Alaska, A minor young woman must have permission to go on a field trip, but not have an abortion.

According to the Daily Signal, http://dailysignal.com/2016/08/16/alaska-courts-ruling-on-abortion-and-parental-notification-hurts-teens/?utm_source=TDS_Email&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=MorningBell&mkt_tok=eyJpIjoiWTJNelpUWXdaVFZrWlRnNCIsInQiOiJ1UEt6cm82c3pjTGZpVE5jeUVyREVra3ZYRDVVK3p1SlZEdWNCU3M1TVVHRjgxM00zZ2hrSTg2ZXJXUWdGSEpYWXltb1VZRFBZRlhET0xKSWx6OU9tSjZFNzVwXC9OVHlLRk5GbUw3S1FFRVk9In0%3D, a minor girl must have parental permission go on a field trip, but not for an abortion, the Alaska Supreme Court just decided.

Good old Planned Parenthood sued over the issue.  They provide roughly 1/3 of abortions in the U.S.  The girl who wants an abortion cannot be prevented from having one under former law, only that parents have the need to know.

We as a society believe and support parental supervision.  Except here. Why? Politics!

An unexpected pregnancy is a tough situation for an unwed mother to be in. Parents could react very negatively. Most parents don’t, they love the daughter and will support her; how about not telling parents they can’t know and trusting them in this area also? Another sign of large governments who know better than we do what is best for us.

PC University, Formerly Yale

Yale University is one of many places where political correctness rules the roost. Elihu Yale (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elihu_Yale) gave the money to establish a college in Connecticut which was later named in his honor.

Well, Elihu was employed by the East India Company and used his position to enrich himself at the company’s expense, and happens to have gained further wealth in the slave trade.  He was fired, went back to England to live out his life in comfort. http://digitalhistories.yctl.org/2014/11/01/elihu-yale-was-a-slave-trader/.

So, the PC crowd wants to rename the University, pull statues down, rename buildings, etc., etc.

My question, who today can look back and say their ancestors were without questionable histories. None of us. Some certainly are better than others, but we are all at fault. That is part of being human. We mess up, we don’t protest when our basic nature says something is wrong.

The error the PC crowd is making is to not acknowledge the facts of the case and recognize we are able to learn from our mistakes and become better people. The Africans who were complicit in the slave trade, where is the condemnation. The American natives who took slaves from other tribes regularly, and Caucasians when they arrived. Slavery is as old as our written history, until, in the late 19th century, we decided it wasn’t good and outlawed it. Today there are still folks who use their faith to justify slavery, but thank God they are few and far between.

I am sure the PC crowd goes to the Frick art gallery in NY to view the amazing works of art contained there, I have been to see the “Woman in Gold”, the painting featured in the recent movie of the same name. Well Mr. Henry Frick ran Carnegie’s steel business and was notorious for violence against workers, many were killed. Mr. Carnegie gave millions to establish libraries in the U.S. so citizens can learn, be part of the government. I am sure the PC crowd uses those libraries. Bill Gates has been cited as a very tough boss, implemented policies that reduced competition in the software business. His foundation has done wonderful work.  Hillary Clinton has sold her office for money donated to the Bill and Hillary “charity.” The Hill and Bill organization has done much good. Trump has gone bankrupt but also donated millions. Romney has created companies, hired thousands, fired many but gives away 20% of his income every year. Will Smith advocates “cleansing” the U.S. of Trump supporters while pumping his new movie in Dubai, a place that suppresses women and jails homosexuals.

By covering up we don’t learn. Keep the name, create a place where our human failings generate learning that brings us closer together over time, that would be heaven on earth. Instead of protesting for changing the name, use the name to educate, recognizing we are the same as Elihu in many ways.  All are fallen.

Home Ownership

WSJ, 8/12/16, “The Housing Non-Crises”. an editorial.

The Census Bureau reported two weeks ago that home ownership peaked in 2004 at 69.2% and has continued to fall to a 51 year low. Many are lamenting about the continuing fall in that rate, the failure of the “American Dream.”

We know now that that rate was a bubble, caused by, government policies to pump ownership up (CRA, bank regulatory pressure, etc.) and markets fueling of the fire (unethical brokers, S&P ratings on bonds, investors wanting higher yields, etc.).

Research has shown that since 1890 the return on owning a home has been a cumulative zero, 0%, nada, nill, nothing!  Bonds and stocks are much better methods to build wealth.

Yet, the housing industry is powerful ( millions of jobs), and politicians like to use their power to fuel growth through home interest tax deduction, low down payment rules, mortgage guarantees from Fannie and Freddie, etc.

With the “solution” put in place after the bust, mortgages are tough to get, the “recovery” is the worst in history so wages aren’t growing, and who is blamed, well, all “those” people who always try to keep the middle class down of course.

We don’t blame the government folks who know better than we do about how to fix the problem.  Results matter, so far, the government is failing. Why is it bad to rent?  Well, it isn’t. You aren’t tied to a house if you want to move. You don’t have lots of costs, like insurance, repairs, etc. If you want to grow your wealth invest in vehicles that work to grow the economy.

So, the solution. Grow the economy by reducing the cost to open businesses so they can hire people, create demand for employees which drives up wages. That is proven to work. Have competitive tax rates to the rest of the world so that investment continues to flow into the U.S. versus go elsewhere. Ensure global trade is fair, millions of jobs depend on global trade.

Work together versus portray those who disagree with you as evil, love them and work out a compromise.

Hillary, Reverse “Citizens United”

HRC has decided to rail against the recent SCOTUS case noted above as detrimental to our republic. She rails against billionaires, corporations, etc. overpowering the everyday folks.

Trump has done somewhat the same, singling out hedge fund folks for increased taxes.

As an aside, so where, as of now, are hedge fund folks putting their money into this election? AEI recently published an article, noted below, that states HRC has received 2,000 times more money from the hedge fund folks than Trump, $46.5 million. Trump has followed in the footsteps of Bernie by obtaining more small donations than HRC.

What I don’t understand is the total disregard for the facts that money doesn’t win elections, whether from the left or the right. There is tons of data out there on this, look at Tom Steyer in the last cycle, tens of millions of dollars spent and no winners.  So if a corporation wants to spend money, let them, lots of well paying jobs result. You would think Hillary would like that. All that money spent on campaigns without decent results.  That sounds like our public education dilemma.

This is a diversion by HRC so we don’t talk about the fact that most of her policies have long records of not working to solve our problems, or it is a red herring. (A red herring is something that misleads or distracts from a relevant or important issue. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_herring)

But, politics is about appealing to to basest of our instincts rather than to our highest instincts.  Both candidates today are doing so.  Both are flawed.

A constitutional amendment overturning Citizens United: Really? How?

This is a peculiar claim to make after almost eight years of the Obama presidency, in which the most significant government actions—the Dodd-Frank Act, ObamaCare, and various tax increases on corporations and wealthy individuals—could hardly be said to favor corporations or business interests generally. It is also peculiar in light of a recent Wall Street Journal report that hedge fund contributions to Clinton superpacs have outraised those to Trump superpacs by a ratio of more than 2000-to-1 ($46.5 million to $19,000).

The great provincial obstacle course

The Economist, July 23rd, 2016. The Americas section.

This article talks about the barriers to trade within Canadian provinces. Provincial governments act for various reasons to protect jobs in their geography to the point that importing product from the U.S., or from overseas is easier than buying the same product from within Canada.

Our lesson? Fair trade is good for us. We do need to be sure it is fair, but the two candidates for the presidency are both screaming about “protection.”

This is bad for the middle class. This is bad to form businesses to sell overseas. This is bad for wage growth.

Reduce regulation and costs so businesses can be formed and the energy and initiative of people can be released.

Being “provincial” is bad.

Get big money out of politics

George Soros, $25 million to HRC and other candidates and PAC’s who support Democrats.

Tom Steyer, $32 Million to Democratic causes, $74 million in the last election

Haim Saban, $11 million

Fred Eychaner, $11 million

Don Sussman, $13 million

Pritzkers, James Simmons, Herbert Sanders, many millions more

HRC has said she will work to take “big money” out of politics, that is after she takes it to get elected.

The definition of hypocrisy.

 

Tell us who donated to your non-profit so we can attack them

The Daily Signal reported the below today. 8 Democrat Senators wrote letters to non profits who put forth opinions opposing the consensus about climate change, demanding to know where they get their money from.

Well, the Supreme Court has ruled that non profits do not have to disclose their funding sources.

Will that also be in the first ninety days of a HRC administration, that if we oppose some government effort to spend our money, we will be a target for expressing our opinions?  This is a slippery slope.

 

Senate Liberals, Targeting Climate Change ‘Deniers,’ Demand to Know Donors to 22 Think Tanks

School Choice, Charter Schools, et al

I favor “..promoting choice among public schools, much as the Presidents’s Charter schools Initiative encourages.”  “The President believes, as do I, that charter schools are a way of bringing Teachers and parents and communities together.”

Hillary Clinton in 1996 and 1998.

She spoke similar words to the NEA recently and was booed so she “evolved” to saying that “for profit” charter schools were bad. in 2005 Brooklyn started a charter school using union employees to prove it too could free itself from its’ own rules, it failed. The education planks of the Democrat party have been panned by Peter Cunning, an assistant secretary in Obama’s education department, saying, the platform “affirms an education system that denies its shortcomings and is unwilling to address them.” He called it “a step backwards that will hurt low-income blacks and Hispanic children.”

It appears she has evolved, pandering to the organizations that do not want to address the results our K-12 system is not producing. Does Trump have a better plan, I have no clue. But we know what HRC wants, more of the same. Shameful.

This information came from an editorial in the WSJ, August 2, 2016.

 

Economic Growth, the base solution to most problems

When the economy doesn’t grow enough, we can’t absorb new entrants to the workforce, it doesn’t provide a demand on labor greater than supply, we don’t create new small businesses who see customer needs more accurately than larger companies;… all of us are in trouble.

We tend to fight over the pie rather than growing it. Minimum wages that restrict new job holders from finding work, driving automation to eliminate employees (automated hamburger machines are coming, you can already order your food via Kiosk and go pick it up). Unions who demand more jobs than the company can afford and be competitive. Public associations that make firing someone overly difficult, thus reducing hiring and providing less than stellar service from the incompetents who stay.

The solution; reducing enough regulations and processes so that the U.S. returns to the top five of places that are the best to do business in, we have been sliding down that list for over a decade. Look to where public employees and the government have sat down to work out reasonable rules and pay that makes government efficient and a desirable place to work; and implement those solutions (see WSJ July 24, 2016, “Critics of Wisconsin’s Public-Unino Reforms Keep Firing Blanks.” CJ Szafir and Collin Roth). Ensure regulations have a cost benefit analysis completed before execution, Congress should cut off funding if the regulation doesn’t comply.

Both sides of the issues have valid points, stop yelling and calling each other names as though the other is the incarnation of the devil. Compromise, good grief, it is like 3 year old kids fighting over toys.

 

What American Citizenship Makes Possible

WSJ, July 27, 2016, Colin Powell.

The title of Secretary Powell’s article above drew me to read. He talks about his parent coming to America from Jamaica, and said that if they had gone to England he never could have become what he did, too much rigidity in the society. He praises immigration as part of the fuel that fires the American way of life. He praises education availability and quality as another fuel element.

I agree. We must continue to accept immigrants. We must accept those with skills. We must stop illegal immigration. We must encourage assimilation, not Balkanization as the French and Belgians have.

Our education industry has failed the country. Our educational performance continues to slide against our global competitors. We are short changing our kids.

Our polarization and name calling is a disservice to our forefathers and mothers, and especially to those who come after us. We must try new things and evaluate how they work.