Tidbits
Political Quotations
To Accompany the August 11, 2015 edition of Tidbits
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/tidbits/2015/tidbits063015.htm
Bob Jensen at
Trinity University
Election Information --- http://www.rockthevote.com/get-informed/elections/
OpenSecrets (money and politics blog) --- https://www.opensecrets.org
Only those who
will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.
T.S. Eliot
Be brave enough to start a conversation that matters.
Margaret Wheatley,
We must be willing to get rid of the life we've planned, so as to have the life
that is waiting for us.
Joseph Campbell
If everyone is thinking alike, then somebody isn't thinking.
George S. Patton
Happiness is like a butterfly: the more you chase it, the more it will elude
you, but if you turn your attention to other things, it will come and sit softly
on your shoulder.
Henry David Thoreau
Hayek’s most striking intellectual trait was one
uncommon in academic life – independence of mind, which enabled him to swim
against some of the most powerful currents of the age.
John Gray ---
http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2015/07/john-gray-friedrich-hayek-i-knew-and-what-he-got-right-and-wrong
In Honor of His 103rd Birthday, Here Are The 20 Best
Quotes From The Late, Great Milton Friedman ---
Click Here
http://townhall.com/columnists/johnhawkins/2015/08/01/in-honor-of-his-103rd-birthday-here-are-the-20-best-quotes-from-the-late-great-milton-friedman-n2033298?utm_source=thdaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl&newsletterad=
Islamic State Circulates Sex Slave Price List:
ISIS puts price for boys and girls aged 1 to 9 at about $165 ---
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-08-03/sex-slaves-sold-by-islamic-state-the-younger-the-better?cmpid=BBD080415_BIZ
It's no longer necessary to blow yourself up to get virgins
FACT-CHECK: GOP candidates veer from the truth in
1st debate
Josh Lederman ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/ap-fact-check-gop-candidates-veer-from-the-truth-in-1st-debate-2015-8#ixzz3i8QkF7d8
My good friends, this is the second time there has
come back from Germany to Downing Street peace with honour. I believe it is
peace for our time. We thank you from the bottom of our hearts. Now I recommend
you go home, and sleep quietly in your beds.
Neville Chamberlain quoting Benjamin Disraeli
New York Sen. Chuck Schumer, the No. 3 Senate
Democrat and next-in-line party leader, said late Thursday that he is breaking
with President Barack Obama and will oppose the Iran nuclear deal.
http://time.com/3988323/chuck-schumer-iran-deal/?xid=newsletter-brief
Other Key Lawmakers Opposing the Deal ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/r-blows-for-obama-as-key-lawmakers-come-out-against-iran-deal-2015-8
Jensen Comment
This is surprising in light of President Obama's claim that there will be war
with Iran if his capitulation is rejected by the Senate.
The Iran deal is the worst agreement in US
diplomatic history
Charles Krauthammer, The
Washington Post, July 3, 2015 ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/why-the-iran-deal-is-bad-2015-7
The Case Against the Iran Deal ---
Alan Dershowitz ---
http://www.newsweek.com/dershowitz-case-against-iran-deal-360911
EXPOSED: Iran Can Cancel Nuke Deal At Any Time With
Just 35 Days Notice ---
Pat Dollard ---
http://patdollard.com/2015/07/exposed-iran-can-cancel-nuke-deal-at-any-time-with-just-35-days-notice/
Did Obama require that they give the $150 billion back in those
35days? Yeah right!
Donors after Carly Fiorina's debate performance:
'Nothing attracts money like success' ---
Reuters ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/r-fiorina-moves-to-cash-in-on-strong-debate-performance-2015-8#ixzz3iDaiDjVe
Also see
https://www.yahoo.com/politics/fiorina-bet-on-talent-over-tv-ads-and-it-paid-off-126122481956.html
Joe Biden has
dreamt of this moment. Hillary Clinton’s campaign is in free-fall and
Republicans are busily re-enacting Lord of the Flies ---
http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Columns/2015/07/29/Joe-Biden-Looming-Threat-Republican-Presidency
With Nuclear Deal
India Plans Ultra-Deepwater Pipeline for Natural Gas From Iran ---
http://www.technologyreview.com/news/539701/with-nuclear-deal-india-looks-to-iran-for-natural-gas/?utm_campaign=newsletters&utm_source=newsletter-daily-all&utm_medium=email&utm_content=20150728
Half of the Columbia River's sockeye salmon are
dying due to hot water ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/r-thousands-of-salmon-die-in-hotter-than-usual-northwest-rivers-2015-7#ixzz3hBgN0DGO
Arctic sea ice volume increased by more than a quarter
after the summers of 2013 and 2014 as a result of unusually cool temperatures, a
deviation from the general downward trend of ice levels, according to new
research published in the journal
Nature Geoscience.
Justin Worland ---
http://time.com/3965996/arctic-sea-ice-melting/?xid=newsletter-brief
Jensen Comment
Go figure! The Year 2014 was purportedly the warmest year on record globally.
Scientists warn that the increasing ice in the arctic is not a trend to counter
the longer-term melting expected at both poles
There's a giant, underground ocean hidden in the
middle of this Chinese desert ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/scientists-discover-a-massive-underground-lake-in-china-2015-7#ixzz3hYqfKvoR
The U.S. Digs
Itself Into a Hole on Vital Minerals ---
Senator Lisa Murkowski ---
http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-u-s-digs-itself-into-a-hole-on-vital-minerals-1438642855?tesla=y
The EPA is
creating rules that defeat even environmentalists ---
http://reason.com/archives/2015/07/29/zealots-at-the-epa
EPA zealots want to close every mine in the USA, including those essential to
the economy
Illegal
Immigrants Accounted for Nearly 37 Percent of Federal Sentences in FY 2014 ---
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/07/07/illegal-immigrants-accounted-for-nearly-37-percent-of-federal-sentences-in-fy-2014/
As Secretary of
State Hillary Helps a Bank—and Then It Funnels Millions to the Clintons
---
http://news.yahoo.com/hillary-helps-bank-then-funnels-millions-clintons-133140114.html
Hillary’s Friends in
High Places: Everyone in government agencies is bending over
backward to protect her.---
Kimberly A. Strassel,
http://www.wsj.com/articles/hillarys-friends-in-high-places-1438301383?mod=djemBestOfTheWeb
Hillary Keeps
Lying
Why does Hillary lie? Because she thinks she can get away with it. Will American
voters (and government agencies) let her?
Andrew Napolitano ---
http://reason.com/archives/2015/07/30/hillary-lies-again
Jensen Comment
Barack Obama repeatedly was given a voter pass for lying. Why should it be any
different for the Clintons?
We'd rather be obese on benefits than thin and
working.
Janice and Amber Manzur
John Hill,
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/11347454/Mother-and-daughter-weigh-a-total-of-43-stone-and-get-34k-a-year-handouts-but-refuse-to-diet.html
The Price of Being a Sanctuary City:
Urine stench replaces smog pollution in San Francisco
It (the stench of urine in 2015 San Francisco) hits your nose on the BART
escalator before you reach Market Street. That sour smell can bake for blocks
where street (homeless) people sleep wrapped in dirty blankets.
Debra J. Saunders ---
http://townhall.com/columnists/debrajsaunders/2015/08/09/stench-and-the-city-sfs-summer-of-urine-n2036342
California regulators are
working toward allowing only electric vehicles in the state ---
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-08-03/california-regulator-mary-nichols-may-transform-the-auto-industry?cmpid=BBD080315_BIZ
Jensen Comment
I wonder if the border crossings will block all tourists in gasoline and diesel
vehicles? California imports over half it's electricity from other states.
This will make Californians much more at the mercy of grid pricing of
electricity needed to charge all those vehicle batteries. Also electric cars
being manufactured these days depend heavily on rare earth metals where China
has 70% of the rare-earth market. China might one day set the prices of
California cars, and the prices may soar when China finally decides to charge
heavily for the environmental destruction caused by rare earth metal mining. It
may one day be that the only citizens of California are very wealthy. The good
news is that there will be much less demand for water among the few Californians
that can afford to live in California. Other good news is that there will be
fewer undocumented migrants flowing in from California's southern border since
migrants will not be able to afford electric cars and expensive housing.
Moocher Hall of Fame --- https://danieljmitchell.wordpress.com/the-moocher-hall-of-fame/
Hump-Day Humor ---
http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Columns/2015/07/29/Joe-Biden-Looming-Threat-Republican-Presidency
If You (Donald Trump) Can’t Get Past Me How Are you
Gonna Handle Putin?
Megyn Kelly ---
http://www.mediaite.com/tv/megyn-kelly-dismisses-debate-criticisms-if-you-cant-get-past-me/
Donald
Trump is a "gift from God."
Rachel Maddow ---
http://www.salon.com/2015/07/23/rachel_maddow_donald_trumps_campaign_stunt_or_not_is_a_gift_from_god/
Jensen Comment
The best strategy to dismember the Republican Party is for liberal Democrats to
vote for Candidate Trump in the Republican 2016 Republican Primary Election..
The new election game theory strategy in the USA is vote for the worst
possible candidate in the opponents' primary election.
Donald Trump brags that the polls show he's going to get the vote from Hispanics and feminists. That's probably correct! Those groups are out to destroy the Republican Party. Voting for Trump is the 2016 primary election is the best way to complete the dismemberment of the Republican Party.
The voting strategy of voting for the
worst candidate of the opposition party will eventually destroy what's
left of democracy in the USA ---
http://www.cs.trinity.edu/~rjensen/temp/NewHampshireVotingFraud.htm
"Cruelty To Animals, Exposed,"
by Steve Chapman, Townhall, August 9, 2015 ---
http://townhall.com/columnists/stevechapman/2015/08/09/cruelty-to-animals-exposed-n2036198?utm_source=thdaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl&newsletterad=
If you like eating meat, information is not always your friend. In recent years, practices at large facilities that turn livestock into food have been exposed to public view, and the public often doesn't like what it sees.
The companies that confine pregnant sows in tiny stalls or scald chickens to death don't publicize these practices. Slaughterhouses where cattle are sometimes dismembered alive don't offer guided tours.
To see what goes on in the worst operations, most of us have to rely on activists who covertly record inside and put videos online. Organizations like the Humane Society of the United States, the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and Mercy for Animals have posted such footage.
When such grim revelations emerged, the owners of these operations had two choices: stop doing things that would shock consumers, or stop consumers from seeing them. Many suppliers did the former, sometimes under prodding from major grocery and restaurant chains. But some decided that concealment was preferable.
Their own efforts to keep out prying eyes, however, don't always suffice. So they have enlisted the power of government on their side. Seven states have passed "ag gag" laws aimed at preventing whistleblowers from exposing farm abuses.
Idaho, for example, made it a crime for anyone to do audio or video recording inside a facility without the owner's consent. This was necessary, the bill's sponsor explained, because "extremist groups implement vigilante tactics to deploy self-appointed investigators who masquerade as employees to infiltrate farms in the hope of discovering and recording what they believe to be animal abuse." Another likened these videos to "terrorism."
Vigilantes and terrorists, it should be noted, employ violent methods, including gratuitous brutality, to achieve ends they regard as important enough to override civilized norms. In that respect, they don't resemble the people filming the abuse of animals. They resemble the people committing those abuses.
The law, however, does not apply just to activist outsiders who rely on subterfuge. It covers faithful longtime employees who feel obligated to disclose conduct they find unconscionable or even illegal.
The ban does more than shelter the public from images affecting the treatment of mere livestock. It suppresses knowledge about practices that could harm humans. It denies the citizenry truthful information about important matters.
Continued in article
Since
the late 1960s, universities have considered it their mission to teach
students what rather than how to think. Students soon internalize the
catechism, summed up in the Twitter hashtag #whiteprivilege, meaning:
Western civilization thrived on white, Christian, Euro-centric
aggression against Others; Western literature and art are the
patriarchy’s handmaidens; the university’s mission is to further a just
society and empower the wretched of the Earth; objective “knowledge” is
a tool for one dominant race, gender and sexuality to oppress the
powerless; reason is but one “way of knowing”; any opposition to
identity politics and multiculturalism is racism; there are no
hierarchies in cultural values — in matters of gender, art and family,
all manifestations are equally valid; and most insidiously,
acknowledging and rewarding objective merit is considered an
“institutionalized form of racism and classism.”
Barbara Kay ---
http://news.nationalpost.com/2015/03/11/barbara-kay-universities-are-teaching-students-what-to-think-not-how-to-think/
History and Meaning of "Political Correctness" --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_Correctness
What is the difference between education and indoctrination?
"Noam Chomsky Spells Out the Purpose of Education," by Josh
Jones, Open Culture, November 2012 ---
http://www.openculture.com/2012/11/noam_chomsky_spells_out_the_purpose_of_education.html
"The Suicide of the Liberal Arts: Indoctrinating students
isn’t the same as teaching them. Homer and Shakespeare have much to tell
us about how to think and how to live," by John Agresto, The Wall
Street Journal, August 7, 2015 ---
http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-suicide-of-the-liberal-arts-1438987258
. . .
To restore the liberal arts, those of us who teach should begin by thinking about students. Almost all of them have serious questions about major issues, and all of them are looking for answers. What is right? What is love? What do I owe others? What do others owe me? In too many places these are not questions for examination but issues for indoctrination. Instead of guiding young men and women by encouraging them to read history, biography, philosophy and literature, we’d rather debunk the past, deconstruct the authors and dethrone our finest minds and statesmen.
But why would any student spend tens of thousands of dollars and, rather than see the world in all its aspects, instead spend his time being indoctrinated and immersed in the prejudices of the current culture and the opinions of his tendentious professors? The job of teachers is to liberate minds, not capture them.
Reform at the university level will require brave work by deans and presidents. A hundred-course set of “distribution requirements” with minimally guided choice fosters intellectual randomness. Instead, the best faculty should put together a coherent program of core studies to introduce students to the finest books, to alternative answers to the most compelling questions, to great literature and art and pivotal historical events. Contemporary political issues of race, class and gender do not define what’s truly important. That’s the greatest fallacy of higher education today.
Second, find ways to increase interaction with departments of business, engineering, pre-med and the like. Most students will properly go on to work in various vocational, professional or technical fields. They should be offered our civilization’s best work and its broadest vision—but humanities teachers should not begin with the notion that business and law will be “improved” by the humanities. The benefits flow both ways.
Finally, a word to secondary schools and their teachers: You may be the last hope many of your students will have to think broadly and seriously about literature, science, math and history. If they don’t read Homer or Shakespeare, or marvel at the working of the universe, or read and understand the Constitution, they never will. The hope of liberal learning rests on your shoulders. Please don’t shrug.
Continued in article
The Political Correctness Debate
"Halting the Race to the Bottom," by John Sexton, Inside
Higher Ed, September 18, 2006 ---
http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2006/09/18/sexton
The Politically Correct Fracture in Academe ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/HigherEdControversies2.htm#PoliticalCorrectnessFracture
What are the main sources of methane emissions?
http://whatsyourimpact.org/greenhouse-gases/methane-sources
Jensen Comment
I watched a TV news interview where a "scientist" declared we should stop
using natural gas because of methane pollution. She led viewers to believe
natural gas production and use (such as that leaking into the air when lighting
a BBQ grill) contributed to over 33% of the methane leaking into the
atmosphere. That is a totally absurd claim. Nearly 40% of the methane leakage
comes from natural leakage that we cannot control such as methane leading into
the air from wetlands and the oceans. Less than 20% of methane leakage comes
from processing and using all hydrocarbon fuels. About the same amount
percentage comes from livestock burps and farts. Another large source comes from
garbage and landfills.
Suppose that 30 years from now over 70% of the world's electric power is
from solar panels. Has anybody thought of the risks of losing most of
this power because of a giant volcano causing a volcano winter?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volcano#Significant_consequences
One proposed volcanic winter happened c. 70,000 years ago following the supereruption of Lake Toba on Sumatra island in Indonesia.[20] According to the Toba catastrophe theory to which some anthropologists and archeologists subscribe, it had global consequences,[21] killing most humans then alive and creating a population bottleneck that affected the genetic inheritance of all humans today.[22] The 1815 eruption of Mount Tambora created global climate anomalies that became known as the "Year Without a Summer" because of the effect on North American and European weather.[23] Agricultural crops failed and livestock died in much of the Northern Hemisphere, resulting in one of the worst famines of the 19th century.[24] The freezing winter of 1740–41, which led to widespread famine in northern Europe, may also owe its origins to a volcanic eruption.[25]
It has been suggested that volcanic activity caused or contributed to the End-Ordovician, Permian-Triassic, Late Devonian mass extinctions, and possibly others. The massive eruptive event which formed the Siberian Traps, one of the largest known volcanic events of the last 500 million years of Earth's geological history, continued for a million years and is considered to be the likely cause of the "Great Dying" about 250 million years ago,[26] which is estimated to have killed 90% of species existing at the time.[27]
"Cops as Criminals: Police regularly violate citizens' rights and get
away with it," by Steve Chapman, Reason Magazine, July 27, 2015 ---
http://reason.com/archives/2015/07/27/cops-as-criminals
"The U.S. Digs Itself Into a Hole on Vital Minerals," Senator Lisa Murkowski, The Wall Street Journal, August 3, 2015 --- http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-u-s-digs-itself-into-a-hole-on-vital-minerals-1438642855?tesla=y
The United States is turning the tables on the global oil market, going from one of the largest importers of crude oil to a country that could and should export it, thanks to an energy renaissance that has made America the largest oil producer in the world.
But when it comes to the minerals that fuel so much else in modern life—from smartphones to flat-screen TVs to wind turbines—we are still stuck in the Dark Ages, highly dependent on other countries as we sit on valuable resources that could be meeting national needs.
The U.S. relies on foreign suppliers for 100% of 19 minerals and at least half of our supply for some 24 more. The list includes everything from rare-earth elements used in F-35s (and electric car batteries) and computer hard drives to extremely rare metals like rhenium, a key component of alloys for industrial gas turbines and petroleum refining.
America’s foreign dependence has grown significantly since 1978 and seems to deepen each year as federal mineral policies become more obsolete. At stake is the future of U.S. manufacturing and the country’s international competitiveness—as illustrated by a September 2014 Edelman Berland survey of 400 manufacturing executives that found that more than 90% worry about mineral supply disruptions outside their control.
Continued in article
The EPA is Waving Goodbye to Every Mine
in the USA, not just coal mines
From the CFO Journal's Morning Ledger on August 3, 2015
Coal miner Alpha to seek chapter 11.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/alpha-natural-resources-to-seek-chapter-11-1438557901?mod=djemCFO_h
Alpha Natural Resources Inc. is expected to file for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection early Monday to cut its more than $3 billion debt load. The Bristol, Va., company, one of the largest U.S. coal producers, hasn’t completed the terms of a restructuring plan but will likely sell some of its best mines or turn them over to creditors and close others during its trip through bankruptcy court, according to people familiar with the matter.
The EPA is
creating rules that defeat even environmentalists ---
http://reason.com/archives/2015/07/29/zealots-at-the-epa
EPA zealots want to close every mine in the USA, including those essential to
the economy
Thomas Piketty --- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Piketty
Krugman Slams Piketty's 'New' Book On Inequality ---
http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2015/08/krugman-slams-pikettys-new-book-on-inequality.html
Jensen Comment
Stanford University had a professor of management in the 1960s who made a lot of
money selling his textbook. In tiny fonts it was typed on very large index
cards in a clever way where he could get a new edition by merely shuffling the
deck for each chapter and then re-arranging the chapters.
"The Sugar Scandal: Congress
takes a run at an egregious business welfare scheme," The Wall Street
Journal, July 29, 2015 --
.http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-sugar-scandal-1438212128?tesla=y
Americans pay nearly twice as much per pound as foreigners do for sugar, thanks to U.S. import restrictions and subsidies. We’ve tilted at this corporate welfare for decades, but new political forces are aligning to take another run.
The absurdity of the federal sugar program is legendary. Every year the government grants sugar processors nonrecourse loans linked to the amount of sugar the government says they can produce at a set price per pound: 18.75 cents for raw cane sugar and 24.09 cents for refined beet sugar. If the market price is below the loan price when it’s time to sell, the processors simply forfeit their crop to the U.S. Department of Agriculture in lieu of repaying the loan. They can still make a profit thanks to the price guaranteed by the loan.
To ensure that imported sugar doesn’t drive down U.S. prices, provoking a sugar dump on Uncle Sam, there are also import quotas. Anything above the quotas gets hit with a hefty tariff—16 cents a pound on refined sugar.
Yet all of this central planning is harder than it sounds. According to a January 2014 USDA report, for the 2013 crop year the government’s net cost “to remove” sugar from the marketplace was $258 million. But sometimes there’s not enough sugar, as in 2010, and prices skyrocket. If the secretary of agriculture decides that shortages will drive prices too high, he can increase the quota. But he has to make sure that more imports won’t mean lower prices and thus sugar forfeitures to the feds. All the risk lies with consumers or taxpayers—not producers.
Continued in article
Bob Jensen's Fraud Updates ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudUpdates.htm
RANKED: The economies of all 50 US states and DC from worst to best
---
http://www.businessinsider.com/state-economy-ranking-july-2015-2015-7?op=1#ixzz3hkycMMnY
Jensen Comment
Some of the top-ranked economies are low-tax states including New Hampshire,
Florida, Texas, Washington, and North Dakota at Rank 1. Some like New York,
California, and Taxachusetts tax everything under the sun. Those states benefit
from the tech industry concentrations and top universities.
Some of the top-ranked states are in very deep trouble with underfunded public pensions and high energy costs, including New York and California. Go figure!
The worst state economies are traditionally the worst state economies like Mississippi, West Virginia, and Arkansas. These states cannot seem to overcome the plague of poverty. West Virginia is probably in the worst shape given that the EPA is Hell-bent to end all mining in the USA.
The EPA is
creating rules that defeat even environmentalists ---
http://reason.com/archives/2015/07/29/zealots-at-the-epa
EPA zealots want to close every mine in the USA, including those essential to
the economy
The EPA is Waving Goodbye to Every Mine
in the USA, not just coal mines
From the CFO Journal's Morning Ledger on August 3, 2015
Coal miner Alpha to seek chapter 11.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/alpha-natural-resources-to-seek-chapter-11-1438557901?mod=djemCFO_h
Alpha Natural Resources Inc. is expected to file for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection early Monday to cut its more than $3 billion debt load. The Bristol, Va., company, one of the largest U.S. coal producers, hasn’t completed the terms of a restructuring plan but will likely sell some of its best mines or turn them over to creditors and close others during its trip through bankruptcy court, according to people familiar with the matter.
"The new millennial mystery: why young
people with jobs are still living at home," by Emily Badger, The
Washington Post, July 31, 2015 --- |
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonkblog/wp/2015/07/31/this-new-millennial-mystery-is-terrible-news-for-ikea/
Several years ago, when the economy was still looking grisly, it was easy to explain the single most popular trope about millennials — that an unusually high number of them were still living in their parents' basements. Obviously, they didn't have jobs. Where were they supposed to go?
"The standard explanation was, 'it’s a crummy job market,'" says Richard Fry, a senior researcher at the Pew Research Center. He reasoned, as just about everyone did, that as the job market improved, Millennials would move out. A new Pew analysis this week muddles that picture: The unemployment rate has fallen significantly since the recession for 18-to-34-year-olds. But the number of them heading their own households has not budged at all.
"That expectation," Fry recalls of the old job-market hypothesis, "at least so far has proven wrong."
About 42 million 18-to-34-year-olds lived independently of their families on the eve of the recession. About 42 million of them live on their own today, even as the size of this age bracket has grown. That means a young adult is even more likely to live at home in 2015 than back in 2008.
So now we have a modest, more perplexing new trend: Millennials are finding work, but they still seem stuck at home.
That pattern raises some much tricker questions. For one: Why? And how long will this last? Is this a sign of financial savvy or gun-shy caution? And what are these people doing with their newfound income if they're not spending it on rent?
Some of this may be explained by student debt. But the Pew analysis, based on data from the Census Bureau's Current Population Survey, suggests that young adults are less likely than at any point since the recession to live on their own, whether they have a college degree or just a high school diploma.
Continued in article
Jensen Comment
The slow growth in wages certainly has not helped these millennial wprlers
beginning to carry the entitlements granted to the retiring baby boomers ---
like the entitlement disasters of under-funded Medicare, Medicaid, Social
Security benefits, and Social Security Disability benefits. The problem is not
so much the benefits as it is Congressional stupidity in not adequately funding
those benefits in advance of when the financial obligations come due. There's
also the immense problem that all big government programs are piñatas for fraud.
Bob Jensen's threads on the entitlements
disaster ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Entitlements.htm
"Mayor de Blasio's Plan to Fix the
Schools: Humiliate All the Teachers. Fire None of Them," by Jim Epstein,
Reason Magazine, July 25, 2015 ---
http://reason.com/blog/2015/07/25/mayor-de-blasio-renewal-schools-union
California Proposition 13 --- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Proposition_13_%281978%29
"McCubbins & Seljan: The Effect Of Proposition 13 On Municipal
Revenue Sources," by Paul Caron, TaxProf Blog, July 27, 2015 ---
http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2015/07/mccubbins-seljan-the-effect-pf-proposition-13-on-municipal-revenue-sources.html
Jensen Comment
One enormous problem, especially in Silicon Valley, is that housing (even
apartments) are no longer affordable by families of public service providers
like police, fire fighters, and teachers. Proposition 13 constrains revenues
intended for public services. Sleeping facilities can be provided for emergency
workers on duty (like firefighters) but this leads to separations from their
families living long commuting distances apart. It also leads to very long
commutes by non-emergency workers like teachers. This turns an eight-hour
workday into an 10-12 hour workday. Highly-paid Wall Street workers don't seem
to mind the long days, but the best lower-paid public service workers must be
inclined to look for jobs in towns that they can afford.
Coastal Flood Risks --- http://www.fema.gov/coastal-flood-risks-achieving-resilience-together
Friedrich Hayek --- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_Hayek
Hayek’s most striking intellectual trait was one
uncommon in academic life – independence of mind, which enabled him to swim
against some of the most powerful currents of the age.
John Gray ---
http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2015/07/john-gray-friedrich-hayek-i-knew-and-what-he-got-right-and-wrong
Milton Friedman --- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milton_Friedman
In Honor of His 103rd Birthday, Here Are The 20 Best
Quotes From The Late, Great Milton Friedman ---
Click Here
http://townhall.com/columnists/johnhawkins/2015/08/01/in-honor-of-his-103rd-birthday-here-are-the-20-best-quotes-from-the-late-great-milton-friedman-n2033298?utm_source=thdaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl&newsletterad=
1) “I do not believe that the solution to our problem is simply to elect the right people. The important thing is to establish a political climate of opinion which will make it politically profitable for the wrong people to do the right thing. Unless it is politically profitable for the wrong people to do the right thing, the right people will not do the right thing either, or if they try, they will shortly be out of office.”
2) "If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in 5 years there'd be a shortage of sand."
3) "Indeed, a major source of objection to a free economy is precisely that it... gives people what they want instead of what a particular group thinks they ought to want. Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself."
4) "There are four ways in which you can spend money. You can spend your own money on yourself. When you do that, why then you really watch out what you’re doing, and you try to get the most for your money. Then you can spend your own money on somebody else. For example, I buy a birthday present for someone. Well, then I’m not so careful about the content of the present, but I’m very careful about the cost. Then, I can spend somebody else’s money on myself. And if I spend somebody else’s money on myself, then I’m sure going to have a good lunch! Finally, I can spend somebody else’s money on somebody else. And if I spend somebody else’s money on somebody else, I’m not concerned about how much it is, and I’m not concerned about what I get. And that’s government. And that’s close to 40% of our national income."
5) "Workers paying taxes today can derive no assurance from trust funds that they will receive benefits from when they retire. Any assurance derives solely from the willingness of future taxpayers to impose taxes on themselves to pay for benefits that present taxpayers are promising themselves. This one sided 'compact between the generations,’ foisted on generations that cannot give their consent, is a very different thing from a 'trust fund.' It is more like a chain letter."
6) “The great virtue of a free market system is that it does not care what color people are; it does not care what their religion is; it only cares whether they can produce something you want to buy. It is the most effective system we have discovered to enable people who hate one another to deal with one another and help one another.”
7)“We economists don't know much, but we do know how to create a shortage. If you want to create a shortage of tomatoes, for example, just pass a law that retailers can't sell tomatoes for more than two cents per pound. Instantly you'll have a tomato shortage. It's the same with oil or gas.”
8) "I want people to take thought about their condition and to recognize that the maintenance of a free society is a very difficult and complicated thing and it requires a self-denying ordinance of the most extreme kind. It requires a willingness to put up with temporary evils on the basis of the subtle and sophisticated understanding that if you step in to do something about them you not only may make them worse, you will spread your tentacles and get bad results elsewhere."
9) "When the United States was formed in 1776, it took 19 people on the farm to produce enough food for 20 people. So most of the people had to spend their time and efforts on growing food. Today, it's down to 1% or 2% to produce that food. Now just consider the vast amount of supposed unemployment that was produced by that. But there wasn't really any unemployment produced. What happened was that people who had formerly been tied up working in agriculture were freed by technological developments and improvements to do something else. That enabled us to have a better standard of living and a more extensive range of products."
10) "There is all the difference in the world, however, between two kinds of assistance through government that seem superficially similar: first, 90 percent of us agreeing to impose taxes on ourselves in order to help the bottom 10 percent, and second, 80 percent voting to impose taxes on the top 10 percent to help the bottom 10 percent - William Graham Sumner's famous example of B and C decided what D shall do for A. The first may be wise or unwise, an effective or ineffective way to help the disadvantaged - but it is consistent with belief in both equality of opportunity and liberty. The second seeks equality of outcome and is entirely antithetical to liberty."
Continued in article
Finding and Using Health Statistics --- http://www.nlm.nih.gov/nichsr/usestats/index.htm
Bob Jensen's threads on economic statistics and databases ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Bookbob1.htm#EconStatistics
Inspector General's report warns that billions in federal loans might not be
repaid.
"Obamacare’s Government-Backed Nonprofit Health Plans Are a Disaster—and
Could Cost Taxpayers Billions," by Peter Suderman, Reason Magazine,
July 31, 2015 ---
http://reason.com/blog/2015/07/31/obamacares-government-backed-nonprofit-h
The federal government shelled out $2.4 billion in loans to a series of non-profit health plans under Obamacare, but now they’re struggling to stay alive.
The plans, dubbed CO-OPs (Consumer Operated and Oriented Plans) were intended to increase competition in the insurance market and serve as a check on private insurers by providing an alternative that wasn’t focused on profit. They were a compromise measure intended to satisfy liberals who wanted the law to set up a fully government-run health insurance option.
As it turns out, Obamacare’s CO-OPs weren’t focused on profit—or, it seems, financial viability of any kind.
The CO-OPs have struggled to meet enrollment targets, with 13 of the 23 non-profit plans showing “considerably lower” enrollment than projected, according to a report by the Health and Human Services Inspector General. Finances were shaky all around with 21 of 23 plans incurring losses through the end of 2014, the report says.
This isn’t just a problem for the CO-OPs. It’s a problem for the taxpayers. The $2.4 billion in loans given to these startup plans were supposed to be repaid to the government with interest. Loans given to start the plans were supposed to be repaid in five years; “solvency” loans were supposed to be repaid in 15 years.
Continued in article
"ObamaCare Undercover: How to fake an application and get an
insurance subsidy," The Wall Street Journal, July 31, 2015 ---
http://www.wsj.com/articles/obamacare-undercover-1438386617?tesla=y
. . .
Last year the Senate Finance Committee asked investigators at the Government Accountability Office, or GAO, to test the Affordable Care Act’s internal eligibility and enrollment controls. So they created a dozen fictitious identities and applied for insurance subsidies—and 11 fake claimants got them.
The GAO didn’t know ObamaCare’s verification protocols in advance, so they weren’t trying to exploit some known security hole. Online or over the phone, they simply supplied invalid Social Security numbers, doctored citizenship status or misstated their income on tax documents.
The federal exchanges paid some $2,500 a month or $30,000 per year to each John Doe. When it came time to re-enroll at the end of 2014, the 11 fake applicants were able to extend their plans and, in some cases, even received more generous subsidies without providing additional documentation.
The exchanges are supposed to verify income and identity because the dollar value of subsidies is tied to those data. If people can burn taxpayers for money they don’t qualify for, ObamaCare will be far more expensive than it has already become.
Yet the GAO notes with its dry wit that “we circumvented the initial identity-proofing control,” though the exchanges are “required to seek post-approval documentation in the case of certain application ‘inconsistencies.’” The GAO also reports that the follow-up was often unclear or inaccurate and didn’t turn off the subsidies. The GAO even includes transcripts of their sleuths bluffing the clueless customer service reps.
Continued in article
Jensen Comment
What big government program is not a giant piñata for tens of millions of
fraudsters?
Bob Jensen's Fraud Updates ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudUpdates.htm
"Obamacare’s Government-Backed Nonprofit Health Plans Are a Disaster—and
Could Cost Taxpayers Billions," by Peter Suderman, Reason Magazine,
July 31, 2015 ---
http://reason.com/blog/2015/07/31/obamacares-government-backed-nonprofit-h
'The Unaffordable Care Act: Premiums are spiking around the country.
Obama is in denial," The Wall Street Journal, July 10, 2015 ---
http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-unaffordable-care-act-1436569086?tesla=y
The Affordable Care Act was supposed to make insurance, well, more affordable. But now hard results are starting to emerge: premium surges that often average 10% to 20% and spikes that sometimes run as high as 50% or 60% or more from coast to coast. Welcome to the new abnormal of ObamaCare.
This summer insurers must submit rates to state regulators for approval on the ObamaCare exchanges in 2016—and even liberals are shocked at the double-digit requests, or at least the honest liberals are. Under ObamaCare, year-over-year premium increases above 10% must also be justified to the Health and Human Services Department, and its data base lists about 650 such cases so far.
In a study across 45 states, the research outfit Health Pocket reports that mid-level Exclusive Provider Organization plans are 20% more expensive in 2016 on average. HMOs are 19% more expensive, and for all plan types the average is 14%.
President Obama dropped by Nashville last week to claim Tennessee as a state where “the law has worked better than we expected” and “actually ended up costing less than people expected,” so let’s test the reality of those claims. As a baseline, in 2015 premium increases for Tennessee plans ranged from 7.5% to 19.1%.
For 2016 BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee—one of the state’s two major insurers—is requesting a 36.3% increase. One product line from Community Health Alliance Mutual is rising 32.8%, while another from Time Insurance Co. hits 46.9%. Offerings from Cigna, Humana and UnitedHealthcare range from 11% to 18%. If this means ObamaCare is working better than the President expected, then what, exactly, was he expecting?
Continued in article
Obama's Whoppers on the ACA ---
Click Here
http://townhall.com/columnists/donaldlambro/2015/07/08/obamas-whoppers-will-bite-him-in-the-end-and-the-democrats-too-in-2016-n2022375?utm_source=thdaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl&newsletterad=
Bob Jensen's universal health care messaging --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Health.htm
"Taxpayers' health care costs are rising — and so are the profits of big
pharmaceutical companies," by Eric Pianin, The Fiscal Times via
Business Insider, July 30, 2015 ---
http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/2015/07/30/Drug-Company-Profits-Soar-Taxpayers-Foot-Bill#ixzz3hTDtCglN
t was a coincidence hard to overlook: The government released a new report on Tuesday projecting rising health care costs for the coming decade while a major pharmaceutical company issued a new earnings report showing extraordinary profits on the sale of new wonder drugs.
While drug spending increased by a modest 2.5 percent in 2013, it surged by 12.6 percent last year according to estimates in a new report on trends in health care costs by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
Bob Jensen's universal health care messaging --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Health.htm
Bob Jensen's universal health care messaging --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Health.htm
Bob Jensen's threads on
medicine ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/bookbob2-Part2.htm#Medicine
The Atlantic: Health: Family --- http://www.theatlantic.com/health/category/family/
Bob Jensen's
Tidbits Archives ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/tidbitsdirectory.htm
Bob
Jensen's Pictures and Stories
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Pictures.htm
Summary of Major Accounting Scandals --- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accounting_scandals
Bob Jensen's threads on such scandals:
Bob Jensen's threads on audit firm litigation and negligence ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Fraud001.htm
Current and past editions of my
newsletter called Fraud Updates ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudUpdates.htm
Enron --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudEnron.htm
Rotten to the Core --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudRotten.htm
American History of Fraud --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudAmericanHistory.htm
Bob Jensen's fraud
conclusions ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudConclusion.htm
Bob Jensen's threads on
auditor professionalism and independence are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Fraud001c.htm
Bob Jensen's threads on
corporate governance are at
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Fraud001.htm#Governance
Shielding
Against Validity Challenges in Plato's Cave ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/TheoryTAR.htm
· With a Rejoinder from the 2010 Senior Editor of The Accounting Review (TAR), Steven J. Kachelmeier
· With Replies in Appendix 4 to Professor Kachemeier by Professors Jagdish Gangolly and Paul Williams
· With Added Conjectures in Appendix 1 as to Why the Profession of Accountancy Ignores TAR
· With Suggestions in Appendix 2 for Incorporating Accounting Research into Undergraduate Accounting Courses
Shielding
Against Validity Challenges in Plato's Cave ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/TheoryTAR.htm
By Bob Jensen
What went
wrong in accounting/accountics research? ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/theory01.htm#WhatWentWrong
The Sad State of Accountancy Doctoral Programs That Do Not Appeal to Most
Accountants ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/theory01.htm#DoctoralPrograms
AN ANALYSIS OF THE EVOLUTION OF RESEARCH CONTRIBUTIONS BY THE ACCOUNTING REVIEW:
1926-2005 ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/395wpTAR/Web/TAR395wp.htm#_msocom_1
Bob Jensen's threads on accounting theory
---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/theory01.htm
Tom Lehrer on Mathematical Models and Statistics
---
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfZWyUXn3So
Systemic problems of accountancy (especially the vegetable nutrition paradox)
that probably will never be solved
---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudConclusion.htm#BadNews
Bob Jensen's economic crisis messaging http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/2008Bailout.htm
Bob Jensen's threads --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/threads.htm
Bob Jensen's Home Page --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/