The Democrat party tries to paint the Republican party as "only catering to the rich." Talk to any Democrat for more than 5 minutes, and you'll surely hear this argument  But 48% of the American population is not rich (Romney's share), 7 out of the 10 richest members of congress are Democrats, and 8 of the top 10 richest counties in the country voted for Obama. Hmmmm, what does that tell you?

Airport X-Ray Scanners

I went on vacation last month and the joys of travel descended upon me once again. I'd generally have to say that I get really infuriated by the TSA with their X-ray scanners. Of course, I opt out every single time, but I am annoyed that I am even expected to go through the process, and of course the alternative is getting molested. So why do I opt out? (you probably didn't even know that was an option, did you?)

1) The first thing is that I don't believe that these machines will prevent terrorism. There are too many ways to thwart the machines, they have many vulnerabilities, and they don't address the fact that if a terrorist is about to die, what is to stop him from inserting explosives into his body cavities? What will be next, random body cavity searches? Or maybe they will just turn up the juice on these machines and give everybody a full body chest x-ray.

2) I think they are an invasion of privacy. Being able to see underneath clothing? Call me a prude, but that's just wrong. Everyone is now treated as a criminal before boarding a plane.

3) The most important reason: No amount of X-ray radiation is beneficial and x-rays have an accumulative effect in the body over time. What does the National Academy of Sciences have to say about x-ray exposure?

The committee's thorough review of available biological and biophysical data supports a "linear, no-threshold" (LNT) risk model, which says that the smallest dose of low-level ionizing radiation has the potential to cause an increase in health risks to humans...The scientific research base shows that there is no threshold of exposure below which low levels of ionizing radiation can be demonstrated to be harmless or beneficial.

The European union banned x-ray scanners pending review "in order not to risk jeopardising citizens' health and safety, [and] only security scanners which do not use X-ray technology are added to the list of authorised methods for passenger screening at EU airports." In September 2012, the machines were scrapped permanently. Research has suggested that, despite the low radiation dosage, that because of the large number of scanners in the U.S., hundreds of passengers a year could get cancer. TSA personnel really have it bad since they are standing next to these machines all day long. It will be interesting to see if in ten or so years time, the TSA agents develop higher than normal levels of cancer. There have already been reports of an increase in cancer cases among the TSA workers. But that is also the problem: It is hard to determine cause and effect when the time between the two is on the matter of decades. The government glossed over cancer concerns and many prominent scientists have raised objections to the safety.

Sure, the TSA claims that the technology is safe. Does that make you feel better that a government contractor has told you what is safe? Never mind the fact that there has yet to be any independent testing of these machines. Scientists have wondered how the stated radiation exposure could be so low and have hypothesized that the actual exposure could be 10 to 20 times the manufacturer’s calculations. And how many times has a government agency claimed something was safe and it was later found out not to be? They don't have the best track record. Agent Orange, perhaps? FDA approved Vioxx, maybe? These types of cases happen all the time. Oops.

Poor Teachers? Yeah Right!

Only last year, teachers of Wisconsin striked to increase their pay. Governor Scott Walker passed a bill that weakened their power to collective bargain because the state was up against a wall on the costs of their total compensation and benefits. This led to many disruptive and expensive protests which cost the capitol over $8 million dollars to clean up and it also led to an unsuccessful election recall of the governor. So what was the big disagreement about? Teachers receiving about 3 times the compensation that a private sector worker receives in pension and benefits. The total package costs were over $100,000 per teacher, on average. Can you imagine that kind of compensation for 9 months of work ? These teachers expected that their generous compensation package should be continued to be pushed onto the backs of taxpaying citizens.


So there seems to be another public workers strike in the hotseat right now. This time it is Chicago teachers and what are they fighting about? Not surprisingly, it comes down to compensation. However, what is surprising is that Chicago teachers are the highest paid in the country (they make even more than New York City teachers) and still want more! They 'earn' $76,000 in cash a year for 9 months of work. That's $101,333 annualized, folks! And that is NOT even including the extravagant benefits and pension packages which brings the total way into the six-figure level per teacher per year. What happened to that old stereotype that used to be passed around the liberal airwaves of the poor teachers who were barely surviving?

Imagine being a glorified babysitter pulling in a six figure income. That must be nice. But apparently not nice enough as they want more! Of course they claim that they are striking for the kids, but no, they are striking for themselves. They are refusing a 16% pay raise (over 4 years) and do not want to be held accountable to standardized tests. Many of these same people were quick to throw the greedy label at others in the past, but they themselves are just as greedy. How about they just send you a paycheck and you come and teach only on days you feel like it? Would you like that deal better?

Where unions may have provided some benefit over a century ago when our country was going through the industrial revolution and labor laws were not enacted, not much can be said about them positively these days. Unions should once and for all be outlawed. At the very least, they should be outlawed in the public sector where taxpayers are forced to pay the tab.

Liberal Cities and Conservative Suburbs

A democracy cannot exist as a permanent  form  of government. It can only exist until a majority of voters discover that they can vote themselves largess out of the public treasury.

Often attributed to Alexander Tyler.

With the election at center stage, I pondered why it is that large cities vote for liberal Democrats while suburban and rural areas vote for conservative Republicans. When you really break it down, there are actually a lot of reasons why this would be the case.

For starters, generally cities contain a large number of low income earners, which Democrats cater to with their message and support for welfare, food stamp benefits and other low income programs. Cities also contain more minorities, which ties in slightly with the previous point but also because Democrats have been able to project the image of progressiveness and support for their causes. During the 2008 election Obama touted that he didn't look like one of the old white guys on the dollar bill, and his message was change. Democrats also have overwhelming support for legislation that benefits minorities, such as the Dream Act, which gives illegal immigrants a free pass of amnesty to become citizens. Other minorities such as homosexuals generally flock to cities and Democrats lend support to gay marriage and their causes (Many Republican politicians appear to be deeply religious and not willing to make concessions on this topic).
Cities are also bastions for unions, which yield a lot of power where they still exist. Democrats repeatedly express support for union causes and liberals generally view businesses as evil entities exploiting workers and unions being necessary to provide their members with "fair" wages. Of course, they don't consider the many negatives that unions have.

In many ways, all of the above can be seen as the Democrats buying votes with the idea that whoever can hand out the most freebies or concessions wins a greater share of votes.

Furthermore, Democrats support large government while Republicans support smaller government. Inside cities, there are large numbers of people who work for the government (unionstats.com shows that 15-20% of workers in cities are government workers!). The livelihood of these workers depend on having a large government for not only their jobs, but possibly even their friends and family. These jobs are generally higher paying than the private sector and they are generally jobs that one cannot be fired from because the free market does not exist in the government world. Of course this is financed with higher taxes on the population, but this appears to be accepted even though more money for the government employees directly means less money for the private citizens of that city.

Cities also provide many amenities that only require a small outlay per individual but yield large benefits for the masses (parks, subways, and other amenities). It can appear as if the government provided many of the amenities for free, especially if one is on the lower side of the tax scale. In that case, one would want a large government to provide even more services.

Crime is usually higher in cities due to population density, so more government intrusion such as gun control is tolerated, and perhaps even encouraged, which also goes along with the large government theme.

Cities attract a large number of unmarried, young singles who generally lend support to liberal Democrats. The youth seem to support Democrats because not only do Democrats have the more progressive image, cater to topics important to them such as student loans, but also because they are not at the height of their earning careers and therefore not being taxed heavily. It is probably also related to the overwhelming exposure to liberal ideals touted by teachers and professors. Furthermore, Republicans generally espouse support for the 'traditional family' which one is more likely to find out in the suburbs inside households.

The ideals of conservatives and liberals are also different. Conservatives espouse individualism and merit whereas urban crowd thinking espouses collectivism and group-think.

In many cities, the share of conservatives is less than 20% of the voting populous. Do Republicans have to open the borders, expand social programs, and demonize business to attract more supporters in cities?

Sending Money Overseas

There's one concept seems a little contradictory to me. Many people are pissed off when an illegal immigrant works here and then sends money out of the country and back home; They are ready to start lynching when a millionaire invests overseas, with a factory or such.

But then they have absolutely no problem when billionaires like Gates and Buffett send billions of dollars overseas to provide direct services for Africans. In all three cases money is leaving the country. So is money that leaves for the reason of increasing the world population with direct food and services somehow more noble than providing jobs for people so that they can feed themselves and at the same time increase the world GDP?

Direct aid is money that is vaporized and never has a prospect of returning. It also does nothing to "teach them to fish." An investment in a factory produces goods that people can use, provides a productive activity for employees, the business owners earn a return on their money, and one day the factory may be sold and the profits brought home if a new investment opportunity in the country is appealing (and tax incentives are fair). Furthermore, direct aid just increases the world population which then increases environmental damage with a never ending feedback loop that requires more and more money. And finally, while it helps some individuals, it does nothing to help humanity, such as what disease or vaccine research would (The Gates Foundation does do some of this).

I don't care where anyone spends their own money. That is their business and they could wipe their asses with twenties for all I care. But I just think that when people start talking about other people's money business, they should really look a little closer at the concept.

Henry Ford's $5 a Day Wage

There is a new populist meme that has been floating around and seems to get recycled ad infinitum by a former stock fraudster Henry Blodget who was banned for life from the securities industry. He has columns on Yahoo finance and his own business news site, so his message goes the distance. His message, like others is that "Henry Ford was famous for voluntarily paying his employees more than he had to to keep them--so they could afford to buy his cars."
First off, doesn't that argument seem a bit circular to anyone? You increase the cost of producing the car by paying employees more so they can afford to buy them? Okay, so there is less profit accruing to the business owners. Why not just decrease the price so that more than just the firm's employees can afford them? Sales would be higher than the limit of the number of workers that you have building the cars. And would that make sense for yacht manufacturers to increase the wages of workers so that they could afford to buy those too? That doesn't sound like a winning business model to me.

Ford's actual priority was to fix the turnover problem that was costing the company a lot of money and disrupting the production line.
"In 1913, Ford hired more than 52,000 men to keep a workforce of only 14,000. New workers required a costly break-in period, making matters worse for the company. Also, some men simply walked away from the line to quit and look for a job elsewhere. Then the line stopped and production of cars halted."
That is a lot of searching, training and breaks to an assembly line.

And if there were any doubt, you can read it on Ford's own website,
"While Henry's primary objective was to reduce worker attrition—labor turnover from monotonous assembly line work was high—newspapers from all over the world reported the story as an extraordinary gesture of goodwill."

And it was not every employee in the company that got the large wage (actually only about 21% of the workforce, which also included a lot of limitations) and by accepting that wage, the worker had to agree to be subjected to a gestapo style character enforcement which prevented workers from engaging in sin activities such as drinking and gambling.

Let's stick to just presenting the facts and not try to re-write history for political purposes, shall we Henry?

Obama wants the ability to imprison US citizens infidelity without trial, with the National Defense Authorization Act.

Remember all that infrastructure rebuilding that Obama once touted? Well much of it went to Chinese firms and workers. Good job with those jobs Obama.

Notice how payroll taxes have increased over the last 60 years? Social Security costs cannot be contained and have continued to increase to pay for the benefits of current retirees. You didn't think that social security was an investment did you?

Obama's Socialist Rant

To all you business owners out there: "If you've got a business, you didn't build that. Somebody else made that happen....If you've been successful, you didn't get there on your own," Obama said Monday. He goes on to say that the wealthy should pay a little bit more. I ask, a little bit more than what? The wealthy are already paying a LOT more. With the top 1% paying 40% of all federal income taxes, and a progressive tax that continues to punish the successful the more they make, how much more does this socialist want? Everybody uses roads, everybody uses national defense, everybody had a teacher at one point (and don't forget, we ALREADY are paying taxes for these), but I fail to see how these directly help someone make more money than another person when everyone is faced with the same infrastructure. The key differences are the choices that the person who started a business made and the choices the person who walked over to the welfare line made. If the presence of government is what makes one rich, then why isn't everyone rich? I'll raise the stakes: why is it that the government is saying more people are "poor" and have added them to the government dole as government has gotten bigger?

Over at Investor's Business Daily, there is a an excellent critque of Obama's ignorant words such as, "Is it a coincidence that virtually the only people President Obama gives credit to for anything are teacher and construction unions?"
And a quote that just nails it, "Michelangelo didn't paint the Sistine Chapel, you know. Credit must be given to the folks who built the scaffolding and the inventor of paint."