Courts and common sense

It's easy to pick on politics, politicians, and government agencies given the entirely reliable stream of foolishness from that quarter. But I came across something today that shows that even the courts, presumably independent of the day to day world of executive and legislative politics can be every bit as foolish.

Here's the brief

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- The U.S. Supreme Court declined on Monday to hear the Federal Trade Commission's appeal in its suit against Rambus Inc. that accused the memory chip maker of "deceptive conduct," sending the company's shares up as much as 16% in early trading.

The FTC, one of two U.S. agencies to enforce antitrust law, said Rambus failed to tell a standard-setting group about patented technologies while advocating them as a new chip standard.

The Supreme Court denied the FTC's appeal without any comment.

The suit is one of several legal issues involving Rambus, whose shares whipsaw with each development.

The FTC asked the high court to review a ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, which had found on April 22, 2008, that the FTC erred in concluding Rambus acted to gain a monopoly.

The FTC last year had ordered Rambus to stop collecting some patent royalties. The agency later amended that order to put the royalties in escrow, but then had its order put aside by the appeals court.

FTC Commissioner Jon Leibowitz said the agency would continue to make standard-setting and monopolization cases a priority.

So the basic facts seem to be these:

• The FTC, the government agency that is tasked with protecting the public from unfair trade practices, acted to restrain Rambus from collecting royalties on technology that Rambus has promoted to standards groups without telling the standards groups that it was, oh by the way, patent protected and that Rambus would thus be charging other chip manufacturers a royalty or might use the patent to restrain other memory manufacturers from competition. Good on you FTC.
• The courts, that's the folks that are supposed to enforce the law, in the form of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia and now Supreme Court, have said no fowl! To wit, it's OK to engage in what common sense says is a deceptive practice and to profit by it both monetarily and possibly to form a monopoly.

Now, lest you think that it's all technical and what is memory anyway, be informed that memory is absolutely central to a technological society. It's one of two or three things that make your cell phone, PC, TV, car, refrigerator, washing machine, etc. smart. The chip market is worth 10s of billions per year. Moreover, it is dominated by a handful, about 6 or so, very large providers.

Think about it for a minute. We're talking about something that is essential to our technological society that is controlled by few large firms!

Common sense tells us that that is a recipe for abuse as we've recently experienced with oil and banking. But, of course, the courts don't have to deal with common sense or the real world. Where the FTC rightly sees unfair trade, the court sees no harm. It seems that justice isn't simply blind, sometimes if dumb!

Gordon Gee and Folks Not Connected to Reality

In today's Parade Magazine, there was a small interview with E. Gordon Gee, president of Ohio State University. Mr Gee has argued that public colleges should get more funding from the federal government.

Among the things Mr Gee is reported to have said are:

• Why public colleges deserve funds from the economic stimulus package: We are the economic stimulus. The future of the nation is going to be idea-driven, so colleges are the smokestack industries of tomorrow.
• Concerning what he would say to Mr Obama: I would argue for a significant infusion of money for the intellectual infrastructure of the country—the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health. The Obama Administration needs to focus on supporting things that will be important to the knowledge economy, like science, mathematics, and engineering—things that allow us to remain competitive in the world.
• Concerning his $1.3MM salary: I run the largest and most complex institution in the country. If I perform well, I hope people look at me and say I'm worth what they are paying. I assure you, if I don't perform, people will complain.

There are a couple of things about this that strike me as entirely nonsensical.

First, in the matter of his $1.3MM salary. Mr Gee argues that he runs a large school. He does. But does that, in and of itself, make his work worth $1.3MM? Does his work create $1.3MM in value for the University and his employers, the people of Ohio which has a 7.8% unemployment rate? I suspect that the answer to both those questions is no. Mr Gee further argues that he hopes people, here I assume he means the people of Ohio, will complain if he doesn't perform. I find that a curious argument. Consider, for example, someone working for Mc Donalds in a minimum wage job. If that person doesn't perform people not only complain, the employee gets fired. It's called work and if you don't do your job E. Gordon you get fired entirely independent of how much you are paid!

So neither of Mr Gee's arguments about his salary really make much sense. They amount to little more than an extremely well paid man saying he thinks he should be extremely well paid.

Now, I don't know Mr Gee. Perhaps he does, indeed, deserve to be well paid. But consider what else he had to say!

Second, Mr Gee says that the nation's future is an idea driven economy and therefore his university is deserving of money from the economic stimulus package. Mr Gee is presumed to be a smart man as he is, after all, president of the largest US university. Does he rellay believe this, or does he simply have his hand out like so many others?

I've heard this argument about the new economy based on knowledge, ideas, service, etc. That it is entirely silly seems to me entirely obvious.

Don't think so. Consider the following thought experiment. You're in your home. You just woke up in your bed. Now imagine going through your day under two different conditions. In the first, there is no new economy but there is an industrial economy. In the second, there is a new economy but there is no industrial economy. Now in the first, you'd still have breakfast, still have cloths, still have a car, still have all the things that an industrial manufacturing economy provides. Life wouldn't really be much different. However, in the second, you'd not have any of the numerious every day things an industrial economy provides. Never mind that the new economy can't exist without the old economy. It is after all true that the new economy depends on an extensive industrial infrastructure that provides electronics, communications, etc.

My point here is that talk about a new economy that forgoes well paying manufacturing jobs is simply silly. As a society, I believe, we need both. Unfortunately, in the last few decades US business and government has bought into the notion that we should ship industrial jobs to other lower cost countries. The net, entirely predictable, result is that the US middle class has been severly damaged.

Returning to Mr Gee, he seems to have drunk much to much of his own cool aid. What Ohio needs, you remember Ohio, the folks that pay Mr Gee $1.3MM, and what the US needs, you remember Mr Gee's desire for some of that, are jobs, some 1MM or so jobs to replace those lost in the last year. The US doesn't need 1MM new software engineers. There are already many of those out of work. What the US needs is 1MM new manufacturing jobs! Given Mr Gee's rather silly views, I have a hard time imagining he's much different from many other overpaid executives who justify their compensation for no better reason that they think they should be well paid and argue silliness such as the new economy.

Haven't we gotten over color? Isn't it time we got over Al Sharpton and his like?

From CNN one of the saddest news items of late. It seems that the New Your Post published an editorial cartoon below and Al Sharpton objects.

But soon after the issue hit newsstands, the Rev. Al Sharpton -- and other black opinion makers like CNN's Roland Martin -- blasted the cartoon as an attack on Obama's skin color and African-Americans in general.

This is one of those you can't make this stuff up. To wit, it's a cartoon Al. Oh, by the way, this is the same Al Sharpton who brought us Tawana Brawley. You remember Tawana Brawley, the 15 year old black American who accused 6 white men of forcible rape. It turned out after considerable posturing and racial rabel rousing by Mr Sharpton, that it simply wasn't true. What was true was that Mr Sharpton had manipulated the situation to garner publicity and support for himself. Al's VERY fond of being in the public spotlight.

Al seems to be at it again. This time it's a cartoon for goodness sakes. A cartoon that doesn't in any way involve race, unless of course you believe, as Al seems to, that some how black Americans might be equated with out of control chimpanzees! By the way, Al, on the off chance that you really did misunderstand, the chimpanzee represents Congress, who might well be, if not a chimpanzee, at least out of control.

Al's equating of a chimpanzee and an American of African heritage is, in my opinion, an affront, not to just black Americans but to all Americans! It's an affront to the 53% of Americans, black, white, yellow, red, and sky blue pink with yellow pok-a-dots, that voted for Mr Obama.

Al seems to have missed this. He seems stuck in the past, unfortunately not so long ago, when race was a very different matter than it is today. Al doesn't seem to realize that some weeks ago as a country of many ethnic and religious backgrounds we elected a man who is ethnically part African and part American.

Many years ago a very wise woman, my Irish grandmother, told me something important apropos this. She remembered immigrating to the US when there were still places that posted help wanted signs that said "Irish need not apply." She told me that she knew that being Irish was no longer an issue when the Irish got over it, not when other non-Irish did. She was right, of course.

Americans of an African ethnicity have started to understand this truth. That they are as free to be Americans, no hyphenation required, as they themselves admit. That they have outgrown Al Sharpton and his like. That they have arrived as simply Americans when they, themselves, think of themselves as simply Americans.

Al seems to have missed the fact that over half of us are over race. Don't think so Al, checkout the chap residing in the White House, or the 4 governors who have an African heritage, or the 40 plus congressmen. These folks got elected by Americans, some of whom have an African heritage and most of whom don't. Go into any restaurant or school or library or shopping center and watch people of all ethnic backgrounds interact with one another with little regard for color.

I'm not saying that there still isn't racial discrimination in America. There is. I am saying that it's much less common. Much more unacceptable to most Americans.

I am saying that most of the people in America are over color Al. Isn't it time for you to focus on real issues and not cartoons?

Illegal immigration

Illegal immigration has been in the news a bit lately once concerning the border fence and again concerning the electronic employment eligibility program e-verify. The general tenor of the news was that the fence shouldn't be built and e-verify should be allowed to expire.

Both these views strike me as stunningly nonsensical.

The arguments against the border fence is that it is expensive and forces illegal immigrants into making riskier entries. Presumably the argument about expense regards the cost of illegal immigrants in the US as insignificant. It's not! Presumably, the argument regards the social instability caused by importing an underclass not important. It's not!

Presumably the argument about risk regards illegal immigration as a right not a crime such that as a right it should be made safe and easy. It's not a right. It is a crime. That is, after all, why it's called illegal immigration and illegal activities contain risk.

The argument about e-verify equally violates common sense. Illegal immigrants often, I'm tempted to usually, come to the US for economic reasons, to wit to work. Often, they live in poor conditions and send what they can to their families. While helping is laudable, illegal immigrants of this sort are simply economic refugees. There might have been a time when as a country we could afford this. That time has passed.

Understand, I am not opposed to immigration. I like virtually all Americans am only a couple of generations removed from an immigrant. In my case, several of my grandparents were immigrants. Legal, immigration has been very good for the US and should be encouraged. Illegal immigration is, however, quite another matter.

Consider from the recent news. A firm making equipment for the US armed forces was raided and most of the work force arrested as illegal immigrants! It turns out that their employer required that they work under conditions that are illegal and paid them wages that are illegal. While it may be arguable that the immigrants were economically better off than if they hadn't come to the US illegally, the fact remains that they were here illegally and were treated illegally by a US employer trying to save on labor cost as he made equipment of the US Government! Is this something that should be encouraged, made safe, made easy?

I think not. Indeed, I am ashamed to be in a country that permits such treatment of the disadvantaged.

Health Care and profit

As details of the economic stimulus emerge it seems that something on the order of 20%, some $66 billion is to be spent on education, labor, and health. A considerable portion of that is reportedly being spent on providing 'health coverage' to more people, particularly children.

That set me to thinking about the way we pay for health coverage in the United States today. According to the WHO, the US spends the most per person per year on health coverage, some $6000/person/year. In the WHO ranking of health by country the US ranks, would you believe, 37th. France ranks 1st and spends somewhat less than half what the US spends! It's clear that something's broken. But what?

I believe that a considerable portion of the problem is because much of our health system is driven by profit.

Please understand, I'm not a socialist. Far from it, I believe that if you want an economic system that produces goods and services at low cost a free market economy is what you want. It works great for creating cheap shirts, cars, and all manner of goods. But is health care a 'good' in the sense of a shirt or car? I think not. Rather I think it is part of the 'general welfare' provided for in the founding documents of our country. Should health care be driven by profit or should it be a right in a just society? It think it should be a right.

It is interesting that as a society we recognize that some things should NOT be driven by profit. For example, we recognize that all of us should be educated. And although there are large disparities in education in the country, education is not per se a profit driven enterprise but rather a universal right. There are other examples such as defense, police protection, fire protection, and the like. My point here is that as a society we already recognize that some things are so fundamental to societies well being or so dangerous when turned over to profit driven entities that we do not allow them to be profit driven.

Consider, for example, the issue of profit making hospitals. Does the profit they make in any way improve the health of their customers? I think not. Rather it simply adds to the overall cost of health without actually improving health in any way. Much the same can be said for health insurance companies.

By basing much of our health care in the profit driven sector, we drive up the cost of health without actually improving health. That's part of the reason we are first in spending and 37th in health. There are clearly different models. Much of Western Europe spends far less than the US and has far better health care.

While we go off spending a good deal of money propping up the existing profit driven system, perhaps, just perhaps, we might want to take a moment to consider different approaches to health care modeled on some of the much more effective systems!

Small things

Something happened today, a small thing really but it got me to thinking about why American companies struggle.

I have a GE electric oven. It's a rather expensive unit that I bought when I built my house. Some years ago the oven started beeping and flashing it's control panel. A bit of research revealed that this is a known problem with this model GE electric oven. It seems that the control panel is improperly designed and fails quickly. A bit more research revealed that if one resets the control panel cables the problem sometimes goes away. So I took the panel apart and reset the cables. Success! But only for a little bit. Soon the problem returned.

A call to GE got me an offer to sell me a new panel and no acknowledgment of the fact that this is a known design flaw. As it happens I also have a gas stove and oven and decided that I simply wouldn't send any more money to GE and just use the gas oven until I replaced the electric one with a NON-GE oven.

As it happened I had an appliance service man call today to deal with some other appliance issues. He noticed the GE oven and asked about this problem. After a bit of conversation he volunteered that he'd put five boards in his daughter's unit in the last year! The decision not to buy a replacement is looking like a good one. But here's the real kicker, he also said he could probably fix it. Proving that truth is often stranger than fiction, the fix is to put a piece of paper on each side of the controller ribbon cable where it exits the panel! It seems that the cable is inadequately insulated and chafes against the panel then shorts out. The paper provides the necessary insulation. And get this, GE posted the solution on the net!

Now, GE used to be a good company. One of the best. The operable part of this is used to be. This is the sort of small thing that companies often do that drives customers to other, often foreign, vendors.

This sort of thing is, of course, not unique to GE. I had a similar experience with GM Chevrolet some years ago involving failed engine mounts that lead to a recall to replace the engine mounts. GM, however, did not feel that they were in any way responsible for the subsequent damage to the air conditioning condenser or transmission. I've never bought another GM car. I have bought 11 other new cars since then.

I don't think I'm unique in this attitude. When I'm the customer I get to decide who I do business with. If you are a company you can screw me once but I won't be around for a second bad experience. If you wonder where your customers have gone look to this sort of nonsence.

Bill Clinton and denial of reality

As a rule I only post once a day on this blog, but this is just to good a "Captain Obvious" quote to pass up. I offer from CNN the following quote from former president Bill Clinton:

I think that the only thing that our administration did or didn't do that we should have done is to try to set in motion some more formal regulation of the derivatives market. They're wrong in saying that the elimination of the Glass-Steagall division between banks and investment banks contributed to this. Investment banks were already...banks were already doing investment business and investment companies were already in the banking business. The bill I signed actually at least puts some standards there. And if you look at the evidence of the banks that have gotten in trouble, the ones that were most directly involved in there ... in a diversified portfolio tended to do better.

Where to start?

I recall Mr. Clinton's presidency with considerable fondness as being characterized by:

• Centrist government. I've observed on many occasions that Mr. Clinton really put one over on the Democratic left by being a closet centrist, a position I wholeheartedly endorse.
• Personal amorality. Here I'd note that Mr Clinton is neither the first nor the last amoral president and that many of our most effective and loved presidents were at least as, and often far more, amoral as he.
• And economic good times, though I do not believe that Mr Clinton was the architect of those times he, at least, had the great good sense to not do anything to upset them in the near term never mind that he did several things to contribute to the mess we are in now.
  

With that as prelude consider, gentle reader, the following.

There was a great depression caused, in large part, by misbehavior by banks and investment markets. One consequence of that great depression was the creation of Glass-Steagall in the hope, realized for MANY YEARS, that it could be avoided in future. During Mr. Clinton's watch Congress, please recall that it is Congress and NOT the president that passes laws, passed a series of laws that undid many of the protections created by Glass-Steagall. Now some years later, abetted by many more laws undoing protections created after the last depression, America is in a serious economic mess again.

What Mr. Clinton seems to be saying is that rather than enforce some good laws and regulations that had served the country well for many years, he acted in consort with congress (one wonders about how much money banks and investment firms contributed to how many congressmen) to undo them and make legal activities that were then and had been for some time illegal notwithstanding the federal government's unwillingness to enforce existing law and regulations. What that comes to in my book is at least being partially responsible for the current situation.

The best of us know to own our mistakes and learn from them as Mr. Obama has, surprising many myself included, recently. But as I noted above, Mr. Clinton suffers, as many powerful men do, from a certain tendency to amorality.

By way of further food for thought, when will congress get around to reinstating some of the things undone and providing more appropriate regulation of the financial sector and not just sending good money after bad?

Oh, Mr. Clinton, I should also point out that two of this country's largest banks and investment firms, to wit Bank of America and Citibank, were and remain in verious serious financial trouble notwithstanding the previous bank bailout. There is considerable wishful thinking and denial of reality in the quote attributed to you.

Sizzel is not stake, form is not substance. I just fired AT&T.

You'd think this would be entirely obvious but apparently to many businesses it isn't. I offer, as a case in point, an event that occurred today.

For some months I've been getting one and sometimes two calls a day from a telemarketing firm that says they are "Credit Card Services." They want to lower my interest rate. Now I've already asked them a couple of times to stop calling as I'm not interested. Never mind, they continue to call. So today I tried again. Now here's where things get somewhat bizarre. The agent got abusive! I'm not sure why he thought, I'm of course assuming that he could think, that being abusive was some how going to get me to become a customer, but that's what he decided to so. I asked for his identification and to be referred to a supervisor. That seemed to really set him off and he became even more abusive. So I decided to complain to my phone company, AT&T.

So I called AT&T and after listening to their IVR system not offering anything relevant to my needs (I remain disadvantaged by the notion that I'm the customer, but that's a problem for another day), I finally got to a nice enough chap who said he wasn't the right person but he'd connect me to the right person. There seemed to be some hope. The 'right person' answered and after dragging me through the same information the first person asked (I forgive, without prejudice, AT&T for not being able to connect their own systems so I don't have to provide the same information to multiple people, another problem for another day) she said that I needed to speak to AT&T's Annoyance Center and provided a number. She also provided a number for the do not call list (mind you I'm already on the do not call list, but at least she was trying).

Still with some hope, I called AT&T's Annoyance Call center (person two could not transfer the call there ... I've been operating on the delusion that AT&T is a plausibly capable phone company). Now here's where things get truly interesting! AT&T's Annoyance Call center is a fully automated system! There are NOT people present! Someone from AT&T should try to explain t me how a customer that goes to the trouble of going through two wrong agents and making two phone calls over an annoyance call, said customer reasonably presumed to be upset enough to go through those hoops, is served by a fully automated system. Hey AT&T you are in a service business. I've already got 5 phone numbers and the only reason I even have a hard line is my security system. But wait, gentle reader, there's more. After collecting my phone number the automated system went on to explain that I need to file a police complaint AND dial *57 for which there would, of course, wait for it, be an extra charge, and, oh by the way, AT&T wouldn't provide any information about my abuser to me only to the police.

Now I can file a complaint with the local police department. But, of course, they have real police business to attend to and, frankly, this doesn't rise to the level where spending my tax dollars to chase an abusive telemarketing firm makes any sense. Is this AT&T's way of saying that they really don't care that a service I buy from them is being used to abuse me? I am after all the customer! Does AT&T think that I will continue to do business with them after they decline to help me stop an abusive telemarketing firm?

AT&T has a lot of form in this area but no substance! They have an Annoyance Call operation but it doesn't do anything to assist a customer in dealing with annoyance calls. Doubtless AT&T will cite the law in this area as telemarketing calls are not necessarily illegal, even when they become abusive. But that's really just another way of saying AT&T doesn't care about me as a customer, only the law! Indeed, it's worth noting that AT&T may well have the telemarketing firm as a customer and might have other very profitable relationships in that marketplace.

So what to do? It's simple really.

1. Fire AT&T. Their service is overpriced anyway and I can save $20+ per month. Hear
   that AT&T, you're fired!
2. Only connect the land line to the security system.

Problem solved.

There is, however, still something about this that troubles me. While I can solve the problem, when did it become acceptable to us as a society to let this kind of thing occur? When did it become acceptable for a business like AT&T to create a non-service service, to let form triumph over substance? Why do they think that will help them keep customers? I'm inclined to the over broad observation that one of the fundamental things wrong with American business is an attachment to form over substance. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to understand that an upset customer isn't going to be well served by an IVR, though it may take an accountant or MBA graduate focused on cost/the bottom line/next quarter/Wall Street/... . It shouldn't take much thought to understand that if you're in a service business suggesting *57 and an additional charge isn't service and may well irritate a customer to the point of going elsewhere with their business. It's a sad commentary on the state of at least some American businesses.

Oh, by the way ... AT&T in the mourning another company will be providing land line service at $20/month less cost. You're fired!

I'm glad I've got that out of my system!

The first African American president

With the election of Mr. Obama as President the news is about the country's first African-American president. In this matter the facts as I understand them are as follows: a) Mr. Obama's father was from Africa and his skin was dark, and b) Mr. Obama's mother was from the United States and her skin was light. Why then is Mr. Obama an African-American? Is he not as much American as African? When Mr. Bush (either one) was president we did not talk about his ancestry. Why is Mr. Obama's ancestry any more interesting than Mr Bush's or any other of our presidents?

Please understand, I am aware of slavery and the subsequent blight of racial discrimination involving blacks, latinos and others. I'm also aware of the role religious descrimination has played. And of course aware of the historical discrimination against Irish (check out period employment adds with the phrase "Irish need not apply"), Chinese, and many others. But this is, after all, America. We are a nation of immigrants from all over the world. Some of us have light skin, and some dark, and some a mix, and some yellow, and on and on. Is this not a central element of the American ideal?

I would submit that Mr. Obama is not an African American, rather he is an American. While my ancestry may have been Western Europe and Native American, his involved Africa and Western Europe. While our skin colors are different we are both simply American. When, as a country, we abandon the notion of the hyphenated American and come to understand that we are a nation of ethnic muts we will, in my opinion, come closer to what one great American said, "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character." Perhaps as a nation we've made some small progress when we see Mr Obama for the quality of his character. We can, perhaps, make more when the color of his skin is no longer a matter of note.

Clueless to the point of criminal negligence

In the never ending affronts from our government, that's yours and mine, two new offerings, peanut butter and aircraft deicers. On the off chance that you've been out of the country herewith the facts.

Several hundred people have become sick from peanut butter that is contaminated with bacteria. In tonight's news yet another report about the issue that has been ongoing for some weeks now including the remarkable information that the FDA is 'working on' informing the public. I don't know about you but I've never heard from the FDA. I did hear from several news sources. Oh, and by the way, the FDA knew that for some time that this manufacturer was doubtful. Never mind, the FDA bought peanut butter to include in in disaster relief meals! Clueless to the point of criminal negligence. People died because the FDA didn't do its job.

But wait there's more. An aircraft crashed killing all aboard and one person on the ground. It appears that it was due to icing. Now icing on aircraft is a serious and often fatal occurrence. Such that the FAA, another of agency tasked with protecting us, has been working on deicing standards for new ircraft. Here's the kicker. They've been at it for the last 15 years and announced when asked that they are almost ready. I'm sure that will be a comfort to today's dead and their family's. Once again, clueless to the point of criminal negligence. People died today because the FAA didn't do its job.

These agencies report to the president and are funded by acts of congress. Yet this nonsense continues.

You couldn't make this stuff up! Is Washington on the same planet as the rest of us?

In the category of "You couldn't make this s*** up" I offer today's insanity.

According to CNN the House version of the stimulus bill was published last night at 11 p.m. It's reportedly some 1,000 pages long. Today the house voted and passed the bill. Now, dear friends, those are the facts.

I wonder how many of our highly paid representatives have had time to read the bill? Do they know what's in it? Have their large staffs had time to read and study the bill?

Several Republican's pointed this out. But, what the hey, according to Rep. Ed Perlmutter, D-Colorado "But this bill is the right size and scope necessary to truly help us turn things around." Hey Ed, did you read the f****** bill? Did your staff? Or perhaps since the number is about the right size you just decided to go along.

Please understand, I don't know Ed Perlmutter. For all I know he might be a good Congressman. Nor am I particularly associated with either Republicans or Democrats. That said, I would point out that any process such as the one we are currently witnessing is just plain nuts. It's broken. Memory serves that some months back Congress played the same tune and sang the same song passing a bank bailout bill in which matter we were subsequently treated to an ongoing laundry list of inadequate oversight and misbehavior by the banks. It would seem that that worked so well that Congress thinks we should do it again!

One definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different outcome. Might one reasonably conclude that Congress is insane? While I personally don't think that's so, I would observe the obvious - the process is seriously broken. Perhaps that's one of the reasons the country is in the mess it's in.

Food for thought. How about we change the process and see if we don't get better results. Just a foolish thought I know, but still ... .

People who just don't get it

I enjoy watching the news both to stay informed, though lately most of the news is rather depressing, and to try to understand what in the world the world, particularly the nattering and ruling class are thinking. Mind you, I'm not particularly convinced that they are thinking, today being a case in point.

It's silly in a way but here's what happened.

There was a news item about Michael Obama. She's on the cover of Vogue. While I don't know Mrs Obama I do know that she is a very accomplished women. Thus it is understandable that with the election of the first 'black' American, though, of course, Mr Obama isn't black, only his father was, but that's food for another observation, there would be interest in his wife. That part doesn't concern me though.

What did was the reporter's observation that Mrs Obama was a more typical woman in that she wore clothes that regular women could afford. In this matter she went on to observe that while Mrs Obama sometimes wore designer dresses costing several thousand dollars she often wore 'regular everyday outfits' such as a $400 outfit being shown.

Let me be clear here. I really don't have any concern over what Mrs Obama spends for her cloths. That is simply her affair and not mine, nor for that matter anyone else's.

What I am troubled by is the reporter. When did a $400 outfit become everyday ware for real people? In my house it's not and I'd give odds it's not in well over 95% of every house in this country. Does the nattering class not know this? Do they just not get it?

This raises the interesting question, do the affluent really have any clue about what the real world is like? With something like 95% of all wealth controlled by something like 5% of the population that is a very troubling question, particularly, if you believe as I do that they don't have a clue, nor for that matter, much by way of good intentions.

Apropos I note Senator Charles Schumer's remarks of yesterday that the American people don't really care about 'tiny cute little earmarks' in the pending stimulus package. His words, not mine. After all they only amount by some estimates to 5% of an $800 plus billion dollar spending package. By my arithmetic that's, wait for it, $40 billion dollars. More or less enough money to buy any one of several small pacific countries.

No, Virginia, they just don't get it.

Here's a thought. Let's not re-ellect them! Any of them! If it's an incumbent, just say no. Now this may throw out some good with the clueless but at least it will change the environment and perhaps then there can be real change to build an America where congress acts for the good of the country, the nattering class understands that there is a real world, and social justice is at least a consideration.

About the economic rescue plan

I'm not sure where to even start with this topic.

As a point of reference I'm almost 65. I mention that as prelude to the fact that I remember when the entire gross national product of the united states was less than a trillion dollars! Now we've already had an almost trillion dollar bank bailout and are about to have an almost trillion dollar stimulus package.

My first observation about these sort of numbers is that clearly the value of the US dollar is NOT what it once was. That brings up the obvious question of who benefits by devaluation. Now, I'm no economist but it occurs to me that only those with a great deal of debt benefit as they are able to use devalued dollars to pay back expensive dollars. If you're a home owner that works well. But home owner debt is small change compared to government debt. So one big winner of inflation is the government.

In any game where there are winners there is also of necessity losers. So who loses is a fairly obvious question. In this case I think it is mostly people with fixed assets ... read retired people with no debt.

I'm inclined to observe that this is not a game that a just society should be engaged in.

What's it about

I've seperated this blog from my others as a place where I can keep observations, speculations, and the like unrelated to either my professional activities or life.