A few hours before we start to see election returns from the mid-term elections and a few things rattle around in my head:
I'll believe it when I see it - I've seen the polls and I've seen the Washington Post, CNN, and New York Times all rate the probability of the republicans taking the senate at somewhere between 70% to 98%. I recall polls all showing a tight race between Obama and Romney in 2012 too. The democrats still have a lead in demographics and analytics which is what won the 2012 race for them when by all historic measures, Obama's first term was a dismal failure and he should have been trounced. Maybe the republicans will take the senate. Maybe this will be a wave election like 2010. However, the republicans have yet to prove they understand big data and social media. The republicans also have great aim when shooting themselves in the foot. I'll believe a big night for the GOP when I see it and not until then.
Don't say stupid stuff - If the GOP takes the Senate, I wonder what Mitch McConnell will have to say. Hopefully he won't say something stupid like he did in the 2010 mid-terms when instead of making comments about using the republican congressional momentum to work for the benefit of the American public, McConnell instead stated that the GOP would work to make Obama a 1-term president. How did that work out? The stupidity of that remark confounds me to this day.
Win, serve your time, then go home - I'd vote for almost any candidate who is committed to enacting term limits on congress.
Gerrymandering, it's been here all along - It is funny how democrats and their friends in the media have suddenly discovered gerrymandering as if it was something the republicans just authored and just started doing. Democrats gerrymander as do republicans. It only makes the news however, when it hurts the democrats.
Crime pays - If Scott Walker loses, it will be a crime...literally a crime, just like when Ted Stevens had his senate seat in Alaska taken from him in 2008. The democrats play hardball, there is no question about it - laws and ethics be damned.
Eric Holder on the scene - Eric Holder announced that DOJ was sending people to monitor polling stations for the mid-terms. I wonder if he is sending the thugs from the New Black Panther Party who stood by with clubs as people went to vote in Pennsylvania in 2008? Maybe Louis Lerner will be there harassing conservatives because there is not a smidgeon of corruption in the IRS and Holder's DOJ is doing everything they can to prove it...no matter what the evidence says.
Obama, we have a problem... - The republicans can be as maddening as the democrats, but for different reasons. I hope they take the senate, if for no other reason, to show Obama just how badly his policies have failed the American people and that we need a new direction. A little humility would go a long ways for Obama. It's a shame he's not the leader her thinks he is.
Tuesday, November 4, 2014
Monday, September 1, 2014
Government Screws Itself...Again
The latest government-created and media-supported public outrage is the "inversion" process of re-incorporating a company overseas to reduce the liability for income earned abroad.
Is this an unusual tactic? Sure it is. Is it a risky public relations move? Thanks to the economically illiterate media and a public more interested in The Duggars than economics, yes inversion is a risky public relations move. Is there anything unethical or immoral about the process? Absolutely not. In fact, not minimizing tax burdens and paying more than required by law is irresponsible leadership on the part of any for-profit company. In the private sector, companies have been using the tax code to their best advantage for decades. Just in case anyone is unaware, companies keep two sets of books for recording their performance - one for Wall Street and one for the IRS...which is perfectly legal and good business. Firms want as much revenue and profit as possible to report to WallStreet and a little as possible to report to the IRS. Depreciation is a great example of this reality at work. In the financial books reported to Wall Street, assets are generally depreciated using a 5-year straight line method, meaning the "cost" recognized by the company in using up the asset is fixed each year at 1/5th of the purchase price and is tallied as "expense" for that year. In the IRS books, the company uses the Modified Accelerated Costs Recovery System (MACRS) established by the government to allow companies, for tax reporting purposes, to depreciate the same asset faster in the first 3 years of its life. Therefore the company can increase their "costs" and reduce their tax liability...and also will have incentive to replace the asset with new assets sooner rather than later.
Does this sound convoluted? It is, but we are just getting started. The 2013 US Tax Code was over 73,000 pages long. Therefore businesses and individuals have to comply with 73,000 pages of regulations. However, there are also goodies and incentives in the Tax Code as the government tries to manipulate and incent specific behavior it deems laudable. Often old incentives and manipulations overlap with others or become outdated and are expanded rather than replaced...and we end up with 73,000 pages of tax code.
Whether we like it or not, the tax code is the law of the land. It is the rules of the road for business. Businesses don't write tax code, they pay lobbyists to plead their interests to congress, and then after the code is published every year, they figure out how to leverage the new rules to their best advantage. Guess what? Inversion is to the best advantage of many corporations and they are and should be inverting as quickly as they possibly can. They don't write the rules, they have to live with them, so if the government is telling them to invert through the rules of the tax road, then companies will restructure themselves and reformulate overseas. None of this happens without a perverse, over reaching, and exhausting tax code.
The delightful irony is government officials sternly wagging their fingers at tele-prompters scolding US companies for doing something the government has essentially directed them to do through tax policy. Obama and his leftwing friends had two years with a veto-proof majority in congress. If incentives for inversion were such bad tax policy, they should have fixed it. They didn't, or more likely government was outsmarted once again by the private sector. The very likely reality is that there was no plan to incent inversion, rather inversion is a side effect of some other attempt to manipulate behavior through the tax code. I love it when government smarties with Ivy League diplomas hanging in their offices come up with their newest social do-gooder scheme only to have it blow up in their faces when a highly motivated, very efficient, and ruthlessly effective private sector finds unimagined ways to implement the new rules to their advantage dreaming up outcomes that are completely foreign and contrary to the ivory-towered bureaucrats...leaving them both bewildered and seething that they have been foiled again by the market economy and the private sector.
Inversion is here to stay as it should be until the rules and incentives are changed. The best solution for the country and the economy would be to scrap the whole shit house full of 73,000 pages of tax regulations and implement a flat or value added tax from which no one or no corporation escapes, but under which we could all fill out our tax returns in 10 minutes on New Year's Day while watch bowl games. However, this would deprive the Ivy-League, meddling, do-gooders of something to, so I assume we will top 80,000 pages of tax regulations soon and more and more companies will re-incorporate overseas.
Is this an unusual tactic? Sure it is. Is it a risky public relations move? Thanks to the economically illiterate media and a public more interested in The Duggars than economics, yes inversion is a risky public relations move. Is there anything unethical or immoral about the process? Absolutely not. In fact, not minimizing tax burdens and paying more than required by law is irresponsible leadership on the part of any for-profit company. In the private sector, companies have been using the tax code to their best advantage for decades. Just in case anyone is unaware, companies keep two sets of books for recording their performance - one for Wall Street and one for the IRS...which is perfectly legal and good business. Firms want as much revenue and profit as possible to report to WallStreet and a little as possible to report to the IRS. Depreciation is a great example of this reality at work. In the financial books reported to Wall Street, assets are generally depreciated using a 5-year straight line method, meaning the "cost" recognized by the company in using up the asset is fixed each year at 1/5th of the purchase price and is tallied as "expense" for that year. In the IRS books, the company uses the Modified Accelerated Costs Recovery System (MACRS) established by the government to allow companies, for tax reporting purposes, to depreciate the same asset faster in the first 3 years of its life. Therefore the company can increase their "costs" and reduce their tax liability...and also will have incentive to replace the asset with new assets sooner rather than later.
Does this sound convoluted? It is, but we are just getting started. The 2013 US Tax Code was over 73,000 pages long. Therefore businesses and individuals have to comply with 73,000 pages of regulations. However, there are also goodies and incentives in the Tax Code as the government tries to manipulate and incent specific behavior it deems laudable. Often old incentives and manipulations overlap with others or become outdated and are expanded rather than replaced...and we end up with 73,000 pages of tax code.
Whether we like it or not, the tax code is the law of the land. It is the rules of the road for business. Businesses don't write tax code, they pay lobbyists to plead their interests to congress, and then after the code is published every year, they figure out how to leverage the new rules to their best advantage. Guess what? Inversion is to the best advantage of many corporations and they are and should be inverting as quickly as they possibly can. They don't write the rules, they have to live with them, so if the government is telling them to invert through the rules of the tax road, then companies will restructure themselves and reformulate overseas. None of this happens without a perverse, over reaching, and exhausting tax code.
The delightful irony is government officials sternly wagging their fingers at tele-prompters scolding US companies for doing something the government has essentially directed them to do through tax policy. Obama and his leftwing friends had two years with a veto-proof majority in congress. If incentives for inversion were such bad tax policy, they should have fixed it. They didn't, or more likely government was outsmarted once again by the private sector. The very likely reality is that there was no plan to incent inversion, rather inversion is a side effect of some other attempt to manipulate behavior through the tax code. I love it when government smarties with Ivy League diplomas hanging in their offices come up with their newest social do-gooder scheme only to have it blow up in their faces when a highly motivated, very efficient, and ruthlessly effective private sector finds unimagined ways to implement the new rules to their advantage dreaming up outcomes that are completely foreign and contrary to the ivory-towered bureaucrats...leaving them both bewildered and seething that they have been foiled again by the market economy and the private sector.
Inversion is here to stay as it should be until the rules and incentives are changed. The best solution for the country and the economy would be to scrap the whole shit house full of 73,000 pages of tax regulations and implement a flat or value added tax from which no one or no corporation escapes, but under which we could all fill out our tax returns in 10 minutes on New Year's Day while watch bowl games. However, this would deprive the Ivy-League, meddling, do-gooders of something to, so I assume we will top 80,000 pages of tax regulations soon and more and more companies will re-incorporate overseas.
Sunday, August 31, 2014
The Administration of "Hard Work"
How many times have you heard this from the current administration? (and to be fair this has been part of past administrations as well) "We are working day and night.....I will not rest until....we are working around the clock...." I have heard it a lot in the past 5 years. In fact, every time something goes haywire in the Obama administration, we can be sure that we will soon hear Obama telling us how hard he and everyone in his administration are working.
I worked with a systems engineer early in my career. She was brilliant, personable, and effective. In the years I had the privilege of working with her, I am not sure if she ever worked a 40 hour week. I can tell you with certainty that she never worked a 50 or 60 hour week. Guess what? I couldn't have cared less. Our customers loved her, she never missed a deadline, and she ran projects like a finely tuned swiss watch. There was nothing asked of her that she did not deliver in spades. Did it matter to me that she could get all of this done in 30 hours a week, making time for her tennis team or playing the piano? Nope. As many good executives have noted, we should never confuse hard work with results. We all appreciate hard work, but we expect and reward results, no matter how much or how little time it takes to deliver them.
President Obama's lack of private sector experience is no more evident in his value of "working hard" over results. I couldn't care less how hard anyone in the administration was working while the Obamacare systems crashed and burned. I'd have traded some of that hard work for good results any day. Obama told us how hard he and his administration have been working on 1) the economy 2) winning the war on man-made disasters caused by...well, we aren't allowed to say 3) the budget shortfalls, etc. The problem is, the results in all of these areas suck. They are terrible.
If anyone in the private sector worked hard on these problems and delivered the results of this administration, they would have been fired. I would feel better if they told me that they stayed out all night drinking and playing cards. At least there would be an excuse for such bad results and I wouldn't feel so bad firing them - and at least they had fun while delivering bad results. The problem with government is that no one gets fired. Ever, no matter how bad the results. All that matters is that they are working hard....outcomes be damned.
I worked with a systems engineer early in my career. She was brilliant, personable, and effective. In the years I had the privilege of working with her, I am not sure if she ever worked a 40 hour week. I can tell you with certainty that she never worked a 50 or 60 hour week. Guess what? I couldn't have cared less. Our customers loved her, she never missed a deadline, and she ran projects like a finely tuned swiss watch. There was nothing asked of her that she did not deliver in spades. Did it matter to me that she could get all of this done in 30 hours a week, making time for her tennis team or playing the piano? Nope. As many good executives have noted, we should never confuse hard work with results. We all appreciate hard work, but we expect and reward results, no matter how much or how little time it takes to deliver them.
President Obama's lack of private sector experience is no more evident in his value of "working hard" over results. I couldn't care less how hard anyone in the administration was working while the Obamacare systems crashed and burned. I'd have traded some of that hard work for good results any day. Obama told us how hard he and his administration have been working on 1) the economy 2) winning the war on man-made disasters caused by...well, we aren't allowed to say 3) the budget shortfalls, etc. The problem is, the results in all of these areas suck. They are terrible.
If anyone in the private sector worked hard on these problems and delivered the results of this administration, they would have been fired. I would feel better if they told me that they stayed out all night drinking and playing cards. At least there would be an excuse for such bad results and I wouldn't feel so bad firing them - and at least they had fun while delivering bad results. The problem with government is that no one gets fired. Ever, no matter how bad the results. All that matters is that they are working hard....outcomes be damned.
Friday, August 29, 2014
Opportunity Missed
Some enterprising young journalists are missing the opportunity of a lifetime. I think the standard for modern journalistic excellence and social relevance is the work of Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein. Their initial work investigating a break-in at DNC headquarters uncovered corruption and a massive cover-up that led to the downfall of an American president. This was journalistic gold. It made the careers of two relatively unknown writers.
It is odd to me that no journalist today realizes that the current IRS scandal is a career, riches, and fame waiting to happen for someone willing to look hard enough and ask the right questions. A simple timeline of known events and admissions certainly rises to the initial scandal that held the national and world media for years as the trail of the Watergate scandal led higher and higher. We know that IRS singled out and targeted organizations based solely on their political views that ran contrary to the Obama administration. This is government overreach at its worst. It violates everything we expect from our government and runs counter to everything intended by the founders in the constitution. We know that the IRS exposed this activity by planting a question in a press conference. We know that the person who ran the unit responsible for tax exempt organizations stated that she had done nothing wrong, before pleading the 5th before congress....twice. We know that emails of Louis Lerner are either lost or not lost or that they exist in backup files that DoJ insists are to difficult to find. We know that laws were broken if emails were not backed up and archived. We know that Louis Lerner's blackberry was wiped clean right after congressional hearings began. We know that the head of the IRS visited the White House many times in the run up to the 2012 elections. Can you believe no one sees the abject corruption and disregard for the law in these facts or is at least curious enough to look for the truth about who knew what and when. One thing is certian, Louis Lerner's emails are damning of someone in the IRS or the administration, otherwise we would not have seen the biggest display of organized obfuscation and obstruction since the Nixon administration.
This is the biggest opportunity in the journalism field since Watergate. Yet the media, outside of Fox News, sits on its hands. Maybe they are too vested in Obama. Maybe they know this could lead to the White House and don't want to know what really happened. Maybe they agree with Louis Lerner and detest Tea Party and Patriot groups. It is either odd, sad, or disheartening that the media is giving our government a pass on this massive scandal.
The problem with all of this is that the media has an important role in the recipe for our republic. When they are too lazy to look into obvious and rampant corruption or too timid to look into government over reach or so ideologically aligned with an administration, we are all in trouble. I detest hypotheticals, but....can you imagine the media frenzy if this had happened under the Bush or Reagan administrations? Yeah, pretty sure we'd be at the bottom of this already.
It is odd to me that no journalist today realizes that the current IRS scandal is a career, riches, and fame waiting to happen for someone willing to look hard enough and ask the right questions. A simple timeline of known events and admissions certainly rises to the initial scandal that held the national and world media for years as the trail of the Watergate scandal led higher and higher. We know that IRS singled out and targeted organizations based solely on their political views that ran contrary to the Obama administration. This is government overreach at its worst. It violates everything we expect from our government and runs counter to everything intended by the founders in the constitution. We know that the IRS exposed this activity by planting a question in a press conference. We know that the person who ran the unit responsible for tax exempt organizations stated that she had done nothing wrong, before pleading the 5th before congress....twice. We know that emails of Louis Lerner are either lost or not lost or that they exist in backup files that DoJ insists are to difficult to find. We know that laws were broken if emails were not backed up and archived. We know that Louis Lerner's blackberry was wiped clean right after congressional hearings began. We know that the head of the IRS visited the White House many times in the run up to the 2012 elections. Can you believe no one sees the abject corruption and disregard for the law in these facts or is at least curious enough to look for the truth about who knew what and when. One thing is certian, Louis Lerner's emails are damning of someone in the IRS or the administration, otherwise we would not have seen the biggest display of organized obfuscation and obstruction since the Nixon administration.
This is the biggest opportunity in the journalism field since Watergate. Yet the media, outside of Fox News, sits on its hands. Maybe they are too vested in Obama. Maybe they know this could lead to the White House and don't want to know what really happened. Maybe they agree with Louis Lerner and detest Tea Party and Patriot groups. It is either odd, sad, or disheartening that the media is giving our government a pass on this massive scandal.
The problem with all of this is that the media has an important role in the recipe for our republic. When they are too lazy to look into obvious and rampant corruption or too timid to look into government over reach or so ideologically aligned with an administration, we are all in trouble. I detest hypotheticals, but....can you imagine the media frenzy if this had happened under the Bush or Reagan administrations? Yeah, pretty sure we'd be at the bottom of this already.
Monday, July 28, 2014
Economic Patriotism & Spitting Vodka Through Your Nose
The best part of an Obama administration is the never-ending stream pseudo-intellectual terms coined to shroud their ridiculous ideas in the cloak of credibility. The newest one is "Economic Patriotism." This one should win some sort of prize.
If I didn't know the source, I might think that economic patriotism meant acting in a way to drive the best possible economic outcomes. Fostering optimal growth, low unemployment, prosperity for all those willing and able to work for it. That sounds like economic patriotism to me. I think we should all drink to "economic patriotism"...as long as we are drinking Kentucky bourbon and not Russian Vodka.
However, president Obama and his team aren't all that interested in economic growth, low unemployment, and prosperity for all and they have 5+ years of economic results to prove it. When President Obama suggests that Americans support economic patriotism, he means that corporations should pay more taxes than required by law. Why would they do that? It doesn't seem very economically patriotic to me. Why does making 95 cents a share for my stockholders, when I could have made 97 cents, make me economically patriotic? If I am following the tax code, which by the way the Obama administration had two years of unfettered opportunity to write, why would I pay more taxes than required? The answer is I wouldn't and companies aren't, so the president is trying to shame them into paying more into wasteful government coffers by declaring that firms using the tax code to their advantage are being economically unpatriotic. It is delicious irony that the administration that has no shame is using it to alter the behavior of corporations that actually create jobs, wealth, and prosperity.
One a personal note...after the Obama tax increases kicked in last year and I had to write a big stinking check to those scalawags at the IRS, I didn't feel all that fucking patriotic.
Economic patriotism is a charade straight from the faculty lounge and not the faculty lounge of the business school. A corporation that does not use the tax code and all the other rules of the road set by Washington to its advantage in the marketplace isn't a corporation very long...it's a bankruptcy filing and a class action law suit. The most impressive part of this latest missive from the president is that he can say it with a straight face and all the indignation of a guy who just got bumped from first class to coach.
CEO's must have a good laugh behind closed doors when the president gets on his high horse and declaratively lectures us on things that he doesn't understand and that make no sense outside the Obama circle of sycophants. I wonder if Vladimir Putin spits Stolichnaya through his nose laughing when he reads the shit Obama dreams-up.
If I didn't know the source, I might think that economic patriotism meant acting in a way to drive the best possible economic outcomes. Fostering optimal growth, low unemployment, prosperity for all those willing and able to work for it. That sounds like economic patriotism to me. I think we should all drink to "economic patriotism"...as long as we are drinking Kentucky bourbon and not Russian Vodka.
However, president Obama and his team aren't all that interested in economic growth, low unemployment, and prosperity for all and they have 5+ years of economic results to prove it. When President Obama suggests that Americans support economic patriotism, he means that corporations should pay more taxes than required by law. Why would they do that? It doesn't seem very economically patriotic to me. Why does making 95 cents a share for my stockholders, when I could have made 97 cents, make me economically patriotic? If I am following the tax code, which by the way the Obama administration had two years of unfettered opportunity to write, why would I pay more taxes than required? The answer is I wouldn't and companies aren't, so the president is trying to shame them into paying more into wasteful government coffers by declaring that firms using the tax code to their advantage are being economically unpatriotic. It is delicious irony that the administration that has no shame is using it to alter the behavior of corporations that actually create jobs, wealth, and prosperity.
One a personal note...after the Obama tax increases kicked in last year and I had to write a big stinking check to those scalawags at the IRS, I didn't feel all that fucking patriotic.
Economic patriotism is a charade straight from the faculty lounge and not the faculty lounge of the business school. A corporation that does not use the tax code and all the other rules of the road set by Washington to its advantage in the marketplace isn't a corporation very long...it's a bankruptcy filing and a class action law suit. The most impressive part of this latest missive from the president is that he can say it with a straight face and all the indignation of a guy who just got bumped from first class to coach.
CEO's must have a good laugh behind closed doors when the president gets on his high horse and declaratively lectures us on things that he doesn't understand and that make no sense outside the Obama circle of sycophants. I wonder if Vladimir Putin spits Stolichnaya through his nose laughing when he reads the shit Obama dreams-up.
Thursday, July 24, 2014
Trey Gowdy - "You 'da Man!"
It's no secret that there aren't many heroes serving in an elected or appointed capacity in Washington, DC. I am a big fan of term limits and think that throwing the bums out is almost always a good idea. Serving (and I use that term in its most generous interpretation) in the congress was never intended to be a career. Yet many come and few leave until they have had their fill...literally, filling their bank accounts and their egos with cash and perks the rest of the nation rarely knows.
As is always the case, there are exceptions to the rule. I think Trey Gowdy might be an exception to the aforementioned rules. I am impressed with his intellect, with his tenacity, and with his forthrightness. He strikes me as a person who gets things done, who doesn't suffer fools lightly, and who places doing the right thing over the politics of Washington.
He has been impressive in his public statements and in hearings about the terrorist travesty in Benghazi and he has been a singular ray of clarity in hearings with career bureaucrat John Koskinen when probing the abject scandal of the IRS turning on citizens based on their political point of view. Gowdy doesn't tolerate the usual Washington tap dance of dodging and obfuscation when asking direct questions. Gowdy expects straight answers and when he doesn't get them he probes deeper until he gets the information requested or forces his questionee into a position of providing obvious falsehoods and misdirection. Gowdy is good. He is very smart. I believe he is up there doing the people's work, not the party's work.
The leftwing media (which is most of the media) is starting to realize that Gowdy is a force on the Hill and have begun their attacks. Gowdy is everything they detest. He is from South Carolina. He didn't go to a swanky prep school or college in the northeast. He got is law degree from an SEC school not an Ivy League school. He is not "one of them", not in the club of sophisticates who revel in the chatter of the theoretical in the faculty lounge.
I hope Trey Gowdy is as good as he appears to be. I hope his star rises on the national stage because we need smart, motivated leaders who are not afraid to break glass and who know how to get things done. His real test will come when the republicans screw up (and we know they will). Will Gowdy be as tough and as relentless digging for the truth when the target has as "R" by their name or was appointed by a republican president? A lot of potentially great leaders have been tripped up by the party line. I hope Trey Gowdy doesn't join that club, but rather starts another, where leaders have the courage to do what is right, party ramifications be damned.
As is always the case, there are exceptions to the rule. I think Trey Gowdy might be an exception to the aforementioned rules. I am impressed with his intellect, with his tenacity, and with his forthrightness. He strikes me as a person who gets things done, who doesn't suffer fools lightly, and who places doing the right thing over the politics of Washington.
He has been impressive in his public statements and in hearings about the terrorist travesty in Benghazi and he has been a singular ray of clarity in hearings with career bureaucrat John Koskinen when probing the abject scandal of the IRS turning on citizens based on their political point of view. Gowdy doesn't tolerate the usual Washington tap dance of dodging and obfuscation when asking direct questions. Gowdy expects straight answers and when he doesn't get them he probes deeper until he gets the information requested or forces his questionee into a position of providing obvious falsehoods and misdirection. Gowdy is good. He is very smart. I believe he is up there doing the people's work, not the party's work.
The leftwing media (which is most of the media) is starting to realize that Gowdy is a force on the Hill and have begun their attacks. Gowdy is everything they detest. He is from South Carolina. He didn't go to a swanky prep school or college in the northeast. He got is law degree from an SEC school not an Ivy League school. He is not "one of them", not in the club of sophisticates who revel in the chatter of the theoretical in the faculty lounge.
I hope Trey Gowdy is as good as he appears to be. I hope his star rises on the national stage because we need smart, motivated leaders who are not afraid to break glass and who know how to get things done. His real test will come when the republicans screw up (and we know they will). Will Gowdy be as tough and as relentless digging for the truth when the target has as "R" by their name or was appointed by a republican president? A lot of potentially great leaders have been tripped up by the party line. I hope Trey Gowdy doesn't join that club, but rather starts another, where leaders have the courage to do what is right, party ramifications be damned.
Wednesday, July 23, 2014
What Does the Truth Look Like?
There is not much bi-partisan agreement in Washington and beyond these days. However, I think there is a topic that would unify democrats, republicans, and libertarians. The unifier for all Americans is a thirst for the truth, to have their leaders shoot straight with them, and treat them like adults, not mindless minions blindly following drivel that passes for news.
Ask a question, any question...and see what you get. maddening blather intended to deflect and obfuscate. All parties are guilty of this and all do it more now than ever. One of a thousand examples over the past month:
Q: "Is the southern border secure?"
A: "There are more resources now on the southern boarder than ever before..."
Sorry, but the level of resources on the southern border wasn't the question...the question was is the border secure? I don care if we have 10 border patrol officers on the border or 10 million, are they getting the job done and is the border secure? The answer, BTW, is an obvious "No".
Why can't our leaders just tell us that the border is not secure or that its security is not up to levels required for national security and the well being of those trying to cross illegally and here is our plan to secure the border which we will have done on this date? That's how things work outside of the beltway, in the real world where results, not effort, are what matter.
There are multiple examples of this garbage on a daily basis coming from both democrats and republicans. I believe that a party could gain a significant advantage with the American public, building trust and winning votes as a result, by leveling with us. Tell us the truth. We don't expect perfection in performance, but we do expect honesty and forthrightness in communications. We can't get it these days from anyone in government. Maybe this is why the time might be right for a guy like Chris Christy. I think everyone is clear where they stand with double C. I may not agree or like his commentary, but I would vote for him for having the courage to speak the truth.
Ask a question, any question...and see what you get. maddening blather intended to deflect and obfuscate. All parties are guilty of this and all do it more now than ever. One of a thousand examples over the past month:
Q: "Is the southern border secure?"
A: "There are more resources now on the southern boarder than ever before..."
Sorry, but the level of resources on the southern border wasn't the question...the question was is the border secure? I don care if we have 10 border patrol officers on the border or 10 million, are they getting the job done and is the border secure? The answer, BTW, is an obvious "No".
Why can't our leaders just tell us that the border is not secure or that its security is not up to levels required for national security and the well being of those trying to cross illegally and here is our plan to secure the border which we will have done on this date? That's how things work outside of the beltway, in the real world where results, not effort, are what matter.
There are multiple examples of this garbage on a daily basis coming from both democrats and republicans. I believe that a party could gain a significant advantage with the American public, building trust and winning votes as a result, by leveling with us. Tell us the truth. We don't expect perfection in performance, but we do expect honesty and forthrightness in communications. We can't get it these days from anyone in government. Maybe this is why the time might be right for a guy like Chris Christy. I think everyone is clear where they stand with double C. I may not agree or like his commentary, but I would vote for him for having the courage to speak the truth.
Monday, July 21, 2014
Long on Shortcomings
It is painfully clear after almost 6 years that President Obama is long on shortcomings.
Before we sell him short however, let's recognize his strengths. He is good at obfuscation. He is good at dividing America for political gain. He is good at blaming others when things go wrong. He is good at making promises he cannot keep and ultimatums he cannot enforce.
However, stating this in the most generous terms possible, where Obama does not shine is leadership. If he were as good at leadership as he is at making snarky comments about Americans with whom he disagrees, he would have an immigration deal, the Obamacare rollout would not have been an epic failure, the border would not be a humanitarian disaster, and the VA would not be such a mess.
People trust good leaders. Good leaders earn trust through sustained performance over time. Ask yourself one question... would you trust team Obama to lead the roll out your next big project or negotiate your next big deal? I wouldn't either, and neither would anyone else, hence the problem.
Before we sell him short however, let's recognize his strengths. He is good at obfuscation. He is good at dividing America for political gain. He is good at blaming others when things go wrong. He is good at making promises he cannot keep and ultimatums he cannot enforce.
However, stating this in the most generous terms possible, where Obama does not shine is leadership. If he were as good at leadership as he is at making snarky comments about Americans with whom he disagrees, he would have an immigration deal, the Obamacare rollout would not have been an epic failure, the border would not be a humanitarian disaster, and the VA would not be such a mess.
People trust good leaders. Good leaders earn trust through sustained performance over time. Ask yourself one question... would you trust team Obama to lead the roll out your next big project or negotiate your next big deal? I wouldn't either, and neither would anyone else, hence the problem.
Tuesday, November 19, 2013
When Something is Worse than Nothing
Is there anything more universally appealing than helping disadvantaged kids? Is there anyone so heartless that if asked would they support reforms, programs, investments, that help kids born to difficult and challenging circumstances that they would answer "No"? I suppose somewhere there is, but no one I know. No matter what side of the political isle one sits or straddles, helping kids rise out of a tough circumstance is laudable, moral, and simply the right thing to do.
Now comes the punch to the stomach. If we really want to help poor kids, I think we should scuttle the Head Start program. Born in 1965 as part of the Great Society, the Head Start was intended to be a poverty fighting tool working to ready low income kids for kindergarten. Head Start has been reauthorized and expanded over the years. Over 20 million kids have participated in Head Start programs. The unfortunate reality for Head Start is that it doesn't work. Studies for decades have proved this point. Most recently a 2010 HHS study clearly showed that the impact of Head Start on the achievement of its participants is fleeting at best. This is only one of many studies over decades that have consistently shown that Head Start has no meaningful impact on the achievement of disadvantaged kids. Yet we continue to spend billions.
Now comes the unfortunate reality of politics today. How would you like to run for office with a plank of your platform to defund Head Start? Can you imagine the outrage? I can only imagine the insults that would be hurled your way. No campaign for office could suceed by promising to defund Head Start. It makes me cringe just thinking about the media outcries and vilification that would ensue. But ending Head Start is exactly what we should do...just not right now.
Here's my gripe: we spend billions in federal money to help kids who desperately need help, and we get no results, we don't help the kids in any substantive or sustainable way. So we all feel better about ourselves because we fund Head Start to help disadvantaged kids, but at the end of the day, the kids we want to help are no better off than when we started. This is tragic, not in the wasted funds but in the outcomes for the kids.
What to do? I am a big believer that if you raise an issue or have a gripe, you need to have a suggestion to fix the problem. I don't know how we solve this problem. I know that we spend billions annually to help kids who really need it, and they get no help. The opportunity cost of these misallocated funds is huge in terms of wasted funds, but staggering and tragic in terms of lives that are not advanced and kids continuing to go wanting. I think that's why we don't defund Head Start right now, but rather we set a date at which time we defund Head Start - two years, three years down the road so we have a hard deadline, and then we start working on alternative uses for the Head Start funds that actually might help the kids to which they are directed. We can't do any worse than we are doing today as studies show that any gains for Head Start kids are gone by the end of first grade. The down side is pretty flat on this one. Give the families vouchers for regional schools and programs, hold the funds for vouchers for college as a carrot to get through school...I don't know the answer, but I know what we are doing today is a double whammy against the kids we are trying to help. They kids get no help and the pressure is off the rest of us to solve the problem because Head Start is fully funded.
BTW, let's not just pick on Head Start. There are a multitude of ineffective federal programs that cross the idealogical spectrum that need to go through this same process. Teen pregnancy prevention programs, smoking cessation programs etc, none of which solve their intended problems, but we keep shoveling cash out the door, feeling better all the while that we are doing "something".
I hate the cliche, "something is better than nothing." I think we can prove that incorrect with Head Start and other well-meaning federal programs. "Something" is worse than nothing when "something" delivers no results, wastes scarce funds, and take the pressure off finding an actual solution. I think we can do better than "something".
Now comes the punch to the stomach. If we really want to help poor kids, I think we should scuttle the Head Start program. Born in 1965 as part of the Great Society, the Head Start was intended to be a poverty fighting tool working to ready low income kids for kindergarten. Head Start has been reauthorized and expanded over the years. Over 20 million kids have participated in Head Start programs. The unfortunate reality for Head Start is that it doesn't work. Studies for decades have proved this point. Most recently a 2010 HHS study clearly showed that the impact of Head Start on the achievement of its participants is fleeting at best. This is only one of many studies over decades that have consistently shown that Head Start has no meaningful impact on the achievement of disadvantaged kids. Yet we continue to spend billions.
Now comes the unfortunate reality of politics today. How would you like to run for office with a plank of your platform to defund Head Start? Can you imagine the outrage? I can only imagine the insults that would be hurled your way. No campaign for office could suceed by promising to defund Head Start. It makes me cringe just thinking about the media outcries and vilification that would ensue. But ending Head Start is exactly what we should do...just not right now.
Here's my gripe: we spend billions in federal money to help kids who desperately need help, and we get no results, we don't help the kids in any substantive or sustainable way. So we all feel better about ourselves because we fund Head Start to help disadvantaged kids, but at the end of the day, the kids we want to help are no better off than when we started. This is tragic, not in the wasted funds but in the outcomes for the kids.
What to do? I am a big believer that if you raise an issue or have a gripe, you need to have a suggestion to fix the problem. I don't know how we solve this problem. I know that we spend billions annually to help kids who really need it, and they get no help. The opportunity cost of these misallocated funds is huge in terms of wasted funds, but staggering and tragic in terms of lives that are not advanced and kids continuing to go wanting. I think that's why we don't defund Head Start right now, but rather we set a date at which time we defund Head Start - two years, three years down the road so we have a hard deadline, and then we start working on alternative uses for the Head Start funds that actually might help the kids to which they are directed. We can't do any worse than we are doing today as studies show that any gains for Head Start kids are gone by the end of first grade. The down side is pretty flat on this one. Give the families vouchers for regional schools and programs, hold the funds for vouchers for college as a carrot to get through school...I don't know the answer, but I know what we are doing today is a double whammy against the kids we are trying to help. They kids get no help and the pressure is off the rest of us to solve the problem because Head Start is fully funded.
BTW, let's not just pick on Head Start. There are a multitude of ineffective federal programs that cross the idealogical spectrum that need to go through this same process. Teen pregnancy prevention programs, smoking cessation programs etc, none of which solve their intended problems, but we keep shoveling cash out the door, feeling better all the while that we are doing "something".
I hate the cliche, "something is better than nothing." I think we can prove that incorrect with Head Start and other well-meaning federal programs. "Something" is worse than nothing when "something" delivers no results, wastes scarce funds, and take the pressure off finding an actual solution. I think we can do better than "something".
Wednesday, November 6, 2013
The President from the Faculty Lounge
What happens when the lofty ideas of the faculty lounge are turned loose into the semi-free market? You get a trainwreck. This most recent trainwreck is called Obamacare. It is shocking to me how many people seem to be surprised that the rollout of the Obamacare has been a disaster. Even more baffling is the surprise of people who are just figuring out that this was a terrible implementation of a respectable and decent societal objective.
Despite what Obama, Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, Chuck Schumer, and the other democrat propagandists say, republicans and libertarians to not want people to lack for the basic necessities of life. A social safety net for those who are down on their luck, made a couple of bad choices, or were born into circumstance that was less than positive is a good thing, a moral thing, and a decent thing. However, there are many means to provide a social safety net and central planning from the federal government, as we are seeing to the dismay of many, is probably the worst way to provide most any social service beyond the military, the supreme judiciary, and interstate highways.
What the faculty loungers like Obama and his inner circle of government loyalists fail to realize is that they might be the smartest folks in the room when they are in the classroom or the faculty lounge, but when they get into the real world where people and organizations have to compete to survive, where tenure equates to the coming two weeks for your next paycheck, meeting next month's payroll, or making next quarter's earnings report, there are thousands, maybe millions of people as smart or smarter than they are. When grandiose central plans, created by a select few of like-minded minions with swanky diplomas are released into the wild, they set the rules of of the road, the limits of the game, and millions of smart, motivated people who don't have tenure or fat government pensions start figuring out how to work the new rules of the game to their advantage...how to win playing by the new rules.
Therefore, it is shocking that the Ivy Leaguers who wrote Obamacare were caught off guard when thousands of companies started limiting employee hours to under 30/week to avoid the costs of hiring or holding full time employees as dictated by Obamacare. What did the central planners think was going to happen? Companies are in business to make money, to win, to succeed in a brutally efficient market place. If there is a way to avoid costs that is not only legal, but rational, then guess what is going to happen? A room full of faculty lounge smarties and government lackeys will never outsmart a market of motivated entrepreneurs. Never. So there will always be unintended consequences as a result of the most well intended plan which will doom it to absolute failure - 100% of the time, given enough time. Obamacare is the most recent and public display of this reality. The ridiculously complex system intended to provide the sick, the poor, and the uninsured with healthcare had no chance to work. Ever. Obamacare proposed to cover 30M uninsured Americans, eliminate lifetime limits on insurance policies, and save the average household $ 2500...all at the same time? On paper and over a latte in the faculty lounge, I have no doubt that this makes perfect sense. However, in the world of rational consumers and smart business leaders, at best it is a bad joke, at worst it is a total failure with lasting negative ramifications on both healthcare and the economy.
It is clear from his statements and actions that Obama thinks he is the smartest guy in the room. Based on what we have seen from his administration on policy, I hate to break the news to him, but I'm not sure he's even the smartest guy in the faculty lounge, but I have no doubt he thinks he is.
Despite what Obama, Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, Chuck Schumer, and the other democrat propagandists say, republicans and libertarians to not want people to lack for the basic necessities of life. A social safety net for those who are down on their luck, made a couple of bad choices, or were born into circumstance that was less than positive is a good thing, a moral thing, and a decent thing. However, there are many means to provide a social safety net and central planning from the federal government, as we are seeing to the dismay of many, is probably the worst way to provide most any social service beyond the military, the supreme judiciary, and interstate highways.
What the faculty loungers like Obama and his inner circle of government loyalists fail to realize is that they might be the smartest folks in the room when they are in the classroom or the faculty lounge, but when they get into the real world where people and organizations have to compete to survive, where tenure equates to the coming two weeks for your next paycheck, meeting next month's payroll, or making next quarter's earnings report, there are thousands, maybe millions of people as smart or smarter than they are. When grandiose central plans, created by a select few of like-minded minions with swanky diplomas are released into the wild, they set the rules of of the road, the limits of the game, and millions of smart, motivated people who don't have tenure or fat government pensions start figuring out how to work the new rules of the game to their advantage...how to win playing by the new rules.
Therefore, it is shocking that the Ivy Leaguers who wrote Obamacare were caught off guard when thousands of companies started limiting employee hours to under 30/week to avoid the costs of hiring or holding full time employees as dictated by Obamacare. What did the central planners think was going to happen? Companies are in business to make money, to win, to succeed in a brutally efficient market place. If there is a way to avoid costs that is not only legal, but rational, then guess what is going to happen? A room full of faculty lounge smarties and government lackeys will never outsmart a market of motivated entrepreneurs. Never. So there will always be unintended consequences as a result of the most well intended plan which will doom it to absolute failure - 100% of the time, given enough time. Obamacare is the most recent and public display of this reality. The ridiculously complex system intended to provide the sick, the poor, and the uninsured with healthcare had no chance to work. Ever. Obamacare proposed to cover 30M uninsured Americans, eliminate lifetime limits on insurance policies, and save the average household $ 2500...all at the same time? On paper and over a latte in the faculty lounge, I have no doubt that this makes perfect sense. However, in the world of rational consumers and smart business leaders, at best it is a bad joke, at worst it is a total failure with lasting negative ramifications on both healthcare and the economy.
It is clear from his statements and actions that Obama thinks he is the smartest guy in the room. Based on what we have seen from his administration on policy, I hate to break the news to him, but I'm not sure he's even the smartest guy in the faculty lounge, but I have no doubt he thinks he is.
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