vouchers allow for private school choice, ESAs allow for educational choice.  Since all children are unique, the enhanced customization granted through ESAs should lead to a better match between students and their educational needs.
2. Price Differentiation Incentivizes School Improvement:  When tuitions are fixed, as in a voucher program, the price of all schooling gravitates towards that amount.  Since schools will move towards the set price, quality will deteriorate.  Why take the risk of producing an innovative educational product if you know that you will not be compensated?  ESAs allow families to reward high quality private schools.
3. Price Differentiation is Needed for Efficiency:  Since families know that they can save their ESA funding for other educational expenses and even college costs, they have a huge incentive to economize.  Just like with any other product, families will seek the best school that they can find at the lowest price.  The result?  Private schools are incentivized to keep tuitions low and quality high.
4. Price Differentiation Entices More Providers:  Suppose a provider realizes that they can serve a certain group of students at the same level of quality for a lower price. The provider will have a better opportunity to do so in an ESA setting since families can spend less than the full amount on school tuition if they desire.  Additionally, providers of all educational services, such as tutoring, transportation, college preparation, and online learning, will have the same incentive.  The result of increased market entry: prices drop while quality increases for all educational services.
5. Positive Externalities of College Enrollment:  Since ESAs allow families to save excess funding for college costs, children will be more likely to receive higher education.  Consequently, society may benefit from additional citizens attaining higher levels of education overall.

Not all school choice programs are created equal.  Since ESAs allow for enhanced specialization and price differentiation, I expect that they will outperform voucher programs.  More importantly, since ESAs are more well-grounded in accepted economic theory, I expect they will allow children to have access to an enhanced educational experience and a better life.

Source: This Kind of School Choice Is Superior to Vouchers.

Interesting idea. I wonder if the new Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos knows about this. She would be more favorable toward the concept than previous secretaries.

History of Labor Unions Part II

Unions have been an influential force in America with some very positive results. Child labor laws, the eight-hour workday, weekends off — all can be directly attributed to the labor movement of the late 1800s. The vast majority of union members are patriotic, hard-working Americans. But there is a seedy underbelly to labor unions.

The cauldrons of socialism, Marxism and communism, unions have fomented violence as far back as 1877. Employing both a mixture of Marxism and violence, early radical unions favored waging warfare against the capitalist society and its leaders. In modern times, Democratic allies in Congress have encouraged getting “a little bloody when necessary.”

Unions became enmeshed with another seedy ally during the 20th century: the Mafia. The 20th century labor wars opened up vast new territory to Mafia influence and domination. Organized crime would move in on unions and employers nationwide, soaking up the wages and pension funds of union members, while extorting huge payoffs from businesses in return for labor peace. The mafia would take control of major international unions and find its way into executive boardrooms.

Source: History of Labor Unions Part II.

Then you have calling people who cross picket lines “scabs” just because they want to put food on the table for their family. As for the Mafia, we still don’t know what happened to Jimmy Hoffa. The Mafia infiltrated labor unions because that’s where the big money is.

Faces of the $15 Minimum Wage Victims

From FEE.org (Dec. 1):

As another round of coordinated minimum wage protests occurred the other day around the country, the consequences of minimum wage hikes — including lost jobs, reduced hours, and business closures — are playing out in real time. To bring some economic reality into the national discussion on the #Fightfor15, the Employment Policies Institute (EPI) released four new mini-documentaries today featuring victims of dramatic minimum wage increases. EPI has documented hundreds of these outcomes on its Faces of $15 website. Four of these stories of lost jobs and business closing are featured in the mini-documentary videos below.

1. The Almost Perfect Bookstore in Sacramento was forced to close because it could not absorb the increased costs of California’s forthcoming (far from perfect) $15 state minimum wage.
2. ARGYLEHaus of Apparel in San Fernando (CA) is leaving the state for Nevada as a consequence of California’s pending minimum wage increase to $15 an hour
3. The Del Rio Diner in Brooklyn was forced to close because the owner couldn’t pass along the costs of New York’s rising minimum wage to his blue collar customers in the form of higher menu prices
4. Sterling’s Family Childcare in Oakland (CA) has been forced to cut staff and hours as well as scale back a free rides service because of the costs associated with Oakland’s minimum wage increase

[read more]

Notice all the businesses listed are small businesses. Corporations can absorb the minimum wage—small businesses can’t. I know the Left say they want minimum wage increases so workers have a “livable” wage. But the real reason is unions want the the increase so they have an excuse to raise union dues the same rate as the workers pay raise. In the end the workers isn’t getting ahead money wise.

Here is a Walter Williams article on the subject: “Minimum Wage and Discrimination.”

A Lack of Compassion in India

From Breakpoint.org (Jan. 30):

Why would India block foreign donations to help poor children? The answer is Hindutva.

On January 13^th, Compassion International told the sponsors of 130,000 Indian children that, barring an unlikely turn of events, it would cease operations in India in mid-March.

The announcement came a year after the Indian government told the organization that “it could no longer receive funding from outside the subcontinent.”

While the news dismayed Compassion’s donors, it shouldn’t have come as a surprise to those familiar with the deteriorating state of religious freedom in India.

Compassion’s announcement comes shortly after Open Doors International released its “World Watchlist,” which ranked the worst countries in which to be a Christian.

North Korea, of course, ranked first again. The next twelve countries are either overwhelmingly Muslim or, like Nigeria, are suffering from an Islamist insurgency—in this case, Boko Haram—that targets Christians.

Then at #15, just behind Saudi Arabia, is India. Why? India is neither Islamic nor a repressive dictatorship like North Korea or China.

David Curry, the CEO of Open Doors, told Morgan Lee and Mark Galli of Christianity Today that the situation in India reflects the rise of what he calls “ethnic nationalism,” in which what it means to be an Indian is defined in religious—in this case, Hindu—terms. An Indian who is a Christian or, for that matter, a Muslim, is regarded as less than truly Indian, because Hinduism is at the heart of what it means to be an Indian.

This ideology goes by the name “Hindutva,” which literally means “Hinduness.” It’s an ideology that belies the western image of India as a land of Gandhi, gurus, and nonviolence. There’s nothing peaceful or tolerant about Hindutva. On the contrary, the man who assassinated Gandhi was an adherent of Hindutva and felt that Gandhi had betrayed the Hindu community.

The current ruling party in India, the BJP, is ideologically committed to the idea of Hindutva. As Vice News put it, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in addition to being implicated in the 2002 massacre of 2,000 Muslims while governor of Gujarat, has also been “accused of promoting India’s majority religion of Hinduism to the detriment of Christianity, Islam, and other faiths.” [read more]

That’s too bad about India. This “Hindutva” would make Ghandi spin in his grave. Keep in mind this is “ethnic nationalism” not patriotism. This is close to what was happening in Germany when Hitler ruled.

History of Labor Unions Part I

The union label song was a happy little jingle for a happy group of Americans. So happy, in fact, Al Gore once told a group of teamsters it was a “lullaby” his mother sang to him at night. Interestingly, Al Gore must have been 27 years old when his mother serenaded him, because the union label song was written in 1975.*

From the beginning, unions, communism, socialism and democratic socialism have gone hand-in-hand. It may have something to do with Karl Marx and his feelings about unions:

Let the ruling class tremble at a communist revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. Workers of the world unite.

Since both Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, authors of the Communist Manifesto, seemed to care so much for the working class, organizing workers and communism made a natural fit. That may well explain why communists were pervasive within union leadership, the union movement and the Democratic Party.

The labor movement also had significant racism.^ In San Francisco in the late 1880s, the union developed a slogan for their strike: “The Chinese must go.” In the cigar industry, union labels signaled customers that products were made by whites, as blacks were excluded from joining unions.

Source: History of Labor Unions Part I

*Not so surprising. Since he claimed he invented the Internet.

^An interesting facts: No republican during the civil war owned slaves. FDR had to bribe the Dems in Congress  to sign on to the Civil Rights bill. The republicans already supported it.

Miscellaneous Thoughts Part 41

• I wonder if there is an event horizon for morality? A point of no return for evil.
• Third parties should not expect people to write them in on the ballot. If they are serious about running they should put themselves on the ballot in every state. Yea, it takes money and time to do this but if they are serious they should.
• If a lesbian couple gets married which family pays for the wedding (since by definition both people are brides right?) Or do both families pay for the wedding? Just wondering.
• A person needs to learn outside the school system.
• Instead of thinking outside-the-box, maybe we should think outside our stereotypes, our narratives, our preconceptions, our assumptions.
• If anyone wants to burn the ISIS flag I’m okay with that. If they want their dog to pee and crap on the flag before burning, that’s fine with me too.
• The Pharisees were the establishment in their time.
• Maybe there should be “wall” bonds for the building the wall.
• Just remember you can drop-kick a chicken but you can’t make it fly. Feel free to use this saying at parties, at work, etc.
• I wonder if some residue haunting are holographic in nature.

How the FDA - and Other Agencies - Shape What You Hear about Them

From FEE.org (Sept. 28, 2016):

An important investigation by Charles Seife in Scientific American looks at how scientific newsmakers – in this case the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) – use “close-hold embargoes” to manipulate news coverage on breaking stories. Embargoes in themselves are a common enough practice in journalism; the special feature of a “close-hold” embargo is that it conditions a reporter’s access to a forthcoming story on not seeking comment from outside, that is to say independent or adversary, sources.

The result of this kind of embargo, critics say, is to turn reporters into stenographers by ensuring that no expert, outside perspective contrary to the newsmaker’s makes it into the crucial first round of coverage. And the FDA uses the technique to go further, according to Seife: it “cultivates a coterie of journalists whom it keeps in line with threats.” In fact, it even “deceives” disfavored major news organizations like Fox News “with half-truths to handicap them in their pursuit of a story.”  [read more]

This is what happens when gov’t agencies are basically unaccountable. Hopefully, the picks President Trump puts in will reform the agencies.

Breakdown of the Family Part II: The Cause

What caused the destruction of the American family? In 1964, President Lyndon Johnson announced the War On Poverty. Twenty-two trillion dollars later, that battlefield is lined with remnants of broken American families. Huge government welfare and indoctrination programs have contributed to dependency, stripping people of dignity, raising unemployment and enslaving three generations of American citizens.

Also taking a toll on the American family was the feminist movement in the 1960s and 1970s. Progressives told women they couldn’t be fulfilled by staying home with their children. The movement also had strong anti-men sentiments. After the women’s movement, society and culture changed. With two working parents, children were often left with caregivers or on their own. In 2008, ABC reported that three-quarters of American girls would become pregnant that year.

Even many liberals understood many years ago that the family is the building block of civilization. If it crumbles, so does civilization. Yet far too many Americans have been swallowed up in political correctness. Today, society will tolerate virtually any substitution for the traditional family unit in the name of tolerance. But tolerance is only one side of the coin. The other side is truth. Without both truth and tolerance, everything falls apart.

Source: Breakdown of the Family Part II: The Cause.

Sociologists say the family is the most important agent of socialization. As Rick Santorum would say “it takes a family.” The alt-Left believes that the State should raise the children—that It should be the parents. This is, by the way, a Marxist idea.

Here are the other parts of the series:

• Breakdown of the Family Part I: The Children
• The Breakdown of the Family Part III: The Black Family
• Breakdown of the Family Part IV: The Solution

An Abraham Lincoln Letter

Here is a letter that Abraham Lincoln sent to a client when he was a lawyer:

Springfield, Illinois
21 February 1856
To Mr. George P. Floyd,
Quincy, Illinois

 

Dear Sir,

I have just received yours of 16^th, with check on Flagg & Savage for twenty-five dollars. You must think I am a high-priced man. You are too liberal with your money.

Fifteen dollars is enough for the job. I send you a receipt for fifteen dollars, and return to you a ten-dollar bill.

Yours truly,

A. Lincoln

Source: Heroes. From Alexander The Great—and Julius Ceasar—to Churchill and De Gaulle (2007) by Paul Johnson.

Wow! He really lived up to his nickname! I wonder how many lawyers nowadays would refund a client his money? Probably not too many.

“Self-Made Men” speech by Frederick Douglass

Excerpts from “Self-Made Men” (1872):

On the first point I may say that, by the term "self-made men," I mean especially what, to the popular mind, the term least imports. Self-made men are the men who, under peculiar difficulties and without the ordinary helps of favoring circumstances, have attained knowledge, usefulness, power and position and have learned from themselves the best uses to which life can be put in this world, and in the exercises of these uses to build up worthy character. They are the men who owe little or nothing to birth, relationship, friendly surroundings; to wealth inherited or to early approved means of education; who are what they are, without the aid of any favoring conditions by which other men usually rise in the world and achieve great results.

………………..

I do not think much of the good luck theory of self-made men. It is worth but little attention and has no practical value. An apple carelessly flung into a crowd may hit one person, or it may hit another, or it may hit nobody. The probabilities are precisely the same in this accident theory of self-made men. It divorces a man from his own achievements, contemplates him as a being of chance and leaves him without will, motive, ambition and aspiration. Yet the accident theory is among the most popular theories of individual success. It has about it the air of mystery which the multitudes so well like, and withal, it does something to mar the complacency of the successful.

…………………….

My theory of self-made men is, then, simply this: that they are men of work. Whether or not such men have acquired material, moral or intellectual excellence, honest labor faithfully, steadily and persistently pursued, is the best, if not the only, explanation of their success. But in thus awarding praise to industry, as the main agency in the production and culture of self-made men, I do not exclude other factors of the problem. I only make them subordinate. Other agencies co-operate, but this is the principal one and the one without which all others would fail. [read more]

Ronald Reagan Part I: Morning In America

In the 1970s, those who believed in the promise of America instinctively knew that America was more than she’d been allowed to become. Images from the decade — gas lines, Watergate, Nixon holding up the peace sign and boarding Marine One, hostages in Iran and helicopters burning in the desert — showed we were a nation lost, a once great nation on the decline — or so we thought.

Then a simple man stepped forward to present a new image. That man was Ronald Reagan and the image was one we hadn’t seen in quite some time — the image of American greatness.

Many historians go on about Ronald Reagan’s story-telling ability, saying his willingness to laugh at himself and spin a tale was how he moved people. What Ronald Reagan really did, though, was hold up a mirror.

For so long, people in America were told how corrupt or inept they were. Critics ran us down and divided us — rich from poor, white from black, Democrat from Republican. Tearing Americans apart had become as fashionable as bell bottoms and silk disco shirts. Yet Ronald Reagan forced us to look at the good. Once again, we saw ourselves for who we really were: hard-working, decent, honest, capable and God-fearing Americans whose best days were still on the horizon.

At first, many said he was a simpleton, an idealist. They said he was way over his head with Gorbachev and Reykjavik, but he won the Cold War. They said he was arrogant, but he tore down that wall. They said he was too stupid to talk economics, yet he created a better economy than in the 1990s.

………………………

They said Reagan was too simple to become a great president, but that’s what we loved about him. He was like our father or our grandfather. He told us what we needed to do and inspired us to go out and do it on our own. Reagan said that a great leader doesn’t do great things, he inspires others to do them. And he did just that. Reagan inspired us to believe in the power of the individual, in the small business owner, in the strength of our military and the humility of those who live it.  [read more]

The critics (mainly on the Left) said President Reagan was stupid but he got A’s in school. Then again it didn’t hurt to have a photographic memory.

You can read President Reagan’s “A Time for Choosing” speech on the Good Web Sites scrolling list on the left. There are also some of his quotes too.

Below is more of the series:

• Ronald Reagan Part II: The Early Years
• Ronald Reagan Part III: The Biggest Role ‘The Gipper’ Ever Had
• Ronald Reagan Part IV: Assuming the Presidential Mantle
• Ronald Reagan Part V: One of America’s Greatest Presidents

 

Are We 99% Chimps?

From Break Point.org (Jan. 24):

Journalists and science writers endlessly repeat the biological bromide that “humans and chimpanzees are 99% genetically identical,” a factoid that has taken on a life of its own and, pun intended, has evolved into a worldview assumption. If our genes are virtually indistinguishable from those of chimpanzees, the reasoning goes, we must be virtually indistinguishable from chimpanzees!

Kevin Williamson, writing at the National Review of all places, made this leap about Ivanka Trump’s rude welcome by fellow airline passengers recently. If we are, after all, 99% chimps, it’s not surprising our inner apes would make an appearance, say, on a JetBlue flight.

Now, people certainly are capable of acting like animals, and the scientific-sounding assertion that we really are animals at heart seems to explain it. But there’s just one problem: It’s not true. Our DNA is not 99% identical to that of chimpanzees. Even if it were, that wouldn’t make us apes-except-for-one-percent. That’s bad genetic science and reductionist philosophy, to boot.

Writing at Evolution News and Views, David Klinghoffer points out that the “99%” myth is based on hopelessly outdated research. But it got a shot in the arm after researchers at the Genome Consortium announced in 2005 they’d sequenced chimp DNA and compared it with our own.

Newspapers the world over trumpeted the similarity between the two genomes as further proof of our close ancestry. What they neglected to mention was that the project only compared protein-coding segments of the genome, which in humans, account for just 2% of the total! The rest is what Francis Collins once termed “junk DNA.” Except, as scientists have since discovered and Collins has admitted, this “junk” serves regulatory roles that determine how other genes are expressed, particularly in the brain. In other words, “junk DNA,” which makes up the vast majority of our genome, is a vital part of what makes humans, human and chimps, chimps.

Second, it turns out that the “99%” figure resulted from using a complete human genome as the template to sequence that of chimpanzees. That would be like assembling a jigsaw puzzle based on how another puzzle fit together!  [read more]

Yea, science in general has to watch what it labels as “junk” especially when it doesn’t understand what it is examining. The phenomena may have function not yet known to science especially in complex systems. Better to call it “unknown” than “junk.”

Education in America Part IV: The Solution

According to Kyle Olson, founder and CEO of the Education Action Group and co-author of Conform, “there is a secular progressive value set in public schools. And so when that sort of value set is in charge, there is no morality. There is no right or wrong. Everything is gray.”

The only answer to reversing this 180 degree transformation is parent awareness and involvement. Parents can no longer yield their children’s education to the government. They must be the ones in charge. That means finding alternatives to public school like homeschooling, charter schools or private schools, whenever possible. For the majority, though, it means increased involvement in their children’s public schooling.

If parents want more input and influence in the process of educating their children about faith, sex or any subject, they should look into other options and also discuss daily with their children what they learned. Parents should ensure their children are exposed to classic literature, a knowledge and understanding of the United States Constitution and hands-on experience in pursuit of a complete Jeffersonian education. [read more]

I agree. It is up to parents to ensure their children have a decent education. The parents should research thoroughly charter schools or private schools to see if the schools fit their values. The parents shouldn’t completely trust the public educational system either.

Study: Your Smartphone Can Be Hacked By Hidden Voice Commands

From News Max.com (Jan. 24):

Researchers at George Washington University and the University of California, Berkeley, found a way for hackers to get into smartphones and steal information using hidden voice commands that sound demonic.

"The severity of a hidden voice command depends upon what commands the targeted device will accept," reads the study, published last summer. "Depending upon the device, attacks could lead to information leakage [e.g., posting the user's location on Twitter], cause denial of service [e.g., activating airplane mode], or serve as a stepping stone for further attacks [e.g., opening a web page hosting drive-by malware]. Hidden voice commands may also be broadcast from a loudspeaker at an event or embedded in a trending YouTube video, compounding the reach of a single attack." [read more]

I watched the video on News Max’s website. The voice does sound creepy! So, if you hear the voice it could be a hacker or even possibly a demon trying to control your phone (just joking! Then again…who knows. Some of those EVPs on the ghost hunting shows do sound demonic. So, I would be weary of going into haunted places with your phone especially places known be infested by demons. But I digress…)

The article doesn’t mention Windows phones. I wonder if those phones can be hacked the same way? Kind of scary.

The Problem with Wanting to "Change the World"

Commentary by Donald J. Boudreaux on FEE.org:

This “change-the-world” idea is, at best, juvenile. At worst it is downright dangerous.

I’m certain that there’s a great deal in the world that could be changed for the better. But I’m equally certain that no such beneficial change will be achieved by social-engineering performed by politicians and other government officials.

The world changes for the better incrementally, bit by bit, and experimentally. Smith opens a new restaurant in competition with Jones’s established restaurant, and consumers – spending their own money – ultimately decide if one or the other or both is to continue operating or shut down. This competition changes the world very slightly: the restaurant scene in this town is improved. Williams breaks his addiction to alcohol and returns to school to learn a trade; his success at getting a job as a machinist or electrician improves the world. Johnson invents a new app to help birdwatchers keep track of interesting sightings; this advance, too, changes the world.

Quiet Change, or Change for the Worse

With rare exceptions, each world-improving event is too small to be detected in statistics. It’s not sufficiently newsworthy to land its doer’s name in the headlines. It’s one of millions of everyday improvements, each one small, but the sum total amounting to noticeable change indeed over time.

Most people who want to change the world seldom pause to ponder what, exactly, about the world needs changing. After all, much about the world is pretty darn good, and, hence, is likely not an appropriate candidate for the wiles of any “change-agent.” Worse, most people who want to change the world have in mind schemes that involve forcing others to behave in ways that they would not otherwise.

Our world has massively changed, mostly for the better, over the past two or three centuries. And nearly all of this change came in doses so small that the names of those who performed each beneficial change were never widely known, and are today lost forever in the thick mists of history. Most – although by no mean all – of the “change-agents” whose names are known were human butchers (e.g., Hitler and Stalin) or arrogant ‘men of system’ (e.g., Clement Attlee and Franklin Roosevelt) who saddled others with counterproductive burdens and restrictions even if the destructiveness of these efforts is today still largely denied.

The bottom line is that attempts to “change the world” whole – to change it in a way that is noticeable and traceable to one action or small set of actions – is the height of arrogance. No such change, no matter how well-intentioned the change-agent, will be for the better. Beneficial efforts to change the world are almost always small, incremental, and performed in the voluntary sector of society – in the market, in families, in civil society. Not in or through the state. Most beneficial change occurs by adding small drops to the Prosperity Pool. Not by making big splashes in that Pool.  [read more]

Change can be good or bad. If a politician doesn’t know the difference then he/she shouldn’t be changing anything.

The Loathing of Commercial Capitalism Has Ancient Roots

From FEE.org:

The Ancient World

Consider the following examples.

Hesiod, the Greek poet who lived in 8th century BC, believed that human history could be divided into golden, silver, bronze, heroic and iron ages. The defining characteristics of the golden age, he thought, were common property and peace. The defining characteristics of his contemporary iron age were profit-making and violence.

In Homer’s Odyssey, which was probably written in the 8th century BC, the Greek hero Odysseus is insulted for resembling a captain of a merchant ship with a “greedy eye on freight and profit.” According to 5th century BC Greek historian Herodotus, the Persian emperor Cyrus the Great dismissed his Spartan enemies by saying,

“I have never yet been afraid of any men, who have a set place in the middle of their city, where they come together to cheat each other and forswear themselves. Cyrus intended these words as a reproach against all the Greeks, because of their having market-places where they buy and sell….”

Writing in the 4th century BC, Plato envisaged an ideal society ruled by “guardians,” who had no private property, so as not to “tear the city in pieces by differing about ‘mine’ and ‘not mine.’” He observed that “all the classes engaged in retail and wholesale trade...are disparaged and subjected to contempt and insults.” In the ideal state, Plato averred, only non-citizens should engage in commerce. Conversely, a citizen who becomes a merchant should be punished with imprisonment for “shaming his family.” Even the hyper-rational Aristotle agreed that “exchange [of goods for profit] is justly condemned because it involves … profiting at others’ expense.”

……………………..

The Christian Age

The hostility of Roman Catholic theologians to commerce is well known. Consider the Decretum Gratiani, which was the standard compilation of canon law from the time that Gratian published it in the mid-12th century AD until 1917. Accordingly, “Whoever buys something … so that it may be a material for making something else, he is no merchant. But the man who buys it in order to sell it unchanged … is cast out from God’s temple.”

Protestant theologians agreed. According to the economic historian R. H. Tawney, Martin Luther “hated commerce and capitalism.” In Das Kapital, Karl Marx approvingly quotes Luther as saying, “Great wrong and unchristian thievery and robbery are committed all over the world by merchants.” And John Calvin noted that the life of the merchant closely resembles that of a prostitute, for it is “full of tricks and traps and deceits.” [read more]

It’s sad the early Christians held negative attitudes toward the free-market system because Jesus never said anything negative about the free-market system. Yes, He said “love of money is the root of all evil” but a lot anti-capitalists seem to forgot the “love of” part. Money by itself is neither good nor bad. The free-market system like all other social systems isn’t perfect and never will be. Actually, love of power is far worse than love of money if you think about it. And of course, there is the verse that goes “It is easier for a heavy rope to pass through a needle's eye, than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.” (That, by the way, is the correct translation. It isn’t “camel.”) Some might say the verse means that the rich never get to heaven. Not true. He just means you can’t buy your way into heaven.

As for Karl Marx quoting Luther, the Left always coopt the Bible and other Christian authors when it suits their purposes. Marx doesn’t really admire Luther or any Christians for that matter. He was anti-Christian. Actually, John Calvin’s quote sound like a politician than like a businessperson.

Education in America Part III: Common Core

Race to the top. No Child Left Behind. The Elementary and Secondary Education Act. It’s been one gigantic failed federal government educational program after another.

And now, there’s Common Core, a program developed by education elites and financed mainly by Microsoft founder Bill Gates. Common Core proponents claim that it’s not a nationalized curriculum, rather a set of standards that has nothing to do with the federal government. They use words like “voluntary” and “state-led.” The reality, however, is that the federal government bribed the states into adopting Common Core standards. Huge amounts of money were given to the states if they adopted Common Core — and withheld if they didn’t go along.

The stated curriculum guidelines of Common Core replace classic teachings with government propaganda. According to the American Principles Project, they “deemphasize the study of classic literature in favor of reading so-called informational texts, such as government documents, court opinions and technical manuals.” Over half of the reading materials in grades 6th to 12th grades consist of informational texts rather than classic literature. Historical texts like the Gettysburg Address are to be presented to students without context or explanation. On the other hand, social advocacy, social respect and social knowledge are top priorities.

Under new Common Core math standards, a child’s participation and effort are more important that correct answers. If a child can explain why three times four equals 11 and show their work, that’s more important than solving the problem correctly. This is not the real world. Education is supposed to prepare us for success in life.

Common Care advocates believe the whole community is responsible for the development of children, not just parents.* According to professor and former MSNBC anchor Melissa Harris-Perry:

We have never invested as much in public education as we should have because we’ve always had kind of a private notion of children: Your kid is yours and totally your responsibility. We haven’t had a very collective notion of, these are our children.

So part of it is we have to break through our kind of private idea that kids belong to their parents or kids belong to their families and recognize that kids belong to whole communities. Once it’s everybody’s responsibility and not just the household’s, then we start making better investments.

There is a fundamental problem with American education. And the root of that problem is, and always has been, progressivism.

Source: Education in America Part III: Common Core.

The part in italics is just Marxism reused. After all, Common Core is why Karl Marx wanted the gov’t to run education.

 

*This is just a paraphrase of the saying “It takes a village to raise a child.”

5 Ways to Make Health Insurance Great Again

From FEE.org (Jan. 9):

The two major problems with the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act are that, contrary to its name, it does not protect patients and it is not affordable. This needs to be remedied in the new legislation.

Insurance protects people against large, unpredictable costs. Instead, Obamacare-compliant policies entitle the insured to a free health check-up every year — at a predictable cost — but require them to pay thousands of dollars in deductibles before they can access benefits for unexpected expenses, everything from falling off a bike to getting cancer. For the lowest-priced bronze plan, deductibles in 2017 will average $6,000 per person and $12,000 per family, according to a recent survey by HealthPocket.

The new system needs to be more flexible and consumer friendly. Here are five elements of new healthcare legislation for lawmakers to consider.

1. Allow all plans on the exchange: Health insurance companies should be allowed to offer multiple health insurance choices, including catastrophic health plans for those who want to pay for routine costs out of pocket and insure only against major medical events. People should be able to buy insurance that does not cover birth control, mental health coverage, or kids covered until age 26, to give a few examples.
2. End guaranteed issue: Under Obamacare, insurance companies have to take anyone in any open enrollment period, so people can wait until they are sick to sign up. This is similar to being able to buy auto insurance after a car crash or home insurance after a fire. Naturally, it raises premiums.  People should get a discount if they sign up when they are young and healthy and keep continuous coverage.
3. Give all Americans refundable tax credits for health insurance purchase.
4. Allow plans to compete across state lines.
5. Accommodate pre-existing conditions:  Health insurance companies should not be permitted to raise premiums for pre-existing conditions if individuals have such continuous coverage.

[read more]

A good common sense plan that is not overly complicated unlike the Unaffordable No-care Act which is.

Education in America Part II: John Dewey

American education has radically changed from what the Founders envisioned. Why? How? It began with a progressive named John Dewey and others who altered the vision of America’s Founding Fathers, replacing it with their progressive vision for education.

Dewey’s goal was to transform the educational system away from its foundations of God and religion. In a nation and culture founded on those principles, he had his work cut out for him. Like many other progressives of his day, though, Dewey rejected the original intent of the United States Constitution, believing instead that it was a living, breathing, evolving document. His new focus not only shifted away from God, but from learning.

Dewey and his ilk believed in replacing education with indoctrination:

The mere absorption of facts and truths is so exclusively an individual affair, that it tends very naturally to pass into selfishness. There is no obvious social motive for the acquirement of mere learning. There is no clear social gain and success threat.

Advocates of classical education didn’t see it coming until it was too late. It was an infection Dewey planted that took hold in both Democrats and Republicans alike.

Source: Education in America Part II: John Dewey.

The Purpose of Education by Martin Luther King, Jr.

January-February 1947, Atlanta, Ga:

As I engage in the so-called "bull sessions" around and about the school, I too often find that most college men have a misconception of the purpose of education. Most of the "brethren" think that education should equip them with the proper instruments of exploitation so that they can forever trample over the masses. Still others think that education should furnish them with noble ends rather than means to an end.

It seems to me that education has a two-fold function to perform in the life of man and in society: the one is utility and the other is culture. Education must enable a man to become more efficient, to achieve with increasing facility the legitimate goals of his life.

Education must also train one for quick, resolute and effective thinking. To think incisively and to think for one's self is very difficult. We are prone to let our mental life become invaded by legions of half truths, prejudices, and propaganda. At this point, I often wonder whether or not education is fulfilling its purpose. A great majority of the so-called educated people do not think logically and scientifically. Even the press, the classroom, the platform, and the pulpit in many instances do not give us objective and unbiased truths. To save man from the morass of propaganda, in my opinion, is one of the chief aims of education. Education must enable one to sift and weigh evidence, to discern the true from the false, the real from the unreal, and the facts from the fiction.

The function of education, therefore, is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically. But education which stops with efficiency may prove the greatest menace to society. The most dangerous criminal may be the man gifted with reason, but with no morals.  [read more]

This is pretty much what the founders believed education should be.

Questions for Materialists

1. Is the mechanical worldview a testable scientific theory, or a metaphor?
2. If it is a metaphor, why is the machine metaphor better in every respect than the organism metaphor? If it is a scientific theory, how could it be tested or refuted?
3. Is your belief in the conservation of matter and energy an assumption, or is it based on evidence? If so, what is the evidence?
4. Do you think that dark matter is conserved?
5. If the laws of nature existed before the Big Bang, and governed the Big Bang from its first instant, where were they?
6. If the laws and constants of nature all came into being at the moment of the Big Bang, how does the universe remember them? Where are they “imprinted”?
7. How do you know that the laws of nature are fixed and not evolutionary?
8. Do you believe that your own consciousness is merely an aspect of epiphenomenon of the activity of your brain?
9. If consciousness does nothing, why has it evolved as an evolutionary adaptation?
10. How do you know that there are no purposes in nature? Is this merely an assumption?
11. If there are no purposes in nature, how can you have purposes yourself?
12. Is there any evidence for the materialist belief that the entire evolutionary process is purposeless?
13. If you believe genes “program” organisms, how do you think the programs work?
14. Do you think the mathematical models will eventually explain the inheritance of form and behavior? If so, are organisms “reifications” of mathematics?
15. Do you believe that memories are stored as material traces in brains? If so, can you summarize the evidence?
16. How do you think memory-retrieval systems recognize the memories they are trying to retrieve from memory stores?
17. Have you ever considered the possibility that memory might depend on some kind of resonance rather than on material traces?
18. If the trace theory of memory is a testable hypothesis, rather than a dogma, how could it be established experimentally that memory depends on traces rather than resonance?
19. Do you believe that all your conscious life and all your bodily experience is inside your brain?
20. In quantum physics, electrons are described by wave equations that include all the electron’s future possibilities, which are not material. Do you think that the possibilities among which you choose are more material than those of electrons?
21. If you think telepathy and precognition are theoretically impossible, or very improbable, can you explain why?
22. Have you ever looked at the evidence for physic phenomena? If so, can you summarize it, and explain what is wrong with it?
23. How do you explain the placebo response?
24. How do you think governments and insurance companies should deal with the escalating costs of medicine?
25. Do you think governments should fund comparative effectiveness research on different kinds of therapy, including alternative therapies?
26. Experimenters’ expectations are known to affect the results of research in psychology, parapsychology and medicine, which is why researchers often use blind methodologies. Do you think that experimenter effects could play a role in other fields of science too?
27. Most scientists publish only a small proportion of the their results. Do you think that this is likely to introduce serious biases into the scientific literature?
28. How should scientists deal with ideologically, politically or commercially motivated skepticism?

Source: Science Set Free. 10 Paths to New Discovery (2012) by Rupert Sheldrake.

Leadership Lessons from Fidel Castro

From FEE.org commentary by Robert Maranto (Dec. 13, 2016):

I propose a new book honoring a revered, recently deceased leader, an obscure country lawyer who through hard work and calculation took over and ran a huge privately held firm for a half-century. Here are the key points from Lider Maximo (“Supreme Leader”): Nine Leadership Lessons from Fidel Castro.

Lesson 1: Know oneself. From an early age, Fidel knew the rules didn’t apply to him. That gave him the inner strength to break promises time and time again. For example, while seeking power he promised elections, but on taking power declared “elections, what for?”

Lesson 2:  Learn from others’ mistakes. While the Batista government gave the rebel Castro amnesty after just two years in jail, Castro never made the mistake of mercy. He executed 600 opponents in the months after taking power with 15-17,000 more in the decades after, according to The Black Book of Communism. Still more perished in prison, civil unrest, or seeking alternative employment as boat people, which suggests a third lesson.

Lesson 3: Terminate opponents. You need kill only a few before the supply runs dry.

Lesson 4: Terminate supporters, especially those with talent. Castro sent Che Guevara overseas to fight, where he conveniently died. After wars abroad alienated popular General Arnaldo Ochoa, Castro had him arrested and killed on trumped up charges. Terminating talent keeps them from challenging you, and messages that capable people are safe only if they leave Cuba. 

Lesson 5: Control the means of production. Lider Maximo owned the economy, so only his supporters ate well and got good medical care. Similarly, managed media offered no opposition.  [read more]

Just think the Left thinks this thug is cool. These are some of the leadership lessons of a dictator. There are four more lessons. Granted not all the lessons are bad. The first two are good lessons for any leader.

Lessons 3 and 4 Hitler followed. After gaining absolute power from the German parliament back then, Hitler then proceeded to have his opponents murdered. Like what did the parliament think he would do? They just gave the psycho absolute power. Sometimes politicians can be so stupid. I think they thought they could control Hitler, but you can’t control someone you just gave absolute power too.

As for Lesson 4, Hitler had a follower killed because he became more popular than Hitler even though the victim was a total believer, supporter and a fan of Hitler. Also, King David of the Bible had his brother sent of to war so he could marry his sister-in-law. Absolute power corrupts.

Education in America Part I: The Founders

The Founding Fathers believed whole-heartedly in education. They wanted students to become a learned citizens. They funded every conceivable form of education that existed and believed in school choice. They wanted young citizens who could read and write and had virtue and morality and understood accountability to God.

Most of America’s Founders were homeschooled or self-educated, including Thomas Jefferson, widely considered to be the most intelligent among them, with an estimated IQ well into the genius range at 160. America’s Founders knew the critical importance of educating the populace of their new nation. Without proper knowledge, the republic could not survive. But even so, the Founders did not include public education in the U.S. Constitution, nor did they see fit to set up some sort of national system. Instead, they left education to the states and municipalities.

Source: Education in America Part I: The Founders.

Myths of Big Business

1. MYTH: Big business is bad, small business is good. TRUTH: Every big business began life as a small business, and every small business today yearns for enough success to become a big business tomorrow. For some products like cars or electrical power, little companies can't benefit their workers or customers as reliably as huge corporations.
2. MYTH: Business executives are overpaid and corrupt. TRUTH: Top leaders will always command top dollar, and a company can't limit executive pay without limiting its access to talent. Ferocious, long-term competition in the corporate world ultimately rewards focus and hard work, not short cuts and corruption.
3. MYTH: You can count on better treatment from the government than from business. TRUTH: If a private company deals with you poorly, you can take your business elsewhere.
4. MYTH: When the rich get richer the poor get poorer.
5. MYTH: The current downturn means the death.

Source: The 5 Big Lies About American Business: Combating Smears Against the Free-Market Economy (2009) by Michael Medved.

5 Ways the Feds Might Trip Up Santa Claus This Year

From The Daily Signal.com (Dec. 22, 2016):

While most people know Jolly Old Saint Nick as a friendly figure, he too is not immune from the perils of administrative overreach and overcriminalization.

To get you in the Christmas spirit, here is a list of some of the potential crimes and federal law violations of Saint Nick as he prepares to take flight for 2016.

1. The Reindeer Act

Many have tried finding Santa’s workshop—without success—but children have long mailed letters to the Santa Claus House located at 101 St. Nicholas Drive in North Pole, Alaska. This office location is the first source of trouble for Father Christmas. Under the Reindeer Act, signed into law by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1937, only Alaska Natives are allowed to own reindeer in Alaska.

…………………………….

2. The Lacey Act

Even if Santa gets around the Reindeer Act, he may face civil and criminal penalties under the Lacey Act if his purchase, sale, possession, or use of reindeer—or any other flora or fauna—violates any state or federal law or the law of any foreign nation, no matter what language or code that foreign law is written in.

…………………………

3. Flying Without a License

Despite Santa’s many years of experience, there is no Mr. Claus listed in the Federal Aviation Administration’s pilot certificates database. If Santa is piloting his sleigh without an airman’s certificate, he is in violation of 49 U.S.C. § 46317.

Any pilot who operates an aircraft without a proper license is guilty of a federal crime punishable by three years in prison (the sleigh would almost certainly be deemed an aircraft under 49 U.S.C. § 40102(a)(6)). And that is only for Santa’s role as a pilot. If his sleigh is not deemed airworthy, Santa will be in violation of 14 C.F.R. § 91.7 and subject to additional civil penalties by the FAA.  [read more]

In addition to those violations Santa Claus could be convicted on false statements and subjected to the IRS Gift Tax. Poor Santa. Welcome to the Bureaucracy!

Progressive Liars Part XI: Stuart Chase and System X

You know progressives like Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson, but you may not know Stuart Chase, the man called the progressive prophet. An American economist born in 1888, Chase was influenced by Fabian socialists, as well as communist social and educational experiments being conducted in the Soviet Union in the 1930s. At the conclusion of his 1932 book, A New Deal, Chase wrote, “Why should the Soviets have all the fun remaking the world?” What sort of government and economic system did progressives like Stuart Chase want to adopt if they considered constitutionalism and the free market passe? A strong centralized government controlling everything — the government, the banking system, education, employment, food, housing, medical care — so the people wouldn’t make poor decisions for themselves.

Chase had just one problem as he envisioned his utopia on earth. He couldn’t come up with a name for it. Socialism, fascism and state capitalism just didn’t seem to fit the bill. Like any good Fabian, he shied away from calling socialism by its name. Instead, he labeled America’s future system “something called X.” And as Chase believed, System X was already displacing the system of free enterprise all over the world.

Source: Progressive Liars Part XI: Stuart Chase and System X.

If you have to keep changing the product or system name then it must not be very good. Basically, System X is just raising taxes, increasing the size of gov’t, and control most of America’s resources. Nothing new than what the alt-Left and socialists have always wanted.

Here are the other parts in the series:

• Progressive Liars Part V: Prohibition
• Progressive Liars Part VI: FDR Part I
• Progressive Liars Part VII: FDR Part II
• Progressive Liars Part VIII: FDR Part III
• Progressive Liars Part IX: LBJ Part I
• Progressive Liars Part X: LBJ Part II
• Progressive Liars Part XII: Barack Obama