A pretty good day

It was, a pretty good day.  I got interviewed without being accused of anything, that’s always nice.  Everyone was pretty cooperative on things where they didn’t absolutely have to be.  If this were Groundhog Day, it wouldn’t be too bad.

Sarah Palin’s book debuted at #1 on the Barnes and Noble list, the publisher is ordering 1.5  million copies.  The usual liberal trash is going nuts on CNN, they really don’t like Sarah!  I think they take things way, way too seriously, especially their own entitlement to a special place in the universe.  It would have been great having her as Vice President.  No matter how it turned out it would have been more fun than having a typical worn-out, recycled, politico zombie hack going through the only motions he knows anymore.

I’m going to cut this short, right here, and walk across the street for a beer.  Living here, right downtown, is great.  There are 10 wonderful restaurants within two blocks, on a  night like this it’s just a short walk there and then back home again.  I generally cook dinner for us, the domesticity is a comfort zone for me.  Last night it was cream of asparagus, crab, and mushroom soup, a salad, and sourdough bread.  Tonight we’ll let someone else do the cooking!

G’nite and may God Bless!

I can’t take it any more!

To borrow a phrase from Muammar Khadafi’s translator, who collapsed in exhaustion after translating his boss’s incoherent ramblings at the U.N.  for 75 minutes, “I can’t take it any more!”. I have to take a break tonight.  I am exhausted.

My assistant and I installed our personnel evaluation system today, and gave training to the users.  Wow.  When we left the site, we looked at each other and simultaneously said, “Holy Crap!”  Every install we do, we learn something.  The first few installs, we were learning everything, as we worked.  Today, it was a few new wrinkles and a whole bunch of “Wow”.  Tomorrow is another install, I’m not sure that I’m getting paid enough to do this crap.

With events being what they are, I have to take a break tonight.  No talk of the Olympics, or gangbanger who kill honor students, or a position in Afghanistan that is seeming more and more “in the air”.  Just a nice quiet nice at home….

So, thanks for bearing with the feeble rant, gonna’ collect myself and take another run at it tomorrow.  May God Bless, and g’nite.

How to solve the problem by NOT trusting the village

Two posts ago, I promised to give the answer to our amazing dwindling economy.  The basic concept is that if you know what the problem is, and you can imagine a solution, you ought to be able to fix the problem.  Given enough time, and resources.  Too bad, that’s our problem right there.

We’re like the centerfielder racing in on a sinking line drive, bottom of the 9th with runners in scoring position.  Does he have enough speed, and will the ball hang long enough, for him to make the catch?  Because he’s got this one chance, and if he doesn’t make it, the game is lost and there’s no “do over”.

The only thing that can save this situation is sudden, sustained, spectacular growth in good paying jobs that the average American can get hired into.  And other countries deciding that American goods are the best, and going on a shopping spree like never before.  And no financial upset, no more bad surprises, no more meltdowns, no runaway inflation, none of that stuff.

The government can’t solve this, the government is the problem.  It will be up to millions of families sitting around millions of kitchen tables, taking stock of their own situation and planning their own future.  Kids are going to have to grow up sooner, and grownups are going to have to work longer.  Everyone is going to have to start taking an active interest in planning their own future, and executing their plan.

If your kids are on track, make sure they know it.  If they’re not on track, quit playing “government bailout” for them.  You are doing them no good if you ever let them think that there will be someone there to fix their mistakes for them.  This won’t make them cool, or make their life easy, but it will make them free and independent.  And that is something that an awful lot of people sacrificed it all for, and got us an awful long ways … until we fell off the tracks.

Be careful in trusting the village, because there’s a price.  The village will give you enough crumbs to keep you from starving, but as soon as you drag in a big juicy bison, the village will take their share first.  Truth to power, Baby!

Just sayin’…..

She is not a “resource”, she’s my daughter

I can’t listen to it any more without saying something.  In recent days, I have heard numerous statements by Federal employees in very high positions  that we will not commit “resources” in Afghanistan until a strategy is in place.  I’ll completely ignore the stupefying question of what we were doing committing my daughter and your son,  apparently WITHOUT a strategy in place, since January.

Because I want to get right to the real issue here.  Dear Federal employee in a very high position … I offer this advice to you, from the heart.

Do not refer to the sons and daughters of America as “resources”.  My daughter (and all the other sons and daughters involved) are living, breathing, cherished human beings, the most precious part of families all across this nation.  Referring to those troops you send in harm’s way as “resources” is thoughtless, soulless, uncaring, unthinking, bureaucratic NewSpeak.  There is no excuse for using such a demeaning, dehumanizing, diminishing term when referring to the troops who are doing your heavy lifting.  Resources don’t get tired or scared, resources don’t get wounded or killed, the parents of resources don’t weep when their children don’t come home.

Yes, I know, you’ll respond with hand wringing about how you live with the responsibility for the wounded and killed.  Spare me.  You aren’t the only one, and you’re at least three layers removed.  If you truly respect the sacrifice that America makes on your behalf, honor it by referring to the folks you send in human terms.  Save the bureaucratic gobbledygook for Senate hearings.

Thank you very much, and G’Nite.

Redux – wishfully thinking there is a Green Economy

Unless people start doing new things, there is no such thing as a Green Economy or Green Jobs.  When people started riding on trains instead of walking, or riding in carriages (if they were wealthy), that created the Railroad Economy.  It was actually more like the Industrial Economy, but you get the idea.

Today, as long as people keep listening to their iPods, talking on their iPhones, working in their iOffices, there are no new jobs.

All of the manufacturing associated with changing from traditional energy sources to alternative energy sources, except for that associated with nuclear energy, will happen overseas.  The Vietnamese will build our wind turbines for us, and ship them here on Chinese ships.  As previously mentioned, there will be temporary employment for installers, and those jobs will hardly be adequate replacements for jobs lost in the traditional energy industry.

The entire Green Economy thing is a cynical sort of wishful thinking.  The jobs at recycling centers are not going to be able to pay the kind of taxes that jobs at the Chevron refinery do (and the recycle center won’t be paying the kind of corporate income tax that Chevron does).  The entire concept is a popsicle stick boat circling the drain.

We tried the Information Economy, but that didn’t work out AT ALL. It created a huge bubble that is still reverberating, it made a small handful of maladjusted youngsters fabulously wealthy, all the jobs went overseas, and what’s left is entertainment to keep the underemployed, hopeless, and futile youth from actually seeing how bleak their future really is.

Instead, our elected employees have completely given up on all hope and have resigned themselves to an endless future of government dependence and dwindling freedom.

Jeebus Cripes,  I’m making myself depressed.  Tomorrow I will provide the solution to this dilemma.  Right now I’m going to go pour either a glass of wine or a glass of hemlock.  If there’s anything posted here tomorrow, you’ll know which.  G’nite and God Bless.

If you’re happy with the result you’re getting,

Then keep doing what you’re doing.  But if you want a different result, you’re going to have to provide a different input.  No intent here to lecture or act sanctimonious.  I’m just capturing a clever way to state another one of those universal truths.  Thanks for your patience and enjoy your Saturday evening.

Energy

People and economies will seek and use the most cost effective energy source that is marginally environmentally acceptable.  This is a fundamental truth of the universe, not subject to modification by small groups of people.  Don’t take my word for it, check it out for yourself.

Now.  If a small group of people, like the elected officials of the U.S. Government, decide that there is benefit to them in tampering with the above universal truth, hold onto your asses.  Here is how it will work.

There are a few routes to getting people to violate the above stated universal energy law.  One, you can outlaw the more cost effective energy sources.  Two, you can mount a propaganda campaign to convince a critical mass of people that the more cost effective energy sources are NOT environmentally acceptable.  Three, you can impose taxes on the more cost effective energy sources, to drive the price up and thereby making less cost effective sources more attractive.  Four, you can use the Nation’s credit card and the printing press at the Treasury to subsidize less cost effective energy sources.

What is going on right now is a huge combination of the above, drowning in propaganda from all sides.  The results will be several, all unfavorable.  Good jobs for young Americans are already scarce, they will become more scarce as jobs flee this country.

The debt burden, already crushing, will continue to inflate to unimaginable proportions.

The only jobs to be created by a Government program to force our economy off the rails will be installer jobs.  Minimum wage, no future, non-union … because the only alternative will be for the Government to borrow and/or print yet more money to subsidize wage enhancements (there will be design and management jobs created, but those will be well out of reach of the pathetically uneducated workforce).

The economy is a very bad place for acting out one’s ideology, it’s simply too important to be fooled with over experiments in social engineering.  I have never recommended defensive positions, I’ve always had faith in our system of free enterprise and marketplace competition.  I have lost no faith in those factors, what is pushing me to defensiveness right now is the way the core values and strengths of American prosperity are under siege.

May God Bless America, g’nite all.

F*ck a bunch of politicians, what am I doing?

As a child of the 50′s, I’ve been misled by current events.  Misled by the coverage of current events.  The media is EXPLODING with coverage of every Tea Party, UN address, Congressional debate, and political fart.  To someone raised in the culture of the 50′s, this sends a message.

Something important must be going on!!!!!!!!

I’m beginning to question my senses, or maybe my interpretation of my sensory input.  I’m beginning to wonder if, bored to overstimulation, I might not be seeing a substance that isn’t there.  Not to say that we, and our elected representatives aren’t seriously twisted.  We are, as a nation, seriously twisted.  But, guess what, is there anything new there?

The only thing I can see that’s new is that we are farther in debt in every aspect and sense then we have ever been before, except for coming out of major declared wars (Revolutionary, Civil, WWII).  We’ve never been this far in debt before, but we’ve certainly been this screwed up and polarized before, many time, for most of our history.  So what’s the point?

The point is, what’s up with me?  And you?  And yours?

We have a project delivering, that we’ve been working on for two years, that will have profound long term impact on our entire operation.  We are deploying a completely new, highly effective personnel evaluation system.  It will broadcast corporate values and goals, foster communications and mentoring between employee and supervisor, and provide feedback to our employees while it informs the promotion process.

This has been by far the hardest thing I’ve ever tried to do, and deployment does not guarantee success.  If we are not able to change the culture, the technical solution will fail to achieve the management objective.  There is much left to do.  But as a minor milestone, I find comfort in this.

G’nite all, don’t be bashful about telling what’s going on in your life.  God Bless.

Looking for answers, one wrong way and one right way

We often hear that America is a singular nation, unique, not like other nations.  That’s generally offered in a positive sense, although in recent times it’s become increasingly an insult, that we are somehow wrong in being different from other Nations.  Ahhhh, go figure.

That is not something you can truthfully say about all nations, or even many nations, on Earth.  Most nations follow a pattern of some sort, England and Japan share many characteristics.  As do most of the countries of the New World, except for Canada.  Which shares a pattern with the other English speaking nations of the Commonwealth.  Etc, etc, etc.

The U.S.A. is different in profound ways form every other nation on Earth in basic ways that shape our character to this day.  And these differences create an environment for cultures and cultural undertakings, the citizens’ relationship to government, and what will work and what won’t work that makes looking to other nations for answers a futile exercise.

What works for “the rest of the industrialized nations” simply most often will not work in this country.

Our citizens’ distrust of government, and resistance to any increase in governmental control, is also perfectly natural, desirable, and expected.  This nation was born in violent revolution against the most powerful empire on Earth.  The supperating wound of slavery was ended by the most violent internal struggle imaginablable.  We are a people who value liberty above security, individual opportunity above group membership, independence above entangling gifts.

A govenment program works in France.  Should we have that program here, in the US?  Let’s set the cultural stage on which that program is played out.  The President of France can say, “The birkha is not welcome in France, it is a symbol of Islamic oppression of women.”  Is that the culture in the US?  Well, folks, if not then how can we expect the same program to work in two such fundamentally different cultures?

Don’t look to China for solutions to problems in America.

I am not critizing how other people live, because believe me I don’t think for a second that the materially spoiled lifestyle of Americans contributes to happiness or other desirable cultural traits.  I simply remakr on what is.  And what is, is, you can have Cuban health care if you’re willing to live like a Cuban.  Or French transportation policy if you’re willing to live livee a Frenchman.  Or a Chinese manufacturing economy, if you’re willing to live like the Chinese.

Well, are you, Punk?

Americans WILL trust a government that makes it clear that it is trying to stay out of the personal lives of the citizens, appropriately regulate the public commerce, provide for the common defense, and promote the general welfare.  Reminder: America was born in violent revolution against a distant, overbearing, unresponsive government.  It may be more than two centuries, but we are descended from that DNA.

That is what made America the wealthiest and most powerful nation on Earth, a nation that could contemplate The Great Society.  That part of our Nation is supressed, it does not lead us and it is not what we are aspiring to.  Yet we continue to plan as though we were still that Nation, and wistfully anticipate that we will once again be, while we do everything possible to continue to suppress the will to be “FREE AND INDEPENDENT”.

We cannot be free if we are not independent.  And we cannot be independent if we accept from others that which we should earn for ourselves.  We will be neither free nor independent if we continue to seek our answers in other nations and other cultures that we share little in common with.

So long as we look to others for answers, we will go wrong.  If we look to the best of our own past, we will steer a true course.  May God Bless America, my fellow citizens.  Strive to be Free and Independent, no matter how unfashionable.  In doing that, you will tend the torch of liberty.

How to get health care/insurance done

Dear President Obama,

Like you, and almost everyone else in the country, I want to see health care and health insurance fixed.  I believe that the right mechanism for fixing health care and insurance is a competitive free market.  Government simply cannot dictate a solution, the only approach that can work for a Government solution is to create the gravity field.

Here is what you need to do to get health care/insurance done.  BAM! (thanks, Emeril) start with the premise that you have eight years to get this done.  I cannot overemphasize how important this is.  It will take decades, but assume you are going to wage an eight year campaign.  Plan accordingly.

This buys you the tactical flexibility to attack where and when you can be effective, take action and evaluate the results then adjust, outwait your opponents.  Your campaign plan will include tactical attacks and diversions, some to prepare the battlefield and some for effect.

Year One: tell America that much is required of the President and that you can’t spend all of your time on every issue.  Health care/insurance will be your highest priority, but not your only priority.  Achieve: medical tort reform.  Begin evaluating and finally (Year Three?) designing an Electronic Medical Record system.

Year Two: continue  govern, tell America the good news about medical tort reform.  Jawbone the lack of competitiveness in the insurance market, explain how it undermines the free market.  Explain how direct government intervention can only make the situation worse.  Achieve: federal regulation to allow all health insurers to compete in all markets (if necessary, pursue anti-trust actions).

Year Three: continue to govern, tell America the good news about tort reform and increased competition.  Explain your intent to bring the countervailing power of group purchasing to ordinary individual Americans.  Enunciate standards for insurance companies to qualify for tax deductibility.  Achieve: tax and regulatory advantages to mass market retailers (costco, sam’s club, sears, target, walmart) to offer group insurance plans.

Year Four: get re-elected.  Continue to proclaim the accomplishments of tort reform, cross-state competition, and the power of mass market purchases.  Steady as she goes, you have four more years to get this done.  Achieve: rationalize tax code to get desirable behavior from insurance and health care companies and citizens.

Year Five: explain that with tort reform, competition, group purchase, and, tax code in alignment, this is the year to consolidate, collect metrics, evaluate, formulate a plan.  Spend this year developing a plan to bring medical costs down: more efficient medical education (produce effective practitioners for less money, in less time … what is the point of requiring an undergraduate degree before becoming an MD?), begin building the EMR designed in Years Three and Four.

Year Six:  it’s all yours, I’ve done enough work here, it’s your turn.  Years Seven and Eight will fall into line.  If you have a long enough time horizon, it all comes together.

Plan to take all eight years to get where you’re going.  You will break fewer bones, deliver a better product, and perhaps most important, provide a teachable moment for future Presidents taking on big projects.  FDRs “100 Days” is obsolete, going back 70 years for an approach to governing is not the right model.  Leave your successors an effective model of how to accomplish big legislative programs in the 21st Century.

I have hereby performed my patriotic duty for the day, see ya’ tomorrow!