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- Tallulah Morehead: Survivor Samoa: Here's to the Pirates Who Lunch.
- Lee Stranahan: Stop The House Bill That Will Raise Premiums 25% (VIDEO)
- Steven G. Brant: Russell Ackoff - "The Einstein of Problem Solving" - Has Died
- Paul Abrams: Pop Quiz: Under Reagan, What Was Peak Unemployment, How Long Before It Began Declining?
- Joe The Nerd Ferraro: A Day for A Day
| Tallulah Morehead: Survivor Samoa: Here's to the Pirates Who Lunch. | Top |
| Sorry to be late this week, my darlings. I hope it wasn't too scary for you. I was off to Anaheim, Halloweening at Dilfyland. It wasn't until my adorable neighborhood rugrats came fingering my knockers, shouting "trick or treat," (as always, I gave the kiddies those little airplane-size, miniature bottles of vodka), that I had a chance to sit and view the short, ridiculous reign of Queen Shambles of Galu. What an odd regime that was. Danger Dave on Shambles" Even though she's a chick..." Chick? Shambles is probably female. I'm 80% certain she is a woman. She may even, theoretically, have been a "girl" at some time in the dim, distant past, but never was she a "chick." Admittedly, Danger Dave's experience with "chicks" may be, let's say "limited" (Former flight attendant. Has a degree in "Opera." In his mid-30s, yet not married, with no known girl friend.), but his own statements show he has observed her, ah , difference. "Even though she's a chick, [Shambles] doesn't fit in with the other girls, so we have to pull [Shambles] back over to our side, and make sure that [Shambles] is one of the dudes." Okay, I'll grant them that Shambles is more one of the dudes than she has ever been a "chick," but she doesn't "fit in" with "The Dudes" either. (I'm not 100% certain it was Dave making this silly statement. It sounded like his voice, but it was a whispered phrase, and they didn't label who said it, and they were showing us creepy, flesh-crawling night-vision shots of Shambles herself, which was the scariest thing I saw this Halloween.) My position remains unchanged: Shambles broke the snorkel, let a chicken escape, has ties of friendship to Tribe Zsa Zsa, and is an idiot. The smartest thing Tribe Galu could do would be to get rid of her before the merge comes, and she betrays all of them. Why don't the people on these shows shot months ago ever take my advice? Erik, aka "Mr. Class," has an endgame for the Shambles-as-one-of-the-dudes plan: "When we're down to The Final Five, we can burn her, no problem. Bros before hos, period." Erik, two points: (1) Shambles is no more a "ho" than she is a 'chick." (2) Bros don't have periods. Russell (Formerly "Psycho Russell," but now the only Russell, unless you count the "Krumper" - I have no idea what that word means - who's a savant at all styles of dance, over on the current season of So You Think You can Dance. I believe that now all Reality TV shows are required by a new FCC regulation to have a minimum of one "Russell" each in their casts. There is no maximum. An all-Russells cast is fine, even preferable.) has no sense of proportion, relativity nor reality: "Man, I was stoked. Like, ah, we have a shot at this. You know, we got - it's five to eight now? It's pretty damn close." Well, it's closer than the moon is to Tustin, but Zsa Zsa is still way behind, not to mention Zsa Zsa's major handicap: they have Russell the Sock-Burner. Russell has also relented on shafting Liz. "I'd rather just win three in a row and then get rid of her." And I'd rather be crammed between Gerard Butler and Hugh Jackman in an obscene sandwich than writing this, but I'm stuck in Reality. Russell, try winning one in a row first. Over at Camp Galu, Erik has had a brilliantly idiotic idea. The guys will elect Shambles as their new leader. Since Shambles was Shambles's choice for leader from day one, this would lead her deep into the illusion that they share her self-image. The problem is that Shambles is highly likely to take the role seriously, and this incompetent boob can't watch a chicken in a cage without losing the chicken, and possibly the cage too, can't go for a leisurely skindive without ruining the snorkel, and can't go to a hairstylist without coming back looking like Billy Ray Cyrus with a bad perm. It would be like electing Curly Howard to be leader of The Three Stooges, letting Levi Johnston run your local chapter of Planned Parenthood, or appointing George W. Bush President of the United States. A very fast rigged election gave the job to Shambles. Monica or Laura (They're interchangeable and identical) said, "I thought the way to elect the new leader was stupid." Laura or Monica, your sentence had too many words. Try this: "I thought the new leader was stupid." See? Brevity, clarity, and Truth. Laurica added: "We were supposed to be sending [Shambles] home last night. I'm wondering, if there was a vote last night, would I have been one of the people voted for?" Well, let's see. The four guys just elected a blithering idiot Tribe Leader en masse. Yeah, Laurica, you had a narrow escape, whomever you are. (Or was it Moncra who had the narrow escape?) Shambles's first act as Fake Leader was to make a speech: "I will honestly, honestly, honestly do my due diligence to not be bossy, 'cause you can't really be a sergeant in the United States Marine Corp, and not have an expectation that when you say something, things will happen." Yes, if there's anything Marine Corp sergeants never are, it's "bossy." And when an elected leader uses the word "honestly," you can be certain they are lying. When they use it three times before moving on to another word, you know they can't think of another word. If I were a member of Galu, I'd already be demanding a recount. Danger Dave has noticed one of the one hundred fifty flaws in their make-Shambles-the-leader plan: "The only strategic drawbacks I can think of is that [Shambles] is just so dim, that she could screw up our plans if we tell her anything." I think Dave is underestimating Shambles. She's perfectly capable of screwing up their plans without having any notion of them whatever. Shambles pretty much announced back in episode one that she wasn't really a planner anyway. She lives in the moment. Sufficient unto the day is the stupidity thereof. Planning is for pussies. Thinking about things over is for wimps. Shambles isn't merely dim. She's an intellectual black hole. Reward Challenge: Jeff Probst, noticing that Shambles is now Galu's leader, asks her if she's surprised, as he tried to conceal that he's flummoxed. Shambles is nothing if not impressed with herself. Jeff: "Surprised?" Shambles: "Not so much," Proof right there of how dim she is. "I've had a lifetime a leadership skills, through just the way I was raised, second-generation Marines, so I just gotta keep things in perspective and be calm." So she's already lost all sense of perspective. Now, I am certain that there are many second-generation Marines who are indeed skilled leaders, but just the mere fact of being a second-generation Marine doesn't impart leadership skills, particularly if you're an idiot. And even if Shambles were a 20th generation Marine, she'd still be a dimwit. Laurica and Moncra were biting their cheeks to try, unsuccessfully, to avoid smirking. The challenge resembled the classic game show Concentration. Each turn a player would uncover two hidden useful tools. If they made a match, the leader could choose to win a point, or keep the tool. The winning team would win a cruise on a sailboat and "a nice lunch." The winning team also would send a spy to the losing tribe. Now obviously, a smart and pragmatic leader, in other words, not the departed Black Russell, would realize that the long-term benefits of the tools far outweighed the pleasure of a cruise and the "nice lunch," and would take all matched tools, and let the other team take have the lunch, although this would probably win him or it the ire of the less pragmatic tribe members, the ones who are ladies who lunch. Shambles leadership skills were instantly put to the test. Since Galu outnumbers Zsa Zsa, she had to chose three members to sit out the challenge. First off, she chose herself. Hello? I choose me to kick back and watch. I'm a leader. But this meant she had to delegate leadership to someone else to choose points or tools. So her first act as leader was to abdicate leadership. Hmm. Maybe this was a good decision. And we quickly saw her decisiveness. Asked whom she chose to make decisions for the team in the challenge, she replied without a moment's thought (thinking is for pussies.), "Erik." Danger Dave: "No, no, Brett, Brett, Brett." (Who?) Shambles: "I stand corrected. Brett." Who is leader here, Shambles, you or "Dick Cheney" Dave, or whoever is loudest in your ear? (Since Brett has had less than a full minute of screen time so far this season, and has spoken, I think, a total of 17 words on screen, I haven't a clue as to why Dave felt it necessary to chose Brett over Erik. But then Shambles hasn't a clue about anything. ) It was a slow-starting challenge. Jeff got to say "no match," a lot, but he never got to add "and the board goes back." Laurica made the first match, a firestarter kit (a flint and wood, not a pissed-off Drew Barrymore.), and Brett proved he had some stones by keeping the kit rather than the point. "Thank God," Shambles piped in from the sidelines, expressing a remarkably high opinion of Brett. He's not even a god, let alone "God." Then Jeff got surprising personal, announcing, "Liz, with her first time out on the course, would love to 'get lucky'." Jeff, Liz's romantic desires are irrelevant to the challenge, and none of your business. Isn't that sexual harassment? When Liz uncovered a cleaver ("Good afternoon, Mrs. Cleaver.") whose match had been previously uncovered, and had to concentrate on remembering where the other cleaver was, Moncra - or was it Laurica? - on the other team, began unconsciously pointing towards it. Erik had to actually say to her, "Don't point." Laurica's idiot response was "I'm not pointing. I'm just pointing out the rows." Are you pointing, Moncra, or are you not pointing? Which is it? (She was pointing.) We can all see the rows for ourselves. Whichever woman she is, she's terribly stupid. But not as stupid as Liz, who failed to remember where the cleaver was, instead uncovering the match for mosquito netting. Brett, apparently not a fool (it's literally the first time we've seen him do anything! ) marched right out decisively, and matched the netting, and then opted for the point this time. Now out marched blonde and vacant Natalie. All she had to do was uncover the two cleavers. She uncovered a hammock and a pot. As nice as some pot would be, the woman is truly a shapely waste of flesh. At this point, the show's film editor grew bored with the game, apparently never a fan of Concentration . Convinced that we would grow as bored as he did while playing along at home, he started editing to high points instead of letting us watch and play along. Nothing like having a competition edited by someone with Attention Deficit Disorder. Rocket Scientist John, possessor of an unfair advantage, he's smart, matched the cleavers. Apparently not feeling the need to dismember anyone, Galu took the points. Now the editor was really bored. Jeff's play-by-play was played back overlapping, and points were awarded bing, bing, bing, without our seeing or hearing what was uncovered, what was chosen, and whether Russell was any good at the challenge. Jeepers. If the producers hated the challenge so much, why bother to show it at all? Why not just announce the outcome and skip it altogether? I wanted to watch it (I used to love Concentration I was hoping they'd uncover a rebus to solve.), but all viewing pleasure the challenge might have held was destroyed by, basically, editing the game out of the game. The production team was making poorer decisions than Shambles. That takes work. We did get to see Galu find a new snorkel, but then Brett, forgetting that his Fearless Leader had ruined the snorkel they had, and oblivious to the fact that they held a substantial lead over perennial losers Zsa Zsa, took the point. Bad choice, Brett. Only after the challenge was over (Galu won, of course. I knew that without even tuning in. Tribe Zsa Zsa are losers.), did we learn that at some never-shown point in the challenge, Galu had matched a canvas tarp, and having learned at least one lesson from the mistakes of their pathetic fallen leader, had taken the tarp over the point. They still had won 7 to 3. Asked to choose the spy to visit Zsa Zsa who would miss out on the cruise and the lunch, Shambles, not about to send herself, sent Laurica, or was it Moncra, to "keep our guys strong." Some blonde bimbo named Kelly, who can be told apart from Natalie only by virtue of the fact that she's on Galu rather than Zsa Zsa, made this stunningly weird observation about Shambles choice to send Laurica to Zsa Zsa : "Now that [Shamble]'s chief, it's like she was raised in a trailer park, married a rich guy [Shambles married? To a man yet? No, that's not what it's like] , now she's driving around in a Jagwire [Kelly probably meant "Jaguar," but that is not what she said.] , treating everyone like crap, you know. [That's so unfair. She was just treating Laurica like crap.] She sent [Laurica] over to the other tribe, and [Laurica]'s one of our strongest females. [Shambles is the closest Galu has got to a strong female, and she's an idiot.] I don't know if she has strategy. I don't know if she's just pulling this out of the inside of her ass. I don't know." While there's plenty of storage space in Shambles's ample rear, she did state her strategy, to keep the men strong for challenges, although the Concentration Zsa Zsa left with no cruise, no lunch, not even any tools won. All they won was Laurica or Moncra, and they were going to have to give her back the next day. Yes Russell, you really do "have a shot now," at the title of Lamest Survivor Tribe Ever. Laurica, falling for the same bull Shambles did, thought every one at Zsa Zsa was so "friendly." You see, they spoke to her politely, and didn't spit on her. Russell may even have been a little too friendly! Russell to Moncra: "Wanna come with me, and find some crabs?" Ew. Too much information, Russell. Whoever-She-Is started asking about Russell's family. We learned he has twin daughters (poor kids), and that his dad was a "preacher." Clearly Russell learned no morals or ethics from his dad (or from anyone else.), showing once again, the "value" of a religious upbringing. Of course, southern preachers are not exactly known for honesty or integrity anyway. So Russell is Elmer Gantry Jr.? That makes a sick sort of sense. And then again, since it was Russell saying it, there's every chance his father was an oil man, or even more likely, a regiment just in his mother's town for the night. Laurica, granted substantial screen time for the first time, managed quickly to pass from being someone who was a cipher, to someone loathsome. Please. I hate having to side with Shambles. But we learned Laurica studied "theology," (Like it's an actual science, instead of a con game), with a degree in "Women's Ministry," (not to be confused with physics or history, or any real subject) and said, "I don't want to be a pastor of men. " (Good) "I don't believe that that's a woman's role." What? What century did they import her from? Religious, sexist, and accepting herself as inferior to men? She's hit the Ignorance Trifecta! Russell, listening to Laurica's babble and realizing that here was a woman who could believe anything , immediately began his usual line of telling his patsies what they most want to hear, and proposing the latest of his 87 different alliances. He knew just the soft soap to use on her, the same brand her brain has already been washed with: "I can spot a 'Good Christian' anytime. It's easy..." So can I, They're the dead ones. Of course, the primary reason to spot them is in order to avoid them, but that's not where Russell was going with | |
| Lee Stranahan: Stop The House Bill That Will Raise Premiums 25% (VIDEO) | Top |
| I've come to the conclusion that the House health care reform must die and I've made a 30 second video to tell you one reason why. Would you solve homelessness by mandating housing? Or by allowing banks and landlords to raise everyone's rent 25% when the mandate kicks in? Why are mandates and price hikes a solution for health care? There is tremendous pressure on Democrats to drink the Kool-Aid and support this bill. We're told that the success of everything we hold near and dear is riding on the Obama administration delivering health care reform. There's some truth to that, which is why I wish he did deliver health care reform. But the President who I supported as a candidate has let us down and sided with corporate interests time and again since we elected him. During the election, Barack Obama asked us to hold him accountable for his promises. It's our duty to do that on this important issue. We need to work together to kill the bill. We need to demand real, progressive health care reform. More on Barack Obama | |
| Steven G. Brant: Russell Ackoff - "The Einstein of Problem Solving" - Has Died | Top |
| The world lost a very great man this past Thursday. So great, in fact, that the only person I can compare him to is Einstein. And that's because this man - Russell L. Ackoff , Professor Emeritus of The Wharton School - transformed the world of problem solving just as Albert Einstein transformed he world of science. Russ was my friend and mentor for the last 10 years and was 90 years old when he passed away from complications resulting from hip replacement surgery. His official obituary is here . Why I compare Russ Ackoff to Albert Einstein Before Einstein and his fellow physicists made their discoveries early in the 20th Century, the scientific world assumed that our universe was - essentially - a "giant clock" . This mechanical view of the universe was made obsolete by the discovery of Quantum Mechanics , through which the universe was redefined as being an interrelated and interconnected series of waves... of patterns of energy. (I'm using short-hand language here.) The bottom line: computers could not exist without Quantum Mechanics , because its principles make possible how computer chips work. Mechanical view of the universe... no computers. Quantum Mechanics... computers (and a whole lot more). It's that simple. Well, before Russell Ackoff and his fellow organizational development theorists made their discoveries in the period following WWII, the management world assumed that solving the problem of how to make organizations work better required using Analysis : breaking the problem (the organization) up into its component parts... fixing those parts (including "those people") that were broken... and putting the organization back together, with the expectation that it would then work. This was also a "giant clock" philosophy. This mechanical view of problem-solving was made obsolete by the development of Systems Thinking , through which making organizations work better was redefined in recognition of the role played by the design of the entire system. Synthesis - the thinking method involving seeing how different elements in a system interact with each other - replaced Analysis as the method of developing breakthrough operational improvements (otherwise known as Innovation ). Innovation comes from looking at whether an entire system can be transformed, not if certain pars of a system can be improved. You don't get from a car to an airplane by just looking at how the car's engine works. The work of Russ Ackoff and his colleagues codified what had previously been done by people who were innovators naturally (inventors, for example). Previously, how these people thought was not a formally recognized thinking discipline. Why All This Matters If you don't think codifying the thinking used by inventors matters, here's why it does: You may not get from a car to an airplane without thinking this way. But you won't get from a nation that is failing to solve the many crises it faces to a nation that is healthy and provides an environment in which its citizens can prosper without thinking this way either. In fact, it is Einstein himself who once said.. "The specific problems we face cannot be solved using the same patterns of thought that were used to create them." Russ loved that quote. Currently - in the course of trying to solve its numerous, critical problems - America is tearing itself apart. And that is because - technically speaking - it is using Analytic Thinking in its efforts to do so. American needs to look at the larger system - in this case, the larger sociological culture - in which all of its separate problems exist. That is the only way America is ever going to solve its problems once and for all. It is possible to solve the many crises America faces. It is possible to not just solve but dissolve our crises in education, health care, job creation, etc. But we won't do so if we keep trying to solve them the way we have... separately. We must solve them in the context of redesigning the larger sociological system in which they all reside. And this is why I am urging all of you to explore the life's work of Dr. Russell Ackoff - and that of the other systems thinking theorists with whom he worked - on this, the occasion of his death. There is no more critical thing "we, the people" can do for the long-term health of our nation than to reorient how we approach solving our problems. We must learn to think differently! Russ Ackoff knew that the true solution to a problem can only be found by examining the design of the larger system in which the problem exists... and then correcting that design to eliminate the flaws that generated the problem in the first place. This "start with the whole and work back down to the broken part so you know *why* the part is broken (not just *that* the part is broken)" is a radical and upside-down way of thinking, but it works! Analytic view of problem solving... problems persist. Synthetic/Systemic view of problem solving... problems dissolve, never to return! It's that simple! Problems Dissolved, Never To Return "Problems dissolved, never to return? What are you talking about? If such a thing were true, how come I haven't heard of it before? If Russell Ackoff - and no disrespect intended... may he rest in peace - helped develop such a miraculous way of solving problems, how come he isn't as famous as Einstein? In fact, how can you compare someone who's unknown to someone as famous as Einstein?" I'm sure many of you are thinking some variation of the above thoughts. And let me say for the record that the nearly 60 year history during which a critical mass of the American public - or, at a minimum, of the American public's political/civic leadership - never learned that this body of knowledge exists is one of the greatest cultural developmental failures I have ever known... but one I have come to understand in the following terms: Only when disaster strikes do cultures make significant changes in how they view what they are doing... in how they organize themselves to create a future that's different from their past. That disaster can be economic ( The New Deal grew out of The Great Depression) or military ( Japan's non-violent constitution grew out of it losing WWII) or a combination of both ( Nazi Germany grew out of Germany's loss in WWI and its economic crisis - linked to the global economic crisis - in the years immediately after). Please note: I didn't say all such changes are for the betterment of the global situation. I only said that disasters produce change. Einstein and his colleagues benefiting from the fact that they were working within a field - physics - that accepts new knowledge once that knowledge has been sufficiently proven. Plus, when it comes to reaching a critical mass of political leaders, they benefited from their research leading to the development of the Atomic Bomb. In a cruel twist of "public marketing fate", the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people from the use of The Bomb - when combined with its unique visual qualities - made it part of the public's consciousness in a significant way. So, the world of physics was permanently changed. And Einstein's name became known to people throughout the country... and the world. Russ Ackoff worked within a field in which no such "replace old theory with new" process exists. Old management processes continue to coexist with the new. As I related in my essay about why President Obama should listen to the late Peter Drucker rather than General McChrystal, most of us grow up in an autocratic management world called "the family", which doesn't help when it comes to creating a critical mass for change. But this 60 year long "failure to communicate"may be coming to an end. And not, specifically, because Russ Ackoff has passed away (although I am determined hat his passing receives the attention from the press that it deserves). No, the end to Systems Thinking's long period of isolation in an intellectual wilderness may come because the United States appears to be headed for the kind of crisis that has brought about large-scale change in the past. As I said above, America is tearing itself apart. As Frank Rich reports in today's NY Times , the Republican Party is progressing steadily down a "road to purity" (led by people such as Sarah Palin and Glen Beck). This will further destroy the already nearly non-existent partnership that exists between the two sides of "the house of America". And as President Lincoln said, "A house divided against itself cannot stand." I don't care what the DOW does or what the GDP numbers are in the next quarter. (And please note: BusinessWeek doesn't appear to care about GDP numbers that much anymore either. See " The GDP Mirage " in the latest issue.) It's the health of our socio-political fabric that determines whether a nation avoids a catastrophic crisis or not. And right now, that health is dropping rapidly. So, the stage is being set for when America will finally be ready for "a new way". I only hope that the Systems Thinking community (and its cousins - by virtue of the Performance Model of The UN Global Compact - in the corporate social responsibility community) manage to get organized well enough to offer themselves as the "new way" when the time comes. Because if they don't then some "other new way" will take its place. (Yes, I'm talking about, Sarah Palin. I know she sees this crisis coming. But she has a very different take on what the response to the crisis should be. After all, she's an "end of days" person .) But there's another hurdle that Systems Thinking will have to overcome. And that is that - at its very core - it is a discipline that involves thinking differently . As the name suggests, it involves thinking in systems... frequently and continuously... which is not how many of us have been taught to think. Ours is a culture of specialists. From doctors, to lawyers, to sports, to politics... most of us specialize in something. Precious few of us are generalists. The saying "A little knowledge is a dangerous thing" is correct when it comes to doing specialized actions, like flying a plane. But "a little knowledge about a lot of things" is actually a very powerful thing... because only by knowing "a little about a lot" can we see the connections between things that don't necessarily appear to have obvious connections. But there's one person who comes to mind whose 20+ years of talking about "connections" - to the public in a very effective way - may be of use here. I'm referring to the British historian and educator, James Burke . Starting with The Day the Universe Changed (which I watched on PBS in the late 1980's) and through Connections 1, Connections 2, and Connections 3 , James Burke has produced the finest examples I know of educational programming on the interconnectedness between ideas and how those connections throughout history have led to the modern society we have today. I urge the Systems Thinking community to reach out to James Burke and, in all other ways possible, to encourage the public to learn this history lessons he has to teach as a way of motivating study of Systems Thinking. Russ Ackoff has left a huge legacy. Nearly 30 books, hundreds of articles, and a global network of students and colleagues he impacted in very significant ways. To get an idea of what I mean, I invite you to read the notices from people at the UPenn Organizational Dynamics Program site . Or just search on "Ackoff" on Twitter . But to me, the real legacy of his work is the knowledge of how our society can heal itself. Russ' work wasn't about management is some objective, dispassionate way. It was humane and deeply philosophical... about people achieving their best, based on their individual, natural gifts. He may have talked tough to people at times, but it was a form of "tough love" based on his wanting us all to reach our full potentials. As a nation, we are suffering sociologically from a loss of capacity to talk to those who don't think like we think. And we are suffering procedurally from an attempt to fix all the seemingly separate challenges we face without recognizing that they all share a common core connection... and that - by redesigning that connection... that larger system - the solutions to those separate challenges will become self-obvious and much easier to design and put in place. A great man may have left us... one who knew that it's possible for our nation (and our world) to be a place of prosperity for all. And he may have even known how to get there. But what he had to teach remains. The question I'd like to ask you to ask yourself is: If our society could get beyond the huge mess that it's in but, to do so, I would have to become a generalist instead of a specialist... to see whole systems instead of parts of systems...would I be willing to learn to think this way? I look forward to hearing answers from those who want to share them. And here's a one minute video that may help you think this through.... More on Financial Crisis | |
| Paul Abrams: Pop Quiz: Under Reagan, What Was Peak Unemployment, How Long Before It Began Declining? | Top |
| Buddy, can you spare a credit default option? Class, come to order. Yesterday, we discussed the dismal unemployment numbers, and what those numbers translated into when put in terms of real human lives. For politicians to wish these figures to get worse so as to bring down the party in power--well, that is not serving the people is it? But, there is another part to this story, and that is whether, if we had followed a radically different prescription, everything would be so much better. OK, class, to get at this, we are going to have a pop quiz today, but this should be an easy one, so stop that whining or Phil Gramm will teach this course, you should all get 100%. Why? Because every week or so, the peculiarly tanned John Boehner--loved by his colleagues for providing them Tobacco Industry lobbying checks on the House Floor, so you know, if you like lung cancer, you can love him too, besides he looks so totally hip with that, that, whatever that tan is--pronounces the Obama stimulus plan a failure, pointing to the unemployment numbers. He usually proceeds to contrast this dismal picture with the nirvana brought about by the Reagan tax cuts. Certainly, as good students of history, you recognize that Reagan did not inherit the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. Nor did he inherit two wars, nor the collapse of the automobile industry, nor 8 years of budget profligacy, nor the radical rightwing championing (and avoiding service in) another war or two or three. The retirement of the baby-boomers was 25 years in the future, not already ongoing and accelerating. And, of course, you don't need little Johnny Boehner to tell you that tax rates, even for the wealthiest Americans, are now already 14% lower than Reagan's 1981 tax cut, nor that 95% of Americans received a tax cut in the Obama stimulus , nor that tax rates will still be 10.5% lower for the wealthiest when Obama allows the George W tax cuts to expire, nor that those cuts were intended to expire for the simple reason that they were projected then to cause to big a hole in the deficit. But this, of course, begs the question as to what the Reagan tax cuts, such as they were, actually did achieve. At the same point in Reagan's Presidency as we are now at in Obama's, what was unemployment, and how long before it began to decline? Class, I am shocked, shocked, that no one is raising his right hand. So, I'll tell you. Reagan inherited an unemployment rate of 7.6%, no wars, no major financial crisis, a still robust auto industry, a right wing clamoring for increased defense spending (that helps domestic employment), no retiring baby boomers actually taking down social security funds. To answer the pop quiz: the unemployment rate under Reagan went from 7.6% to 9.7-9.8% in the summer after his inaugural, and remained at that level for two years , before it began to decline in the summer of 1983. In "Obama-time", that would be the equivalent of the summer of 2011. Moreover, the economy did not begin improving until the Spring, 1983, in "Obama-time" that is Spring, 2011. There are those (your teacher included) who have difficulty separating the effects of the Reagan tax cuts from pure old Keynesian pump-priming deficit spending that accompanied these Reagan tax cuts. And, lest Republicans whine that Reagan had a Democratic Congress, remind them that Reagan himself never even submitted a balanced budget! Surprise question for extra credit: what was Reagan's approval rating in January, 1983, two years into his Presidency? Again, no one raising their right hand except Dickie Cheney and OJ? OK, the correct answer: 35%--an approval rating only Dick Cheney and OJ Simpson would cheer. Last question for extra credit: what was the unemployment rate when Reagan left office? C'mon boys and girls, you can get this one. Ah, now the right hands go up, but wait, wait, keep them up, it's not SO bad... Here's a hint: the "Reagan revolution" dropped unemployment by 2.1% from start to finish--that's right, you've got it, it was 5.5% when Reagan left office. (Ok, Ok, I know, the first George Bush reversed that too, but, hey, he was only Reagan's heir at the time, we did not yet have the pleasure of knowing him as George W's father, and George W showed us what a real Reagan revolution could mean). The human brain has a wonderful (and necessary) ability to compress the past. Today, we are suffering daily the nearly 1-in-10 people unemployed (and, yes, these are comparable numbers, and the real numbers (perhaps 1-in-7 unemployed) were also elevated in Reagan's day. That period, nearly 30 years ago, is ancient history. So, as a public service, so we can understand better what it was like then, your assignment, class, is to spell out the months of rising and non-declining unemployment under the Reagan nirvana the Republicans want us all to remember and revere: 1981: February-March-April-May-June-July-August-September-October- November *-December (yep, Xmas itself)-1982: January-February-March-April-May-June-July-August-September-October-November (Congressional elections!)-December-1983: January-February-March-April-May-June-July. (*The equivalent to where we are in the Obama Presidency). That's it. Class dismissed. You may now go to your homes, communities, campuses, radio stations, TV-strategists, and then next time someone critiques the Obama stimulus plan by contrasting it to Reagan's--tell them you ain't buyin' their nonsense, you just aced a pop quiz on the subject. [Oh, one more thing as you are leaving. The banks under Reagan were still governed by Glass-Steagall that prevented overly risky activities that could bring down the entire economy. Today, there is no Glass-Steagall, and the banks have too much economic and political power. So, go to www.breakupthebigbanks.com, and sign the petition if you really want to regain your economic security..and you can tell Mommy and Daddy that teacher suggested you do it, and they do it too!]. More on Barack Obama | |
| Joe The Nerd Ferraro: A Day for A Day | Top |
| I am a proud Pennsylvanian. The current Phillies run is great – the team is now being compared to the 1929 Philadelphia A’s as the best ever (an analysis done by Sports Illustrated a couple of years ago had the audacity to say Connie Mack’s A’s were better than Ruth’s ’27 Yankees). I own a Pottsville Maroons 1925 Championship T-shirt. I drink Yuengling beer. I used to be able to name close to 30 Tastykake pies (I thought I was impressing my future wife with that skill). You take the good with the bad. I can live with 10,000 Phillies losses or watching Temple get continuously rooked at football, or seeing the Maroons Championship taken away from them by the NFL (yeah, they were corporate pinheads back then too). That doesn’t diminish my pride at being from the original Quaker State. Sometimes I am not as proud to be a member of the Keystone State. A couple of rouge judges in Wilkes-Barre, in the Northeast part of the state, destroyed the lives of thousands of young people because the judges were on the take. These “people” (in quotes because I really don’t know what they are) abused their power as judges. I will not value them as people by using their names. Here’s a link to Philly.com’s coverage of the PA Supreme Court vacating case after case because these guys set up a scam where the juvenile court system became the feeder system to a bunch of for-profit detention centers. These judges rushed kids through the juvenile justice system for truly minor offenses, rewarding them with 3 months at these prison camps. Many times the kids had no legal representation and were immediately whisked away to do their time. Now that these clowns are caught, they are trying to weasel their way through the system. It appears the legal system can’t truly handle their own. Evidently a deal was cut to allow these guys on the street after doing about 7 years. If you want cynicism, this is the rawest form. Sending a kid to jail on unbalanced charges for money and ruining their lives deserves more than any system we have in place can accommodate. (PA has a death penalty on the books, but we’d never be able to strap them down. ) It is as much an insult to even think seven years can atone for what they have done to either their direct victims or to the rest of us. They have broken the system and truly damaged all of us. How about some sentencing flexibility? These guys should get to serve one day for each day they sentenced each kid to do. During the serving of a given kids’ sentence, if the kid wants to stop by and lecture these guys on the how screwed up society is, let them do it. No weapons, because these losers behind bars will need to be preserved for the next person they rooked over. And for this type of punishment, I am not just talking about the judges here. Anybody that had anything to do with this, knew about it and let it slide gets the same deal. That means the prosecutors, the bailiff, or a cop who thought he saw something and didn't do right by these kids -- they get it too. We all saw the story about the 15 year-old raped while her classmates looked on after the homecoming dance. We are all as much horrified at the actions of those who did the deed as we are at those who stood by. There is a moral equivalence here. The system has no problem (as do most properly thinking people) in going after the bystanders. Why are the bystanders in Wilkes-Barre not pursued? There are enough parts of our society that have no or diminished faith in our system. I lost a lot of it with Gore v. Bush. I lost more of it when a Green Party candidate was given an $80,000 fine for just trying to get on the election ballot (my next rant). If any of us go to court, we don’t need to be looking over our shoulder thinking, “ Is this guy on the take ?” It will make me more proud to think we can come up with a better way to flush out this type of garbage. | |
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