Good Jobs, Bad Jobs

     Presidents and other politicians love to promise jobs.
Most people love to hear those promises.  How many recognize
that there are two kinds of jobs -- good jobs and bad jobs.  How
can we know the difference?  Why is it important to know the
difference?

     Consider a gardener growing tomatoes.  He buys a
rototiller, fuel, seed, fertilizer, etc.  He grows and sells tomatoes.
Does the gardener have a good job?

     There is only one way to find out.  Are the tomatoes he
grew worth more than the resources he consumed growing them?
If they are, the gardener produced value.  If the tomatoes are
worth less than the resources consumed, he destroyed value.
Good jobs produce value.  Bad jobs destroy value.

     The gardener who consumed value may have worked
very hard.  The value and quality of a job isn't determined by
how hard the worker works, or by how much education and skill
he has.  It is determined by the net value he produces.  The
wealth of the nation is the net value produced by all jobs.  Jobs
that don't produce value reduce wealth rather than creating
wealth.

     Consider filling a tank.  Hook hoses to the tank.  Some
of the hoses put water in the tank, others take water out.  Only
the hoses that put water in the tank contribute to filling the tank.
There would be more water in the tank is we disconnected the
hoses draining water.

     Nonproductive jobs are hoses draining wealth from our
nation.  Increasing wealth is how we sustain and raise our
standard of living.  Decreasing wealth lowers our standard of
living.  Nonproductive jobs drain wealth and lower our standard
of living.

     It is very important that we distinguish between good and
bad jobs.  Bad, nonproductive jobs, drag us toward poverty.  The
so-called pay checks for those bad jobs are in reality welfare
payments.  They pay the workers to destroy rather than to
produce.

     The immune system of a free market private sector
detects and destroys bad jobs similar to the way our bodies'
immune systems detect and destroy bad viruses.  Nonproductive
jobs yield losses.  Losses kill the businesses that create the bad
jobs.  The nonproductive jobs are eliminated in favor of good,
productive ones.  Profits and losses are the core of the immune
system.

     The government sector isn't governed by profits and
losses.  Thus, it doesn't have an immune system.  Government
can continue bad, nonproductive jobs until it can't beg, borrow,
print or steal the money to pay for the losses.

     Government doesn't sell most of what it produces.  Thus,
we have no yard stick to measure the productivity of government
jobs.  We can only estimate and guess whether a government job
is good or bad.  What is the value of the education provided by
government schools?  No one knows.  It is a good guess that it
is worth less than it costs.  No one knows how much less.   The
only way we could find out is to sell the government produced
education to willing customers in free markets.

     The government system can't sort out and eliminate bad
jobs because it can't identify them.  Government employees don't
lose their jobs for being nonproductive.  They lose them only
when the government revenue dries up.

     The worst part is that government deliberately suppresses
the immune system of the private sector.  By paying subsidies
and mandating the use of the products of wasteful, bad jobs,
government blocks the private sector from identifying and
eliminating those bad jobs.

     A job isn't a valuable productive one merely because it
produces something.  To be a valuable job it must produce more
than it consumes.  The gardener doesn't have a productive job
merely because he produces one tomato.

     Subsidized jobs, such as making windmills, solar panels,
ethanol, and building high-speed rail, are all nonproductive jobs
that consume more wealth than they produce.  They are hoses
draining our wealth tank.  These government created jobs don't
lift us to prosperity.  They drag us into poverty.

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

Is There Only One Way to Learn?

     Schools are a tradition.  No one remembers when
learning wasn't linked to schools.  Those schools are a bunch of
buildings.  The school building I visited for nine years still
stands.  It now has dual identities.  It serves as a house.  Many
still know it as the "old Harrisburg school."  Today a person
could easily learn more in that house-school than any of us ever
learned in it during its school days.

     People seeking entertainment used to travel to the theater
or the band shell.  Few could afford a command performance in
their own home.  Some still venture out for entertainment.
Mostly entertainment comes to us by radio, television, Internet,
DVD, etc.

     In today's entertainment a few exceptionally talented, and
often highly paid, performers entertain millions.  In the old days
thousands of much lower paid, and often less talented,
performers each entertained far fewer people.

     The technology that made the change possible
revolutionized the entertainment industry.  As a result we all can
have far more entertainment, for far lower cost, and with far
greater convenience.

     We no longer equate entertainment with going to the
theater.  New technology is also beating on the schoolhouse
door.  Millions still head to the schoolhouse to learn.  Many of
them come away cheated and disappointed.

     There is no more reason why we should continue
venturing out for education than there is to venture out for
entertainment.  We have the means to bring quality education to
every home.  That home education can be better than anything
ever provided in board and nails, or brick and mortar schools.

     Education can, and will, follow the road of entertainment.
A few exceptionally talented people will provide education to
millions.  Like the successful entertainers today, those talented
individuals will often earn millions of dollars by serving millions
of people.  Not only that, the cost of education will decline.

     What holds us back?  Most people resist change.  They
cling to the familiar.  This is especially true for people who gain
their living from the old and familiar.  You can be sure that
Vaudeville and touring theater groups weren't the force behind
the innovations in entertainment that wiped out Vaudeville and
touring theater groups.

     Likewise the people who work at existing schools won't
be the moving force that will eliminate and replace existing
schools.  School administrators, teachers and their unions, and all
others with vested interests in the status quo, aren't going to be
the movers and shakers that bring down the school houses that
we know.  It will take revolution from the outside, not a palace
coup, to overthrow our archaic, obsolete school system.

     No one in 1912 could have predicted the nature and
shape of entertainment today.  Those who saw the beginnings of
radio and movies could have anticipated great change and
improvement.  Some will argue that today's entertainment isn't
an improvement.  They swim against the current.

     We could go back to Vaudeville and touring theater
groups, if significant numbers preferred them.  Technology
doesn't make the old ways impossible.  It only makes them
unneeded and unwanted.

     No one can predict the shape and nature of the
replacement for today's obsolete school system.  We can be
certain that it will be more efficient and better.  It will also
constantly change.

     We can expect that everyone will learn more at home.
We can also expect that some will gather in groups to learn.
Spending four years at an education ranch will all but disappear.
Large schools will disappear, or at least become curiosities.

     Most learning will be close to home, perhaps in small
groups monitored by learning assistants.  Most content will be
provided by the talented few far away.  The last school buses
will set in parks beside the last steam locomotives, or, perhaps in
the yards of schools turned into museums.

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

What Do Patrons Do at Cat Cafes?

     I can't believe all of the things I've found on the Internet.
Some may suggest that I shouldn't believe anything I find on the
Internet.  Without all the information that flows from the Internet
I fear that my mind would be like an empty filing cabinet.

     Much of that information ends up filed under "U", like in
"Useless Information."  For variety I could put some under "I"
for "Information, Useless."  Another option is to pass it on to
you and let you worry about where to file it.  Guess which
option I choose today.

     Last week I didn't know there were cat cafes in Japan.
Now I realize they may be on the endangered species list.  The
cafes that is, not the cats.  The Japanese government is
protecting the cats from the cafes.  Is PETA behind it?

     Before PETA has a coronary, perhaps I should point out
that cat cafes don't serve cat burgers.  Then again it might be a
public service if I drove PETA into cardiac arrest.  I can't wait
to see the letters claiming I'm bigoted against PETA.

     I recently discovered a web page charging me with being
narrow minded and bigoted against witches.  The posts were
made seven years ago regarding a column I published in 2003.
If I ticked off a bunch of witches and survived to tell about it,
Why should I worry about upsetting PETA?  Then again, Do
you suppose that witch thing had any part in my spending three
years as a frog?

     As far as I know casting spells and making curses are
among the few things PETA hasn't done to endear itself to the
rest of the human race.  PETA does sometimes provoke others to
hurl a few curses in PETA's direction.

     So far I haven't heard what PETA thinks of cat cafes.  I
don't really know if PETA is responsible for the law that
threatens the cat cafes.

     Cat cafes don't serve meals for cats.  What do they do?
They serve live cats.  Again, don't panic.  Customers pay the
cafes $12 an hour or so to play with the cats.

     Apparently, to some in Japan a big night on the town is
going to the cat cafe, drinking tea and playing with a cat.  This
certainly gives new meaning to high living.  Instead of living
high on the hog, Do they get high playing with cats?

     Actual, it seems that rather than going out to play with
the cat, people stay out to play with the cat.  They often stop at
the cat cafe to play with a cat and unwind on the way home
from work.  Perhaps cats are a substitute for drinking.  Someone
should tell Alcoholics Anonymous about this.

     Back to how government is threatening the cat cafes.
The cat cafes attract many customers after 8:00 p.m.  A new law
makes 8:00 p.m. the witching hour for cats.  There I go ticking
off the witches again.  Cats will not be allowed to work past
8:00 p.m.  At that magic hour all cats must go back into the bag.
I wonder if anyone told the Japanese government that cats are
nocturnal.

     Cats will be allowed to work only from 8:00 a.m. to 8:00
p.m.  Apparently the politicians and bureaucrats haven't been
able to wrap their minds around the concept of second shift.

     What will the Japanese facing cat withdrawal do?  Will
they meekly comply with the 8:00 p.m. bagging of the cats?  Or,
will they visit dingy back rooms where exploited cats are forced
to play into the wee hours of the morning?  Did you ever try
forcing a cat to do anything?  Will purveyors of cats walk the
streets at night carrying bags and whispering, "Do you want to
play with a cat?"

     To stay up to date as the saga plays out, stay tuned to the
Internet.  Hopefully I will never mention it again.  On the
Internet someone will.

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

Uhmmm

How to lead

Government leadership in a majority rule democracy is a matter of guessing where the heard is headed and getting there first.  (3/23/12)

Stop digging?

If digging deeper doesn't get us out of a hole, How will more taxing, borrowing and spending get us out of the hole created by taxing, borrowing and spending?

(3/9/12)

Are they fireproof?

When the politicians and bureaucrats who claim to be public servant spend most of their time and effort bossing the public around, Why doesn't the public fire them?

(3/3/12)

What should we ask?

If by spending billions of dollars government can put a man on the moon, Why can't it provide quality education by spending billion of dollars? Why shouldn't we instead ask, If government can't dent drug use by spending hundreds of billions of dollars, Why shouldn't we question government's ability to spend our way out of problems?

2/29/12

What if we have been fooled?

2/27/12

What to Do?

"If the majority is dominated by bad ideas, nothing can be done about it except to try to change the bad ideas." -- Ludwig von Mises http://www.mises.org/

2/24/12

 

Causing Trouble 

If you owe the bank $10,000 and can't pay, you are in trouble. When you owe the bank $10,000,000 and can't pay, the bank is in trouble. There is a corollary to this principle. If government issues an oppressive edict and most people obey, the people are in trouble. When government issues an oppressive edict and no one obeys, the government is in trouble.

 2/22/12

Words Gone Wrong

     Comments by the always mild mannered, quiet Rush
Limbaugh brought insults and "bad words" to center stage.
Limbaugh called a woman a slut and a prostitute.  This brought
on a fire storm of outrage.

     Is it a bit strange that in the day of anything goes, any
two words, neither of which starts with, or even includes an "N,"
could provoke this much outrage?  Why do some words upset
people?

     Most insulting words fall into two categories.  There are
the all purpose insults such as "jerk."  Calling someone a jerk
does little to tell how the person earned his jerkhood.  Did he
rob banks or merely have a weird haircut?  Calling someone a
jerk mostly means the speaker dislikes something about the
"jerk."

     Other insults, such as moron or slut, appear to have more
substance.  Taken at face value they say something about the
nature or conduct of the recipient of the honorary title.  Usually
that substance is mostly illusion.  The person who calls another a
snake doesn't likely mean the caller believes the other person
literally slithers through the grass.

     Neither is calling someone a moron or an idiot likely
intended to infer that the person really is a moron or an idiot.  If
the person was a moron or idiot, he wouldn't care what anyone
called him.

     The main thrust of insults is to express irritation with or
contempt for someone.  Describing actual conduct is usually far
from the thoughts of the person hurling the insult.  Those who
hurl insults commonly have overreacted.  The response to insults
is also likely to be over the top.

     In the midst of the brouhaha over the Limbaugh insults
others brought up the matter of media personalities who have
routinely hurled insults that many consider more offensive than
slut and prostitute.  Some suggested that there might be a double
standard.

     Of course, there is a double standard.  Limbaugh is a
highly visible target.  Many are willing and eager to hurl any
stone or mud they can grasp. The other insulters are minor
figures few notice or concern themselves about.  Naturally
Limbaugh draws the most flack.

     This doesn't excuse the double standard, though it does
explain it.  There is nothing surprising or unusual in people
ignoring faults in themselves or their friends, while attacking
others for having the same or lesser faults.  This is all part of
being human.

     When the attackers are called out for their double
standard, they shouldn't complain and fake outrage.  People who
live in glass houses shouldn't complain about being heisted by
their own petard.  How is that for a mixed metaphor?

     Limbaugh's statement was ill advised, and he eventually
admitted it.  That may be a first for Limbaugh.   His opponents
over reacted and, as  far as I know, haven't admitted it. The
fallout is a public relations battle that generates far more heat
than light.

     One of the insults used by some on television to slur
various women has nearly a thousand years of history.  The
word was so common in the military I tend to think of it as a
military term.  I didn't realize it had drifted into such common
use.

     I was surprised to learn that some consider it to be the
most offensive word in the English language.  I don't find the
word shocking.  This is mostly because the familiar simply isn't
shocking.

     This led me to ponder the matter of insults.  If you call
someone a foot or an ear or most any other body part is he
likely to be insulted, or only puzzled?

     Yet, many of the insults considered most vulgar, or
obscene, are only slang terms for body parts, usually of the
genital persuasion.  Many of these words weren't even
considered vulgar at first.

     This raises another question.  When two words mean the
same thing, Why is one considered vulgar and insulting while
the other is just a word people use to describe something?

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

Serendipity Again?

     Many discoveries are accidental, such as Columbus
discovering the Americas.  Seemingly bad occurrences can yield
great success.

     Railroad tracks were originally laid on stone slabs.  A
shortage of stone slabs threatened to delay completion of a rail
line.  Someone had an idea.  They could temporarily lay the rails
on logs.  The use of logs was so successful that for nearly 200
years railroads were built on wooden ties.  Many rail lines today
are still on wooden ties.

     Hydraulic fracking of horizontally bored oil and gas wells
has greatly increased the recoverable oil and gas reserves of the
USA.  The US may be able to produce most, or even all, of its
needed energy in the near future, if government allows it.  The
next best alternative is still only speculation.

     In spite of all the promise from fracking, worrywarts
fight to stop it in its tracks.  Fracking uses high pressure fluid,
mostly water, to make small cracks in the oil or gas bearing
rock.  The cracks allow the oil and gas to flow out.

     Standard practice is to inject the used fracking fluids into
rock formations deep beneath the ground.  Both fracking and
injection of fluids have been common practices in the oil
industry for over half a century.  Secondary recovery operations
often inject water into the oil producing formations to flush out
more oil.

     Now anti frackers claim that the injections into the layers
of rock are causing earthquakes.  They don't explain why it took
them over half a century to figure this out.

     Recently Ohio closed down an injection well because of
several small earth tremors in the area of the well.  I expect that
the anti frackers and the Middle East oil sheiks are jumping for
joy.

     I'm not ready to bet that water injection caused the small
quakes.  Let's assume it did.  What on earth should we do?

     The water was injected near a fault line.  Fault lines are
where the rock layers are broken. One side of the fault moves
causing an earthquake.  The simple solution is to inject the waste
water far from fault lines.

     The topic deserves more consideration.  It takes a lot of
energy to make a fault line slip and cause an earthquake.  Stress
along the fault line may build up for years, or even centuries,
before the earth moves.  The more energy that builds up before
the quake, the greater the shake.  Small quakes are all but
harmless.  Powerful quakes are devastating.

     There is no way possible that the injection of water into
the rock powered even a small quake.  The most it could have
done was trigger the release of already pent up energy.  If
injecting fluids can trigger small earthquakes, the injectors have
serendipitously discovered a safety valve for earthquakes.

     Injecting fluid along fault lines to trigger small quakes
before the energy builds up enough to launch an earth buster
would be a way to prevent devastating earthquakes.  If this will
actually work as a safety valve for earthquakes, it may be a
discovery even bigger than the oil and gas reserves unlocked by
fracking.

     The likelihood that injecting fluids causes earthquakes is
still small.  The main point is, don't abandon or cripple fracking
and all its promise out of overblown fears that it somehow
triggers earthquakes.  If the fracking operations do prove to
trigger earthquakes, make the most of the discovery to limit and
control earthquakes.


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

To Serve and Protect

      

             A recent "food police" search caused a stir on the
        Internet.  For those who didn't notice, here is a brief summary.
      
             A mother sent lunch to school with her four year old
        daughter.  The lunch inspectors discovered the ticking time
        bomb.  The lunch consisted of a turkey and cheese sandwich,
        banana, potato chips, and apple juice.  An inspector pounced on
        the lunch that didn't meet U.S. Department of Agriculture
        guidelines, as interpreted by the inspector.
      
             Perhaps the nutritionally challenged will fail to instantly
        grasp what was wrong with the lunch.  Didn't you notice that the
        lunch was minus a vegetable?  Every meal should include a
        vegetable.  Did you have your vegetable for breakfast today?
      
             The "lunch police" swung into action.  They weren't
        authorized to seize the dangerous lunch.  They did the next best
        thing by providing a second lunch to supplement the defective
        one.  How do two lunches square with the government's
        campaign against obesity?  And, to think that some people claim
        MacDonalds is tricking people into eating too much food.  When
        was the last time MacDonalds forced a lunch onto a four year
        old?
      
             Did the girl eat her second lunch?  Well, sort of.  She ate
        the chicken nuggets.  I assume everyone knows that chicken is
        one of our most nutritious and important vegetables.
      
             Still, the neglectful mother must be punished.  The school
        billed her $1.25 for the lunch.  The ingrate, and others,
        complained so loudly that the school canceled the charge.  Does
        this prove that there really is a free lunch, provided you don't
        want it?  It doesn't if you are a taxpayer.
      
             This incident annoyed me.  It didn't surprise me.  It is
        consistent with the way government control of our lives has been
        growing for ages.  Why would government that controls what
        goes into children's minds shrink from controlling what goes into
        their stomachs?
      
             School personnel in that great bastion of liberty to our
        north (I don't mean Russia) also lie awake nights scheming how
        to protect children from their neglectful and incompetent parents.
      
             The protectors at Forest Hill public school near
        Kitchnener go to the head of the class.  When Jessie Sansone
        arrived at the school to pick up his children he was called to the
        principal's office.  Three police officers informed him he was
        being charged with possession of a firearm.  Then he was
        escorted out of the school, hand cuffed and locked in the back of
        a police car.  Later the father was strip searched.
      
             The article doesn't explain why this depraved and
        dangerous man was allowed inside the school.  Why didn't they
        call a swat team to hurl him to the side walk and subdue him
        when he stepped from his vehicle?  Why did the police wait
        until they reach the police station to search for weapons?
      
             How did the police know the father possessed a firearm?
        School employees tipped off the police.  How did the school
        employees know?  Well, they didn't.  They only had compelling
        evidence.
      
             Exhibit A was a picture drawn by the father's four year
        old daughter.  Maybe school people have a thing about four year
        olds.  Should I attempt to describe the picture in a family
        publication?  I must.  The four year old drew a picture of a, a. .
        .  Do I have to say it?  Yes, I do.  Sensitive individuals and
        those with heart conditions may wish to stop at this point.  She
        drew a gun, a picture of a gun.
      
             To the school Gestapo this meant that the father
        possessed a gun at home.  That gun was a threat to the safety of
        his children.  By the way, the government seized the children for
        their safety and to interrogate them.
      
             When the police searched the home what kinds of guns
        did they find?  Only invisible and imaginary ones.  The abuse
        and humiliation of the father and his children were all based on
        the imagination of a four year old, and perpetrated by adults who
        didn't have the common sense of a four year old.
      
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        Copyright 2012
        Albert D. McCallum
        18440 29-1/2 Mile Road
        Springport, Michigan 49284