It's Common Sense

It's Common Sense

Monday, September 5, 2011

In one word, what could the government do to help the economy?

We tend to over complicate things. Sometimes, it's out of a need to absolve ourselves of responsibility for either causing or solving a problem. Other times it's so we can self-aggrandize our role in the solution, or to achieve more power where there may be a vacuum. Making things more complicated is almost never the right answer in finding a solution. In that vein, what could the government do to help our economy?

Less.

Consider the following cartoon. Rube Goldberg was a famous cartoonist who had a penchant for designing complicated solutions to simple problems. The cartoon below depicts a man who has invented a mechanical means of applying toothpaste to a tooth brush.


Obviously the solution is much more complicated than the problem.  Just squeeze the tube!  But for whatever reason, the inventor thought it would be better to invent a mechanical means to do this.  How much easier just to use the toothpaste tube in the way it was designed!

The economy in the United States is based on a system of free enterprise and capitalism.  People who have money will risk and invest it in businesses as capital when they have the confidence that the return they will receive on that investment will exceed what they could get elsewhere or with less risk.  The government's role in this equation is simply stay out of the way and not erode confidence.

Look through history at the cycles of economic boom.  Following the civil war, the US economy went through a huge boom, so that by 1890, the US had a higher manufacturing output than Britain.  Men like Rockefeller (oil), Morgan (banking), Gould (railroads), and Carnegie (steel) were not constrained by federal regulations or interference, and created huge industries and jobs.  Another economic boom occurred in the roaring 20's, helped by automation
introduced by moguls like Henry Ford, and further fueled by the reduction of taxes by the federal government.  Look again to the period after WWII, the mid 60's, the early 70's, the Reagan era, and the tech boom.  Not one of these booms was caused by the government creating jobs or raising taxes or creating more laws or regulation.

In fact, we can look at the busts in the economy, and we'll often find that they were preceded by periods of large government growth, spending or regulation.  Had the Bush government not pushed so hard to open home buying up to more people, would banks have written so many bad loans?

When government action erodes the confidence of investors, investors invest less in that economy.  The current continued poor economy can be accurately interpreted as a lack of confidence on the part of investors in their opportunity to earn a good return on their investment.

So what should the government do?  Less.  Simply stop tinkering with the free enterprise engine, and focus on actions that will build the confidence of investors. 
  • Show a commitment to spending less, or doing more with less. 
  • Find ways to make it simpler for the average business to succeed, not harder. 
  • Reduce the size of government until the Federal Government is no longer the nation's largest employer. 
  • Lower the corporate tax rates so that they aren't the 2nd or 3rd highest in the developed world
All of these suggestions are in aid of creating investor confidence - to demonstrate that the federal government is not looking to replace the free enterprise system as the economic engine of this country.

If the government's answer to our current woes is to do more, and attempt to put people back to work by creating jobs, it will further erode investor confidence, and create an environment where people become more dependent on the government. Economists are divided on whether the public works projects of the mid-30's had a lasting positive or negative impact on the economy.  We can't afford that type of investment at this time anyway, so it shouldn't even be a consideration.

The answer for our country at this time is to simplify the federal government's role in business, and not to create some Rube Goldberg contraption to solve a problem that the writers of the Constitution never intended for the federal Government to solve.  In this case, it's just common sense that less is more.

Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Who's to Blame for the Federal Debt? (Pt. 2)

The first part of this two part blog explored how our spending habits as individuals play a big part in the growth of the federal debt.  This second installment will explore more of the technical reasons of how it has occurred, and end with some ways that we can begin to better manage it.

First, allow me to explain two things this blog won't do.  Firstly, it won't attempt (at least knowingly) to manipulate statistics to prove a point that's consistent with my agenda.  There are three kinds of lies:  Lies, damned lies and statistics, and it's my intention to prevent lies from tainting any facts that I share in this blog.

Secondly, it won't attempt to turn this into a political issue, at least not republican versus democrat.  Some people spend a lot of time trying to point the finger of blame from one party to the other.  It reminds me of the Dr. Seuss story of the Sneetches.  Many people may not know this story, which usually is meant to teach about prejudice, but I think is also a good way of thinking about dyed-in-the-wool Republicans and Democrats.  You can see a brief recap of the story here.


As you'll see later on, neither major political party in the United States can point a finger of blame.  Both parties have succumb to the siren call of power that comes with spending huge sums of money, and it really makes one wonder whether change can really happen within the present two party system.  But perhaps we'll leave that for another blog.

So what does Franklin Delano Roosevelt have to do with today's almost $15 trillion federal government debt?  Here's where the facts come in.

The first federal debt was recorded on January 1, 1791, during George Washington's first presidency, and it was just over $75 million - not bad for starting a country!  Washington became president in 1789.  A presidential election occurs every 4 years, so let's spend a moment looking at what's happened to the debt in those 4 year cycles.

In the first 144 years (or 26 cycles of presidential elections), our country went through a period of nation building, land acquisition, civil war, foreign war, health epidemics and economic depressions.  During that period, our debt as measured at the end of a 4 year presidential cycle:
  • Increased 17 times
  • Decreased 19 times
  • by June 30, 1933, the debt was under $23 billion.  $18 billion of that increase came during the years of World War I. 
  • While seemingly a large increase, as the debt was now about 306 times larger than in 1791, it only represented an increase of approximately $160 million per year each year. 
  • If the debt had continued to increase at that rate, it would now be about $35 billion.  Of course, it's slightly larger than that!
The other key thing to note is that the number of times the debt increased was fewer than the number that it decreased - it was cyclical, and for the most part, fairly balanced.

From 1933 to 2013 (yes, it's safe to predict what's going to happen in the next 18 months), the debt:
  • Increased 19 times during the 4-year cycles we're looking at
  • Only decreased once (after the end of WW II). 
  • The debt increased an average of $187 billion per year - a huge increase. 
Something happened 80 years ago that led the government to believe it was OK to always spend more than it collected.  What happened? Is it even legal for the government to borrow money (or spend more than it collects in revenue)?  The short answer is yes.  Article 1 Section 8 of the Constitution allows congress to borrow money.  It also authorizes Congress to spend money it collects and borrows to "provide for the common Defence and General Welfare of the United States".  And that's where the problem lies...

What constitutes the "General Welfare" of the United States?  That simple question has no simple answer, and even two prominent authors of the constitution (Madison and Hamilton) disagreed on the interpretation.  Of course I have an opinion, but my opinion doesn't count for much.  Unclear constitutional issues require clarification through constitutional amendment, and that's one of the solutions our country needs to pursue in order to get our national debt under control.

What is clear is that up until about 1936, the Federal Government took a fairly narrow view of what General Welfare meant, and the Supreme Court was fairly consistent in its support of that definition.  In the 1930's, a number of programs were introduced (National Industrial Recovery Act, Agricultural crop payments, Social Security) by FDR, and quickly met challenges that rose to the Supreme Court.  Because the Court took a fairly narrow view of what "General Welfare" meant, it ruled against the programs.  FDR had enough, and threatened to stack the court with justices that would deliver his brand of justice.  His justification, as quoted from his second Inaugural address in January 1937:

"I see one-third of a nation ill-housed, ill-clad, ill-nourished.''


By May of that same year, the court reversed its view on General Welfare, perhaps as an act of self-preservation, and in what is now called the "Switch in time that saved nine", judged in favor of two "New Deal" cornerstones - unemployment tax, and old age benefits as part of Social Security. 

Those decisions launched the seemingly unstoppable juggernaut of federal spending and the growth of the federal government, as well as the creation of numerous entitlement programs. No presidency since then has taken any meaningful steps to either rein in federal spending, limit deficit spending, or more completely define what General Welfare means.  Without a clear definition of that single term, any future government could find a way to justify almost any action.

The other key point to remember is that any power given to the Federal Government means that it is taken from the local state government.  Our country was founded as a Republic of United States, giving all power to the states, except those powers enumerated to the Federal Government.  What has happened over the past 80 years is that the power and importance of the individual states has been compromised in favor of consolidating power into a centralized government.

Isn't that what the Revolution sought to correct in 1776?

Before concluding with a couple of steps to resolve the issue, let's quickly examine whether the last 80 years has seen  improvement on the issues Roosevelt saw as a threat to the country (ill-housed, ill-clad, ill-nourished).  After 80 years of ever expanding federal government control and spending, we would expect to see some pretty amazing results:
  • Unemployment is at it's highest level since 1948, with almost 10% of the workforce looking for work.
  • Foreclosure rates are at an all time high, and have been on the increase for decades.  Almost 1 million homes have been foreclosed on this year
  • There are almost 48 million people receiving food stamps (US Debt Clock)
  • 66 million people receive Social Security retirement &/or disability benefits (US Debt Clock).
  • There are over 20 million government employees at the federal, state and local levels.  That's about 15% of the total work force (US Debt Clock).
  • The average American household’s credit card debt in 1990 was $2,966. In 2007 it was $9,840.
  • In the late 1950's, the poverty rate was 22.4%.  In 2009, the rate was 14.3%.  In spite of how bad our economy is doing, poverty is nowhere near what it used to be.  The poor are definitely less poor.
There's an old saying: "Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime".

I'm concerned that more and more people are relying on the government to get fish.  Poverty has decreased, but how is that possible when so many other metrics are out of whack?  I think we've taken the notion of general welfare way too far when such a high percentage of the population RELIES on getting money from the government.  What would the poverty rate really be if it weren't for ever-increasing government expenditures on entitlements?

That's the key word, that we heard so often in the debt ceiling crisis - entitlements.  Should entitlement spending be cut?  Here's a better question.  Who says anyone is entitled to anything in the way of money FROM the government.  As citizens, we are entitled to certain rights, freedoms and liberties, but I certainly don't think that I'm ENTITLED to any of your (or your kids) tax money.  The fact that we use the term so often and without convulsion is a true sign of our system illness.

All right, time to wrap this up.  What can we do to fix the problem.  Here's 2 steps:
  1. Make it illegal for the federal government to spend more than it earns, except under dire circumstances.  Since the clowns in Washington can't be trusted to define dire, such over spending would require a majority vote in a national referendum. 
  2. The term General Welfare needs to be defined in the constitution, by way of an amendment.  We've seen what 80 years of letting politicians decide what is best for us has accomplished.  It's time to reign them in.
Both these solutions would require years to  implement since constitutional amendments are required, but the time to start holding our elected officials feet to the fire is now!  At a minimum, if someone seeking office will not stand up and say that they'll work towards a balanced budget amendment, they don't deserve your vote, and they certainly don't deserve the right to spend your current and future tax dollars.

We can't continue to spend more than we earn, either as individuals or as a country.  It's simply common sense.

Friday, August 26, 2011

Who's to Blame for the Federal Debt? (Pt. 1)

Tune in to almost any news commentary show these days, and at some point in the program, you're likely to hear talking heads going on and on about who is to blame for the hemorrhaging federal debt.

One group says that Bush more than doubled the debt left by all the presidents before him, so he's to blame.  Another group says that Obama is the most reckless spender every to occupy the office of President, and his goal is to create a European Social Welfare state.  So what's the truth?  Who's to blame?

You are.  Oh, and Franklin Delano Roosevelt.  Bush and Obama are simply following the lead, but more on that later.

OK, first a word of warning.  In order to talk sensibly about this, there needs to be a little math thrown in.  Most of us get annoyed (and a little freaked out) when we see either really huge numbers (is that billions or trillions) and decimal points, so to simplify things, I'm going to use round numbers.  Don't rely on my numbers being absolutely accurate - if you're that interested, you can do the research yourself, but I assure you that the numbers are close to being accurate.

Also, many of the numbers and definitions used can be found on the website US Debt Clock




Finally, to try and bring some context into the discussion, I'll be drawing parallels to our personal financial experiences.  While it's overly simplistic to compare a country to an individual or a family, the fundamental principals aren't all that different.

When you think about finances of a country, one of the most important numbers to understand is the Gross Domestic Product (GDP).  For most of us who work and earn a salary, the GDP should be easy to understand.  It represents the value of the goods and services produced within the US per year, just like your salary represents the value of the service you provide to your employer in a year.  In August 2011, that number is close to $15 trillion.  In other words, we as a really big family earn about $15 trillion a year.

So let's come to understand the first part of the blame game, and that is that you're really the one responsible for the mess the federal government is in.

Huh?  I didn't tell Obama to create a health care entitlement we can't pay for.  I didn't tell Bush to fight wars against third world dictators.  Why is it my fault?

Imagine:
  • You have a job where you earn $48 thousand per year (GDP). 
  • You owe $176 thousand (US Total Debt)
  • You have to pay almost $12 thousand of interest every year in order to pay that debt?  25% of your pay is going just to interest! (US Total Interest)
  • The total value of everything you own (house, cars, jewelry, savings, retirement plan, stocks) is $244 thousand. (Total National Assets)
  • You have kids that you have to pay for when they go to university and get married, and you're also going to need to have money for when you retire.  That future obligation that you haven't saved for is $370 thousand.  (US Unfunded Liabilities)
How can you possibly pay for all your obligations on your income?  You're not drowning yet, but you can see the water rising.

Keep in mind, these numbers have little to do with the Federal Government and taxation.  They have to do with how we as citizens earn and spend our money.  The comments in brackets show the equivalent categories on a national level, as found on the US debt clock, divided among all the population of the US.

This is basically where we're at in the US, and we're in bad shape!

As individuals, we borrow a lot of money to buy expensive homes and cars, and we save very little.  This year, over 1 million people will lose their homes to foreclosures.  We have a lot of future expenses that we haven't even begun to save for, like education, weddings, retirement, and our health.  We set a very poor example for our government to follow.  In fact, if the government tried to do the opposite, we would probably rise in revolt.  We borrow today in the hopes that we'll earn more or invest better tomorrow, but as we've seen lately, that doesn't always happen.  And if it doesn't happen, many of us secretly hope that the government will be there to bail us out.  If we're not responsible enough to look after ourselves during good times, why do we expect that someone will look after us during the bad times? 

The National debt is really just a mirror of what's going on in our personal lives.  The Federal government has borrowed almost $15 trillion dollars, because it has been paid less than it has spent.  That's $47 thousand per each person in the country.  Just this year, the government will spend about 164% of what it collects.  We've set a bad example for our government.  So what's the first step to fix the problem?

Personal Responsibility.

As individuals, we need to get our financial house in order.  We need to spend less, save more, and live within our means.  It's a little hypocritical to expect our government to act one way, if we each act the opposite way.  The beginning of the solution starts with us.

It's up to us to save for the future.  The average American citizen has $1,800 in savings (liquid assets, like bank balances).  That's two weeks salary.  If we were committed to saving 10% of every dollar we make, we would triple the amount of savings we had by the end of the first year.  Another way of saying that is that we only allow ourselves to spend 90% of what we earn.  In other words, we commit that we will each spend less than what we earn, and put the difference into savings.

We don't have a problem that we don't earn enough, we have a problem that we spend too much, and that we don't save enough.  We're a nation of too many grasshoppers and too few ants.


It's no wonder, then, that the government has the same problem we do.  Once we start saving and spending less than we earn, we begin to hold ourselves more accountable for our own financial future, and once we do that, we begin to expect the same of others, including the government.  We don't expect anyone to bail us out if our poor decisions get us into trouble, and we therefore begin to look less favorably on spending government revenues on bailing out large banks and corporations, or on giving food stamps to 47 million people. 

Let me wrap up part 1 by confessing that I lived most of my life as a grasshopper.  I always believed that I would have ever increasing earnings (at least until I got really old), and so that if I spent more today, I would earn more tomorrow to pay it.  I remember talking with a friend of mine once, who happened to be a minister.  He asked if I had a budget.  I kind of snickered, and said I really didn't have one, and didn't think I needed one, because if I found that I didn't have enough money, I would just earn some more.  I wasn't a teenager when I said this - I was in my mid 30's. Things were going well for me, but I wasn't saving, and planning for the future, I was purely living for the day.

I'm different now.  There's a saying "Too soon old, too old smart", and that's true for me.  I live much more simply now than I did, earn a lot less, but I also owe a lot less, and should be debt free (except for a house mortgage, which is about 1.5 times our family income) within the next 12-18 months.  My kids did not inherit my grasshopper genes, and I'm thankful that they are much more disciplined about money than I ever was. 

It's up to each of us to do what we can so that we can be financially independent, and not look for big brother or government to bail us out.  The fact is, though, that many people expect the government to help them when they get into trouble.  After all, the government can simply take some of the money from the people who did plan and save, and give it to those who have a greater need. When did that start and is that something that our constitution even allows for?

Well, that's where FDR fits into this picture, and that's the second part of this story.

Wednesday, August 24, 2011

The Fifth Estate

With the advent of a free press and especially the Internet, countries which constitutionally protect Free Speech are actually best poised to have smaller governments, and are able to shift the responsibility for much of the protection provided by the state, to the people, where it belongs.

Think, for a moment, how many laws we have in the US.  The federal government has laws, knows as the US Code.  Agencies can pass laws, known as CFRs (Code of Federal Regulation).  Every state has it's laws, and every county and local government has it's laws. 

For the purposes of this blog, I'm going to ignore a certain class of stupid laws on the books. We all know the ones I'm talking about, as we probably see them from time to time on the Internet, or learned about them in a public school law or civics class. They're the laws that say it's illegal to drive in a car with an uncaged bear, or require all homeowners to own a rake, or stupid stuff like that.  Though good for a laugh because they make you scratch your head and wonder aloud "what were those silly politicians thinking when they passed this", I'm not going to focus any further on those relatively few laws.

Ask a knowledgeable person the following question: "How many laws are there in the US?"  If the person is really smart, they'll give you the one right answer, and that is that nobody knows! 

Let's imagine for a moment, that we could collect all the laws in book form, and the imagine all these laws in books on a shelf!  Just the US Code, and the CFRs in bound volumes occupy over 375 inches of shelf space.  That's over 30 feet of shelf, just for federal laws and regulations.  Compare that to the picture below:



This one book, from 1925, contained all the federal laws at the time, and was only a few inches thick. That means that we've added over 4 inches of laws each and every year of the past 86 years since this book was printed!


What has happened?  Have we lost our minds? Have we become a nation of water-heads that needs the protection and guidance of a benevolent big brother at every turn? Are we really any better off for all these laws, and the requisite policing and enforcement that comes with them?  What freedoms and liberties have we sacrificed by allowing ourselves to be so "ruled"?


I think this is where the Fifth Estate can play an important part.  First, a quick definition.  The Fifth Estate is actually an undefined, though oft-used term, and is generally considered to be all that which is not comprised of the other 4 Estates, namely:
  • Clergy is the First Estate
  • The nobility is the Second Estate
  • The commoners are known as the Third Estate
  • The press is the fourth estate
In today's common use, the Fifth Estate is often thought of as the blogosphere and networked individuals.  If you're reading this, you could be part of the Fifth Estate!


So what does the Fifth Estate have to do with reducing the number of laws?  Think about all the laws that companies have to follow.  Labor laws, environmental laws, safety laws, trade laws, competitive laws, export laws, import laws, tax laws, etc.  Laws governing companies and business are so numerous that they add extra cost to the products sold or services delivered by those companies.  But what's the alternative?  The most effective law, in a free enterprise and capital-driven society, is the law of competition, but how could that be best leveraged?


Let's look at a few examples.  Consider a restaurant.  Government health inspectors visit the restaurant on an infrequent but regular basis to make sure that the restaurant is safe and sanitary.  Is this really something the government needs to do?  Let's say that there were no more health inspectors.  The local International House of Schwarma decide they want to save money, and turn the heat lamps down low, serving tepid schwarma to their clientele.  Dairy products are also left out on the counter, and the high school kid who runs the fryer doesn't wash his hands after going to the bathroom.  A couple of weeks later, someone gets sick and thinks it's from their visit to the IHOS.  A week later 5 more people get sick.  In today's day and age of social networking sites and Internet, how long would it take to get the message out that the local Schwarmary is substandard?  Business would drop off very quickly, and the head of the IHOS would have to clean up their act quickly, or go out of business.


Now, let's think of a manufacturer. Imagine that we didn't have all the reams of anti-pollution laws that are on the books.  How could we be protected from a manufacturer who decides to dump their waste into our environment?  Competition and information is the answer.  If a number of people take exception to what that producer is doing, then fewer people will buy their products.


Of course the fly in the ointment here is that taking big brother out of the equation means that we all need to be more responsible consumers.  More organizations, like Consumer Reports, ePinions, Angies list, and sites like that could spring up.  The value to these sites is that real people can contribute to them, and that businesses would have a chance to respond to both the boquets and the brickbats.


Just like on web searches, some companies and websites show up because they pay to be there.  Sites that charge for either users to contribute their feedback, or companies to respond, or place higher on satisfaction scales, are worthless sites, and should be sent truckloads of tainted schwarma. 


My point is that we need to find ways to limit laws and government involvement, in favor of competition and disclosure.  Now that we all have the tools of free public speech delivered in a timely fashion, we have an unprecedented opportunity to take more responsibility as individuals.  The voice of the individual is more powerful than ever before.  One only need look to the world events in places like Egypt and Iran over the past year to see how true that is.


Even with all the laws, companies still sell tainted food, and companies still pollute, so it's not like we'd be throwing caution to the wind - we'd just be changing the ultimate punishment.  Rather than a fine that goes to the government, the penalty to the offending company would be the ultimate price - no customers.


Critics will say that it's too easy to "plant" a lie about a company, or to exaggerate about a problem, thus unfairly impacting a company's business.  The solution is to allow companies to respond and defend themselves.  Recently, we traveled to a city, and looked for a hotel using one of the popular travel sites that gives reviews.  We quickly narrowed our search down to one particular hotel, and read a selection of the best and worst reviews as well as some in the middle of the road.  What impressed us the most was the number of positive reviews as compared to the negative.  The next most impressive factor was that the General Manager took the time to respond individually to criticisms.  Had the person complaining taken the time to raise the issue at the time of their stay, it seemed clear that the GM probably would have solved the issue.  We booked our stay, and were very pleased.


Our freedom of speech is a tremendous liberty that we abuse because so many fail to exercise it for the common good.




Of course we could allow the government to look for more ways to control everything in our lives, while we relinquish more of our freedoms.  Stories like this, about some girls and their lemonade stand, would become more the norm, the government would grow larger, lawyers would become better paid and more abundant, and our economy could further stagnate because we've just made things so dang complicated.

We don't need to be protected by some authority that could just as quickly turn against us.  We need to take the responsibility that comes with our freedoms, and take charge.  It is supposed to be a Government of the people, by the people and for the people, not a Government over the people.


It's just common sense.

You probably aren't even a bag of chips!

OK, if you answer a phone at a business with more than just a few people working there, tell me this hasn't happened to you... 

Ring, ring, ring...  You pick up... 
(You)   "Hello, thanks for calling Willy's Widgets, this is Pat, may I help you?"
(Anna) "Yea, did someone call me from this number?"
(You)   "I'm sorry ma'am, you've called a business line with lots of people who could have called.  Do you do any business with Willy's Widgets?  Perhaps I could direct your call?"
(Anna)  "Never heard of you.  My name is Anna C Folic.  Someone called me from your number. Why did you call me?"
(You)   "I'm sorry Ms. Folic, but I have no idea who might have called.  Perhaps they left a message on your phone?"
(Anna)  "I don't know how to get my messages.  Anyway, somebody called me from your number.  If you don't tell me who, I'll report you to the FCC for illegal phone calls.  I'm on the Do Not Call List!"
(You)  "I'm sorry ma'am.  I can't do anything further for you.  Perhaps if it's important, they'll call back"

In some cases, the pointless conversation winds on aimlessly for another few exchanges, but in almost all cases, the person on the other end of the phone still doesn't quite get it.



Are people really so wrapped up with themselves that they think everything is about them, and can't understand that when you call a business, it's going to be nearly impossible to find the person who called you if you don't have a name?  If they don't have enough sense to be able to figure out how to use voice mail, or figure out that if nobody left a voice mail, it can't be that important, then I think their phone privileges should be taken away!

I'll bet a lot of those people also believe in Intersection Fairies.

Just another brief example of how everyday common sense isn't nearly common enough!

Wednesday, July 13, 2011

Size Matters

After the Department of Defense, what government Department or Agency is the next largest?

Sometimes it feels like the IRS must be the largest department, given their omnipresence in our lives, but the IRS, which is part of the Treasury Department, is actually quite small compared to the leviathan that is the Veterans Affairs Department.

According to the Department of Labor, the Department of Veterans Affairs employed 280,000 people in the US in 2008 to service the needs of approximately 23.5 million vets (according to InfoPlease).  That's one employee for 84 vets. There are only 12 companies in the US that employ more people than Veterans Affairs.

Now don't get me wrong, I believe we owe a tremendous debt to those that committed themselves to protecting our freedoms and liberties.  I would even argue that a Vet is far more deserving of our support that a former elected official.


Do we really honor our Vets, though, by creating a beauracracy that slows the delivery of service, and thrives on making the simplest things complicated?  Is there a good reason that Vets should be forced to go to seperate facilities for health services?  What's next?  Will people on Medicare soon be forced into Medicare only facilities?

The larger a government organization gets, the more Common Sense challenged it becomes.  Just read this article about how the Veterans Affairs Department saw it as their place to violate the First Ammendment Rights of vets who were commemorating their own.  Why would any government employee even see it as their place to get involved?

Common Sense tells me that the needs of our vets would be so much better served by allowing the private sector to deliver top quality services, while being administered by a much smaller organization of a few hundred individuals who ensure that our funds are properly spent and that the services are accessible to those who have served so honorably.

Tuesday, July 12, 2011

ROT2 (Rule of Thumb #2) - Consider the Consequences

The second Rule Of Thumb often used by people with common sense involves the ability to measure the risk and potential outcome for a given decision.




Recent studies at the National Institute of Health (NHI) using MRIs have shown that the areas of the brain responsible for evaluating risk don't fully develop until the age of 25.


We often see teenagers exhibit impulsiveness, feelings of invincibility, and sucumbing to peer pressure.  These are all signs of immaturity in cerebral development, and in most cases, will decrease with age.  See this external article for more reading on the subject.

I know that as I've aged, I've forgotten more than I thought I knew when I was younger.  It's like that old German saying "Too soon old, too old smart".  Youth is definitely wasted on the young. 

It's too bad we can't be like Mearth from the Mork and Mindy show - born old and age backwards.  Then when we as adults make stupid decisions without considering the consequences, we'd have something to blame it on.

Wednesday, June 29, 2011

The difference between "er" and "ing" could cause a flood.

OK, so my wife and I are probably going to disagree on this one, but there's got to be a better way to distinguish between dishwasher detergent and dish washing detergent.  Please look at the following picture...

One of these bottles meant for dishes contains a dangerous substance, that when exposed to water in a washing machine, causes it to create more bubbles than 1,000 Lawrence Welk episodes.  There should be a big warning, like on a pack of cigarettes.  An overflowing dishwasher is far more likely to cause sudden cardiac arrest that a couple of smokes.

For goodness sakes, put a picture of hands on the bottle meant for hand washing, and a picture of a machine on the one meant for machine washing. 

When I'm grabbing a bottle that says dish washing detergent, I think to myself "That's what the machine will be doing, so this must be the right stuff".  It's common sense, right?

You know how this sad story ends so we'll skip that part.

Back "in the day", the stuff for the machine used to be in a rectangular cardboard box, and the stuff for hand washing in the sink was in a clear curvy plastic bottle.  It was so much easier then.  Now, I either need eyeglasses, or to hold both side by side so I can figure it out.

Thank goodness cooking oil and car oil don't come in similar containers!

Tuesday, June 28, 2011

She could have been a biological terrorist...

What better example to prove the point the Common Sense isn't so common?  The following story was covered by various media over the past couple of days.  What follows is from CNN: 
Florida TSA incident – The Transportation Security Administration is standing behind its agents in Destin, Florida. Agents forced a cancer-stricken 95-year-old woman to take off her adult diaper after they patted her down at an airport security checkpoint, the woman's daughter, Jean Weber, told CNN. The TSA denies that the screeners required the elderly woman to remove a diaper and that they followed proper procedures. The incident follows the videotaped pat-down of a  6-year-old girl, a move which outraged some lawmakers and the public.
It's hard to keep up with the almost daily barrage of news stories with 95 year old terminally ill cancer patients who are hijacking planes and crashing them into American cities while they hold the passengers powerless to act with the biological hazards hidden in their adult diapers...

Seriously though...  Is there a single rational human being who thinks that this old lady represented any kind of security threat?  This would be nothing more than a regrettable disrespect to a senior if only the TSA would have admitted their mistake, and taken steps to both discipline the microcephalic agent who chose to subject the poor woman to increased scrutiny, and to establish procedures so that this could never happen again.

But of course the TSA is a government agency, so this didn't happen.  The TSA went on public record defending the actions, and there is no indication that the agent was even reprimanded.

How can a government that sees a 95 year old terminal cancer patient as a threat to national security be trusted to manage anything, let alone health care, social security, monetary policy, national defense or the national debt?

Monday, June 27, 2011

Can it Really Be That Complicated?

On a recent trip to Washington DC, we chose to stay in Alexandria Virginia.  Our hotel was located just steps away from the very upscale office campus depicted in the picture below.


It turns out that this 2 million square foot, 4 building complex is the home of the US Patent and Trademark offices, and houses fewer than 10,000 employees.  Really?

When someone says patents to me, I picture some old building, smelling of 200 year old paper, with an inspector wearing a visor and coke-bottle eyeglasses, who makes marks with a pencil, and has a big stack of applications in front of him.

Obviously I am truly disconnected from reality.

At the end of 2009, there were 6,242 patent examiners in this complex.  The office grants approximately 150,000 patents per year.  Now, if my geriatric, bespectacled examiner was the one processing the paperwork, I would be impressed, but again, I am wrenched from my hopeful world view to the realization that each patent examiner ends up granting a patent once every 2 weeks.  Each examiner averages less than 26 patents a year.

In this day of modernization, it's ludicrous to me that our tax dollars would support the inefficiencies of an organization like this.  Two weeks to process a patent?  Seems to me that a person with an above average IQ could do a few LexisNexis searches and a bit of googling to determine the validity of an application.  But perhaps slow and steady wins the race, and protects the integrity of the patents granted?

Nope

Some of the patents granted by this slow moving group of comfortably lodged employees include the following examples cited in Wikipedia:
  • U.S. Patent 5,443,036, "Method of exercising a cat", covers having a cat chase the beam from a laser pointer. The patent has been criticized as being obvious.
  • U.S. Patent 6,025,810, "Hyper-light-speed antenna", an antenna that sends signals faster than the speed of light.
  • U.S. Patent 6,368,227, "Method of swinging on a swing", issued April 9, 2002, was granted to a seven-year old boy, whose father, a patent attorney, wanted to demonstrate how the patent system worked to his son (aged 5 at the time of the application).
  • U.S. Patent 6,960,975, "Space vehicle propelled by the pressure of inflationary vacuum state", describes an anti-gravity device and a perpetual motion machine.
If this organization were in private hands, and the cost of processing patents was exclusively borne by the applicants, there is no way that production of 1 patent every 2 weeks per examiner would be tolerated, let alone issuing a patent that describes how to exercise a cat with a laser pointer.

This is the type of government agency run amok that needs to be reigned in.

Thursday, June 23, 2011

ROT1 (Rule of Thumb #1) – The Acid Test

From time to time we’ll blog about some of the foundational underpinnings of the sense we find so appealing.  We’ll call these Rules of Thumb (ROT).
Our first Rule of Thumb can be widely applied to business, family, or even the Federal Government.  The Acid Test asks a simple question.  If the answer is affirmative, then proceed with further investigation.  If the answer is negative, then stop.  Here’s the question:
“Do I have the right to take this action”

Notice that the question says nothing about ability.  Just because we can do something doesn’t mean that we should.  Let’s look at a couple of examples.

Let’s say I run a farm, but in order to get my crops in and make money, I need to hire people that I can take economic advantage of, due to some disadvantage they have (illegal aliens, criminal record, handicap, etc).  Could I do this?  Yes.  Do I have the right to do this?  No.

Let’s say I’m a really safe driver who’s never had (or caused) an accident.  Do I have the right to drive as fast as I want?  No
Rights are usually protected by or spelled out in laws.  The law that governs our government began with the Constitution, so when we have a question about whether the government has the right to do something, we should look to the Constitution for the answer.

Does the government have the right to collect money from the wealthy and redistribute it to those in need? It does not.  Should people be concerned with meeting the needs of those who are less fortunate?  Absolutely, but it should be done through avenues other than the government.
Should everyone have access to sound medical care?  Absolutely, but it is not the role of Government to do it.  It’s up to We the People, and the last time I looked at the Constitution, we never gave the government the responsibilities that they’ve taken. 

When you next hear about something that the governement wants to do, take a moment to ask the question "Do They Have The Right".  If the answer is no, then we give up our freedom and liberty by allowing it to happen.

Why the intersection fairy ignores some people...

It never ceases to amaze me that people who have had their licenses for years still don’t know how to stop at an intersection.  I’ve watched people either pull too far forward or stop too far back at a traffic light with a sensor.  You can tell when you’re at one of these lights when you see a black line in the shape of a rectangle cut into the pavement, usually the size of one or more cars.  If you don’t stop at the right place, the sensor won’t sense you’re there, and the light won’t be triggered.  By the way, they're hardly ever weight activated - it's usually induction that triggers the light.

These same people probably don’t notice that almost every controlled intersection around has a thick white line, called a stop line.  Oddly enough, this stop line is where you’re supposed to stop.  It’s before you get to the pedestrian crosswalk, which is before you get into the lanes of traffic that cross your path.  If you stop on the stop line, everything works the way it’s supposed to.
Sure, you could go on believing that the intersection fairy will change the light quicker if you keep nudging forward every few seconds, but just for kicks, try applying that inconvenient common sense, and allow your car to be sensed. Please!

Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Welcome!

The idea for this blog has been germinating for a while, but came to fruition during a recent trip to Washington DC.  We saw things that made us scratch our head and wonder why, and we saw things that made us admire the way in which they were executed.

We'll keep this first blog short, and avoid some of the big issues that we'll get to soon. Let us share one of the head-scratchers with you...

We planned a lot of our trip using our smart phones.  We were able to plan travel routes, investigate tourist spots, look at reviews, and in some cases, buy tickets online.  We love the convenience of being able to check in for our flights 24 hours ahead of time, and get a boarding pass sent to our phone.  No more paper boarding pass or standing in line at the airport ticket counter - simply show the boarding pass on your phone to security, and you're through.

If the big leviathan-like airlines who so frequently miss out on making customers happy can send QR codes for boarding passes to your phones, then anyone should be able to do it, right?

Wrong!

We wanted to book a night-time trolley tour of DC online.  When we went to the site, we were surprised to find that if you booked online, you would need to print out a receipt to bring to check-in, whereas if you called the trolley company directly, you didn't need to bring a printed piece of paper!  Where's the sense in that?  How about letting me save you money, Mr. Trolley company, by using my time and resources to book online.  The you send me an email (with a QR code) that I bring on my phone for check in.  You merely have to scan the code (or enter the confirmation number), check my ID, and let me go on my way.

Instead, we booked with a person, and then had to arrive 45 minutes early in order for a sole employee of the tour company to look up our reservation up and print a piece of paper for us to give to the driver.  It was a slow process in an unconditioned space, and obviously was designed by someone who never gave any thought to the customers or even to how they could streamline the process to save them money.

With just a little more common sense, the tour company could have had happier customers/referrals, and increased their bottom line.

Apparently common sense was an inconvenience at the time the company came up with this process.