Word of the day, 3/27/2011

Morass.

1: marsh, swamp

2 a : a situation that traps, confuses, or impedes <a legal morass> b : an overwhelming or confusing mass or mixture 

Word of the day, 3/26/2011

Philistinism. 

a : a person who is guided by materialism and is usually disdainful of intellectual or artistic values 

b : one uninformed in a special area of knowledge

Ignoramous Ginormous

An article in Newsweek this week gives a quiz about American government, rights, history and civics. Readers could answer questions. Also, the quiz had already been given to 1000 people, so readers could see how what percent got the answers right and wrong. My wife and I took the test. Admittedly, I didn’t do great on it. Overall, according to Newsweek, 38% of people who took the quiz failed.

A few of the questions where we did poorly:

• Who was president during WWI? 20% correct. 80% incorrect.
• What is the economic system in the US? 33% correct. 67% incorrect.
• What is the Supreme law of the land? 30% correct. 70% incorrect.
• How many amendments does the Constitution have? 6% correct. 94% incorrect.
• The House of Representatives has how many voting members? 14% correct. 86% incorrect.

This quiz included an article by Andrew Romano that focused on our ignorance. If it’s any reprieve, the author suggested that this hasn’t varied much over the last 60 years. But the countries of Britain, Denmark, and Finland clobbered the US on a test regarding international affairs. I think it’s hard to say the US versus any of these countries is necessarily an apple to apples comparison, and the article points that out. These are much smaller countries, don’t have Mexico south of them, the population is a little more homogeneous, and so on. But, these are also countries with advanced economies and high standards of living, which should cause us concern.

But the article lists possible reasons for our…lack of knowledge.

• Decentralized educational system.
• Complex political system with several layers of government.
• Income inequality. The top 400 households make more than the bottom 60% combined.

When the quiz focused on better earners, the results were much better. 75% of those earning $100k or more passed.

The article went on to discuss how our ignorance can manifest itself. In terms of balancing the budget, many Americans want smaller government, but also oppose cuts to Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. Most serious economists know that balancing the budget and paying down the debt long term requires cuts to entitlements and the military. But most Americans think that to balance the budget we need to cut government waste. If you’re read my blog to this point, you know which politicians talk about cutting government waste, probably the more Bachmann-esque type of politician. By being able to talk about cutting “waste”, politicians can pander to people who don’t have a clue that entitlement and defense spending make up about 2/3 of federal spending.

The reality is, and I’ve expressed this to my federal politicians, that we need to cut military and entitlement spending. These together make up about 2/3 of the overall budget. Unfortunately they only seem to be able to hear the people that will be impacted by cutting aid to the poor. To be sure, there is a difference between aid to the poor, and entitlements.

Point of the story: the US is in for a tough time balancing its budget in a competitive world while our citizens aren’t plugged in to reality. Whether its apathy or poor education, it’s not acceptable.

Word of the day, 3/25/2011

Retinue

a group of retainers or attendants

Illegal Immigration

Today's rant is about the ongoing problems with our immigration policy and its impact on the labor market.

Again, I take this from the Star Tribune. This article explains the policy enforced by the Obama administration.

http://www.startribune.com/local/stpaul/118301014.html

Basically ICE is doing audits of payrolls at companies. The fallout is that employees are being fired or just flat out leaving. The focus is on low skilled labor. These audits are increasing in number, fines are increasing, and arrests are increasing. For once it appears SEIU is on the same side as the Chamber of Commerce; they oppose Obama.

I'm no economist, but markets that are mobile seem better geared to meet our economy's needs.  Labor is a market that is typically not mobile. However the illegal immigrants that come to the US go against the trend.

The fact that employers readily hire illegal immigrants to do these jobs points to the fact that there is an under-served market for labor. There is definitely a black market for labor, and just like marijuana the government spends lots of money enforcing something and not accomplishing much.

The list of negative issues with the current immigration policy is long. The US-Mexico border is pretty much a warzone. To name a few issues: human-trafficking, people being left for dead, rape/exploitation of women, poverty, costs of enforcement, morgues piling up with dead bodies, ICE agents being murdered, and environmental impact of trash along the border.

We could explore the reasons that Mexico is a poor country, but this issue applies to anyone coming to the US to work for a better life.

My position on this issue is not popular. I think we need an expanded guest worker program that welcomes immigrants. Particularly along the US-Mexico border, we can end the problems I listed above. There are plenty of problems legally, I have no doubt. However I think the upside is very good.

• Illegal immigrants coming here to work are no longer criminals.
• Guest workers pay income taxes.
• Less people die along the border.
• Human-trafficking becomes less of a problem.
• The safe houses with 20 people living in a 1000 square foot area, mistreating women, and having people living in fear end.
• Border patrol workload lessens and enforcement costs go down.

To be fair, I'll list the downsides.

• Guest workers are viewed and treated as second class citizens.
• Racial tensions against people of Hispanic/Latino Americans persist.
• Other people can offer their input.

With or without my suggestions, the first two bullets still exist.

Sadly enough, the guest worker program was what Pres. Bush wanted. What we have no is Pres. Obama's approach. The US has a guest worker program, but it is rarely used, and doesn't accomplish much. I think the pros outweigh the cons. We are going to continue to have a blackmarket for cheap labor, and our businesses and illegal immigrants will pay the price.

For more information on the "problems" with illegal immigration, a.k.a. people coming to the US to work, watch this Hulu video.

http://www.hulu.com/watch/91600/vanguard-death-train

Word of the day, 3/24/2011

Riparian.

relating to or living or located on the bank of a natural watercourse (as a river) or sometimes of a lake or a tidewater <riparian trees>

Twin Cities - Transportation for the next 20 years

An article in the Star Tribune makes some really good points about the coming years for commuting in the Twin Cities metro area.

http://www.startribune.com/local/118341244.html

The expectation is that in the next 19 years, the population in the Twin Cities will grow by 700,000. While that seems a little high to me, if it's anywhere near true, the current traffic congestion will turn into more gridlock.

Additionally, in this time I expect gas prices to increase well over $5/gallon. I don't necessarily think that there will be gas shortages, though I don't doubt there will be some.

When the interstate highway system was built, people were probably curious whether it was necessary. The government had to obtain land and finance this massive project. I imagine people were opposed to it, opposed to the costs, skeptical whether these massive roads would be used. Others probably welcomed it as necessary to enabling commerce and moving people around. Today, we can't imagine living without it.

In the Twin Cities the light rail was recently built between downtown Minneapolis and the Mall of America. I initially opposed it because I thought such mass transit should be focused on the most congested highways such as 394. Plenty of people argued against it. Other people welcomed it. While the light rail is primarily used for pub crawls and getting to Twins and Vikings games, I can't see its ridership decreasing, especially with increasing gas prices. Another rail project, the Northstar line was recently opened. It ended up costing more than it had to because of typical Republican/Democrat fighting and refusal to finance. Again, I don't see ridership decreasing with the increasing cost of gas, and the deteriorating roads and bridges. Last, the Central Corridor is being built down University. When this project was envisioned years ago, I argued it should use the Soo Line that goes from around the Lake/Hiawatha intersection to the riverfront in St. Paul. That would have been too obvious, but thankfully the project panned out.

The common theme is that the MN state government moves very slowly on transportation projects. Now I don't want to suggest that outside of the Twin Cities doesn't need improvements. My viewpoint extends to those communities as well.  But, it seems like the argument is that we can't raise taxes to finance these projects because it will kill jobs.

So we have a couple options. We can let our bridges fall down and our roads get busier. Commute times can increase while gas prices go up, and road rage can get worse. Or we can formulate a long term strategy for transportation and accept that paying the taxes now will save us money, and time in the long term.

I have no idea what the strategy should be, but it seems like it should focus on the congested corridors, such as highways 35, 94 and 394. Whether this strategy is more light rail, or bus innovations such as the one on 35W in Minneapolis, I'll leave that to the transportation experts.

So every time the price of gas jumps 20 cents in a day, I wonder why 10 or 15 cents more per gallon to finance transportation projects is such a damning concept to business.

I really like living the in Twin Cities, and think it would do itself a great service by striving for advances in transportation. As the article that I linked above says:

Delays cost average commuters in the Twin Cites $970 a year in lost time and wasted fuel, $244 more than the average for similar large cities, said the Texas Transportation Institute at Texas A&M University, a transportation research agency.

The reality of a strong economy with dwindling resources is that we are doing a disservice to ourselves by having a large chunk of our personal budgets be dedicated to transportation. If we continue to lag in transportation, the Twin Cities and the state of Minnesota will be less attractive to businesses. If we focus on automobiles as the primary form of transportation, we will pay more for gas, and have the associated environmental problems.

In many of my posts I rant about the federal deficit. That is a real issue facing us today. Transportation in the Twin Cities is something we have time to fix. A long term vision and dedicated policy and financing can turn this around. Hopefully our state and local government can realize this, and come to an agreement to improve our metro area.

Statement on debt from Dallas Fed president - Yahoo link

It's nice to see that one of the federal reserve presidents feels the US debt is unsustainable.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Feds-Fisher-US-debt-situation-rb-2041699246.html?x=0&sec=topStories&pos=main&asset=&ccode=

In my letter to my senators and representative, both Franken and Klobuchar responded. Klobuchar gave "copy and paste" response that I had seen from her before.

Franken I think realizes the situation a little more, but railed against HR 1, which I think is the GOP's move to cut like $60 billion from the current year's economy.

Most people don't notice this but the federal government has run out of money for its current fiscal year (which doesn't line up with the calendar year), and has authorized short spending resolutions to keep itself going.

We can take our pill now when it's not as strong, or we can take it later when it's going to knock us out. On editorial I saw suggested that 64 of the senators sent Obama a letter recommending he work with the debt commission's recommendations.

Word of the day, 3/19/2011

denouement. 

1: the final outcome of the main dramatic complication in a literary work 

2: the outcome of a complex sequence of events

Word of the day, 3/16/11

Perfidy.

1: the quality or state of being faithless or disloyal : treachery

2: an act or an instance of disloyalty

Word of the day, 3/15/11

Bachannal.

1 orgy

2 a : a devotee of Bacchus; especially : one who celebrates the Bacchanalia b : reveler

Word of the day, 3/14/11

Garrulous.

 

given to prosy, rambling, or tedious loquacity : pointlessly or annoyingly talkative.

Word of the day, 3/13/2011

Klatch. 

A gathering characterized usually by informal conversation.

Word of the day, 3/12/11

Adjuration. 

1: a solemn oath 

2: an earnest urging or advising

Word of the day, 3/11/11

Dint.

Noun.

1 archaic : blow, stroke

2: force, power

 

Verb.

1: to make a dent in

2: to impress or drive in with force

Welcome Home Discovery. You've served us well.

Discovery landed, and will be the most flown shuttle in the fleet. There are still two more missions, one for Atlantis, and one for Endeavour.

39 missions, 148 million miles, 5830 orbits of earth, and an accumulated 365 days in space.

My thanks to the people who designed and maintained Discovery; and to the crews that flew her, and the teams that planned the missions. Both times Discovery was the "return to space" craft, after losing Challenger and Columbia. Those were scary times I'm sure for the shuttle teams, knowing that a lot was riding on those missions.

Few government programs have inspired me like the space program. The shuttle fleet has been the face of it.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/41978588/ns/technology_and_science-space/
Someday I hope to take children to see at least one of the shuttles.

Word of the day, 3/8/2011

Didactic.

1a : designed or intended to teach b : intended to convey instruction and information as well as pleasure and entertainment <didactic poetry>

2: making moral observations

Factoid - 3/8/2011

I never knew this but the postmaster general is the second highest paid government official, after the president.

See the top ten at this link:
http://247wallst.com/2011/03/04/the-ten-highest-paid-government-jobs/

Word of the day, 3/7/2011

Seriatim. in a series.

My letter to my members of Congress, 3/6/11

I’ve written recently concerning the federal budget. I’m writing concerning the inevitable vote on the debt ceiling. I encourage you to vote against raising the debt ceiling unless Congress can agree to implement many of the recommendations of the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform.

I can appreciate that people can support and oppose recommendations of the commission. I think the tradeoff there is the bipartisan nature of the commission underscores an important shift that is needed in the current political culture of our country. Additionally, I see it as the only serious, plausible plan to improve the federal government’s balance sheet.

I’ve been concerned about the federal debt ever since it grew to the hundreds of billions in the early 2000’s. The product of inaction by the Congress and president during that time has forced us to make much more difficult decisions now. At the time I thought incremental, meaningful policy changes would be a good means to fix the deficit, but that never materialized. We can’t change those policy decisions, but the longer we wait to make a fix, the harder it will be, and the more our finances will be impacted. 

Of all the reading I’ve done over the last ten years concerning the deficit and debt, not one serious article has suggested we won’t have to significantly raise taxes and cut spending once we become debt intolerant (default). I would rather take steps now to have a long-term fix to the nation’s finances than to force the federal government to default on its debt, and implement massive tax increases and spending cuts.

While military spending, Medicare and Social Security need to be changed to accomplish serious deficit and debt reduction, there are other areas of the federal government that need to be changed to realize savings. There are undoubtedly intangible costs associated with the overlapping programs and regulatory laws associated with the USDA, FDA, EPA, Department of Education, ATF, ICE, DoD, etc. I don’t see this is as being as high of a priority as the debt.

The US has a phenomenal history of paying its bills, which is reflected in our economy, our standard of living, our debt tolerance, and our limitless access to foreign capital.