Tidbits Political Quotations
To Accompany the November 23, 2015 edition of Tidbits
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/tidbits/2015/tidbits101215.htm  
Bob Jensen at
Trinity University




Election Information --- http://www.rockthevote.com/get-informed/elections/

Cross-Over Gaming Primary Elections:  Voting for a Sure Loser Rather Than a Candidate That Might Win in a Race to the Botton
Cross-Over Gaming Primary Elections:  Voting for a Sure Loser to Knock Out Winning Candidates
Based upon a comment I heard on CBS News there are signs that the poll support and crowds supporting Donald Trump are largely members of the Democratic Party intent on messing up the Republican Party primary outcomes. These Trump supporters have no intent to vote for Donald Trump in the 2016 general election if he should be nominated. Something similar may be happening among the supporters of Bernie Sanders who are really Republicans in sheep white wool.

The USA system of selecting nominees in primary elections that precede general elections possibly are becoming a vicious game.
Election Gaming "Fraud" in Primary Elections in the USA:  Making Sure Your General Election Opponent is a Real Loser
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudulentElections.htm

FlackCheck.org --- http://www.flackcheck.org
Headquartered at the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania, FlackCheck.org offers resources that help students "recognize flaws in arguments in general and political ads in particular"

RealClearPolitics: Election 2016 --- http://www.realclearpolitics.com/elections/2016/

Bloggingheads.tv (political commentary --- http://bloggingheads.tv/

OpenSecrets (money and politics blog) --- https://www.opensecrets.org

It's hard to beat a person who never gives up.

Babe Ruth, Historic Home Run Hitter
And he wasn't even thinking about Jihads in those days but I am thinking Jihads these days

Tort lawyers prosper by rounding up potentially injured plaintiffs in class actions, and sometimes the plaintiffs don’t even have to be injured to qualify. On Monday the Supreme Court will consider whether the trial bar can put together class actions seeking hundreds of millions of dollars in damages without showing that anyone was harmed.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/inventing-class-actions-1446416470?mod=djemMER

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

Richest Person In Every State ---
http://buccareer.com/?p=728&themedemo=mh-newsdesk-lite2&utm_source=RBM2-BC-Richest-in-state-rotate&utm_medium=mh-newsdesk-lite-display&utm_content=31093270327&utm_campaign=Richest-In-State

O crusaders we are coming to you with bombs and rifles ---
ISIS --- http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-horror-in-paris-1447466102?mod=djemMER

 

It's hard to beat a person who never gives up.

Babe Ruth,
And he wasn't even thinking about Jihads in those days but I am thinking Jihads these days

Climate Change is the Cause of Terrorism
Bernie Sanders --- http://www.cbsnews.com/news/bernie-sanders-doubles-down-climate-change-terrorism-link/
Jensen Comment
But he fails to give evidence this was foremost on the mind of Osama Bin Laden's attack on NYC. If elected President of the USA the War on Terror will primarily become a War on Carbon and Indonesia.

It's also terrible for climate change. So far this year, these fires have released more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere than all the fossil fuels burned annually in Germany. On at least 38 days in September and October, Indonesia's fires were spewing more daily emissions than the entire United States economy.
Brad Plumer --- http://www.vox.com/2015/10/30/9645448/indonesia-fires-peat-palm-oil

NYT:  "The deductible, $3,000 a year, makes it impossible to actually go to the doctor," said David R. Reines, 60, of Jefferson Township, N.J.
Robert Pear, Many Say High Deductibles Make Their Health Law Insurance All but Useless ---
http://www.cnbc.com/2015/11/14/new-york-times-digital-many-say-high-deductibles-make-their-health-law-insurance-all-but-useless.html

Example of Political Correctness on Campus:  No More Remembrances of the 9/11 Terror
Or is that now "microaggression?"

http://townhall.com/tipsheet/christinerousselle/2015/11/12/university-of-minnesota-rejects-911-remembrance-because-it-might-incite-racism-n2079788?utm_source=thdailypm&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl_pm&newsletterad=

Atheist Group Wants Removal of 'Obnoxious' Gideon Bibles From Hotel Rooms ---
http://www.christianpost.com/news/atheist-group-gideon-bibles-hotel-149957/

One controversial issue is that your score must be absolutely perfect in the game of political correctness or "microaggression." Unlike in baseball, one error gets you kicked out of the game.
All it takes is one innocent slip of the tongue or keyboard to earn your lifetime scarlet letter
Mary Spellman, dean of students at Claremont McKenna College, resigned after her comments in an email to a student prompted protests and hunger strikes.
http://chronicle.com/article/Facing-Protests-About-Racial/234191

Students and their sympathizer who become theatrical about each and every unintended microaggression should listen to Al Sharpton
If you play the theatrics too much, you get in the way of your own cause.
Al Sharpton --- http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/a/alsharpton366445.html
Jensen Comment
You can also go over the top where the theatrics are extremely counter productive such as when students lock arms to block fire trucks  and ambulances on campus
Jane Fonda suggests this in one of her books admitting that she damaged her life and her cause badly by pretending to fire an anti-aircraft gun in North Viet Nam.

The largest civilian firearms arsenals for 178 countries  ---
http://www.smallarmssurvey.org/fileadmin/docs/A-Yearbook/2007/en/Small-Arms-Survey-2007-Chapter-02-annexe-4-EN.pdf

 

O crusaders we are coming to you with bombs and rifles ---
ISIS (when claiming responsibility for the latest terror in Paris) ---
http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-horror-in-paris-1447466102?mod=djemMER

 

Muslims around the world condemn terrorism after the Paris attacks ---
http://qz.com/550104/muslims-around-the-world-condemn-terrorism-after-the-paris-attacks/
Jensen Comment
Inside the USA and elsewhere the Muslim world is crucial for gaining intelligence to prevent many types of terror.

CNBC:  Is this the end of the E.U.?
http://www.cnbc.com/2015/11/17/this-is-what-will-kill-the-eu.html

The direct cause is actually an extremely divisive and growing dispute about open borders, immigration, and refugee resettlement. But that conflict just became a lot more serious thanks to the horrific ISIS terrorist attacks in Paris Friday night. Now, this discussion has grown and migrated, (pun intended), from a political debate among E.U. elites to the #1 pressing issue on the streets of Europe. When relatively smaller economic nations like Hungary began closing their borders to migrants and Syrian refugees last month, it could be written off as perhaps an isolated incident. But all bets are off now that France is closing its borders in response to the attacks, even if it is just temporarily. That's because in so doing, President Francois Hollande has unambiguously connected the border issue with the effort to fight the spread of terror. It's so obvious that even the most politically uninterested person can see what it means. And just in case the message still isn't entirely clear to everyone, one of the major stories in Europe today is about how the alleged mastermind of the Paris attacks, Abdelhamid Abaaoud, boasted in videos about how easily he crisscrossed the borders of the E.U. for years.

Continued in article

The Islamic State's strategy is to polarize Western society — to "destroy the grayzone," as it says in its publications. The group hopes frequent, devastating attacks in its name will provoke overreactions by European governments against innocent Muslims, thereby alienating and radicalizing Muslim communities throughout the continent ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/isis-is-setting-a-trap-for-europe-2015-11

There are many types of terror
Fire swept through the giant refugee camp in northern France last night ---
http://qz.com/550144/fire-swept-through-the-giant-refugee-camp-in-northern-france-last-night/

Yeah Right! Even the Biased Major Networks Won't Quote This Whopper
We have contained ISIS
Barack Obama ---
http://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/tom-blumer/2015/11/15/ap-avoids-reporting-obamas-callous-we-have-contained-isis-statement

The Atlantic:  The USA is not walking the talk on fighting terrorism
Video:  French Officials Criticizing ‘Absence of US Leadership’ Against Terror
Steve Clemons, The Atlantic --- http://www.breitbart.com/video/2015/11/14/clemons-french-officials-criticizing-absence-of-us-leadership-against-terror/

Distracted, misbehaving children (including college students) aren’t learning ---
Eva Moskowitz --- http://www.wsj.com/articles/why-students-need-to-sit-up-and-pay-attention-1447373122?mod=djemMER

The 13 women who transformed the world of economics ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/women-who-transformed-the-world-of-economics-2015-11?r=UK&IR=T

Helping Hillary Clinton Figure Out Her 5 Greatest Accomplishments ---
John Hawkins ---
http://townhall.com/columnists/johnhawkins/2015/11/17/helping-hillary-clinton-figure-out-her-5-greatest-accomplishments-n2081591?utm_source=thdaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl&newsletterad=

UPI:  Sweden facing 'collapse' because of refugees, foreign minister says
http://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2015/11/02/Sweden-facing-collapse-because-of-refugees-foreign-minister-says/6781446474063/

Austria to build border fence to manage migrant flow ---
http://townhall.com/news/politics-elections/2015/11/13/austria-to-build-border-fence-to-manage-migrant-flow-n2080191

In the Supreme Court, that is. This past Friday, the justices agreed to hear the Little Sisters’ argument that not only would ObamaCare’s contraceptive mandate force them to violate their beliefs, the Obama administration’s “accommodation”—to have them sign a paper that would empower the sisters’ insurer to provide the birth control—is just an accounting gimmick.
William McGurn --- http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-high-court-gets-religion-1447115906?mod=djemMER

India has banned this documentary that tells the story of a brutal gang rape in Delhi ---
Dorothy Rabinowitz  --- http://www.wsj.com/articles/indias-daughter-review-a-crime-that-rocked-the-world-1447369613?mod=djemMER

"Five Syrian citizens have been detained and will be taken to our offices to be investigated because it is suspected they are carrying false documents, passports stolen in Greece," Baca said. They had traveled by air from Syria to Lebanon, then to Turkey, Brazil, Argentina, Costa Rica and on to Honduras. From there they were to make their way to Honduras' second city of San Pedro Sula with the aim of going overland through Guatemala, then Mexico and on to the United States, Baca told AFP. ---
Yahoo --- http://news.yahoo.com/honduras-arrests-five-syrians-headed-us-stolen-passports-204536480.html#

Say what?
Chris Calls Obama Terror Response 'Dainty'
http://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/mark-finkelstein/2015/11/18/muscular-matthews-chris-calls-obama-terror-response-dainty

 

Gallup Poll{  Sixty-four percent of American adults said they disapprove of the way that President Barack Obama is dealing with the ISIS terrorist group, according to a Gallup poll that was conducted Nov. 4-8 before the Paris attacks.
http://cnsnews.com/news/article/terence-p-jeffrey/gallup-64-disapproved-obamas-handling-isis-poll-taken-nov-4-8-paris

You just know that nanoaggression is coming down the line. Make sure you smile (or don’t smile) equally at all students passing by in the hall.
Glen Gray
Jensen Comment
But don't overdo it. For example, one of the microaggressions is complimenting a Chinese student that her English is very good.

We'd rather be obese on benefits than thin and working.
Janice and Amber Manzur
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 

She's shoplifted goods worth £2m, has SIX children by four fathers - and lives off benefits ---
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3355779/posts

Moocher Hall of Fame --- https://danieljmitchell.wordpress.com/the-moocher-hall-of-fame/

 




Election Gaming "Fraud" in Primary Elections in the USA:  Making Sure Your General Election Opponent is a Real Loser
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudulentElections.htm

Table of Contents

Funding Losers

 Communications Juggernauts in Crossover Voting Frauds

Funding Opponent Scandals

The Week In Congress --- http://theweekincongress.com/


Black-clad protesters gathered in front of Dartmouth Hall, forming a crowd roughly one hundred fifty strong.
“F*** you, you filthy white f***s!” “F*** you and your comfort!” “F*** you, you racist s***!” These shouted epithets were the first indication that many students had of the coming storm. The sign-wielding, obscenity-shouting protesters proceeded through the usually quiet backwaters of the library. They surged first through first-floor Berry, then up the stairs to the normally undisturbed floors of the building, before coming back down to the ground floor of Novack.
The Dartmouth Review, November 47, 2015 --- http://www.dartreview.com/eyes-wide-open-at-the-protest/
Video:  http://townhall.com/tipsheet/justinholcomb/2015/11/17/could-you-quiet-down-please-im-trying-to-learn-n2081756?utm_source=thdaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl&newsletterad=

Students and their sympathizer who become theatrical about each and every unintended microaggression should listen to Al Sharpton
If you play the theatrics too much, you get in the way of your own cause.
Al Sharpton --- http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/a/alsharpton366445.html
Jensen Comment
You can also go over the top where the theatrics are extremely counter productive such as when students lock arms to block fire trucks  and ambulances on campus
Jane Fonda suggests this in one of her books admitting that she damaged her life and her cause badly by pretending to fire an anti-aircraft gun in North Viet Nam.


When First-Term Senator Orders Her Senior Senator Kneel and Roll Over
Senator Warren trembles in fear that the US Tax Code might become more competitive than the corporate tax codes of Finland and the Rest of the EU

"Elizabeth Warren’s Tax Warning:  She orders Democrats not to make the U.S. tax code more competitive," The Wall Street Journal, November 20, 2015 ---
http://www.wsj.com/articles/elizabeth-warrens-tax-warning-1448061976?mod=djemMER

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) must be getting nervous about the chances of tax reform for U.S. businesses. On Wednesday she fired a shot across the bow of any Democrat tempted to consider lowering the highest corporate income-tax rate in the industrialized world. By “any” we mean Sen. Chuck Schumer. The New York Democrat has flirted with the idea of making the U.S. economy more competitive.

Ms. Warren showed up at the National Press Club to pronounce that the idea that American companies are overtaxed is “not true.” In her prepared remarks she said the strategy of “giant corporations” is to “tell a story about high U.S. taxes, demand tax cuts from the U.S. Congress, and threaten to leave the U.S. for good if they don’t get what they want. I say it’s time to call their bluff.”

Call their bluff? Their bluff has been called. They’ve shown their cards. And they’ve moved overseas. So many U.S. companies have been moving out so quickly that last year Treasury Secretary Jack Lew didn’t think he had time even to conduct a formal rule-making to stop them. So Treasury slapped together a quick and dubious reinterpretation of existing tax laws to try to bolt the door ahead of more corporate escapes.

Continued in article

Jensen Comment
The term "moving overseas" is a bit misleading. Aren't profits earned in the USA subject to USA's corporate income tax? Exhibit A is Shell Oil; Exhibit B is British Petroleum. Profits parked outside the USA were earned outside the USA. Exhibit C is Starbucks; Exhibit D is Apple; Exhibit C is Microsoft. Foreign profits are parked where they're earned because the USA's corporate tax code is so much tougher than than of (gulp) Finland, Denmark, and the rest of the world.


Bernie Sanders incorrectly calls Finland a socialist state ---
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxation_in_Finland

Actually Finland is more of a capitalist nation that is easier on both its citizens and corporations in terms of taxes ---
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxation_in_Finland

Comparing poverty in Finland and the USA ignores many things especially the almost non-existent flow of undocumented immigrants into Finland coupled with the absence of an underground economy that helps feed the poor in the USA to an estimated $2 trillion per year. Finland also does not have significant diversity issues that are a strength and a long-standing problem in the USA. The two economies are just not comparable due to diversity and immigration (legal and illegal) differences.

Tertiary Education --- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tertiary_education

Tertiary education, also referred to as third stage, third level, and post-secondary education, is the educational level following the completion of a school providing a secondary education. The World Bank, for example, defines tertiary education as including universities as well as institutions that teach specific capacities of higher learning such as colleges, technical training institutes, community colleges, nursing schools, research laboratories, centers of excellence, and distance learning centers.[1] Higher education is taken to include undergraduate and postgraduate education, while vocational education and training beyond secondary education is known as further education in the United Kingdom, or continuing education in the United States.

Tertiary education generally culminates in the receipt of certificates, diplomas, or academic degrees.

 

Finland has an outstanding education, but a fewer proportion of its citizens have tertiary degrees relative to the USA, Canada, and Japan --- 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finland#Education_and_science

In tertiary education, two mostly separate and non-interoperating sectors are found: the profession-oriented polytechnics and the research-oriented universities. Education is free and living expenses are to a large extent financed by the government through student benefits. There are 20 universities and 30 polytechnics in the country. Helsinki University is ranked 75th in the Top University Ranking of 2010.[138] The World Economic Forum ranks Finland's tertiary education No. 1 in the world.[139] Around 33% of residents have a tertiary degree, similar to Nordics and more than in most other OECD countries except Canada (44%), United States (38%) and Japan (37%).[140] The proportion of foreign students is 3% of all tertiary enrollments, one of the lowest in OECD, while in advanced programs it is 7.3%, still below OECD average 16.5%.[141]

Conclusions
Bernie Sanders just does not know how to define socialism and makes biased political but not academic comparisons. All the Nordic nations can put more of their tax revenues into social benefits in large measure because they have minimal budgets for military services and have not become a world policing force like the USA with its gigantic navy and air force.


When First-Term Senator Orders Her Senior Senator Kneel and Roll Over
Senator Warren trembles in fear that the US Tax Code might become more competitive than the corporate tax codes of Finland and the Rest of the EU

"Elizabeth Warren’s Tax Warning:  She orders Democrats not to make the U.S. tax code more competitive," The Wall Street Journal, November 20, 2015 ---
http://www.wsj.com/articles/elizabeth-warrens-tax-warning-1448061976?mod=djemMER

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) must be getting nervous about the chances of tax reform for U.S. businesses. On Wednesday she fired a shot across the bow of any Democrat tempted to consider lowering the highest corporate income-tax rate in the industrialized world. By “any” we mean Sen. Chuck Schumer. The New York Democrat has flirted with the idea of making the U.S. economy more competitive.

Ms. Warren showed up at the National Press Club to pronounce that the idea that American companies are overtaxed is “not true.” In her prepared remarks she said the strategy of “giant corporations” is to “tell a story about high U.S. taxes, demand tax cuts from the U.S. Congress, and threaten to leave the U.S. for good if they don’t get what they want. I say it’s time to call their bluff.”

Call their bluff? Their bluff has been called. They’ve shown their cards. And they’ve moved overseas. So many U.S. companies have been moving out so quickly that last year Treasury Secretary Jack Lew didn’t think he had time even to conduct a formal rule-making to stop them. So Treasury slapped together a quick and dubious reinterpretation of existing tax laws to try to bolt the door ahead of more corporate escapes.

Continued in article

Jensen Comment
The term "moving overseas" is a bit misleading. Aren't profits earned in the USA subject to USA's corporate income tax? Exhibit A is Shell Oil; Exhibit B is British Petroleum. Profits parked outside the USA were earned outside the USA. Exhibit C is Starbucks; Exhibit D is Apple; Exhibit C is Microsoft. Foreign profits are parked where they're earned because the USA's corporate tax code is so much tougher than than of (gulp) Finland, Denmark, and the rest of the world.

 


The average federal employee earned $84,153 in 2014—roughly 50% more than the average worker in the private economy

How to Mislead With Statistics
From a Wall Street Journal newsletter on November 20, 2015 ---

Mac Zimmerman cites a Cato Institute report showing that “the average federal employee earned $84,153 in 2014—roughly 50% more than the average worker in the private economy. When you include benefits like health care and pensions nearly 80% higher than everyone else.

The Editorial --- http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-sweet-gig-of-being-a-bureaucrat-1447978181?mod=djemMER&alg=y

Jensen Comment
Comparisons like this should contrast differences in public sector versus private sector distributions of income. Relative to the public sector the private sector has a much larger standard deviation in a distribution that is not at all normal (think of the millions of minimum wage workers in contrast to a much smaller number of overpaid corporate executives). The public sector nearly always pays more than minimum wage but even the USA President Obama's salary is paltry compared to the highly paid corporate CEOs with all sorts of side deals like bonus plans and stock options.

In comparison to the public sector, many private sector employees are on potentially lucrative pay-for-performance plans such as performance commissions and bonuses.  And there are usually more overtime opportunities in the public sector.

Anecdotally, most graduates from accounting masters degree programs are seeking to pass the CPA examination and make a career in the private sector. There must be a reason. A few might seek to become glamorous pistol-packing FBI agents but most of the relatively small number of graduates looking for public sector jobs (like joining the IRS as a staff accountant) do so because they were passed over by the private sector.  Many of those in the public sector like those who become IRS agents are seeking opportunities to break into higher paying jobs in the private sector.

A huge lure of the private sector is the possibility (however remote) of rising to compensation levels well above opportunities for above-average compensation in the public sector.


Two of President Obama's former Secretaries of Defense wrote books critical Obama's leadership as Commander in Chief. Now comes more criticism piled on his bad record. Nor has the top brass anything good to say about his role as Commander and Chief. His leadership of the military will be a huge blemish on his legacy as President of the United States.

Worthy Fights: A Memoir of Leadership in War and Peace,  by Leon Panetta and Jim Newton, 2015

Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War, by Robert M Gates, 2015

"Obama's bad relationship with the military is hurting the fight against ISIS," by Liz Peek, The Fiscal Times via Business Insider, November 19, 2015 ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/obamas-bad-relationship-with-the-military-is-hurting-the-fight-against-isis-2015-11

White House that’s jealous of control and willing to penalize those who stray from the Oval Office narrative. President Obama told graduates of the Coast Guard Academy that denying climate change is a “dereliction of duty.” Isn’t blindly following the flawed and politically skewed directives of the White House also a dereliction of duty?

The failure of our effort to arm compliant rebels in Syria -- $50 million spent to produce six soldiers -- has made our military a laughing stock, but is the tip of the iceberg. Continued half-measures in arming our allies or providing critical air support has hobbled our attack on a deadly foe. Recently, the White House announced it would send in dozens (but fewer than 50) advisors, as a renewed show of resolve – but vowed they would not engage in combat. Fifty soldiers! We’re not trying to button down Disneyland; there are an estimated 50,000 to 200,000 ISIS fighters in Syria, and they control about half the country.

The New York Times recently detailed efforts to disrupt Highway 47, ISIS’s critical supply route between Syria and Iraq’s Mosul. The U.S. has apparently been loath to bomb that essential artery for fear of civilian casualties. There have been 250,000 people killed in Syria. The U.S. is worried about truck drivers who may be willing to work for ISIS. Yesterday the U.S. launched airstrikes on hundreds of trucks conveying oil to market, destroying 116. But we made certain no civilians were hurt by dropping leaflets an hour before the strikes, alerting ISIS to the imminent bombings. Was ever a campaign so absurdly restrained?

Earlier this year, that caution ignited controversy, when an Air Force official told legislators that in the bombing effort in Syria and Iraq, “There’s a target of zero civilian casualties….” He explained further that even if there was only one civilian at risk, his pilots would withdraw, no matter how important the target. The upshot of that policy is that 75 percent of our combat missions return to base without dropping a single weapon.  

Our military is being interfered with and directed by President Obama and a national security team that one retired general has described as “pathetically weak.” It includes Susan Rice, former human rights activist focused on Africa, and Valerie Jarrett, lawyer and former real estate developer. The Obama White House is remarkably devoid of ex-soldiers; that’s not an accident. The president’s contentious relationship with the military is well known.

Confronting President Obama is risky. Senior military commanders who have gone public with their disagreements can find themselves facing early retirement. Sir Hew Strachan, a senior defense strategist in the U.K., cites the ouster of General Stanley McCrystal as a case in point, saying “The concern about the military speaking out shows a lack of democratic and political maturity. We’re not facing the danger of a military coup.” Senator John McCain has accused the White House of pushing out both Marine General James Mattis from U.S. Central Command and Army Lt. General Michael Flynn from the DIA for having contradicted Obama’s policies.

Joint Chiefs Chairman Martin Dempsey also broke with Obama numerous times, citing Russia as a major threat, for instance, and saying we might need boots on the ground to defeat ISIS. Dempsey retired in September. 

Continued in article


'The Decline of Antiterror Surveillance," The Wall Street Journal, November 20, 2015 ---
http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-decline-of-antiterror-surveillance-1447977687?mod=djemMER

. . .

All of which makes the decline in U.S. intelligence capabilities alarming. Start with the end of the NSA’s authority to collect and store telephone “metadata”—such as the numbers called but not the names or content of the calls. (For the latter the NSA needs a court warrant.) After Mr. Snowden’s thievery, the political class panicked, Mr. Obama called for the program’s abolition, and in June Congress voted to kill it.

Senior GOP leaders in Congress knew better, but they faced a revolt from their rank and file fanned by talk radio and Senators Rand Paul and Ted Cruz. So Congress voted to bar NSA metadata collection, claiming that private telecom companies could collect and store the data instead. But the USA Freedom Act includes no such requirement, and some companies have told customers they’ll not do so.

This means that if there is a terror attack next year, and the NSA goes looking for metadata to connect dots it previously missed, there will likely be no such metadata to search. The whole point of collecting details like telephone numbers is to use big-data analysis to find patterns you might not otherwise see.

Continued in article

Jensen Comment
Thanks for nothing Senators Cruz and Paul.


Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) --- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Pacific_Partnership
This is a "trade deal" being actively pushed by President Obama but opposed by Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, and Donald Trump

. . .

In December 2014 Senator (I-VT) Bernie Sanders denounced the TPP,:
"Let’s be clear: the TPP is much more than a “free trade” agreement. It is part of a global race to the bottom to boost the profits of large corporations and Wall Street by outsourcing jobs; undercutting worker rights; dismantling labor, environmental, health, food safety and financial laws; and allowing corporations to challenge our laws in international tribunals rather than our own court system. If TPP was such a good deal for America, the administration should have the courage to show the American people exactly what is in this deal, instead of keeping the content of the TPP a secret.[91]"

Jensen Comment
In class discussions we've all experienced students who talk so much that they reveal not having done their assigned homework
 

The GOP on Economics: The good, the bad, and the ugly at the fourth presidential debate ---
http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-gop-on-economics-1447224376?mod=djemMER

. . .

Mr. Trump called it a “terrible deal,” though it wasn’t obvious that he has any idea what’s in it. His one specific criticism was its failure to deal with Chinese currency manipulation. But it took Rand Paul to point out that China isn’t part of the deal and would be happy if the agreement collapsed so the U.S. would have less economic influence in Asia.

Continued in article

Jensen Comment
Contrary to what he claims I don't think Donald Trump knows a whole lot about economics or management having thrown four of his biggest corporations into bankruptcy.


Diploma Mill Fraud

EDMC is the nation's second-largest for-profit college system and the parent company of four higher education systems: Argosy University, The Art Institutes, Brown Mackie College, and South University. It was acquired by Goldman Sachs in 2006, which retains 40% ownership in the company today.

"College accused of being a 'high-pressure recruitment mill' agrees to a record $95.5 million settlement," by Abby Jackson, Business Insider, November 16, 2015 ---
http://www.businessinsider.com/for-profit-college-edmc-settled-civil-lawsuit-for-955-million-2015-11

Jensen Comment
For-profit universities tend to have no admission standards.

The good news is that any student who can pay the tuition has a chance, especially online alternatives for degrees.

The bad news is that for-profit universities have had a race for the bottom in recruiting students who have little aptitude for higher education, little time to devote to learning (e.g. a parent with three pre-school toddlers), and an low prospects of ever completing a program.

The bad news with the political plans for free undergraduate education for every student in the USA is that the non-profit colleges and universities may commence a scramble for government-paid tuition is that hey may commence a race for the bottom in recruiting students who have little aptitude for higher education, little time to devote to learning (e.g. a parent with three pre-school toddlers), and an low prospects of ever completing a program.

Bob Jensen's Fraud Updates ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/FraudUpdates.htm


"Wake Up, Mr. President:  The Paris attacks signal a new Islamist terror strategy, The Wall Street Journal, November 16, 2015 ---
http://www.wsj.com/articles/wake-up-mr-president-1447628873?mod=djemMER

President Obama on Sunday promised to “redouble” U.S. efforts against Islamic State, which shows he isn’t deaf to the political impact of Friday’s murderous assault in Paris. But why should anyone believe him? After years of dismissing the rising terror threat, Mr. Obama needs an epiphany if he doesn’t want to be remembered as the President who allowed radical Islam to spread and prosper.

“It is an act of war that was waged by a terrorist army, a jihadist army, by Daesh [the Arab name for Islamic State], against France,” said French President François Hollande on Saturday, in words that met the moment. Contrast that to Mr. Obama, who on Friday morning told ABC News that “we have contained” Islamic State. Some are saying Mr. Obama is guilty of bad timing, but the truth is worse: The remark is what he believes, or at least what he has wanted Americans to believe.

. . .  

The Paris massacre should mark the end of that self-deception. Jimmy Carter shed his illusions about the Soviet Union after its invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, and Mr. Obama needs a comparable rendezvous with reality. This will be harder for Mr. Obama, a man of great ideological vanity, but perhaps the prospect of defeat for his party in 2016 will force him to see the world more clearly.

For seven years Mr. Obama has used the unpopularity of the Iraq war as a shield for his retreat from antiterror leadership and the Middle East. His periodic drone strikes and his most notable security success, the Osama bin Laden raid, obscured the jihadist danger growing in the wake of America’s departure from Iraq and abdication in Syria.

Mr. Obama also deposed Moammar Gadhafi in Libya but then did almost nothing to help Libyans restore order. Americans saw a glimpse of the gathering storm in the terror attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, but the White House blamed it on an obscure video.

Now Americans can see clearly the spreading infection from Islamic State and a resurgent al Qaeda. It isn’t merely a regional threat, as Mr. Obama once claimed. Its offshoots have spread into North Africa across the Middle East to Afghanistan. The civil war in Syria has spawned a refugee crisis that has descended on Europe and may have provided cover for at least one of the Paris jihadists.

Islamic State also isn’t the “jayvee” terror team, as Mr. Obama once claimed. Western intelligence believes its sympathizers in Sinai took down a Russian airliner. Its bombs explode day after day against civilian targets, this past week in Beirut and a Christian convent in Iraq.

The Paris attack is in some ways even more alarming than 9/11. Airplane hijackings have largely been stopped through enhanced security. Paris suggests that Islamic State has embarked on a strategy of urban unconventional warfare wherever it is able across the West. And it is far harder to track and prevent suicidal jihadists with assault rifles and grenades who want to blow up a restaurant district or concert hall.

France has been the target three times this year, counting the attack on a train foiled by three Americans, but America’s day is coming. In May FBI Director James Comey said there are “thousands” inside the U.S. who are absorbing Islamic State propaganda on the Internet.

The question now is what America’s President is going to do to prevent more Paris-like carnage, including attacks on U.S. soil. He can start by taking the political restraints off the U.S. military’s campaign against Islamic State. Turkey and the Sunni Arabs haven’t committed more to the fight because they don’t believe Mr. Obama is committed. France launched air strikes against the Islamic State stronghold of Raqqa on Sunday, but the U.S. should have been hitting those targets long ago.

Mr. Obama should order the Pentagon to roll back Islamic State from all of its territory in Iraq and Syria as rapidly as possible, which means months not years. Kurds and Sunni Arabs will provide most of the fighters if the U.S. supplies the firepower, intelligence and political leadership.

Continued in article

Jensen Comment
It might instead be better to unconditionally surrender to ISIS and give them a trillion dollars if they promise to stop beheading people. But this runs the risks that ISIS will use the trillion dollars to buy weapons of mass destruction. Surrender is probably not the safest thing to do. Bernie Sanders might have better luck promising a war on climate change, the fundamental cause of ISIS terrorism.


Welders make more than philosophers. We need more welders and less philosophers.
Presidential candidate Marco Rubio ---
http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/philosophers-dont-get-much-respect-but-their-earnings-dont-suck/

Jensen Comment
An ounce of caviar costs 1,000 times more than an ounce of bread. Therefore we need more caviar and less bread.

It's totally inappropriate to look at undergraduate salaries of philosophy majors since there are virtually no jobs in this discipline without added graduate degrees. The closest thing to a philosopher is a worker having a Ph.D. in philosophy and working in that discipline such as being a college professor of philosophy. Here there is considerable variation between what Harvard pays versus what Dade Community College pays in philosophy. There's also considerable variation by rank of assistant, associate, versus full. There are also huge variations between tenured professors and non-tenured instructors. And the geographic differences based on living costs are enormous such as between Davenport, Iowa versus Silicon Valley.

Faculty salary databases are not free. Even if you subscribe to the Chronicle of Higher Education you must pay extra for salary database access. However various authors who did have access provide some free revealing information.
http://work.chron.com/much-philosophy-professor-make-year-8750.html

Philosophy and religion teachers earned a national average annual wage of $71,620 in May 2011, according to the bureau. The median earnings of this group was $65,100 per year. The middle 50 percent of philosophy and religion professors earned between $48,370 and $88,030 per year.

Of course there are outliers on both tails of this distribution,

When it comes to welders there is also considerable variation by skill, industry, and geographic location. When there was a shortage of welders laying pipe in North Dakota starting salaries went well above $100,000 per year to attract out-of-state welders. Welders are no longer doing so well in the oil industry since the collapse of oil prices. The best I can come up with is that welders across the USA make between $40,000 to $50,000 in average with an added 10% to 25% with lots of overtime.

In general I conclude that welders on average make considerably less than tenured full professors of philosophy and closely related disciplines, especially if you factor in the likelihood that philosophy professors tend to have summers free from teaching or will make upwards of 20% more for added summer teaching or landscaping. There's also the added possibility of income supplements from such things as writing textbooks and accepting speaking invitations.

However the big differences in careers of welders versus philosophers lie in many years to earn a Ph.D. in philosophy and added years of publish or perish sweat to earn tenure. Also there are huge differences in job availability. There may well be over 100 highly qualified applicants for a tenure track opening an assistant professor of philosophy and almost no openings nationwide for full professors of philosophy.

There's much less competition for a job opening in welding, and experienced welders who will work for $$50,000 have great flexibility about geographic preferences compared to philosophers.

Rubio should have picked something besides welding. The media reported that a well known NY attorney general was paying over $1,000 per hour for a prostitute. My point is that hourly wages are poor bases for comparing careers. A philosophy professor at Catholic University sued because he was terminated when he reached the age of 90. He had a long and rewarding career that paid considerably less by the hour than what a prostitute earns in the prime of his or her career. But lifetime earnings of prostitutes who were on the job full time between the ages of 30 and 90 add up to considerably less than the lifetime earnings of our 90 year old philosophy professor who moved from Princeton University to Catholic University at age 65.

Rubio should have compared the salaries of starting philosophy professors and starting accounting professors on average across R1 research universities. Then he could have safely concluded that we need fewer applicants for philosophy jobs and more applicants for accounting professor jobs on virtually every college R1 campus that has a business school. Then we could have more accounting graduates who become IRS auditors who can validate Rubio's questionable use of expense accounts.


"Don’t Blame Encryption for ISIS Attacks," by Tom Simonite, MIT's Technology Review, November 16, 2015 ---
http://www.technologyreview.com/view/543566/dont-blame-encryption-for-isis-attacks/?utm_campaign=newsletters&utm_source=newsletter-daily-all&utm_medium=email&utm_content=20151117


Laffer Curve --- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laffer_curve

Between 1979 and 2002, more than 40 other countries, including the United Kingdom, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Norway, and Sweden cut their top rates of personal income tax. In an article about this, Alan Reynolds, a senior fellow with the right-libertarian think tank Cato Institute, wrote, "Why did so many other countries so dramatically reduce marginal tax rates? Perhaps they were influenced by new economic analysis and evidence from... supply-side economics. But the sheer force of example may well have been more persuasive. Political authorities saw that other national governments fared better by having tax collectors claim a medium share of a rapidly growing economy (a low marginal tax) rather than trying to extract a large share of a stagnant economy (a high average tax)."[38]

Japanese government raised the sales tax in 1997 for the purpose of balancing its budget, but the government revenue decreased by 4.5 trillion yen because consumption stumbled. The country recorded a GDP growth rate of 3 percent in 1996, but after the tax hike the economy sank into recession (although this was also the time period of the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis.)[39] The tax revenue reached a peak of 53 trillion yen in FY 1997, and declined in subsequent years, being still 42 trillion yen[40] (537 billion US dollars) in 2012.

Continued in article

"Israel, the Laffer Curve, and Market-Based Reform," by Daniel J. Mitchell, Townhall, November 17, 2015 ---
http://finance.townhall.com/columnists/danieljmitchell/2015/11/17/israel-the-laffer-curve-and-marketbased-reform-n2081727

Since I’m a big fan of the Laffer Curve, I’m always interested in real-world examples showing good results when governments reduce marginal tax rates on productive activity.

Heck, I’m equally interested in real-world results when governments do the wrong thing and increase tax burdens on work, saving, investment, and entrepreneurship (and, sadly,these examples are more common).

My goal, to be sure, isn’t to maximize revenue for politicians. Instead, I prefer the growth-maximizing point on the Laffer Curve.

In any event, my modest hope is that politicians will learn that higher tax rates lead to less taxable income. Whether taxable income falls by a lot or a little obviously depends on the specific circumstance. But in either case, I want policy makers to understand that there are negative economic effects.

Writing for Forbes, Jeremy Scott of Tax Notes analyzes the supply-side policies of Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu

Netanyahu…argued that the Laffer curve worked, and that his 2003 tax cuts had transformed Israel into a market economy and an engine of growth. …He pushed through controversial reforms… The top individual tax rate was cut from 64 percent to 44 percent, while corporate taxes were slashed from 36 percent to 18 percent. …Netanyahu credits these reforms for making Israel’s high-tech boom of the last few years possible. …tax receipts did rise after Netanyahu’s tax cuts. In fact, they were sharply higher in 2007 than in 2003, before falling for several years because of the global recession. …His tax cuts did pay for themselves. And he has transformed Israel into more of a market economy…In fact, the prime minister recently announced plans for more cuts to taxes, this time to the VAT and corporate levies.

Pretty impressive.

Though I have to say that rising revenues doesn’t necessarily mean that the tax cuts were completely self-financing. To answer that question, you have to know what would have happened in the absence of the tax cut. And since that information never will be available, all we can do is speculate.

That being said, I have no doubt there was a strong Laffer Curve response in Israel. Simply stated, dropping the top tax rate on personal income by 20 percentage points creates a much more conducive environment for investment and entrepreneurship.

And cutting the corporate tax rate in half is also a sure-fire recipe for improved investment and job creation.

Continued in article

Jensen Comment
Note that there's likely to be a relatively long lag between tax cuts and increases in tax revenues even in circumstances that are likely to have a Laffer Curve impact. For example, Bill Clinton allegedly was able to balance the budget due to lags in the Regain tax cuts.

The circumstances were not decent for the George W. Bush tax cuts because he was the most spendthrift president in USA history. Tax cuts do not necessarily have a Laffer Curve impact when spending is significantly increased alongside the tax cuts. The George W. Bush veto pen was still full of ink at the end of his term of office as President of the USA.

The circumstances of Laffer Curve impact are also not good if the economy is heading for a deep recession. Too many other variables come into play, especially global variables.

The Miracle of Chile --- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracle_of_Chile


"Woman claims right to reside in pricey Piper Glen home," by Michael Gordon, Charlotte Observer, November 12, 2015 ---
http://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/local/crime/article44522178.html

Moorish Nation, whose members make it their business to assume ownership of vacant luxury homes without paying a dime, appears to have established an outpost in one of Charlotte’s finest neighborhoods.

Read more here: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/local/crime/article44522178.html#storylink=cpy

Jensen Comment
In some cases the owners across the USA are simply on vacation when their houses are taken over by thugs. Occupiers are encouraged by promises that if they remain nonviolent and eventually go to prison they will quickly be released. Meanwhile for months they've enjoyed luxury housing and other people's personal belongings for free.


"The Fake Fix for Disability Insurance," by Andy Koenig, The Wall Street Journal, November 11, 2015 ---
http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-fake-fix-for-disability-insurance-1447285970?mod=djemMER&alg=y

Judging by their rhetoric, you might think Republicans and Democrats have fixed Social Security. Describing the budget deal signed into law on Nov. 2, John Boehner said it secures “significant long-term savings from structural entitlement reform,” while President Obama lauded the agreement for reforming Social Security “in a responsible, balanced way.”

None of this is true. The deal tweaks the soon-to-be-bankrupt Social Security Disability Insurance program—but only shaves off between 1% and 1.5% of the program’s long-term shortfall. All Congress really did was delay insolvency by siphoning money from the rest of Social Security. Put another way, lawmakers “solved” the problem by bailing out one failing program with money from another failing program.

Created in 1956, Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) is supposed to provide monthly payments to workers with debilitating conditions. The repeated loosening of eligibility standards from the 1960s to the 1980s led to a rapid growth in SSDI’s participants and costs.

Program rolls doubled between 1990 and 2008, growing another 18% during the Obama administration. More than 10 million Americans are now on SSDI. The number is certain to keep growing. But even now the American taxpayer can’t keep up. SSDI benefits cost a staggering $141.7 billion in 2014, up more than fivefold since 1990. Losing money for the past decade, SSDI was on track to mark its 60th birthday next year with bankruptcy.

This crisis is what the budget deal purports to avoid. It laudably eliminates some loopholes and requires that disability reviews be conducted by medical professionals. However, the Congressional Budget Office estimates that the reforms will save $4.4 billion out of SSDI’s 10-year $340 billion projected shortfall.

To cover up those structural problems, the budget deal transfers $117 billion from the Social Security Old Age and Survivors Insurance Trust Fund. This is a new twist on the government tradition of robbing Peter to pay Paul. It also hastens the retirement trust fund’s own insolvency, which was expected to happen in 2035.

Lawmakers still need to reform the failing SSDI program. They should start with the administrative law judge system, where disability applicants seek to overturn earlier denials. According to recent research by Mark Warshawsky and Ross Marchand at the Mercatus Center, judges have issued wrongful decisions over the past decade that will cost taxpayers at least $72 billion.

Continued in article

Jensen Comment
Disability insurance is probably the USA's largest government piñata, along with the Pentagon, for massive fraud originating between crooked claimants, crooked attorneys, and crooked physicians all working in conspiracy. In most instances claimants also get Medicare benefits sometimes decades ahead of the Medicare eligibility age of 65.

Bob Jensen's threads on entitlements ---
http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Entitlements.htm


Goodbye, Connecticut: It’s just too own and operate a business here ---
http://m.journalinquirer.com/mobile/opinion/other_commentary/goodbye-connecticut-it-s-just-too-expensive-here/article_7aa52808-8930-11e5-9aa1-8b1a9ec391af.html

With the Litchfield hills and Connecticut in our rear-view mirror as we move our 101-year-old manufacturing company to South Carolina, we are nostalgic, excited, and disappointed.

We love Torrington and Connecticut but not all the things the General Assembly and the governor have done to induce us to leave family and friends behind. After more than a century of manufacturing in Connecticut, we are not looking for handouts.

We have paid our fair share, but enough is enough.

Connecticut’s high cost of doing business and its anti-employer attitude have finally driven us out. We are not moving for any government incentives.

Consider these facts:

• We sold our 50,000-square-foot building for enough money to buy a 100,000-square-foot building — and still had enough money left to pay for the transport of 100 trailer loads of machinery and equipment to our new site.

• The property taxes on our big new facility in South Carolina are much less than those on our smaller former building in Connecticut.

• Our utility costs in South Carolina, especially for electricity, will be about a third of what we paid here, though our space will more than double.

• We are taking a third of our employees with us and paying them the same wages. With South Carolina’s lower cost of living, it is as if they are getting a big raise. And we pay our new employees in South Carolina competitive local wages.

These savings could no longer be ignored.

At the same time, the constant hostility of the General Assembly, the governor, and state agencies, particularly the state Labor Department, settled the matter against staying in Connecticut.

Year after year employers like us have to fight off efforts to:

— Expand state requirements for paid sick leave.

— Increase the highest minimum wage in the nation to $15 per hour and more.

— Require paid family and medical leave.

— Impose unworkable restrictions on workforce scheduling.

— Restrict our ability to talk to our employees about union organizing efforts.

— And, of course, make us pay for every new “investment” policymakers think is a good idea.

We have always believed that to attract the best employees, we need to be among the best employers. We have never paid minimum wage and we have always offered our employees excellent benefits, including health insurance plans, paid vacation time, disability insurance, a 401(k) plan with employer matching contributions, profit sharing, and other time off based on individual needs.

Some people in authority in Connecticut refuse to understand that a mandated $15 minimum wage would mean that companies like ours would have to raise pay across the board. It would mean that rather than investing in our company and being able to create more jobs, we would have to raise pay for all employees, including those who are already being paid a good wage. These cost increases would cause us to raise the price of our product and become less competitive with companies outside Connecticut.

To make it worse, staying in Connecticut would require us to speculate on how much more our taxes and costs will go up as state government fails to pass a balanced budget.

Under the current administration state government has imposed nearly $4 billion in tax increases and still runs a deficit.

We can’t afford to wait for the governor and the legislature to see they have a spending problem and to address it. We can’t wait for state government to make any more “investments” by giving our money to a few favored companies.

Perhaps the final straw for us was our mind-boggling treatment by the Labor Department, which actually awarded unemployment compensation to an employee who was fired for threatening a supervisor with physical harm.

Continued in article


"This Budget Is No Deal, It's A Spending Spree," by Stephen Moore, Investors Business Daily, October 27, 2015 ---
http://news.investors.com/ibd-editorials-viewpoint/102715-777718-stephen-moore-stop-the-budget-deal-spending-spree.htm#ixzz3prJbnJY6 

No wonder Nancy Pelosi and the White House are bursting with glee. The budget deal is the biggest spending blitz in years.

Let's start with an amazing and depressing statistic. Federal spending in 2016 was already expected to climb by more than $250 billion — or close to $1 billion extra spending each day. This was to be a 6% rise in outlays in a year when inflation is running at slightly less than 2%.

But the budget deal adds to the orgy of spending. The plan raises spending by at least $100 billion over two years and busts through the spending caps for two years.

And it raises the debt ceiling by about $1 trillion for the next year and a half so that Washington doesn't have to deal with it anymore.

What a calamity.

The only victory Republicans have had in six years under Obama is the spending caps, and now they want to punt those away?

Obama dangled the bait of cuts in the long-term income-transfer programs like Medicare and Social Security.

Sure. These are the same Democrats who show TV ads of Republicans shoving grandma over the cliff with her wheelchair. Are Republicans really dumb enough to fall for that Lucy-and-the-football trick again?

Families Need A Raise

If the spending caps are blown open, federal spending may rise by more than $300 billion in 2016 and $500 billion over two years. In 2016 alone spending will rise by close to 8% in 2016. (See chart.)

So we get a short-term spending blowout paid for by some obscure promises of future cuts in entitlements and the sale from oil in the petroleum reserves, which is stupid because the price of oil is so low.

Once the spending caps are blown away for two years, the GOP has zero leverage for real and substantial entitlement reforms, including the establishment of personal retirement accounts as a voluntary alternative to the Social Security program for tens of millions of young workers.

This is a bad deal on every level. It makes Republicans look like hypocritical frauds when they say they are the party for fiscally accountable and cost-efficient government.

Families haven't had a raise in nearly a decade, and now the Depublicans are going to give government an 8% raise?

This only reinforces the sentiment of voters that the two parties in Washington are Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum. With the emphasis on "dumb." Obama and his liberal friends who feast on government are laughing all the way to the bank.

Reforms in entitlement programs — which are ravaging the federal budget and are expected to grow by another trillion over the next decade — make sense.

But these reforms should be on top of the budget caps and sequester, not a replacement. Even with the caps, the government is expected to continue borrowing between a half billion and $1 trillion a year.

Obama has run up the debt by about $7 trillion already, and now he won't have to ask for another debt limit rise before he leaves office.

Broken Promise

There is much joy in the Oval Office and on K Street from lobbyists who feast off government spending.

For the rest of us: The deal is the opposite of everything Republicans promised when voters elected them to the majorities in the House and Senate last year.

The bet by the GOP political pundits in Washington is that voters don't know or don't care about this bipartisan fiscal jail break.

But they do know. And they are angry as hornets about it. Just ask any Trump voter.

 

From the CPA Newsletter on October 29. 2015

The budget deal forged between the White House and congressional leaders includes a number of policy changes that would affect businesses and individuals. Among other things, the bill would seek to prevent a cut in Social Security Disability Insurance benefits, limit a hike in Medicare premiums and make it easier for the IRS to audit large partnerships. The Washington Post (tiered subscription model) (10/27), The Wall Street Journal (tiered subscription


"Louisiana’s School Voucher Victory:  A sordid Justice Department lawsuit gets a judicial rebuke," The Wall Street Journal, November 20, 2015 ---
http://www.wsj.com/articles/louisianas-school-voucher-victory-1448061539?mod=djemMER

Bobby Jindal made a name for himself in the GOP by championing school choice. Upstaged by new candidates on the block, the Louisiana Governor this week dropped out of the Republican presidential race. But at least the education reformer can take heart that his private-school voucher legacy has finally been protected.

Last week a 2-1 majority of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a district court ruling that granted the Justice Department pre-clearance review of Louisiana vouchers. The “burdensome, costly, and endless” process imposed “a vast and intrusive reporting regime on the State without any finding of unconstitutional conduct,” wrote appellate Judge Edith Jones for the majority.

The rebuke punctuates a sordid, two-year case in which the Obama Administration sought to deny poor, black kids better educational opportunities under the pretext of promoting integration. In August 2013 Justice sued to block Louisiana’s vouchers, which the Administration claimed appeared “to impede the desegregation progress” of public schools under federal desegregation orders dating to the 1960s and ’70s.

Only students who come from families below 250% of the poverty and attend schools with a C or lower grade are eligible for the vouchers. In 2013 black students received 85% of 6,800 vouchers awarded. But Justice complained that black voucher recipients might leave their failing public schools more white.

According to a study by Boston University political scientist Christine Rossell—who has analyzed desegregation plans for more than 25 years—Louisiana vouchers “had no negative effect on school desegregation in the 34 school districts under a desegregation court order.” Justice produced no evidence to the contrary.

Switching tactics, Justice in November 2013 asked the court to allow federal oversight of Louisiana’s vouchers under a 1975 desegregation order that banned public funding of discriminatory private schools. Justice demanded that the state, prior to issuing vouchers, hand over racial data for each public school as well as applicants’ names, addresses, race, previous public school and private school preference.

In April 2014, federal Judge Ivan Lemelle imposed a tortuous federal pre-clearance review that allowed Justice to veto voucher awards. Parents of voucher recipients and the Louisiana Black Alliance for Educational Options petitioned to intervene in the case. They argued that the feds didn’t have jurisdiction over a private school voucher program.

The Fifth Circuit agreed. As Judge Jones explains, Justice can’t compel disclosure of state records without alleging illegal public aid of discriminatory private schools, which it didn’t. “DOJ admits that [its] position amounts to a fishing expedition,” writes Judge Jones, and an “attempt—through pre-award ‘back and forth’ with the state on every single voucher—to regulate the program without any legal judgment against the state.” Justice’s argument “represents more than ineffective lawyering.”

The Administration’s dubious prosecution of vouchers in Louisiana reflects its willingness to throw poor kids under the bus to curry favor with the teachers’ unions. Unlike President Obama, Mr. Jindal will leave office on the right side of history.

 


.Patricia Walters wrote:

What do the students have to lose by making these demands?

Jensen Comment

First and foremost these are the demands of only some students that have promoted themselves as spokespersons for all students on campus. What is the process that lets such a few students make such demands in the name of all students? The more contentious the demands become the more active students who do not agree will become and pretty soon we could have students on different sides rioting against each other with the university officials caught in the middle. And it could also result in lone wolf stalkings and threats made on students by other students.

There's a lot at stake to lose if a few self-proclaimed dictators make silly or contentious demands.

One thing the college loses is intellectual respect for even making some demands such as stupidly demanding that the university violate the constitution and state statutes by no longer being an equal opportunity employer due to prejudicial hiring based upon race, creed, or color. That could result in continual and expensive lawsuits by rejected candidates. It doesn't cost the student leaders anything, but it could cost the university as a whole a whole lot of money and respect.

Consider the following demand by Occidental College students:

Immediate demilitarization of Campus Safety, which includes, but is not limited to, removal of bulletproof vests from uniform, exclusion of military and external policy rhetoric from all documents and daily discourse, and increased transparency and positive direct connection to the student body

Consider the phrase "exclusion of military and external policy rhetoric from all documents and daily discourse." Does this mean burning the history documents and books in the campus library that make any reference to military events? Is this a start of a long list of politically incorrect topics and vocabulary that students decide cannot be mentioned on campus --- like maybe Woodrow Wilson, George Washington, and Thomas Jefferson?

There are all sorts of externalities in terms of loss or reputation of colleges and universities among taxpayers, alumni, and potential donors. Can't you just hear state legislators quoting the silly or contentious demands of a subset of radicalized students threatening to riot on state-supported campuses.

Recall that Alan was on OJ Simpson's winning defense team
 "Famous Harvard professor rips into 'tyrannical' student protesters, saying they want 'superficial diversity'," by Abby Jackson, The Wall Street Journal, November 17, 2015 ---
 http://www.businessinsider.com/alan-dershowitz-thinks-student-protesters-dont-want-true-diversity-in-colleges-2015-11 

High-profile incidents of racial discrimination at the University of Missouri have spurred students across the US to protest racism on their own campuses.

And while many civil libertarians have lauded their actions, Alan Dershowitz, a prominent Harvard Law School professor, has ripped into these students for what he argues are hypocritical demands.

"The last thing these students want is diversity," Dershowitz told Business Insider.

"They may want superficial diversity, because for them diversity is a code word for 'more of us.' They don't want more conservatives, they don't want more white students, they don't want more heterosexuals."

Dershowitz, a leading proponent of civil liberties and a defense attorney who advised on the O.J. Simpson murder trial and a number of other celebrity cases, was commenting on what he calls a dangerous trend of "tyrannical students" on college campuses.

At a number of schools — including The University of Missouri and Yale University — students have protested racism on campus and called for the resignation of administration members who they claim are creating a dangerous environment. And at Amherst College, students have threatened to respond in a "radical manner" if their demands are not met.

Continued in article

Jensen Comment I spent two years in the CASBS think tank with Alan. He most certainly is not conservative in economics or civil liberties.

 

Conclusion
What these radicalized students are losing is the respect of the public for our colleges and universities, including intellectuals and scholars in the public who truly despise and fear antics by the new generation of anti-establishment activists who falsely claim they are speaking for all students on campus.


What is sad is that faculty who protest alongside the other students are pressuring one or more colleagues to give up due process for job retention.

Jensen Comment
There is due process for "firing employees" at universities. By threatening to protest and even close down a university the students are placing enormous pressures on targeted faculty and administrators to give up their due process rights in order to prevent protests, riots, and campus shut downs. Students want all sorts of due process when it comes to preventing their academic dismissal. But they want to deny those rights to employees by threats and protests that force resignations in the face of shutting down the universities with protests.

What is sad is that faculty who protest alongside the other students are pressuring one or more colleagues to give up due process for job retention

Students at Occidental College demanded the Immediate removal of President Veitch ---
http://www.oxy.edu/news/oxy-student-protest-updates

"Protests at Still More Campuses," Inside Higher Ed, November 17, 2015 ---
https://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2015/11/17/protests-still-more-campuses?utm_source=Inside+Higher+Ed&utm_campaign=9802823de8-DNU20151117&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_1fcbc04421-9802823de8-197565045 

One controversial issue is that your score must be absolutely perfect in the game of political correctness or "microaggression." Unlike in baseball, one error gets you kicked out of the game.
All it takes is one innocent slip of the tongue or keyboard to earn your lifetime scarlet letter

Mary Spellman, dean of students at Claremont McKenna College, resigned after her comments in an email to a student prompted protests and hunger strikes ---
http://chronicle.com/article/Facing-Protests-About-Racial/234191 

Unhappy with a series of small concessions from the administration, protesters at Yale University have released a new list of demands that include firing people they don’t like and giving their favored programs a budget increase of at least $8 million a year.
http://dailycaller.com/2015/11/13/yale-protesters-demand-school-give-them-8-million-or-else/#ixzz3relcold8

Students at Occidental College who have occupied an administration building this week have demanded that campus safety officers stop wearing bulletproof vests ---
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/11/18/students-demand-no-bulletproof-vests-occidental/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social
Jensen Comment
This made me think back to my early days at Trinity University. An unarmed campus security officer at nearby Our Lady of the Lake University was shot dead in the chest late at night in a dormitory parking lot by one of San Antonio's countless car thieves. If the officer had been wearing a bulletproof vest he might have lived to be with his family the next day. Now our students want only the killers to have bulletproof vests.

Hi Elliot,

Your research is too shallow. If you go to the Occidental College site you find the following at
http://www.oxy.edu/news/oxy-student-protest-updates 

Immediate demilitarization of Campus Safety, which includes, but is not limited to, removal of bulletproof vests from uniform, exclusion of military and external policy rhetoric from all documents and daily discourse, and increased transparency and positive direct connection to the student body

Smith College Protesters Bar Journalists From Covering Sit-In Unless They Support the Cause ---
http://chronicle.com/blogs/ticker/smith-college-protesters-bar-journalists-from-covering-sit-in-unless-they-support-the-cause/106834?elq=46cf6e8cc18e4732b0d54a222e1e06cd&elqCampaignId=1900&elqaid=6971&elqat=1&elqTrackId=c828256ed86e4e7e9eaee73385a1dce0
Jensen Comment
This reminds me of those letters from friends who request that I write letters of recommendation for their tenure and/or promotion candidacy but only if I don't write anything negative. Recently I got a letter from a former colleague requesting that I write a letter in support of his application for a job at another university under the condition that I let him read the letter before it's sent out.

Princeton University's president, under pressure from African American student activists, said Thursday night that the school would begin a process to consider expunging the legacy of former President Woodrow Wilson from campus
http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/princeton-university-agrees-weigh-erasing-woodrow-wilsons-name-n466796

Exterminating the Campus of Those Dreaded Conservatives
"Academia’s Rejection of Diversity," by Arthur C. Brooks, The New York Times, October 30, 2015 ---
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/31/opinion/academias-rejection-of-diversity.html?_r=1

Wasn't tenure intended originally to protect free speech dialog on campus --- especially controversial issues?
How much power should we give to the politically correct police on campus"
Protesters Demand Firing Of Tenured Vanderbilt Law Professor Over Publication Of Op-Ed ---
http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2015/11/protesters-demand-firing-of-tenured-vanderbilt-law-professor-over-publication-of-op-ed.html
Jensen Comment
Carol Swain is one tough African American professor. She told the political correctness faculty and student protesters to "grow up."

Students and their sympathizer who become theatrical about each and every unintended microaggression should listen to Al Sharpton
If you play the theatrics too much, you get in the way of your own cause.
Al Sharpton --- http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/a/alsharpton366445.html 
Jensen Comment You can also go over the top where the theatrics are extremely counter productive such as when students lock arms to block fire trucks and ambulances on campus
Jane Fonda suggests this in one of her books admitting that she damaged her life and her cause badly by pretending to fire an anti-aircraft gun in North Viet Nam.

All it takes is one innocent slip of the tongue or keyboard to earn your lifetime scarlet letter
Mary Spellman, dean of students at Claremont McKenna College, resigned after her comments in an email to a student prompted protests and hunger strikes.

http://chronicle.com/article/Facing-Protests-About-Racial/234191

Complimenting a Chinese student that she speaks English very well is an egregious microaggression.

You just know that nanoaggression is coming down the line. Make sure you smile (or don’t smile) equally at all students passing by in the hall.
Glen Gray
Jensen Comment

Distracted, misbehaving children (including college students) aren’t learning ---
Eva Moskowitz --- http://www.wsj.com/articles/why-students-need-to-sit-up-and-pay-attention-1447373122?mod=djemMER 

I wonder if anybody has ever documented microagressions in The Bible and the Koran and other great works of history?
Bob Jensen
These books should be banned and burned since they contain egregious microaggressions --- Oops that includes most of the books in the campus library like all those books in history that used "he" to refer to a generic person..

Wasn't tenure intended originally to protect free speech dialog on campus --- especially controversial issues?
How much power should we give to the politically correct police on campus"
Protesters Demand Firing Of Tenured Vanderbilt Law Professor Over Publication Of Op-Ed ---
http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2015/11/protesters-demand-firing-of-tenured-vanderbilt-law-professor-over-publication-of-op-ed.html
Jensen Comment
Carol Swain is one tough African American professor. She told the political correctness faculty and student protesters to "grow up."

Hinkle: Crybaby nation ---
http://www.richmond.com/opinion/our-opinion/bart-hinkle/article_00ee8528-db06-54e6-bdc6-bd27d189cbc9.html

"The right to fright;  An obsession with safe spaces is not just bad for education: it also diminishes worthwhile campus protests," The Economist, November 14, 2015 ---
http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21678223-obsession-safe-spaces-not-just-bad-education-it-also-diminishes-worthwhile-campus?cid1=cust/ednew/n/bl/n/20151112n/owned/n/n/nwl/n/n/NA/n

. . .

Like many bad ideas, the notion of safe spaces at universities has its roots in a good one. Gay people once used the term to refer to bars and clubs where they could gather without fear, at a time when many states still had laws against sodomy.

In the worst cases, though, an idea that began by denoting a place where people could assemble without being prosecuted has been reinvented by students to serve as a justification for shutting out ideas. At Colorado College, safety has been invoked by a student group to prevent the screening of a film celebrating the Stonewall riots which downplays the role of minorities in the gay-rights movement. The same reasoning has led some students to request warnings before colleges expose them to literature that deals with racism and violence. People as different as Condoleezza Rice, a former secretary of state, and Bill Maher, a satirist, have been dissuaded from giving speeches on campuses, sometimes on grounds of safety.

What makes this so objectionable is that there are plenty of things on American campuses that really do warrant censure from the university. Administrators at the University of Oklahoma managed not to notice that one of its fraternities, Sigma Alpha Epsilon, had cheerily sung a song about hanging black people from a tree for years, until a video of them doing so appeared on the internet. At the University of Missouri, whose president resigned on November 9th, administrators did a poor job of responding to complaints of unacceptable behaviour on campus—which included the scattering of balls of cotton about the place, as a put-down to black students, and the smearing of faeces in the shape of a swastika in a bathroom.

Distinguishing between this sort of thing and obnoxious Halloween costumes ought not to be a difficult task. But by equating smaller ills with bigger ones, students and universities have made it harder, and diminished worthwhile protests in the process. The University of Missouri episode shows how damaging this confusion can be: some activists tried to prevent the college’s own newspaper from covering their demonstration, claiming that to do so would have endangered their safe space, thereby rendering a reasonable protest absurd.

Fifty years ago student radicals agitated for academic freedom and the right to engage in political activities on campus. Now some of their successors are campaigning for censorship and increased policing by universities of student activities. The supporters of these ideas on campus are usually described as radicals. They are, in fact, the opposite.


Black-clad protesters gathered in front of Dartmouth Hall, forming a crowd roughly one hundred fifty strong.
“F*** you, you filthy white f***s!” “F*** you and your comfort!” “F*** you, you racist s***!” These shouted epithets were the first indication that many students had of the coming storm. The sign-wielding, obscenity-shouting protesters proceeded through the usually quiet backwaters of the library. They surged first through first-floor Berry, then up the stairs to the normally undisturbed floors of the building, before coming back down to the ground floor of Novack.
The Dartmouth Review, November 47, 2015 --- http://www.dartreview.com/eyes-wide-open-at-the-protest/
Video:  http://townhall.com/tipsheet/justinholcomb/2015/11/17/could-you-quiet-down-please-im-trying-to-learn-n2081756?utm_source=thdaily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl&newsletterad=

Students and their sympathizer who become theatrical about each and every unintended microaggression should listen to Al Sharpton
If you play the theatrics too much, you get in the way of your own cause.
Al Sharpton --- http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/a/alsharpton366445.html
Jensen Comment
You can also go over the top where the theatrics are extremely counter productive such as when students lock arms to block fire trucks  and ambulances on campus
Jane Fonda suggests this in one of her books admitting that she damaged her life and her cause badly by pretending to fire an anti-aircraft gun in North Viet Nam.


 

 

 

 

 

 

 


"University of Minnesota Rejects 9/11 Remembrance Because it Might Incite Racism," by Christine Rousselle, Townhall, November 12, 2015
http://townhall.com/tipsheet/christinerousselle/2015/11/12/university-of-minnesota-rejects-911-remembrance-because-it-might-incite-racism-n2079788?utm_source=thdailypm&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl_pm&newsletterad=

Here's another instance of political correctness on a college campus going a smidge too far, courtesy of the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities: A proposed resolution to recognize the 9/11 terrorist attacks on campus each year was rejected by the Minnesota Student Association as it may potentially violate a "safe space" on campus.

Continued in article

"The right to fright;  An obsession with safe spaces is not just bad for education: it also diminishes worthwhile campus protests," The Economist, November 14, 2015 ---
http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21678223-obsession-safe-spaces-not-just-bad-education-it-also-diminishes-worthwhile-campus?cid1=cust/ednew/n/bl/n/20151112n/owned/n/n/nwl/n/n/NA/n

. . .

Like many bad ideas, the notion of safe spaces at universities has its roots in a good one. Gay people once used the term to refer to bars and clubs where they could gather without fear, at a time when many states still had laws against sodomy.

In the worst cases, though, an idea that began by denoting a place where people could assemble without being prosecuted has been reinvented by students to serve as a justification for shutting out ideas. At Colorado College, safety has been invoked by a student group to prevent the screening of a film celebrating the Stonewall riots which downplays the role of minorities in the gay-rights movement. The same reasoning has led some students to request warnings before colleges expose them to literature that deals with racism and violence. People as different as Condoleezza Rice, a former secretary of state, and Bill Maher, a satirist, have been dissuaded from giving speeches on campuses, sometimes on grounds of safety.

What makes this so objectionable is that there are plenty of things on American campuses that really do warrant censure from the university. Administrators at the University of Oklahoma managed not to notice that one of its fraternities, Sigma Alpha Epsilon, had cheerily sung a song about hanging black people from a tree for years, until a video of them doing so appeared on the internet. At the University of Missouri, whose president resigned on November 9th, administrators did a poor job of responding to complaints of unacceptable behaviour on campus—which included the scattering of balls of cotton about the place, as a put-down to black students, and the smearing of faeces in the shape of a swastika in a bathroom.

Distinguishing between this sort of thing and obnoxious Halloween costumes ought not to be a difficult task. But by equating smaller ills with bigger ones, students and universities have made it harder, and diminished worthwhile protests in the process. The University of Missouri episode shows how damaging this confusion can be: some activists tried to prevent the college’s own newspaper from covering their demonstration, claiming that to do so would have endangered their safe space, thereby rendering a reasonable protest absurd.

Fifty years ago student radicals agitated for academic freedom and the right to engage in political activities on campus. Now some of their successors are campaigning for censorship and increased policing by universities of student activities. The supporters of these ideas on campus are usually described as radicals. They are, in fact, the opposite.

Jensen Comment
And that is an illustration of how campus leaders are becoming gutless in protecting free speech that is not politically correct. The worst thing is the power that a single crazy has in turning the campus upside down. Students gather for protests when a crazy, possibly not even a student, throws a noose the the lawn or a redneck pickup drives through campus late at night showing a Confederate Flag. The football coach, following a secret ballot vote among players, who can and cannot be the next politically correct President of the University of Missouri.


Question
In the 1980s the Republican party was pro-immigration versus Democratic Party resistance in amidst heavy labor union lobbying against immigration.
In the 21st Century the roles are reversed with the Republicans resisting immigration while the Democratic Party is all in favor of more and more immigration.
Given the continued labor union protectionism why the reversal in party preferences?

A Stanford University Answer
"The Serious Side of the Donald Trump Phenomenon," by Neil Malhotra and Yotam Margalit, Stanford University Graduate School of Business, November 2, 2015 ---
http://www.gsb.stanford.edu/insights/serious-side-donald-trump-phenomenon?utm_source=Stanford+Business&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Stanford-Business-Issue-75-11-15-2015&utm_content=alumni

Jensen Comment
I think the change in preferences was mainly a delayed reaction to the 1965 Immigration Act when both political parties began to realize that the overwhelming number of immigrants coming in annually leaned toward the Democratic Party and shunned the Republican Party.

My point is that conservatism is dying out in large measure due to the 21st Century of immigrant political preferences ----
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_to_the_United_States

A Boston Globe article attributed Barack Obama's win in the 2008 U.S. Presidential election to a marked reduction over the preceding decades in the percentage of whites in the American electorate, attributing this demographic change to the Immigration Act of 1965.

. . .

Immigrants differ on their political views; however, the Democratic Party is considered to be in a far stronger position among immigrants overall.]

 

 

 


Exterminating the Campus of Those Dreaded Conservatives
"Academia’s Rejection of Diversity," by Arthur C. Brooks, The New York Times, October 30, 2015 ---
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/31/opinion/academias-rejection-of-diversity.html?_r=1

ONE of the great intellectual and moral epiphanies of our time is the realization that human diversity is a blessing. It has become conventional wisdom that being around those unlike ourselves makes us better people — and more productive to boot.

Unfortunately, new research also shows that academia has itself stopped short in both the understanding and practice of true diversity — the diversity of ideas — and that the problem is taking a toll on the quality and accuracy of scholarly work. This year, a team of scholars from six universities studying ideological diversity in the behavioral sciences published a paper in the journal Behavioral and Brain Sciences that details a shocking level of political groupthink in academia. The authors show that for every politically conservative social psychologist in academia there are about 14 liberal social psychologists.

This has consequences well beyond fairness. It damages accuracy and quality. As the authors write, “Increased political diversity would improve social psychological science by reducing the impact of bias mechanisms such as confirmation bias, and by empowering dissenting minorities to improve the quality of the majority’s thinking.”

One of the study’s authors, Philip E. Tetlock of the University of Pennsylvania, put it to me more bluntly. Expecting trustworthy results on politically charged topics from an “ideologically incestuous community,” he explained, is “downright delusional.”

Are untrustworthy academic findings really a problem? In a few high-profile cases, most definitely. Take, for example, Prof. Diederik Stapel of Tilburg University in the Netherlands, who in 2011 faked experiments to show, among other things, that eating meat made people selfish. (He later said that his work was “a quest for aesthetics, for beauty — instead of the truth”).

Continued in article

 

Jensen Comment
One of the things I note after extensive reading of student comments on www.RateMyProfessors.com  is that liberal faculty are more apt to bring some topics inappropriately into the classroom. For example, it is extremely common to bring feminist activism into courses like mathematics and science where there are dubious justifications for feminist activism. But across the board it seems that faculty tend not to hide their political biases in most any disciplines. However, it also seems that more often than not students shrug off these biases. Their political leanings were mostly determined before going to college and were probably more heavily influenced by parents and peers.

Actually the conservatives left on campus are the quants (in accounting we call them accountics scientists) who devoted their lives to conducting research on the capital markets, especially stocks, bonds, commodities, and derivatives. They are among the highest paid faculty and write in equations the rest of the faculty and students on campus cannot comprehend.

Some quants are critical of capital markets but most are simply trying to better understand markets and justify what they do as trying to make markets more efficient in allocation of capital and other resources to enterprises.

I will leave it up to Jagdish to tabulate the results, but conservative economists have probably had more than their fair share of Nobel prizes in economics. Only ignorant academics accuse conservatives on campus of being ignorant.

I have not looked for proof, but I suspect that conservatives almost totally dominate the doctoral programs in accountancy. They are usually arrogant and make virtually no effort to communicate with anybody but themselves and their quant students. The reason they make little effort to enter into conservatism versus liberalism debates is that these few remaining conservatives are so badly outnumbered.

Hi Pat,

You miss my point. The issue in this thread is the extermination of conservatism. Whites tend to be the most conservative and there are virtually zero whites immigrating to the USA both legally and illegally. Look at the numbers ---
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_to_the_United_States
Unlike before the Immigration Act of 1965, there's now zero diversity in immigration in terms of white versus color. This is a good thing for many humanitarian reasons, but it's a very bad thing for conservatism.

My point is that conservatism is dying out in large measure due to the 21st Century of immigrant political preferences ----
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_to_the_United_States

A Boston Globe article attributed Barack Obama's win in the 2008 U.S. Presidential election to a marked reduction over the preceding decades in the percentage of whites in the American electorate, attributing this demographic change to the Immigration Act of 1965.

. . .

Immigrants differ on their political views; however, the Democratic Party is considered to be in a far stronger position among immigrants overall.[148][149]

 

I repeat my opinion that conservative voters will die out as the baby boomers die off. The pending monopoly of the Democratic Party is not all due to immigration, but immigration is becoming one of the major reasons for the 21st Century decline of conservatism.

Interestingly, however, some of the most liberal entitlements (Medicare, Medicaid, Obamacare, Food Stamps, and even welfare) will have to be reduced in benefits that are not sustainable even under a monopoly Democratic Party regime in the USA.

It's well known in economics that one of the major reasons for rationing is the excess of demand over the ability to supply  ---
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shortage

One of the big theory debates between liberals and conservatives is that capitalist-based market systems will move more efficiently and effectively (due to greed and profit motivation) to increase supply to meet demand.

Empty stores were a huge contributor to the collapse if the Soviet Union. The enormous inefficiencies of collective farms in the Soviet Union and Israel and Cuba are examples of what happens when profit motives are destroyed.

Hi Paul,

Did you read the quotation I included in the post?

Election analysts most certainly equate conservatism with race such as attributing the 2008 win for Obama to be largely influenced by the colored-only Immigration Act of 1965 that virtually eliminated quotas for white applicants.

Most certainly I do not deny there are more liberals than conservatives among whites. But the proportion of conservatives among colored voters is very small.

In 2012, 88% of Romney voters were white, while 56% of Obama voters were white --- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republican_Party_(United_States)#Ethnicity 

I suspect these percentages will not change significantly upward in the 2016 election. They may in fact go downward if the Republican candidate takes a stand against granting citizenship to undocumented persons living in the USA.

 

  • "Moving Further to the Left," by Scott Jaschik, Inside Higher Ed, October 24, 2012 ---
    http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2012/10/24/survey-finds-professors-already-liberal-have-moved-further-left

    Academics, on average, lean to the left. A survey being released today suggests that they are moving even more in that direction.


     

    Among full-time faculty members at four-year colleges and universities, the percentage identifying as "far left" or liberal has increased notably in the last three years, while the percentage identifying in three other political categories has declined. The data come from the University of California at Los Angeles Higher Education Research Institute, which surveys faculty members nationwide every three years on a range of attitudes.


     

    Here are the data for the new survey and the prior survey:

      2010-11 2007-8
    Far left 12.4% 8.8%
    Liberal 50.3% 47.0%
    Middle of the road 25.4% 28.4%
    Conservative 11.5% 15.2%
    Far right 0.4% 0.7%


     

    Gauging how gradual or abrupt this shift is complicated because of changes in the UCLA survey's methodology; before 2007-8, the survey included community college faculty members, who have been excluded since. But for those years, examining only four-year college and university faculty members, the numbers are similar to those of 2007-8. Going back further, one can see an evolution away from the center.


     

    In the 1998-9 survey, more than 35 percent of faculty members identified themselves as middle of the road, and less than half (47.5 percent) identified as liberal or far left. In the new data, 62.7 percent identify as liberal or far left. (Most surveys that have included community college faculty members have found them to inhabit political space to the right of faculty members at four-year institutions.)


     

    The new data differ from some recent studies by groups other than the UCLA center that have found that professors (while more likely to lean left than right) in fact were doing so from more of a centrist position. A major study in 2007, for example, found that professors were more likely to be centrist than liberal, and that many on the left identified themselves as "slightly liberal." (That study and the new one use different scales, making exact comparisons impossible.)


     

    In looking at the new data, there is notable variation by sector. Private research universities are the most left-leaning, with 16.2 percent of faculty members identifying as far left, and 0.1 percent as far right. (If one combines far left and liberal, however, private, four-year, non-religious colleges top private universities, 58.6 percent to 57.7 percent.) The largest conservative contingent can be found at religious, non-Roman Catholic four-year colleges, where 23.0 percent identify as conservative and another 0.6 percent say that they are far right.


     

    Professors' Political Identification, 2010-11, by Sector

      Far left Liberal Middle of the Road Conservative Far right
    Public universities 13.3% 52.4% 24.7% 9.2% 0.3%
    Private universities 16.2% 51.5% 22.3% 9.8% 0.1%
    Public, 4-year colleges 8.8% 47.1% 28.7% 14.7% 0.7%
    Private, 4-year, nonsectarian 14.0% 54.6% 22.6% 8.6% 0.3%
    Private, 4-year, Catholic 7.8% 48.0% 30.7% 13.3% 0.3%
    Private, 4-year, other religious 7.4% 40.0% 29.1% 23.0% 0.6%


     

    The study found some differences by gender, with women further to the left than men. Among women, 12.6 percent identified as far left and 54.9 percent as liberal. Among men, the figures were 12.2 percent and 47.2 percent, respectively.


     

    When it comes to the three tenure-track ranks, assistant professors were the most likely to be far left, but full professors were more likely than others to be liberal.


     

    Professors' Political Identification, 2010-11, by Tenure Rank

      Far left Liberal Middle of the Road Conservative Far right
    Full professors 11.8% 54.9% 23.4% 9.7% 0.2%
    Associate professors 13.8% 50.4% 24.0% 11.5% 0.4%
    Assistant professors 13.9% 48.7% 25.9% 11.2% 0.4%


     

    So what do these data mean?


     

    Sylvia Hurtado, professor of education at UCLA and director of the Higher Education Research Institute, said that she didn't know what to make of the surge to the left by faculty members. She said that she suspects age may be a factor, as the full-time professoriate is aging, but said that this is just a theory. Hurtado said that these figures always attract a lot of attention, but she thinks that the emphasis may be misplaced because of a series of studies showing no evidence that left-leaning faculty members are somehow shifting the views of their students or enforcing any kind of political requirement.

    Continued in article

    "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

    Jensen Comment


  •  

    Actually the conservatives left on campus are the quants (in accounting we call them accountics scientists) who devoted their lives to conducting research on the capital markets, especially stocks, bonds, commodities, and derivatives. They are among the highest paid faculty and write in equations the rest of the faculty and students on campus cannot comprehend.

     

     

    Some quants are critical of capital markets but most are simply trying to better understand markets and justify what they do as trying to make markets more efficient in allocation of capital and other resources to enterprises.

     

     

    I will leave it up to Jagdish to tabulate the results, but conservative economists have probably had more than their fair share of Nobel prizes in economics. Only ignorant academics accuse conservatives on campus of being ignorant.

     

     

    I have not looked for proof, but I suspect that conservatives almost totally dominate the doctoral programs in accountancy. They are usually arrogant and make virtually no effort to communicate with anybody but themselves and their quant students. The reason they make little effort to enter into conservatism versus liberalism debates is that these few remaining conservatives are so badly outnumbered.

     

    Bob Jensen

     

    Bob Jensen's threads on the liberal biases of higher education ---
    http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/higHerEdControversies.htm#LiberalBias

  •  


    Despite an increase in revenue of $1.1 billion, the U.S. Postal Service reported a net loss of $5.1 billion for Fiscal Year 2015, which ended on September 30th. [...] ... "[C]ontrollable expenses" also increased $1.3 billion, from $66.4 billion in FY2014 to $67.7 billion in FY2015. That included a 21 million increase in workhours, even though total mail volume declined from 155.5 billion pieces in 2014 to 154.2 billion pieces in 2015. USPS explained that the increase in operating expenses "was the result of a combination of factors, including higher compensation costs attributable to increased benefits expenses and additional work...
    U.S. Postal Service Lost $5.1B in FY2015 --- http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/barbara-hollingsworth/us-postal-service-loses-51b-fy2015-ends-9th-year-red


     

     

     


     


     

     


     


     

     


  •  


    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

    NYT:  "The deductible, $3,000 a year, makes it impossible to actually go to the doctor," said David R. Reines, 60, of Jefferson Township, N.J.
    Robert Pear, Many Say High Deductibles Make Their Health Law Insurance All but Useless ---
    http://www.cnbc.com/2015/11/14/new-york-times-digital-many-say-high-deductibles-make-their-health-law-insurance-all-but-useless.html

    Obamacare:  Health insurers lost a total of $2.5 billion, or on average $163 per consumer enrolled, in the individual market in 2014
    Anna Wilde Mathews, The Wall Street Journal, November 1, 2015 ---
    http://www.wsj.com/articles/health-laws-strains-show-1446423498?mod=djemCFO_h&alg=y 

    Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell announced recently that she expects 10 million people to be enrolled in health-care coverage through ObamaCare’s exchanges by the end of next year. What she didn’t mention was that in March of last year the Congressional Budget Office predicted that 21 million people would be enrolled in 2016—more than double the new estimate.
    Andy Puzder --- http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-slow-motion-implosion-of-obamacare-1446417104?mod=djemMER

    The uninsured “also know they can receive medical care at the emergency room. And if they fall ill, they can always purchase insurance during the next enrollment period, because ObamaCare eliminated existing conditions as a justification for denying coverage. Our employees are smart enough to figure this out. Of our company’s 5,453 eligible employees, only 420 enrolled,” reports Mr. Puzder.
    James Freeman --- http://www.wsj.com/articles/obamacares-failure-a-case-study-1446466932

    We're old enough to remember when advocates for the Affordable Care Act promised that it would "bend the cost curve" and reduce expensive hospital visits, particularly at emergency rooms. So far, the opposite is occurring.
    James Freeman, "There Goes Another ObamaCare Argument," WSJ, August 6, 2014 ---
    http://online.wsj.com/articles/there-goes-another-obamacare-argument-1407242712?tesla=y&mod=djemMER_h&mg=reno64-wsj

     


    Obamacare Turns Into a Losing Proposition for Participating Insurance companies

    “We can’t sustain these losses,” he said. “We can’t subsidize a market that doesn’t appear at this point to be sustaining itself.”

    UnitedHealth raises doubt on its participation in health exchanges. Insurer UnitedHealth Group Inc. expects major losses on its business through the Affordable Care Act’s exchanges and will consider withdrawing from them. The disclosure is the latest sign that many insurers are finding the new business unprofitable, despite an influx of customers that has helped to swell revenue.
    "Biggest Insurer Threatens to Abandon Health Law:  UnitedHealth cuts earnings outlook, citing losses from health-exchange products," by Anna Wilde Mathews and Stephanie Armour, The Wall Street Journal, November 19, 2015 ---
    http://www.wsj.com/articles/unitedhealth-cuts-guidance-evaluating-its-insurance-exchange-segment-1447933310?mod=djemCFO_h

  • The biggest U.S. health insurer said it has suffered major losses on policies sold on the Affordable Care Act’s exchanges and will consider withdrawing from them, adding to worries about the future of the marketplaces at the heart of the Obama administration’s signature health law.

    The disclosure by UnitedHealth Group Inc., which had just last month sounded optimistic notes about the segment’s prospects, is the latest sign that many insurers are finding the new business unprofitable, despite an influx of customers that has helped swell revenues.

    The industry’s woes, and broad rate increases aimed at stanching the red ink, are putting pressure on the Obama administration to tweak aspects of the law; the issues also risk pulling the ACA back into the political spotlight.

    Republicans, who have remained opposed to the health law, quickly jumped on the news.

    “Premiums are up and ultimately, health care is more expensive,” said Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R., Utah). “The consequences we see from this hastily and poorly conceived legislation were entirely foreseeable and not at all surprising.”

    The administration and Democratic lawmakers said the law is working well.

    A spokesman for the federal Department of Health and Human Services said the exchanges are “stable, vibrant and a growing source of coverage for new consumers.” UnitedHealth’s comments are “not indicative of the marketplace’s strength and viability,” he said.

    Rep. Xavier Becerra (D., Calif.), said the health law created “a growing market, a maturing market, and like any new enterprise it will have growth and spurts.”

    UnitedHealth Group Chief Executive Stephen J. Hemsley said the company isn’t willing to continue its losses into 2017. UnitedHealth has already locked in its exchange offerings for 2016, but it is pulling back on marketing them during the current open-enrollment period to limit membership, which it said last month totaled around 550,000.

    The company will make market-by-market determinations in the first half of next year about whether it will continue selling products on the exchanges.

    “We can’t sustain these losses,” he said. “We can’t subsidize a market that doesn’t appear at this point to be sustaining itself.”

    Continued in article

  • Bob Jensen's universal health care messaging --- http://www.trinity.edu/rjensen/Health.htm


    "Obamacare's bait and switch will leave consumers scrambling in 2016," by Edward Morrissey, Fiscal Times via Business Insider, November 20, 2015 ---
    http://www.businessinsider.com/obamacares-bait-and-switch-will-leave-consumers-scrambling-in-2016-2015-11

  • . . .

    Now, as The New York Times reported this weekend, even the words “affordable” and “care” have turned out to be untrue as well. The sharp rise in premiums has garnered the most headlines in the first three open-enrollment seasons of Obamacare, but equally if not more pernicious has been the increase in deductibles. As Eric Pianin explained for The Fiscal Times on Monday, deductibles have increased an average of 11 percent on Bronze level plans for 2016, intended to be the most affordable of all options, and now average over $5,700. For Silver level, deductibles rose 6 percent and now average over $3,100.

    When the media focused on skyrocketing premiums (rightly so, considering the large serial increases for health insurance on the individual exchanges since the introduction of the Affordable Care Act) its advocates defended the system by pointing out that many on the exchanges qualified for subsidies to absorb the costs. For instance, Obama himself promised, “Most Americans will find an option that costs less than $75 a month,” and HHS Secretary Sylvia Burwell claimed that 80 percent of Americans would pay no more than $100 in premiums after the subsidies.

    . . .

    “Basically I was paying for insurance I could not afford to use,” said one Texas man who decided to drop his coverage. Another 60-year-old New Jersey man told Pear, “We have insurance, but can’t afford to use it,” thanks to a $3,000 deductible on top of his premiums. One woman told Pear that she’d be better off saving the money from her premiums as a form of self-insurance against catastrophe – since Obamacare no longer allows for low-premium catastrophic coverage in most cases.

    Small wonder, then, that Gallup found disapproval for Obamacare rising again as open enrollment began. The most telling metric in Gallup’s poll comes when approval gets broken out by insurance type, when aggregated between its 2014 and 2015 surveys. The law is most popular among those enrolled on Medicaid or Medicare, with a 44/50 approval rating. That drops to 41/56 for those with private insurance. The uninsured – for whom the ACA was ostensibly enacted – Obamacare’s approval rating plummets to 30/59.

    Expect that demographic to grow over the next few years, whether it results in fines or not. People will not pay $1,200 a year just to pay another $5,000 before they see the first benefit from their insurance. And as premiums and deductibles continue to increase, expect more Americans to realize they’ve been had by those who claimed to be here to help.

    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/