Are We Still Here?

     Around the first of November I usually start looking
forward to the winter solstice.  That isn't because I enjoy the
shortest day of the year.  December is as dark and unpleasant as
it gets this side of a coal mine.

     The pleasant part of the first day of calendar winter is
that the next day the sun will be up for a few more seconds,
even if we can't see it through the clouds.  Dark, gloomy, short
days are more bearable when the days are getting longer rather
than shorter.

     The beginning of calendar winter is the last official
beginning of winter.  By the time calendar winter rolls in to
town the beginnings of solar winter and meteorological winter
are fading in the rear view mirror.  Solar winter is half over. 
The winter solstice is much more pleasant when viewed as the
middle of winter rather than the beginning.

     The joy of the most recent winter solstice was tainted by
the Mayan fans' claiming that the world would end.  I must
admit that I was a wee bit skeptical about that claim.  Many past
predictions of the end of the world have proved to have been a
bit overrated.  The doom sayer of 2011 postponed the big event
from May to October to complete the arrangements.  He still
failed to pull it off.

     When I awoke on December 21, immediately I suspected
something had gone wrong again.  Or, was it that something
hadn't gone wrong?  I guess the answer to that question depends
on your views about the end of the world.

     I heard that the big event was planned for sunrise. 
Maybe that was wrong.  I should at least wait for the day to end
before making fun of the failure of the prediction.  To be on the
safe side I would wait until the 21st ended everywhere.  I doubt
that the Mayans knew about the International Date Line.  Still,
why not play it safe?

     I was skeptical enough that while waiting I wrote this
column.  Why not be prepared just in case the world didn't end
on schedule?

     I am now quite certain that the world didn't end.  How
can I be sure?  I never experienced the end of the world.  How
can I be sure what it would be like?
     The Mayans might have been dyslexic.  Perhaps the
world is to end in 12/12/21 rather than on 12/21/12.  Does this
mean that we must now wait with baited breath for almost a
decade?

     What on earth is baited breath?  Is it painful?  Is baited
breath any thing like a baited fish hook?  Does baited breath
have a worm on it?  Perhaps it only smells like a can of worms
that spent too much time getting a sun tan.  If that is the case,
after waiting for almost a decade with baited breath we might
welcome the end of the world.

     There are other opinions about the meaning of baited
breath.  Some even claim that the expression is really "bated
breath."  They trace it back to Bill Shakespeare.  Does anyone
who has read any of Bill's writings really believe we should
consider him an authority on spelling?  If you are waiting with
baited (bated?) breath to learn more about baited breath, hit the
Internet.

     Disclaimer:  I assume no responsibility for any harm,
psychic or otherwise, you may experience in your search.  At
least buckle your seat belt.

     Maybe the world did end on schedule.  We simply
weren't observant enough to notice.  The doom sayers were
hedging their bets even before the big day dawned.  They were
saying that only the world as we knew it would end.

     Perhaps it did end.  Depending on what you know, the
world as you know it may end every day.  If the world ends
every day, that might take the fun out of predicting the end of
the world.

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Copyright 2012
Albert D. McCallum
18440 29-1/2 Mile Road
Springport, Michigan 49284

Free at Last

     Four decades ago I was a member of the Napoleon
School Board.  The board's negotiator worked out a union
contract requiring teachers who weren't union members to pay
the equivalent of union dues.  I was the only board member who
voted to reject the contract.

     My father worked for a railroad in Indiana when Indiana
was a right to work state.  I remember his comments about the
repeal of "right to work."  He said the unions ceased to care
about or serve their members.  The unions merely collected dues
from their captives.

     Michigan's sudden move to join the ranks of "right to
work" states where no one is forced to pay unions for the right
to have a job caught most people by surprise.  The unions, on
short notice, managed to rally the forces to reaffirm the basic
reason why I have despised unions for as long as I can remember.

     The union violence was a mere shadow of what I
remember.  Some individuals bashed a reporter and cut down a
tent.  Apparently some teachers lied and called in sick to join the
protests.  Bill Clinton was impeached for lying about sex. 
Apparently lying about being sick is okay.

     Some claims made in opposition to mandatory union dues
were jaw droppingly outrageous.  Heading the list was Barack
Obama's claim that unions built the middle class.  Increased
productivity built middle class prosperity.  Without that
increased productivity unions could have done nothing to
increase average income.  You can't consume what isn't made.

     If any one group built the middle class it was farmers. 
Increased production by farmers reduced the percentage of the
work force farming from about 90 percent to around 2 percent. 
That 88 percent of the work force makes the increased wealth
we have today.

     Farmers weren't the ones who brought on the agricultural
revolution.  The real movers and shakers were the inventors,
entrepreneurs and investors who provided farmers with new and
efficient means of production.

     Another outrageous claim was that eliminating mandatory
payments to unions would return us to the share cropping days
of the old South.  A few years ago my oldest son moved from
Michigan to a right to work state because he couldn't find a
decent paying job for an engineer in Michigan.

     There were 23 right to work states before Michigan
joined the club.  None of them seem to be overrun by share
croppers.

     Unions whine about free loaders.  Who are the free
loaders?  Suppose you tell your neighbor you don't want him to
mow your grass.  He mows it anyway -- and sends you a bill.  If
you refuse to pay the bill, Are you a free loader?

     Unions force representation onto non-members, then
demand that they pay.  If unions don't want to represent
non-members, the unions should quit doing it.  If laws are
preventing this, the unions should work for repeal of any laws
forcing them to represent non-members.  The freeloaders are the
unions that charge non-members for representation they don't
want.

     Right to work by itself isn't going to turn the Michigan
economy from dust to gold.  It may help a little.  Neither is
"right to work" the "right to work for less."  Unions are the ones
who reduce the average wage, and charge for doing it.

     Only increased productivity can raise the average wage
and standard of living.  Strikes, slow downs, union work rules,
etc. all decrease productivity.  Because the unions decrease
productivity, the wealth pie from which we all get our piece
prosperity is smaller than it would be without union interference.

     That smaller pie means the average piece is smaller too. 
Every gain one worker gets because of unions comes out of
other workers' pockets.  The battle isn't between labor and
management.  It is between unions and everyone else.

     Originally I hated unions for their violence.  I eventually
learned enough to despise unions because they are frauds claiming
credit for what others have done.

aldmccallum@gmail.com
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Copyright 2012
Albert D. McCallum
18440 29-1/2 Mile Road
Springport, Michigan 49284

Tax the Poor?

     Many things seem intuitively obvious.  Often the obvious
conclusions are wrong.  Many never figure that out.  Nowhere is
this more true than in matters of economics.  Some ignore sound
economics because they believe economics is boring.

     The disaster that voters court by voting based on wrong
economic conclusions won't be boring.  Is an exciting disaster
better than being bored?

     The controversy over whom to tax and how much oozes
with false knowledge about economics.  I don't know to what
extent the politicians are ignorant and to what extent they merely
take advantage of the voters' ignorance.

     "Tax the rich" is popular because to most people it is
code for "tax someone else."  The big myth is that taxes are
detrimental only to the person who pays them.  If the myth were
true, taxing the rich would make some sense.  The rich won't
feel much pain from paying a bit higher tax.

     Before laying on the taxes we should consider who,
besides the taxpayer, will be harmed.  Rich people save and
invest.  No mater how great the income of an individual he will
never be rich if all he does is spend.  If all he does is spend, he
will be poor the instant the income stream stops.

     The person who has millions isn't likely to greatly change
his life style or spending habits merely because his taxes go up
10 or 20 percent.  Instead he will invest less.  Net investment in
the USA is down about 20 percent since the beginning of the
recession.

     Another way of putting it is, we have eaten 20 percent of
our seed corn that produces future wealth.  Any tax that
decreases investment will only reduce production and wages. 
Everyone will suffer, not just those who pay the tax.

     When we spend instead of invest we can never undo the
damage.  Even if we go back to investing we never recover the
lost investment.  We are all poorer today because of the decade
plus of lost investment during the 1930s and 1940s.

     When we don't invest we don't build factories, mines,
harbors, trains, and all the other things that make workers more
productive.  The only way wages can increase is through
increased investment.

     Taxing the rich is but a minor annoyance to the rich.  It
can devastate marginal workers and the unemployed who need
new investment to provide them with more productive, better
paying, jobs.

     The tax that will have the least detrimental, long term
impact on everyone is a tax that does not reduce investment. 
The only way to implement such a tax is to tax those who don't
invest.  That would mean taxing only the poor and spendthrifts. 
Spendthrifts are only one paycheck away from poverty.

     Taxing the poor will reduce their spending on
consumption.  Government, or the recipients of government gifts,
will spend the money.   The government spending may be
wasteful.  Still, it will replace the spending taxed away from the
poor.

     Investment will still sustain increased productivity. 
Eventually this increased productivity will allow even the taxed
poor to regain their lost purchasing power.  Tax away the
investment capital and we will all spiral down into a bottomless
economic pit.

     Thus, taxing the poor, while stopping short of the point
of taxing them into starvation, will in the long run hurt the poor
less than will taxing the investment capital away from the rich
and anyone else.  I'm not advocating increased taxes for the
poor, or anyone else.  Instead, cut government spending.

     Like it or not, government spending will be cut -- 
drastically.   The most we can do by increasing tax rates is
postpone the inevitable cuts in spending and make them more
severe.  Continuing down the tax and spend super highway we
will soon consume the rest of our investment seed corn.

     We can't consume what we never produce.  We are now
headed back to the world that existed before the industrial
revolution.  Most politicians in D.C. are shouting "Full speed
ahead."

aldmccallum@gmail.com
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Copyright 2012
Albert D. McCallum
18440 29-1/2 Mile Road
Springport, Michigan 49284

Plans Gone Wrong

     Who will best plan your breakfast?  Will someone far
away who doesn't know what you like or how much time you
have available make the best plan for you?  That planner may
only know about averages.  He will set you up for the breakfast
for the average person.

     But, wait, there isn't any average person.  That average
person is a fictional composite based on a collection of data,
none of which may be about you.  It is unlikely that anyone else
is in a better position to plan breakfast than you are.

     Planning is vital to success.  Good plans must start with
the individuals affected by the plans.  All actions are taken by
individuals.  Individuals plan those actions so as to achieve their
goals.  He who doesn't understand the goals and abilities of the
individual can't plan effectively for the individual.

     Not only that.  He who makes the plan will always first
seek to achieve his own goals and satisfaction, not the goals and
satisfaction of the individual for whom he plans.

     Effective planning must be from the bottom up, not from
the top down.  Individuals plan.  Then they enlist the aid of
others to execute the plans.  Individuals may find employers,
employees, teachers, merchants, etc. to aid the individuals.

     The individual can't force those others to participate.  He
must make it worth their while.  Thus, the individual plans mesh
together for the benefit of all involved.  Those who aren't
satisfied with the results can bail out.  Thus, everyone must
endlessly reevaluate his plans so that they are beneficial to
others as well as to himself.  This is the price he pays for the
cooperation and aid of others.

     Vast and complex are woven by coordinating the plans of
many individuals.  Each individual greedily pursues his own
satisfaction.  Still, he must provide satisfaction to others to gain
his own satisfaction.

     The most a top down planner can do is recruit individuals
to join in his grand plan.  He may start with a grand dream and
a vast, complex plan.  When freedom reigns, the only way to
achieve that dream is to recruit many willing individuals to
cooperate.

     In the absence of freedom there is an alternative, threaten
and coerce individuals to cooperate.  The coerced individuals
have no interest in the success of the plan.  They cooperate only
to the extent they must to avoid punishment by the planner. 
When the plan doesn't further the goals of the individuals, they
have no motivation to make the plan work.

     Without the willing cooperation of the self interested
individuals executing the plan, the planner stumbles around in
the dark lacking the knowledge essential to success.  Forced
planing fails because it lacks the willing support of the
individuals who often are the only ones with the knowledge
essential to making their part of the plan work.

     Thus, top down, forced planning by government will
almost always fail to be efficient or achieve good results for
most people.  Occasional there may be limited success by
accident.  In a truly vast plan there are so many variables that
such accidental successes are all but impossible.

     The USA started out relying heavily on individual
planning and voluntary cooperation.  We now plunge ever
deeper in to central planing by politicians and bureaucrats. 
Individuals and their plans get lost in the shuffle.

     For so long as we rely on the forced plans of politicians
and bureaucrat, rather than plans built around voluntary
cooperation, inefficiency and waste will multiply.  Even if the
plans succeeded, they will still only achieve satisfaction for the
self centered, greedy politicians, bureaucrats and their cronies. 
Don't for a minute fall for the lie that politicians and bureaucrats
are a bit less self centered and greedy than business people or
anyone else.

     At the end of the central planning road lies a disaster, the
magnitude of which few, if any, can even imagine.  Government
planing isn't the solution.  It is the problem.

aldmccallum@gmail.com
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Copyright 2012
Albert D. McCallum
18440 29-1/2 Mile Road
Springport, Michigan 49284