The Etiquette Of Party Discourse.

Have you ever been dragged to a get-together by your spouse when you knew in advance you weren't going to enjoy yourself? No I'm not talking about a family reunion. I'm talking about an occasion where you probably don't know any or many of the folks that will be in attendance. It's not at all like a family reunion were you do know the players, but just don't like them. Well when you get to this "get-together" and you look around, exactly what is it that you're looking for? I'll tell you. You're looking for another, like souled, poor dumb sucker in the same boat as you. How can you tell if somebody is just like you? First they will have a stunned look on their face that says, why am I here? What did I do to deserve this? So you spot the target. But this is only the first step.The next thing you have to do is determine if he or she is of the same social stratum as you. Now that may not be the same stratum as your spouse or his/her spouse. You ease on over to where you can see what the target is drinking and or eating. If it's the same type as yours, you're most likely, in. But what if it's not? What if you like a tall cold one and the target wants an extra dry one. Maybe you like the shrimp while the target prefers something you can't even pronounced. Or what if the opposite is the case? Now comes the time to say something. You've exhausted all other possibilities for other conversation and it's time to take the plunge or sit in a corner and brood all evening. "What about those Colts", you say? "Oh yes. I think mine will make a fine trotter" comes the response. This may not be what you were hoping for. "The Colts don't play in Harlem", you retort. "They don't trot in Harlem either" he shoots back. Well at least your talking. That's an improvement. Next you need to try to find something you might have in common. Good luck with that. You desperately want another tall cold one and in all likelihood your new mate desperately wants a new conversation, preferably with someone who understands the basics of equestrian topics. You, on the other hand still want that tall cold one. That and that quiet corner to brood in. When you find it, guess who got there first?

Congress Is Like The Romper Room.

I just read that the IRS believes that about $400 billion is lost to America because of tax evasion each year. So if you cheat on your taxes, you're contributing to this countries debt and deficit. The thing is, congress is trying  to cut the IRS budget. Now if they have less to work with, they will be less able to collect that money and if they're forced to do less investigating, it's very likely that even more money will be lost to government coffers. There's two ways to look at this news. You could say that you should pay your full share of taxes for a change or, you might decide this would be a good time to cheat. Now in the first example, you know you shouldn't have been cheating in the first place and in the second example, you shouldn't be considering cheating at a time like this when our country needs all the help it can get. My question is why would the congress want to defund the IRS in the first place? Isn't it the only source of income we have? Or at least the main source, by a long shot. I understand many in congress are unhappy with the income tax laws as they currently exist, but that's not the IRS' fault. Actually it's the congress' fault. So I guess if you're mad about the program you're watching on TV, you should shoot the TV? Congress needs to grow up. I understand being an adult is not as much fun as being a misbehaving child, and if that's what you want to be, it's okay, but then you should get out of congress. Because congress needs some adult supervision for a change. What we need in congress is a group of serious adults who have the best interest of the country in mind and even more importantly, the best interests of the people uppermost in their minds. And by that I don't mean their individual party. It would be best if they don't consider their party affiliation at all. That can only happen if these folks are actually adults. In the true spirit of the term.

Why Should Business Or Governmemnt Win?

The political belief in small government, or at least small federal government by shunting most decision making to the states is a federalist belief. In business it's Creative Destruction that's the favored approach. Now don't get me wrong, there are good and valid points in both. Smaller government can help in many ways and on  many issues. We all agree however, that the federal government needs to do the military thing and in foreign relations we need to appear and be strong and many if not most inter-state activity needs to be handled by a strong Fed. Otherwise the states would begin to act like separate little countries. There's little agreement on social safety nets, therefore the problem with states is that no two states provide equally for the well being of it's citizens. In some instances there needs to be guidelines for the states to follow. That would need to come from the Fed. There are many other issues as well. Now, in business, the thinking is Creative Destruction. Simply put, that means it may be necessary to destroy a company in order to remake it more profitable. In some cases it means to modernize, or switch to robotics or in some cases it means to ship jobs overseas. The important obligation is always to increase profits when it comes to creative destruction. Profits is all that matters in the long run. And from a strictly business outlook, that's correct. The problem is that life, the world, involves more than strict business decisions. In the real world there are people to consider. The coal industry is a handy example although every industry has had to sort these things out. In the coal industry, safety has always been an issue. Left to their own devises, the coal barons would never have submitted to safe working conditions. That's been proven even by recent events in the industry. The same is true for environmental issues. There must be a balance between business's creative destruction and the peoples needs, and that means government oversight. If business was more focused on human interests they might make less in profits, but they would have a better relationship with labor and still make a profit, just not as large a profit. Since that won't happen on it's own, a strong federal government is necessary to insure it will happen. So while small government is good for industry and the creative destruction theory, neither is good for people. The trick is to find that middle ground or sweet spot. What we need is a few Rebublicrats and Democans. Maybe more than a few. That can't happen in our current two party system. Too much rancor.

Inequality In America? Hrumph! Certainly Not.

Well I just read an article in the National Review by Michael Tanner "The income inequality myth" . It suggests that there really isn't a broadening of inequality of income for several reasons. One is that because of some minor changes in tax rules, income that didn't used to get reported in now getting reported and on the other end, the reports supporting the idea of income inequality increases didn't include such things as food stamps, health care and other social remedies. Now of course the National Review is a very conservative report. But even considering that fact, how do they get information that wealthy people didn't used to report some income? That would be against the law. I Think it's called tax evasion, isn't it? Do you think that when the questionnaire went out, people responded that, yes, they had previously under reported on income? Did these folks sign their names to the questionnaire? And if they were willing to cheat on their taxes in the past, should we believe that now that the tax rate is slightly lower, they don't cheat any more? Exactly at what point did they make this decision? If the tax had been one dollar more, would they have cheated again? How about two dollars? Because that would be good information for the IRS. The second item of proof for not believing in income inequality is the Food Stamp statement. Apparently there were no food stamps a decade ago. No employee health care then either. Ya wanna know what I think? I think that income is being reported now that wasn't previously reported because it's income not being earned before. That and if there are more food stamps now, it's because most people's effective income is lower now. That, and companies used to pay most or all of health care costs, but don't anymore. You can poke more holes in Mr. Tanner's opinion than there are in a screen door. I don't mean to be a wisenheimer, but Mr. Tanner needs to find some new excuses for inequality or switch sides. On Second thought, we're fine with him right where he is.

We Ain't Yemen. Not Yet.

I was interested in a news item in the Washington Post this morning. It was about the youth in Yemen. It was titled "In Yemen's political crises, children pay highest price". With all the problems in the world and here at home, I haven't paid a whole lot of attention to Yemen. Have you? Well maybe we should. The article goes on to point out how the children in this torn country are suffering and will do so for many years to come. That's true of most countries that have experienced war or what amounts to war. What caught my attention is that, although we aren't experiencing war here in America, we are experiencing what in many ways mimics war. Because of the severe recession in this country, but even more, because of the political war that's continuing, I worry about our youth. Look, in order to get our financial houses under control, our national government, our states and even our local towns and school systems are cutting spending. All the while they do it, they tell us that this is needed to provide for and protect our children's futures. That's hogwash. If it were true, then they wouldn't be attacking the education our children will need  in order to function in their futures. They wouldn't be defunding the programs to feed them, see to their health, heat their homes and a slew of other programs aimed at improving children's lives. But that's what is happening to the exclusion of nearly all other sources of savings or, more importantly, other sources of income. Now I agree, nobody likes taxes and, certainly, nobody wants to pay more taxes. But here's the thing.There's only two ways to balance the ledger. You cut costs or raise revenue. And of course, kids can't vote, so guess who pays the price? It may be clever politics to take from children and claim you're helping them, but it's anything but good fiscal policy. Why? Because when you get old and unable to work, guess who's gonna have to support you and the country?

If Education Is So Important, Why Isn't Congress doing Anything About It?

By golly, the National Memo had a good idea this morning. Something about how China defunded liberal arts degrees for college students which means that if a Chinese student wants to get such a degree, he'll have to pay for it himself. Boy, what if we could do something like that in America. Thing is though, right now, scholarships aren't based on the need for students in critical fields for the most part. In America, scholarships are reserved for the brightest and the poorest no matter what they want to study. But wouldn't it make sense to add the provision that all scholarships be reserved for those people provided they take the courses most needed by our society? I mean, if we really don't need more social workers, phys-ed teachers, or whatever, why train more? They'll only end up unemployed and living at home or flipping burgers and living at home. How about offering scholarships to anyone who needs one who has the aptitude in the fields where we need to compete internationally for jobs. Hey, if we needed buggy whip designers, then give scholarships for it. The rest can and should get scholarships to trade schools in the same needed fields, or pay for their own education. I look at a scholarship as a reward for doing or being something special. Well if you're led to a field we need folks to be in, isn't that special? Then why not give that reward for it. Ya know what? In the long run, it just might not cost more to do it this way. It would mean more funding up front, but it would surely mean much more in  income tax down the road. And for a lot more years than two or four or five years for the degree. Such a plan would accomplish everything we need to regain our edge in education and science and math, as well as innovation and entrepreneurship. Being educated, having a college degree, doesn't automatically mean you will be successful in your life. The right area of study can be as close to that automatic success as you're gonna find.

It Was A Two Headed Caucus.

Ya know the Iowa Caucuses we watched last Tuesday? The ones that had the whole country excited to hear who would be the winner? The one who's winner won by eight votes? Yep that one. Well I just read some interesting things about it in the National Memo. Here are a few noteworthy items you may not have known. Like that fact that 5.5% of eligible voters in Iowa took part in it. 5.5%! There were almost that many candidates. Here's another one.  The winner of the caucuses doesn't get any voter delegates. That's right. The twenty five state delegates will be picked in a separate caucus. It was all for show. The whole country was on pins and needles waiting to hear who would be the winner of?  Nothing. Bragging rights I guess. Now that I think about it, I wondered why no mention was made of who got how many delegates. Nobody got any, that's why. I feel like asking for my money back. Even though I didn't buy a ticket. But I did pay my cable bill. And I think I got cheated. It's like going to a carnival and buying a ticket to see the two headed woman and then finding out one was just a paper-mache head taped onto her shoulder. I'll tell ya I was disappointed. But not as disappointed as I was to hear about this hoax perpetrated on us by Iowa and the media. Actually Iowa only duped the candidates. It was the media that duped the rest of us. Why would they do that to us? Why would they get us all excited to see who was going to be the first winner in the nominating campaign when there wasn't any winner yet? Not even a vote yet? You don't suppose it was done in order to make a profit off it, do ya? But the candidates are the ones who should be most upset. None of them got anything out of it but empty pockets. Well Santorum got to spend time in all 99 counties of Iowa. I'll bet that's something he'll cherish for years to come. I know I would. Just think, years from now all those candidates, all seven hundred of them, or was it only only seven, well anyway years from now, they can look back and say to themselves how much time and money they spent in Iowa for no good, or even bad, reason. No wonder only 5.5% showed up. And for this, Iowa gets tons of attention and publicity. That's what I call smart advertising.