Reinke Faces Life

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=49917

Professor Williams points out the folly and deceit in the minimum wage discussion.

When we raise the minimum wage, who does it hurt? The fellow who loses his minimum wage job. The taxpayer who funds the dole. And, the usually small business man who has a need but can’t afford to fill it. Good job gummamint! Who wins? The politicians!

Allow me to recount a personal story that demonstrated what I call “pulling up the lowest rung of the economic ladder”. It’s a well-known often-predicted aspect of increasing the minimum wage. So let’s look at the operation of this foul piece of government interference in the free market for labor.

At that time, AT&T was big New York employer. It was known to be a plum job. Remember this is back in the days of Japanese style life time employment. If you showed up on time, did your job, didn’t get drunk, steal, or mess with the opposite sex on company time or company premise, then you were pretty assured of a long career ending with a good pension. If you took advantage of the various savings plans, then the average worker would have literally a million dollars at retirement. They pushed savings bonds, stocks, and financial education.

AT&T hired lots of people. High school graduates were started as glorified gophers with a pay grade of N (November). Non graduates could get unskilled jobs with a pay grade O (Oscar). After six months, all O’s were eligible for promotion to N. After 12 months, all O’s were AUTOMATICALLY considered for promotion. Even if the person was not promoted, they were well treated. They were sent for training, special assignments, and rotated thru other O level jobs. Those that managed of the pools of O’s were evaluated on many factors. One of those factors was how they “developed” the O pool. Move them up, move them out, or rotate them were all acceptable plans. It was OK for someone to be an O for a lifetime, but they wouldn’t treated badly at all. So, one of the O level jobs was elevator operator. You literally needed to just show up and they would teach you to “run” an elevator. These elevators were all push button. So, you had to wear a uniform, be pleasant, and refer all questions to your “starter”. I knew the honcho who ran the 195 Building and asked why they did this. His reply was that it was a great way to get talented people into the organization who did do well in school. I know one O who eventually wound up in Bell Labs in an R&D position. She was trained, grew, matured, went to school on the tuition refund program, and became a valuable asset.

Now to my cousin. I’d respectfully say, with as much Christian charity as I can muster, that she was not the brightest bulb in the bin. She accepted an elevator operator’s job and she was lucky she wasn’t fired. This in the lifetime employment company. She messed up a lot. She “lost” her elevator a few times. [How do you “lose” an elevator?  Remember these are really automatic elevators like we have today, staffed for other reasons. If the operator was out of the car, say holding the door open to talk to the operator in the next car, hand slips, and the doors close, then the elevator would do what elevators do. Go to where they are summoned. Hence the operator was said to have lost her elevator. Very bad!] She got caught chewing gum a few times. All sorts of stuff. She was destined to be a 45 year employee, retiring as an elevator operator. But she’d have been employed for all that time and have earned a pension.

My cousin’s world crashed when the government raised the minimum wage.

The economics changed drastically. O’s would have to make more. But that wasn’t so so bad. It was “only” a quarter an hour over what they were making already. What really hurt was that all the pay grades had to escalate up also. That was a lot of money. The Bell System had over 1.5 Million people. Give everyone a fifty cents per hour raise translates to $20 per week or $1040 per year. That times 1.5 million people is 1.5 billion dollars. It change the economics of the industry.

So my cousin being displaced by automation. To fully automate these almost fully automated elevators cost $250 per elevator. SO the elevator operators were history. And it was the same everywhere in the city. Every company was doing the same thing.

The AT&T management tried to get a place for everyone, but she and many others were at their level of competence. She, as many others, was terminated with a severance package and tears. It was traumatic.

She never worked again. She was crushed. There was a not a lot of demand for unsuccessful operators, remember there was LOTS of them, and she eventual became one of those “discouraged; no longer looking” unemployed.

What this is illustrating is that a government action hurts those at the very bottom rung whose contribution is not worth the higher wage.

(I wish I was as eloquent as Walter Williams, Tom Sowell, or others. Maybe I’ll send this to Doctor Williams for help.)

Raising the minimum wage is like pulling up the bottom rung of the economic ladder.

(I envision a fire escape where the bottom run is unreachable from the street that descends to the street from above when under load. However in this case, let’s imagine the ladder is reachable by every passer by. Each time we raise the minimum wage it get pulled up a little higher. Until it out of reach of everyone but the basketball player. And, eventually it’s out their reach as well. Crazy!)

If a worker can’t make a contribution greater than the cost of his employment, then he doesn’t work. He then is trained to turn to the government for welfare, unemployment, or other relief. Envision the teenager, educated in the government skools, trying to contribute more than he earns. No wonder minority unemployment is huge. No wonder youth unemployment is huge. No wonder the government keeps it this way. You have to look at the margins.

That is why I “like” that elevator operator story. Government imposed a hidden tax and big business looks like the villain.

The Liberals, Conservatives, and Churches in my strongly-held not-so-humble opinion err when they gets into tactical details of the minimum wage. They can say with all their authority that we as individuals in a society have to provide effective compassion for the poor. No argument there! They are well within their area of expertise or common sense. But, the minute they say “raise the minimum wage” they are now into the Economist’s area of expertise.

I believe that we can demonstrate:(1) raising the minimum wage hurts poor people; (2) is used by politicians to give money to the labor unions bosses; (3) is used by politicians to increases the amount of money that they get in taxes; (4) transfers the benefits of effective charity from us as individuals to the government; and (5) trains the citizens to look to government as the savior and protector.

(1) HURTS  I believe this is shown by the anecdote about my cousin being displaced by automation WHEN the government raised the minimum wage. Illustrating that government action hurts those at the very bottom rung whose contribution is not worth the higher wage.

(2) UNION BOSSES Politicians, via the mechanism of raising the overall wage rate of the employment ladder, funnel more money into their contributor’s pockets. Raise the minimum wage. All wages rise to keep the ladder. The side effect is marginal business fail. Union members get a raise. Union dues go up. Thus, politicians have funneled more money into the hands of the union bosses who turn around and contribute to their favorite politicians. Business, who are really just transfer agent, have to raise prices to cover their increased labor costs, if they can. Labor, in general, is now priced higher and at a competitive disadvantage to other political jurisdictions. Can anyone spell “outsourced to India”? No wonder the minium wage is increased very year. Oh yeah, it does. No wonder why some states have higher than the federal government minimum wage. Oh yeah, some do.  No wonder, we’re on a treadmill.

Mental experiment. The politicians raise the minimum wage to $7 per hour. Why not $10? Why not $100? The answer is? The Communist Socialist experiment call USSR demonstrated that politicians can’t manage squat! The reason that America is an economic engine is the relatively free economy, at least by comparison to the rest of the world. Markets enable people to make choices. The market economy ensures that everyone who makes a contribution gets rewarded. Big contributions, big rewards. Little, little. When the government inserts itself into free exchanges, then we have problems. Why not say everyone has to be paid 200k like a politicians? Because there would be no service that anyone, almost anyone, could offer that would be worth that 200k. Oh yeah, maybe hitting a baseball 500 yards. But who’d be in the seats?

(3) TAXES Oh yeah, when you earn your $1 an hour more, 40 times 52 = 2080k per year, guess what happens to the old 1040 next year? Yup, you betcha, you’ll give more to the President, the Governor, and the Mayor. Now when the costs in the federal government, state government, county government, town government, and skool system go up, guess what also will go up? Yup, taxes. And when everything goes up, prices will go up. So who takes it in the tush? Yup, the marginal employee, the fixed income senior citizen, the poor, and businesses that don’t have the ability to raise their prices. Don’t ya just wish they took a gun and robbed you? Oh yeah, they are.

(4) CHARITY I always cite http://www.acton.org/publicat/books/transformwelfare/olasky.html for the principals of effective compassion. If I pay a dollar in tax, then I know a huge percentage is wasted. I give every month to HomeFrontNJ http://www.homefrontnj.org/ to help the poor. I know that Connie Mercer, the director can make 21 nickles out of every dollar that comes in the door. I feel better about that contribution because I know it is being used to make a difference. My taxes go to yet another phony war on poverty. If it was funded by government, they’d take a chunk of my contribution for handling. It’s estimated that 95% of every dollar we give the government is wasted.

http://www.acton.org/ppolicy/compassion/

How are the poor best aided? After a thirty year governmental “War on Poverty” failed to reduce poverty in America, a consensus developed that the centralized entitlement approach of the federal government created more problems than it solved. Consequently, in 1996 welfare reform and its “Charitable Choice” provision paved the way for more involvement by the private sector, especially by faith-based institutions, in helping the poor make the transition from welfare to work. The welfare reform law of 1996 was a first step away from direct federal control of help to the poor and toward private sector solutions-but it was only a first step. The Acton Institute envisions a revivified civil society that is energetically involved in transforming the lives of the poor with a minimum of government intervention. I’d say the government at ALL levels should get out of the charity business.

(5) TRAINING All this government assumption of “space” trains the American population to look to the government for answers. We are as conditioned as sheep ready to be shorn. The pioneer spirit is drained from the average Joe or Jane as more government “help” increases the load we have to carry. The American Revolution was over pennies on the dollar. We have been “baloney sliced” to death. No single slice (i.e., the inflation of our currency, the phony war on drugs, the victim disarmament laws, the wars of aggression, welfare, medicare, medicaid, and “social security”) could be fought, and cumulatively it all loads up the camel.

I know that this is a long. But, it hits a nerve. I am afraid that we may have already killed, or will soon kill, the golden goose of the American dream. We certainly did it to my cousin!

Others have said it much better:

http://www.conciseguidetoeconomics.com/minimumwage/

My bottom line: When some one says “raise the minimum wage”, remember my cousin and what the government stole from her!

http://www.populist.com/06.16.kalet.html

GRASSROOTS/Hank Kalet
Securing Social Security

***BEGIN QUOTE***

President George W. Bush is once again targeting Social Security. But rather than the full-frontal assault he waged against the retirement system shortly after being sworn in for his second term in 2005, he appears to be planning an end run.

***AND***

Bush’s way of dealing with Social Security? Privatization. The Bush plan would allow workers to shift a significant portion of their annual Social Security contributions into private accounts that could be used to invest in mutual funds. The president claims the accounts would give workers more control over their retirement money and a better return on their investments, but his plan really would do nothing more than phase out the current system and leave us all at the mercy of an increasingly volatile market.

***END QUOTE***

Herb, Herb, Herb, what are we going to have to do to convince you that the “great program” of FDR is nothing more than an inter-generation Ponzi scheme that steals from everyone while transferring funds from poor minority men to rich white women?

As you know I have no use for either big government socialist party.

But you can’t just chastise Bush and Kean Jr without mentioning that the other side of the aisle won’t do any better. Menendez refuses to even admit there’s a problem. Any Presidential candidate from either side of the aisle worth their salt will promise to “save” it without any details.

But not to worry, nothing either side of the aisle is going to do will prevent the eventual crack up of Social Security Insurance, Medicare, and the vaunted prescription benefit with the doughnut hole.

Ask any young person about Social Security and they will tell you that they aren’t counting on it. Good! Because it has always been a demographic time bomb. It’s just a socialist welfare program that will evaporate of its own defects as they tinker increasing the age, raising the taxability (Remember the promises that it would never be taxed!), and lowering the “benefit”. Eventually it will just be welfare for old folks.

It’s not insurance. As is often said, if an insurance company executive did what the government did, then all of the executives would be in jail.

Assuming that the various socialists can’t possibly let people save for their own retirement, then we should have true privatization like Chile did in the 70’s.

Recognize that for the poor, their “social security insurance” forced savings might be their biggest asset. That’s why this fraud is so wrong. So fraudulent. So un-american. They are forced to kick in money that they really need, only to have it stolen from them.

Note, I want Chilean privatization, not the Republican ersatz privatization that leaves the government with the keys to the “lock box” (You remember that fiction!).

The interesting example of Chile is that it was done with an illiterate uneducated population with similar deficits and unfunding. You would think, with our First World government educated literate population, we could do as well. I, on the other hand, think we will allow the politicians and the press to fool us into thinking that one side or the other of the aisle cares enough to solve the problem.

Like most children’s tops, the system will eventually go to a lower energy state. That is flat on the table. Woe to any who have to depend on SSI. It’s a government fraud!

Sorry, but I think you are engaging in “wishful thinking” at best, or blatant political bias at worst. Either way, social security insurance is a Katrina style disaster in the financial dimension. The only question is how much death, physical / emotional pain, and civil unrest that we will have to endure.

It’s a national disgrace.

I don’t understand and perhaps someone can explain it to me.

For the most part, the media is left of center in the right left paradigm. They are all big government cheerleaders. On talk radio, one finds some claims to be small government, but that is quickly sniffed out as a lie. Many of the “right” web sites, have roasted Ms. Couric as a leftist. Yet, during her coronation now as a “new anchor”, she gets the rightest of the right talk show guys Rush to cheer-lead for her.

I just don’t understand.

Hence, I avoid all the news interpretation. Just give me the facts and I’ll draw my own conclusions. I think this is a good policy for all the talking heads.

… … you have to be able to persuade someone to do something to avoid the consequences of your prediction.

I call this the “Delphi Oracle” problem. You might be able to predict the future, but you are powerless to change it.

Akin to the cartoons where the Wylie Coyote chases the Roadrunner off the cliff, we are powerless to save others or ourselves from obvious disaster.

So I am befuddled. I lay out the prediction, all the steps leading up to it,  everyone agrees, but we CAN’T change course. We have to run into that brick wall!

Arghh!

http://ahsoon.net/2006/09/01/no-seatbelt-no-excuse/

a russian commercial that is really really good.

Wile I think seat belts are good, as a libertarian, it’s my job to convince you that you should wear one. Besides, how does giving the gubamint money in a “fine” help? It’s the nanny state telling you that you’re to dumb to know what is good for you. Bad decisions allow people to learn. imho

I’ve been wearing my seat belt since I was in injineering school and we did some exercises around the static and dynamic forces. I even had belts put in my cars, before they were required. That tells you how old I am! Never have needed it, but like a gun, never want to need a seat belt and not have it.

Bottom line, they are a great idea.

As far as being trapped, one should have one of those handy dandy class breaker / seat belt cutters handy. (I do.) And, a fire extinguisher. (I used to. Got to use it once. Hmmm.)

But, even if seat belts are the best idea in the world, (and they are right up there), I want you to be convinced, not forced.

When we do things we want to do because we see the merit, then we’ll do them far more often than if some one is “making” you do. I use a teenagers room as anecdotal evidence. I”m sure some college professor has a study to back that up.

And, when the gubamint gets involved, it costs lots of money (i.e., ticket or click it campaign), permanently infringes on our rights, steals from us our time, money, and attention, sends people to jail, and ultimately kills someone.

Maybe instead of seat belt laws, those mythical kids in the commercial might have seen this video on MTV, and made a better decision. The imaginary young girl might have something sexy to the imaginary young boy like “seat belts remind me of bondage” and he’d have had three belts on. At the very least, they would be belting up freely, with greater “compliance” than any law could hope to accomplish, and in the imaginary boy’s case with greater enthusiasm.

So in the extreme, it goes like this, the gubamint says do it to save your life, and if you don’t we’ll kill you.

Seat belts — great idea. Gubamint mandating them — bad idea!

# # # # #

UPDATE: I remember reading that seat belt compliance was higher in NH where there’s no law than in MA where there is one.

# # # # #

I was really annoyed a few years ago when my aunt died. after a life of very modest earnings, leaving a small estate to her sister and paying the State of New Jersey 15% for the privilege of dying here. Well it happened again! Another relative had the poor judgement to die while a resident of New Jersey and will also pay 15% to the grave robbing gubamint. Where’s my pitchfork and torch?

http://www.gadgetspage.com/pda-phone/six-gadget-ettiquette-tips.html

Six Gadget Ettiquette Tips
PDAs and Phones
***Begin Quote***

Gadgets go with us everywhere now. Our cell phones are cameras, gaming devices and even Internet portals. Some of us have a utility belt full of gadgets and they can interfere with our life in ways that ettiquette gurus would have never thought of twenty years ago. Here are six gadget ettiquette tips to keep you from making common mistakes:

1. Only have cell phone conversations in private.

When you are talking on your cell phone, you are not in a phone booth. The conversation can be so involving that you may not realize that there are other people around you, but I assure you, they are. If you are in a public place, the best option is to find a private place to have a conversation. If that is not possible, make sure you keep your voice low and cut the conversation off as quickly as possible (”Look, I’m on a bus and I can’t talk right now. Let me call you back.”).

***End Quote***
Almost as annoying as drivers talking on the cell, is being in a meeting when everyone is playing with the berry, or being on a conference call; hearing the keyboard tapping away, or on that same conference call, when someone’s participation is needed, and the moderator calls out the name, only to hear “sorry what was that i was multitasking”.

It’s all rude!

In Frau Reinke’s recent encounters with medical “help”, I have seen “mistakes” and “blunders” and out and out stupidity. I’m not surprised that medical malpractice insurance is expensive. More than once we have been impacted by handwriting errors, confused instructions, and “that’s not int he written orders”. Arghhh!

***Begin Quote***

Date: Sat, 22 Jul 2006 17:23:04 PDT
From: “Peter G. Neumann” <neumann@csl.sri.com>
Subject: More on medical errors

A major study lists confusion over names and wrong doses among the mistakes,
and urges more use of computers in prescribing drugs.

At least 1.5 million Americans are injured or killed every year by
medication errors at a direct cost of billions of dollars, according to a
report issued Thursday by the prestigious Institute of Medicine in
Washington, D.C.

For hospitalized patients, the report said that on average, one medication
error per day was caused by confusion in drug names, wrong doses, failure to
deliver drugs or a host of other problems.

The study is a follow-up to a 1999 report from the institute, which is part
of the National Academies, that outlined all medical errors and claimed that
as many as 98,000 people were killed each year as a result of medical errors
— 7,000 of them as a result of medication errors. The study lays out a
detailed series of recommendations for new procedures and research to
minimize the risk of future medication errors, emphasizing computerization
of prescribing and administering drugs and data acquisition.

[Source: Medication Errors Hazardous to Your Health, Thomas H. Maugh II,
*Los Angeles Times*, 21 Jul 2006; PGN-ed, tnx to Lauren Weinstein]
http://www.latimes.com/features/health/la-sci-drugs21jul21,0,5771929.story?coll=la-home-health

***End Quote***

Date: Fri, 11 Aug 2006 21:06:54 -0700
From: Lauren Weinstein <lauren@vortex.com>
Subject: Survey on putting electronics in checked airline baggage

[ Please distribute widely, as considered appropriate ]

I’m conducting a little unscientific survey on whether or not airline
passengers are willing to place their expensive or important
electronic equipment in airline checked baggage (whether “locked” or
not, but on most flights unlocked will be required), and how this
would affect their flying patterns.

With the above as preface, there are three questions:

1) Are you willing to place all of your significant electronic equipment
(including laptop or other computers, cellphones, DVD players, iPods,
etc.) in checked baggage for airline flights?

2) If you are required to place such electronic equipment in checked
baggage, would it have a significant negative impact on your willingness
to fly?

3) Do you mainly fly for business or pleasure?

I will only publish aggregated statistics from this survey, unless
individual persons specifically note that their responses may be
released publicly.

To participate in the survey, please e-mail a note (or simply
forward this message) with your responses to:

baggage@vortex.com

Only a one word reply is necessary to each of the questions
unless you wish to add comments, which are invited.

Thanks very much.

Lauren Weinstein
lauren@vortex.com or lauren@pfir.org
Tel: +1 (818) 225-2800
http://www.pfir.org/lauren
Co-Founder, PFIR
– People For Internet Responsibility – http://www.pfir.org
Co-Founder, IOIC
– International Open Internet Coalition – http://www.ioic.net
Moderator, PRIVACY Forum – http://www.vortex.com
Member, ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy
Lauren’s Blog: http://lauren.vortex.com
DayThink: http://daythink.vortex.com

= = = = = = = =

My answers:

1) Are you willing to place all of your significant electronic equipment

NO

2) If you are required to place such electronic equipment in checked

YES

3) Do you mainly fly for business or pleasure?

SINCE 9/11, BUSINESS ONLY. AND, THEN ONLY WHEN UNAVOIDABLE!

As a Libertarian, I think the expansion of government is a bigger threat than “terrorism”. The terrorists can only kill us; the government can enslave us “for our own good”. Then, they rob us (taxes). And, then they kill us.

===

But, then anyone who’s read this blog, could have guessed those answers!

http://www.acton.org/ppolicy/comment/article.php?id=185

Perpetuating Poverty: Lotteries Prey on the Poor
by Jordan Ballor, Associate Editor

**Begin Quote***

A recently released Gallup survey confirms the fears of many who oppose government-promoted gambling: the poorest among us are contributing much more to lottery revenues than those with higher incomes. The poll found that people who played the lottery with an income of less than $20,000 annually spent an average of $46 per month on lottery tickets. That comes out to more than $550 per year and it is nearly double the amount spent in any other income bracket.

The significance of this is magnified when we look deeper into the figures. Those with annual incomes ranging from $30,000 to $50,000 had the second-highest average — $24 per month, or $288 per year. A person making $20,000 spends three times as much on lottery tickets on average than does someone making $30,000. And keep in mind that these numbers represent average spending. For every one or two people who spend just a few bucks a year on lotteries, others spend thousands.

All of this is taking place in a system of legalized gambling that is monopolized and promoted by those in political power. Where state governments are supposed to be looking after the welfare of their citizenry, the commonwealth of all the people, the establishment of a lottery has in fact betrayed the citizenry.
***End Quote***

Let’s trot out my three favorite arguments about gubamint programs: ethics, effectiveness, and efficiency.

(1) Ethically

For the government to literally rob the poorest segment of its people is immoral. For the socialists, who go by the label “liberal” today, but bear NO resemblance to the Classical Liberals of history who advocated liberty, where is their justification for it. For the socialists, who go by the label “conservative” today, but bear NO resemblance to the Barry Goldwater / Ronald Regan small government low taxes conservatives, where is their justification for it. Now while the Lottery, and other State sponsored forms of government gambling, may not be a tax in the strict definition of the word. A tax is anything we pay the government that we can NOT avoid paying. You can avoid the lottery. But then the drug addict can avoid the pusher. The alcoholic can avoid the bar. The smoker can avoid the Tobacco Company. But, the State in this case is preying on the poor as surely as the Drug Pusher, the Bar Owner, and the Tobacco Company Executive. Even worse, by its vice laws, the State ensures that there is no competition to its robbery. Back in my younger days, when my in-laws played the numbers, the bookie would pay 750-1 on a straight three digit number bet. True odds were one in a thousand. The state lottery when it was introduced paid 500-1. It’s been reduced since to 250-1. And there was a huge crackdown on the numbers runners to “protect the people from Organized Crime”. No mention of protecting a very lucrative State fund raiser. But the lottery was for education. Except later we found out that it was very expensive to run the lottery and there were lots of things that were considered “education” like guards for road trash gangs. What a joke! I’d judge it as “unethical”; wouldn’t you?

=

(2) Effectively

OK, ethics aside, how effective is the lottery? The stated objectives of the lottery, that I remember, were (a) to raise funds for education; and (b) eliminate organized crime. Now days, there is no mention of the reasons why we have such a “near tax”. If the objective was to raise money for state gubamint, then it’s a rousing success. “.. the gross sales for the Lottery’s first full year, Fiscal 1972, were over $137 million. The Lottery’s phenomenal growth and popularity were reflected in gross sales of some $1.2 billion only 21 years later in Fiscal 1991.” Consider that most of that comes DIRECTLY from poor people, it’s a stunning “user fee”. As far as I know, schools are still rotten and funded mostly with absurdly high property taxes. Organized Crime move into drugs. So it took them from a relatively peaceful activities to a very corrosive one. I’d judge it as “ineffective”; woudln’t you?

=

(3) Efficiently

OK, ethics aside, effectiveness aside, how efficient is the lottery? From the players perspective not very. A roulette game pays 35-1 for a one in thirty eight shot. That’s about a 97% return. Using the Pick3 as a proxy, it is the  best case, it pays 275-1 for a one in a thousand shot. That’s about a 72% return. Hmmm? AND, if there is a disaster, like that train wreck over the hackensack river bridge, where there is a number picture on the newspaper’s front page, they suspend play on that number. It’s amazing how many of those hit “breaking” the bank. So any time a sucker might actually win, then they change the rules. All legal of course. I’d judge it as “inefficient” from the player’s perspective; woudln’t you?

You can’t judge the “efficiency” from the gubamint’s perspective because not only does it bring lots of money in for pork projects. It also provides jobs for hacks, post-gubamint hiding places for politicians at obscene salaries. It gives contracts to the friends of gubamint. So, it’s a winner from the gubamint’s perspective.

=

So I’d say that about wraps it up. The gubamint needs to get out of the “lottery” business! IMHO

OK, while I wouldn’t do it, or more accurately smoke while pregnant, or more accurately want my wife to smoke if she was pregnant.

We have to allow people the freedom to make their own choices. Mistakes will happen. And people should bear the responsibility for the choices that they make.

But, the pic is funny. Worry about jack hammers? Worry about smoking? Which is the more proximate hazard?

But it’s her body and her pregnancy. I would no more tell her what to do than I would want some one to take away my McDonald’s French Fries because “everyone knows those are bad for you”!

(I almost tapped out a bad word about being quiet!)

MYOB!

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=51331

***Begin Quote***

Ask the 1.5 million Armenians massacred by the Ottoman Turks;
or the 6 million Ukrainians slaughtered by Stalin;
or the tens of millions of other Soviet citizens killed by Stalin’s Soviet Union;
or the 6 million Jews murdered by the Nazis and their helpers throughout Europe;
or the 60 million Chinese butchered by Mao;
or the 2 million Cambodians murdered by Pol Pot;
or the millions killed and enslaved in Sudan;
or the Tutsis murdered in Rwanda’s genocide;
or the millions starved to death and enslaved in North Korea;
or the million Tibetans killed by the Chinese;
or the million-plus Afghans put to death by Brezhnev’s Soviet Union.
Ask any of these poor souls, or the hundreds of millions of others slaughtered, tortured, raped and enslaved in the last 100 years, if “world opinion” did anything for them.
***End Quote***

Those numbers are staggering. And, many of them have no dimension to them, for example lots of Tutsis!

Governments kill their citizens. Period!

Hence we should always be keeping gubamint small, hungry, and in check. Actually maybe we should keep our government in the Check Republic (partially joking). At the very least, the politicians and gubamint workers should be in Prison Clothes. Partially so we take them as seriously as they should be.  And, partially, so they know where they’re going when they hurt a citizen. And, you know they will. Can you see the House of Representatives being in session in Orange Jump Suits? And, when they enter and leave, that will be the “perp walk”. Do NOT ask me what I have in mind for Trenton!

You don’t? TOO BAD!

This morning 01 August at 0705 edst on Route 1 thru Pton … …

… … a yellow panel truck td01475 … …

… down route 1 at a leisurely 70 (Your serf speed limit is 55)

… tailgating the poor peon in his way

… never left the left lane

Any way I am sure that he was hurrying to get to I assume trenton to protect and serve me.

Arghhh!

You don’t? TOO BAD!

Yesterday afternoon at 1718 edst on route 295 north milepost 41.6 … …

… … a car sg 21573 … …

… rushed by in the far left lane at a leisurely 75 (Your serf speed limit is 65)

… tailgating the poor peon in his way

… never left the left lane

Any way I am sure that he was hurrying to get to I assume trenton to turn in “his” “my” car after a difficult day of protecting and serving the serfs of the Pepulls Republik of Nu Jerzey. Was he working overtime? So was I paying him to speed, so he could punch the clock, and I could stop paying him. Hmmm.

Arghhh!

Note that 101.5 today is reporting that only one sixth of the tax increase is going to close the “budget gap”; the rest is for pork! Doesn’t anyone else find that amusing? The politicians pulled another fast one. AND, as I believe I mentioned, back on Wall Street, old Jon would have closed that budget gap with some good old fashioned cost cutting. But he wasn’t spending his money! Vote ’em all out. And, send them to jail for fraud.

Nothing dumber. It is obviously trigger ed by a motion sensor. “Welcome to McDonalds. May I take your order?” Don’t start ordering then because you will just have to repeat it when the clerk’s ready. Dumb!

Frau Reinke in the hospital relates the following tale:

***Begin Quote***

They gave me my morning meds, and they told me that they don’t stock the 320 mg version of diovan, so they gave me six 60 mg pills.
***End Quote***

Hmmm, 6*60=320?

Interesting what a precise science medicine is!

Saint Peter’s Hospital in New Brunswick New jersey charges 450 cents per day for the TV rental. That works out to 135$ per month. The TV ain’t nothing grand. The content provision is poor. Talk about sticking it to some poor people. Phone service is unavailable in the ICU. But, I suspect it will also be 450 cents per day for unlimited incoming and unlimited local outgoing calls. It can’t cost anywhere near that. I wonder how much this all adds to the bottom line of the hospital? For laughs, I think I’ll complain to the BPU. That should be a real waste of time.

Frau is in the hospital. Once again, I take up my keyboard to rant about what passes for “health care” today. Of course, I blame it ultimately on the gubamint. I have some direct and indirect reasoning. My rant goes like this:
(1) A hospital is basically a hotel for sick people. One should get “sicker” by something you catch in the hospital. I remember reading that Doctor’s ties were a residual source of infection, reinfection, and cross patient infection. Seems like we need a new “uniform” for doctors, nurses, orderlies, and housekeeping. A suit and a tie doesn’t necessarily inspire confidence. In my hospital, I’d have turtlenecks. And, colors to differentiate roles.

(2) When I go to Marriott, Hilton, or such, everyone is falling all over to satisfy me. When I pay at the checkout, they are interested if I’ll be coming back. Hotel rates are very competitive. At the hospital, no one much gives a rip. It’s an a la carte process with no holistic care. If a nurse needs to take everyone’s bp, then wake up the patient sleeping to get one’s tasks done. That wouldn’t happen at the local Marriott. Meals, cleaning, testing, doctor’s visits, all revolve around the service provider; not the client!

(3) The gubamint’s wage and price controls in WWII led companies to offer “medical insurance” as a back door way to evade the controls. That one thing has done more to mess up American medical care than anything I can think of. I remember when my Mom had to pay cash for my appendix operation. Care was first rate. Everyone was so helpful. That’s the thing we forget, the golden rule, he who has the gold makes the rules. In this case, it’s the gubamint and the insurance companies making the rules.

(4) The gubmint, via its Medicare and Medicaid rules, has inserted itself directly into the medical decisions of everyone’s care. Everyone! Even if you’re not covered by Medicare / Medicaid, they establish a standard of care. The insurance companies use that. They have coding and such that they piggy back on. Needless to say it’s a mess.

(5) So in a Libertarian America, the government would have NO role in medicine. The truly free marketplace would serve us all. You have the GOLD and make your own rules. One can foresee certain OBVIOUS market accommodations. Hospitals would be more like a hotel and less like a prison. Doctors would be holistic orchestra leaders working at keeping you healthy.  Insurance companies would be working to satisfy you, not your employer. Hence, the premiums would reflect your needs; into the government’s; not the employers.

(6) True charity care would be provided. Just not by the gubamint at the point of a gun. Remember that hospitals were CREATED by the religious and fraternal organizations. As were insurance companies. I remember when you bought Life Insurance from the Knights of Columbus. We need to return to that simpler time, when we VOLUNTARILY organized to solve problems.

(7) If one looks at the inefficiency of a government program or a government-regulated industry, one has a HUGE infrastructure cost of checking and rechecking. One analogy for medical care I read was give the government a dollar for 25 cents worth of service that they decide you can have. Let me keep my buck and I’ll bet I can get more than 25 cents worth of service for it. And, it will be the services that I want. And, people will be falling over themselves to have me pick them.

The free market is people having their needs and wants satisfied by greedy people in a very efficient and effective manner. No checking needed. No overhead required.

http://www.impactlab.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=8825

***Begin Quote***

A man was beaten by workers of an electric company after they, together with the police and passers-by, persuaded him off a power tower as he planned to commit suicide, Beijing Times reported today.

***End Quote***

I’m not so sure that if I’m the next nut job there that I’d beleive promises made next time. It such a tragedy the way we treat the mentally ill. If there is such a thing as “mental illness”? Fine line between genius and madness. The validity of the “insanity defense”. It all flows from our lack of respect for, appreciation of, the value of life.

http://www.broadbandreports.com/shownews/76234

USF: The Bureaucrat’s Dream
Fraud, waste, and no oversight
Posted on 2006-07-11 08:48:54
*** QUOTE ***

We’ve long illuminated the fraud, waste and dysfunction inherent in the FCC’s USF and E-rate systems, which you pay into each month via various bills to help fund rural telecom deployment. Because the system is poorly monitored by the FCC, some allege it’s at best a slush fund for the incumbent telcos.

*** QUOTE ***
And, this is a surprise! Eliminate the FCC; the marketplace will organize itself faster, cheaper, and better.

Hey, I r an injineer!

If you don’t care for my innovative spelling techniques, or {gasp} if you think I have made a  mistake, or {gasp}{gasp} that I might be wrong, you might consider leaving a comment!

I’ll figure out how to fix it in such a way so as not to detract from you overall high opinion of my blog.

(Although, I do wonder why you are reading my blog as opposed to the many great ones out there.)

Arghhh, have to try to “spel more bettr”!

http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/wire/
sns-ap-new-jersey-budget,0,7260047.story?coll=sns-ap-nationworld-headlines

New Jersey Budget Deal Reached
By TOM HESTER JR.
Associated Press Writer
July 6, 2006, 2:55 PM EDT
***Begin Quote***
TRENTON, N.J. — New Jersey leaders agreed on a state budget Thursday following a six-day government shutdown that shuttered casinos and threw more than 80,000 people out of work, a high-ranking Statehouse official said.
*** AND ***

The deal includes a sales tax increase that would raise $1.1 billion a year, a different high-ranking Statehouse official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. Half of the new money would be used to lower property taxes this year, and all of it would go for that purpose next year, the official said.

***End Quote***

Ahh, yes, more money to pump down the rat hole in Trenton!

Did I mention that I have joined the Boston Tea Party?

OK sheep,

Here is today’s lesson in how greedy government is.

Bear in mind that for the most part “parking meters” are not a tax. If you can avoid it, then it’s a “fee” not a “tax”.

For the normally healthy adult visiting Seaside Heights, there is plenty of free parking a few blocks from the boardwalk.

And up until July 1st, there was some free handicapped parking close to the boardwalk. But the local politicians seeing a source of revenue has now made them metered spaces. You still have to have the handicapped placard but you know have to pay.

Since it is not “reasonable” to expect a handicapped person to park down in the free area and hike the four blocks to and from the boardwalk, this is now in my mind a tax on the handicapped.

Intelligent designer forbid that the local pigs not get ever cent possible to waste.

As soon as the NJ governemnt shutdown ends (another farce), I will inquire of the various levels of kings and petty lords, how this is possible?