This is interesting, Millennials Don't Trust Anyone

Millennials are people age 18 to 29 in the United States.

The % of them that they "sometimes trust" or "never" trust the following institutions is surprisingly high and implies that even with education, these institutions have a problem with their future clients.

Percentage that "sometimes trust" or "never" trust the following institutions

The Press - 88%
Wall Street - 86%
Congress - 82%
Federal Government - 74%
The President - 63%
The Supreme Court - 58%
Local Police - 50%


The danger of such distrust is nihilism because we need society to function well and that required both participation and sound governance.


Link to source document

Ross Douthat Endorses Obama Military Policy

and predicts that even Lindsay Graham would follow a similar policy if elected.

Link to Douthat column

Nanny State vs. Healthy Eating

It is an interesting contrast in conservative circles today.

A few years ago they ridiculed Michael Bloomberg for proposing that soft drink cups be limited in size for a single serving.  As one who thinks the size of small drink cups is the equivalent of a super sized large in many situations, I thought this was perfectly reasonable.  However, conservative circles said Mr. Bloomberg was creating a nanny state that deprived citizens of their rights to buy whatever quantity they wanted to buy.

However, now more than one GOP led state is trying to restrict what poor people can buy with food stamps.  When one reads a list of things they want to prohibit, such as cruise ships, filet mignon, and other luxury foods, one is left to wonder how many food stamp recipients are actually using their food stamps to buy such goods since usually they run out of food before the month has ended.

And what about some consistency?  Do citizens who receive food stamps somehow become 2nd class citizens deprived of their right to buy a super sized soda at the movies (which will be forbidden under some of these food stamp rules).  What happened to choice?

I actually have less of a problem with some of these restrictions if they make conservatives feel better as I don't think they really effect the choices food stamp recipients have.  But I do have a problem with their criticism of Michael Bloomberg for trying to limit the quantity of sugary drinks in one serving.

Diabetes is a plaque on our health care system and we need to do something.  Some consistency on the part of these conservatives would be useful.  If limiting the use of food stamps is conservative, so should be limiting the size of soft drinks.

The Nanny State has become a conservative concept if applied consistently.   But conservatives are anything but consistent.

Pure Unadulterated Socialism????

The CEO of Gravity Payments decided that he wanted to pay every employee at least $70,000 a year and cut his own pay to help do that.

What happens?  Conservative social media breaks out in hysteria being critical.  One pundit who I have never heard of "His mindset will hurt everyone in the end".  Rush Limbaugh labeled the move "pure, unadulterated socialism".

I don't know about my readers in Russia and the Ukraine who lived in pure unadulterated socialism, but a profit making enterprise that is free to hire and fire employees and decides that it wants to pay employees in a certain way, even if the wages are above market for some roles, does not strike me as socialism in any manner.

Perhaps if my last company's Board had not been so fixated on paying themselves so they could get rich quickly, and paid the lower end people a bit more, they would have been focused on the risks they were taking to get paid as they would have needed to work longer and they wouldn't have destroyed shareholder value the way they did.  Now a firm that once employed 120 people employs 30 or so and is simply a segment of a much larger firm.  And many of the well and less well paid people who did not survive the downsizing have suffered financial loss.

I have no idea what Gravity Payments does, but I suspect they are a high tech firm.  That means they have a high risk of failure.  If the CEO wants to have the best people he can find, pay them well so he has the best chance of making it over the long term, that seems like a valid capitalistic strategy to pursue and is certainly not socialism.

Socialism is when a business is on the government gravy train for its revenues generated by connections fostered by campaign contributions.  Say like Blackwater.   I am sure Rush Limbaugh saw them as a great example of capitalism even when they have seen their old employees convicted of murder.

I hate GerryMandering and other small points

I read with an interest a partisan Congressional Tea Party Republican's view on the state of politics.  His view is that he doesn't need to compromise or even contemplate the middle ground because his brand of politics dominates his electorate so he is no danger of losing his job.  He also sees this as true of most Democrats who have no risk of losing their jobs either by being diametrically opposed to him.

This certainly casts doubt upon my original goal for this blog which was to foster thoughts about a proper path between Democrat and Republican points of view to find a balance which takes the best of both worlds.  Instead, we get nothing but gridlock and parliamentary type system without the constraints of a parliamentary system.

I have no doubt that gerrymandering is the driver of all this and wish statewide elections were a growing norm rather than the small trend toward driving everything down to the Congressional Districts.  That might be OK if Congressional District winners recognized that they owe some leadership potential for the 20% to 49% of the voters who didn't vote for them and want to see compromise over some issues sometime.  But I suspect we will not see this any time soon.

Similarly, Tim McGraw is finding out that a country star cannot play a benefit for Sandy Hook victims because some Sandy Hook victims support a verification system before allowing the purchase of a gun.  The NRA has worked up such a high level of hysteria over reasonable gun control (it used to be handgun controls, but now we can't even control military weapons, and then people wonder why police are fearful for their lives every time they stop someone), that Tim McGraw is being seen as a traitor to the country music world and NRA supporters are going to boycott his music.  Maybe he should have just sent a donation, but I read somewhere he already has a net worth in excess of $30 mm so I guess he is now rich enough to not care if he maximizes the profits from every song.

Meanwhile, Chris Christie is trying to resurrect his campaign by coming after entitlements.  I have written extensively about the need to fix entitlements, but also must note that sending block grants to states to fix Medicaid will force the states to create death panels.  Most of the growth in medicaid spending is the direct result of the ever increasing number of elderly alzheimer's patients who become  institutionalized, spend down their resources and go onto Medicaid to pay for their long term care.  They have no life and they are doomed, but someone has to pay for their care unless you have death panels and euthanasia, which most conservatives and liberals are against.  This is where the rubber meets the road.  You either support robust palliative care or you need to authorize euthanasia if you want to control the growth in Medicaid spending.  DEMENTIA is growing rapidly, not the cost of covering poor children.

I don't have a solution for this except to support robust palliative care.  Dr assisted death only works if the patient is cognizant and dementia patients are not cognizant.  I know this because my mother had Alzheimers, cost the system over $600,000 for her last 4 years of life and did not have one iota of cognizant thought in those 4 years.   I wanted her to die with dignity but instead she ended up with an ignored DNR and 4 months in an ICU on a ventilator before she died.  The Dr who oversaw that should go to jail but instead he got paid handsomely no doubt.

The failure to regulate the financial system well in the years leading up to the 2008 financial collapse now has a measure of what it did to global growth.  Global GDP is now 3% lower than it would otherwise be according to J.P. Morgan economists.  Since GDP is annual concept that is how much lower aggregate incomes are each year.  That is a lot of foregone income and would have helped people and governments afford things better if the collapse had not happened.  I don't understand why Republicans, who studied economics, don't understand the need for prudent financial regulation. An unregulated economy leads to excesses that have disastrous results.

Where are the Gen X Democrats?

While I generally am in agreement with Hillary's balance of policies (centrist Democratic that acknowledge taxes can only be so high and business conditions matter), I would really rather have someone younger than Hillary promoting them.

But there are no prominent Democrats younger than boomers.  As much as I study politics, I don't understand that because there are plenty of Democratic voters in Gen X.

Why the Minimum Wage Must Rise

Something is simply wrong with the structure of wages when over 50% of all public assistance goes to people who work 38 hours a week and don't earn a living wage.

Decades of cuts in manufacturing to compete with emerging markets labor have pushed people into jobs in food service, home health care, child care (because 2 income families need child care).  Now 48% of home care workers get public assistance because their hourly wage is so low.  46% of child care workers get public assistance.  The % for food service did not appear in my source document, but 25% of part-time college teachers (a growing phenomenon) get pubic assistance.

I know the Republican arguments that increasing wages will cut employment, but how do we know where the dividing line on that employment is when companies like Wal-mart and McDonalds can game the system and use taxpayer funded assistance to reduce their cost of employment.  That subsidy is distorting necessary price discovery in the economy.  It is also unfair to Mom & Pop competition when they want to pay a livable wage to their family but cannot due to Megastore competition.

You probably need 3 minimum wages.  One for urban areas, one for suburban/small city areas and one for rural areas.  This can probably be best done at the state level rather than the Federal level.

Unintended Consequences and How Conservatives Have Lost Their Way

One of the key things I learned in gaining maturity and the reason I became a Republican after being a Democrat in my youth was that policy needs to manage unintended consequences.  I didn't think the Democrats had any thought in that direction in the late 1970's and the Republican did.  So I voted for Ronald Reagan, after voting for Jimmy Carter and George McGovern.

Now it is clear to me that the Republicans have no concept of unintended consequences.  This is ironic because to me one of the cornerstones of a conservative approach to the world is uncertainty about change and the need to manage change well so that consequences are desirable and not harmful.  Reagan started, Clinton continued and Bush II enforced a policy of reducing financial regulation and that brought on the 2008 financial crisis.  It was unintended and never managed.

The Tea Party understands this in a way because they just want everything to go back to the way it was in the 1950's, when the world was one they understood.  But that doesn't work because nothing stands still.  Change must be managed and reacted to through adjustment of policy.  Nothing static ever works well forever.  Society is too large, too varied, and the things that effect individuals too numerous to not have flows and consequences that must be reacted to in order to manage them.

So this morning we awake to some in the GOP's best friend in Russia, Putin announcing that he is going to sell the Iranians the anti-aircraft missile system he held up on selling them because of the anti-nuclear  sanctions the world imposed on Iran.  We know this system works because Putin used it to shoot down the civilian Air Malaysia 777.  Do you think it is possible that Putin decided to do this to make it more painful for the U.S. and Israel if they decide to bomb Iran?  If Putin thinks the Ukraine is part of his zone of influence, he certainly thinks Iran is too, and what better way than to develop favorite influence with them by helping them defend themselves.

Sometimes, I think neoconservatives have forgotten about the issue of Mutually Assured Destruction.  Russia still has enough nuclear weapons to obliterate us.  We need to have them on our side because they are the victim of terrorism also, and if Iran develops a nuclear weapon, it is much easier for Iran to deliver it to Russian Muslims than it is someone in America.  Russia does not want that, but they also love to poke an eye in America's eye.  This needs to be managed (and I know it is not easy).

One interesting thing about GOP reaction to the Iran Nuclear negotiation is everyone, including Netanyahu, wants to go back to the Joint Plan of Action that was developed some 16 months ago, and which they roundly criticized some 16 months ago.  It's once again apparent, they cannot describe a policy without criticizing President Obama and they never offer a reasonable alternative policy.

They are lost because they don't even think of consequences.  Look at ISIS spawned by our invasion of Iraq.  Never contemplated by anyone in the Bush II administration.  Look at Al Qaeda, spawned by our invasion of Kuwait from Saudi Arabia and never contemplated by anyone in the Bush I administration.  Our cost of health care has been rising inexorably forever, and the GOP developed Heritage Foundation/Romney/ObamaCare and repealing what they developed is going to have some kind of consequences and they do not contemplate them.  The Supreme Court made companies have constitutional rights of individuals and look at the growth of $ in campaigns, which I believe fosters the gridlock we see in Washington D.C.  Unintended consequence of conservative change.

I have gone on too long.  Bottom line, Conservatives are so focused on achieving their goals without any thought of the consequences that they are no longer conservative in my mind.  They are extremely radical.

Link to Washington Post column that helped my thoughts along

"Guns for anyone, anywhere, anytime — no questions asked."

That is a direct quote from the NRA convention stating the goal of the NRA.  They are crazy, the reasons police fear for their lives any time they cannot see hands clearly or they do see something that looks like a gun.

How we've gone from protecting citizens rights to a hunting rifle to a policy that protects rights to automatic weapons and promotes youth having guns that are automatic weapons is beyond my comprehension.

What about protecting our police and reducing their fear so they don't shoot unarmed citizens?

Musings on a Friday: Welfare vs business deductions and Police killing Young Black men

The U.S. spends almost as much as Europe on Social Welfare but so much is disguised under tax breaks that it gets lost in the accounting.  For example, a business can deduct 50% of a business meal and the participants have zero income for the benefit.  In contrast, the government gives a poor person $200 a month in food stamps and the world is focused on that.  I knew a lot of businessmen who had more than $200 a month in deductible business dinners and never gave a thought to that discrepancy; myself included.  But I don't see Kansas doing anything about that government subsidy while they go after welfare recipients who do not go on cruises and do spend more than $25 in one shopping trip to the Grocery store.


Link to column that provided the inspiration for that thought.

My initial reaction, when there is no video, is to support the police.  They have a difficult job when there is no effective gun control and the NRA supports criminals having both automatic weapons and cop killer bullets.  That is why a 12 year old with a toy gun can get shot by the police and no wrong found with them.  Not that the killing isn't a wrong, but kids cannot play with guns anymore.  There is no room for error on the part of the police when there are automatic weapons around.  You hope they take the time to not make a mistake and I believe in Cleveland they could have taken more time because the kid was not pointing the gun at them.

But when there is video, or when the instigator is a vigilante, you need to come down hard on the criminal act of a policeman or vigilante.  I don't understand why the policeman in NYC who choked Eric Garner to death has not been disciplined in some way by either the legal system or the police department.  And I certainly hope that the video and other evidence is enough to convict the policeman who shot an unarmed fleeing perpetrator of a misdemeanor in the back with 8 bullets.

I have great empathy for people who believe the police unfairly target young black men.  I do believe many innocent young black men are assaulted by policeman.  But I also have empathy for the police who have to always be in fear of hidden weapons and the only way to question someone is to first make sure they don't have a hidden weapon.  That leads to necessary unfair treatment.  The key is not kill or harm an innocent person.

The police need to be accountable to the public and the public is not simply white voters.  The public is everybody of all ethnicity.  That is why it is important that people of all ethnicity vote.  If minorities don't vote to elect people who care about this there will be no pressure on the police departments to respect citizens of all ethnicity equally.

Local police citizen relations are a local issue.  Solutions need to be found at the local level.  There is little the Federal level can beyond buying some equipment for the police.

Something Other Than a War Has to be the Solution for the Middle East

I hope this comes out coherent.

Israel was 5 years old when I was born to a Jewish mother.  Growing up in the aftermath of WWII and the horrors of The Holocaust, I came to believe that the Jewish people deserved to have their homeland.  Viewing the ceaseless wars over religion and developing a skepticism for religion, I turned away from faith, but not away from my belief that Israel needs to exist.

The Palestinians have now been without a state for 67 years.  Over much of that period, they have not deserved a state.  Yasar Arafat was a terrorist and a rotten manager of a state.  The result, in combination with certain Israeli policies, was a lack of economic opportunity creating angry and frustrated young men.  What do angry and frustrated young men do, they become terrorists and soldiers against their perceived enemy.

The U.S. destroyed the Sunni led Iraqi government which was the only government crazy enough to stand up to Iran, which other than Iraq, Turkey and Israel, is the only other proven military force in the region.  So we should not be surprised that Iran is trying to exert some regional influence.

What did our war in Iraq accomplish?  It put the Shiite's in charge and eliminated a Sunni counterbalance to Iran's Shiite led government.  It created the basis for a Kurdish state and destroyed the Iraqi Army.   13 years later, all our training was for naught as the Iraqi Army cannot defeat ISIS without the assistance of the U.S. and Iran.  Our war in Iraq also destroyed the economy in the Sunni regions creating angry and frustrated young men who formed ISIS.

Now I have no idea what the attraction of a caliphate government is but it seems to attract all the angry and frustrated Muslims who have no economic opportunity where they are and even attracts some who do have economic opportunity.  It would seem to be a priority in future Middle East endeavors to avoid trashing economic opportunity and motivating young men to become terrorists.

It seems clear to me that we need to try some set of policies beyond destruction.  I say that for both the U.S. and Israel.  After 67 years of destruction, it is time to build up the Palestinian economy to create hope for the young so they don't become angry and frustrated.  I know this will not be easy.

And this is why the U.S. has to choose trust and verification when it comes to Iranian nuclear ambitions.  The U.S. has negotiated with the support of every other major economic power a way to monitor and limit Iranian nuclear activity.  If the U.S. walks away from this without the support of the global community, the global community may well end the sanctions that have brought Iran to the negotiating table and made them willing to have their nuclear program monitored and limited.

The only other path the U.S. could follow is one that only Israel and Saudi Arabia support.  That is bombing Iran to smithereens in an effort to destroy their nuclear capacity.  But much of that is dispersed and buried underground so it cannot be bombed.

So those who advocate no trust for Iranian leadership need to be focused on two things:  (i) Maintaining the support of the global community for sanctions if Iran does not comply and (ii) the consequences of any focused military action upon Iran.

It is very uncertain to see how military action would generate either regime change in Iran or a desire to end their nuclear program.  All military action would do is sponsor rage, frustration and angry in the young men who want some economic success for themselves.  Iran has a population of 75 million people and half are under the age of 35.  Do we really want to turn them into the fodder of a Shiite version of ISIS or the PLO?

Destruction has not created security for Israel, Iraq, or Afghanistan.  Destruction has not discouraged young men from becoming terrorists and soldiers for a war against their perceived enemies.

It is time to use economic growth as a tool in our War on Terror.  It does not mean anarchist acts will not occur, but except for Vladimir Putin who shoots down civilian airliners with impunity, the entire world hates anarchy and will fight it.  What we need to do is limit the number of angry and frustrated young men.

That is why I believe in a policy toward Iran that has the support of the world.  That means negotiate with them honestly, firmly and insuring that there is a means for verification.  Ronald Reagan's belief's have been distorted over time by some, but he did believe in negotiation, he did believe in trusting his enemies, but he also believed in verification.

The alternative policy of distruction has little possibility of success and a certainty of poor outcomes that would fuel an already disastrous outcome for many in the Middle East from the Iraqi War.  And the U.S. would own that as well.

The only way we could fight the Iraqi War was with the support of Kuwait and Turkey.  How could we fight a war in Iran if Turkey and Kuwait are in turmoil? Would the Shiite's of Iraq still like the U.S. if we are attacking Iran?   Israel is a small island in a very big sea of turmoil.  More destruction is not a path to stability.  In fact, I believe, it would only increase the instability many times over.

I hope Bibi Netanyahu and the GOP contemplate thoughts like I express here.

Iran, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Israel and the U.S. need a common policy if ISIS is to ever be defeated and economic opportunity rather than desires for a caliphate are to dominate young men's lives.

Kenya Needs to do Something about Al Shabab

How many times do you have to be attacked?

You either defend your people or you don't.

And why would any tourist travel there given their inability to defend their border and people?