Spill, Baby, Spill!!!!

OK - It's been over a month since the oil rig disaster started, and little seems to have changed since day one. What is so frustrating is that there is nothing government could do once the disaster started - it had no experts with enough knowledge to take charge of things.

So what do we do?

First, let's stop all the noise making and really look for policy changes that will help prevent problems like this from happening, or will lessen the degree of headaches they will cause.

Second, let's get the Army Corps of Engineers involved with developing "best practices" for every risky technology. That will mean that over a period of 20 years or so, they will have to be in-place observers of industry, learning by doing - but not part of industry. We can then use the list of practices just built for a repeatable set of procedures which industry can follow to prevent disaster.

Third, let's clean up MMR. At first, we'll still have political hacks in charge. But over time, we can find places for the elite from the Army Corps to enter civilian life, and regulate the industries they observed as honest umpires and rule makers. (Even Lou Durocher believed in having good rules, so he'd have an idea of how he could cheat.)

Fourth, to gradually eliminate the need for imported or high risk oil, let's take this as an opportunity to enact Pickens' Plan - a gradual conversion to a natural gas and wind power economy. We have enough natural gas for a 200 year supply, and we export this gas to the rest of the world. Wind power is inexhaustible.

These are simple changes for which we have a short window of opportunity to get politicians to do our will.... So let's write legislative representatives and get things moving!!!!

Arizona

It's important to note that most Americans are pro-immigration. They simply want government to enforce its immigration laws. Sadly, both political parties are paralyzed because they covet the Latino vote - and that a clampdown on illegal immigration will cause the party responsible to lose the Latino vote for a generation. Arizona is on the front line - and can not afford to pay the price for Federal government inaction. So it made the right move - pass a very popular law (for Anglos) and unpopular law (for Latinos) which forces the Federal political infrastructure to take notice of a major problem.

Before people criticize Arizonans for passing this law, they should examine Mexico's treatment of illegal immigrants at its own Southern border. If they did, Arizona's actions seem quite tame. If one looks at Mexico as two regions, North and South, one would see that the South is under control of the central government, and prospers because of remittances sent from its citizens living in the USA. In Mexico's North, the narcotics "industry" rules - and Mexico's leadership also prospers because of this. Illegal drugs are shipped to the USA, and dollars are repatriated to Mexico. The Mexican drug industry has diversified, and has now gone into the business of transporting illegal immigrants into the USA - with the tacit approval of the Mexican government.

Should Arizona pay for the Federal government's irresponsibility - NO! But in an ideal world, only the US Federal government would need to take actions regarding immigration policy. Sadly, this is not an ideal world. I think the result of Arizona's law will cause other states to take similar actions, causing the immigration battle to go to the Supreme Court of the USA.

Most of the illegal immigrants are here because they want to work. Much of this work is that which native Americans don't want to do. And we prosper because of these immigrants. But if we shut off the pipeline for these immigrants, we'll see wages go up - as happened down South. (A slaughterhouse was raided, and about 400+ illegal immigrants were rounded up. As a result, wages in the area went up, and Walmart increased its hourly wage by $2.00+ per hour due to a labor shortage.)

These illegal immigrants (and I must stress that they have no right to be here) are pawns in a bigger game - Big business wants labor who is underpaid and who will not fight for safe, healthy, well paid work. Elected officials want votes, but are afraid to alienate any important political bloc. The general public simply wants to be safe in their homes, safe on their property, and safe in their community. And the illegal immigrant simply wants to work hard and take care of his/her family. How will this mess get sorted out? I'm not sure, but forcing the Federal government's hand is a good start - even though it turns innocent people into pawns. Hopefully, we'll end up with a rational immigration policy, where more legal immigration will be authorized for law abiding people, where the value of one's labor is a factor in deciding who can come here, and where government again works for the people to make the hard decisions that we ask it to make....

Paying for it all....

In another blog, I note that my niece's generation will be expected to pay for the Boomers' Social Security needs. The problem with this is that this generation is being expected to pay for the sins of their parents and grandparents. Is this fair? To the young adults now graduating from college, the social contract is a rip off. Many of these adults are crippled with student debt, and there are few jobs available for them to earn the money to pay off this debt. Couple this with increasing Social Security taxes (which will shift wealth from the relatively frugal young to the wasteful older generations) and you may see major (but passive) social disruption.

What will happen if the younger generation decides not to work as hard as their forbears, as they will not get their full rewards for working hard or for taking risks? If they decide to live on lower salaries (because good jobs are no longer available) and within their means (because cheap credit is no longer available), what will happen to the Ponzi scheme (read: Social Security) that the older generations now depend?

We know that most of the low income jobs out there do not provide medical benefits. Would it make sense for young Americans to consider leaving the United States for opportunities in better managed countries (with better social safety nets)? I'm beginning to think that it no longer makes sense for the average young American to limit his/her horizons to the United States. But what does this mean?

Let's say that someone of my niece's age decides to move to Canada. The Loonie (read: Canadian Dollar) has traded at near parity with the American Dollar during the past year, and is likely to do it again. Since nominal Canadian salaries are in the same dollar range as American salaries, it might make sense for a person who wants greater stability to leave the USA for the land of Tim Horton's Donuts and Coffee. Let's now say that the person wants to take greater risks for greater rewards. American ex-pats are doing very well in many places across the globe - as long as they are knowledge workers whose trades follow them around.

Right now, I don't think the United States will self destruct. But I think we must address these important issues:

1. How do we pay off our debts without bankrupting our younger, and soon to be child-bearing generation?
   
2. How do we provide this generation with enough opportunities, so that they can afford to have children (and reproduce above ZPG)?
3. How do we provide this and future generations with the confidence they will need to prosper, whatever the world hands to them?

I don't have any easy answers. But I think it is the responsibility of the Boomers to see that their needs do not take priority over the needs of their children. The Boomers must also make it possible for their children to afford to have children of their own - lest we solely depend on immigration to have a growing work force. And lastly, the Boomers should make quiet sacrifices for their offspring, so that their offspring will know challenges - and have the confidence to overcome those challenges.

Stalemate - The all American way

It's been several months since our president floated the balloons which he hoped would morph into an American health care system - and I'm very disappointed at the results. Not only do we have nothing we can be proud of, but we've shown that our political system is completely dysfunctional. Even the pundits on Sunday Morning talk shows are starting to talk about the need for a third party - to break the log jam and address many of the issues America needs to tackle now.

The so called "tea parties" are showing increased voter frustration at government. Right now, they tend to tag the Democrats with the responsibility for our mess. But once they put the Republicans in charge, they will find them just as impotent in getting an agenda passed. When will they learn that Washington itself is the problem? But even if they realize this, it will not be enough. Approximately 80% of Federal spending is mandated - Who wants to tell our seniors that they have to die earlier so that we don't spend as much paying for their health care? I certainly don't. Who wants to tell our seniors that they can't retire on time, because we've squandered the "investments" which were meant to pay for their retirements? I certainly don't. But who wants to pay more into a system to cover expenses which were inadequately funded that are now coming due with the Baby Boomer retirements? I certainly don't. And if the rest of America is like me, then we have problems. We are going to be forced into making some very hard and unpopular choices - and will have hell to pay for decades of inaction.

I propose some simple actions:

1. Immediately push forward the dates to collect social security at full benefit levels by three years. Early retirement would take place at 65 instead of 62.
2. For those who have already retired and are collecting Social Security before the enaction of proposal #1 above, a new Federal Estate tax of 10% (on all affected persons' estates) to bulk up the coffers of Social Security.
3. Increasing the quotas for new immigrants, so that they can bulk up the funding for Social Security. (If we aren't growing our population by native birth rate, we might as well import new immigrants to help pay for current expenses.)
4. Implementing an import tariff based on the balance of payments. When we are earning more money from exports than we are paying out for imports - there is no tariff change, or there will be a slight reduction to put the payments in balance. When we are not earning enough money from exports to pay for the goods and services we import, we raise the tariff enough to buy fewer enough foreign goods to being our payments into balance.
5. Replacing a significant portion of America's income taxes with equivalent consumption taxes to spur investment. We could use a floor, where everyone gets a consumption tax rebate, so that the net tax change to our poor would be nil - yet, we'd discourage the needless consumption of underpriced foreign goods that are putting American workers on the unemployment lines.
6. Implementing the "Pickens Plan" to shift America's energy use from expensive imported oil to renewable resources such as wind power.

One problem - do we trust our government NOT to hide net tax increases to fund their pet pork projects?

The disgruntled blogger.

The desk of a typical blogger

This is what my desk looks like on a typical day.

Not much to look at, but it is my desk. (You should have seen the mess when I still had my cat!)