iPandora

Allan Meltzer calls it like it is with the sub head on this article:

Why Obamanomics Has Failed
Uncertainty about future taxes and regulation is enemy No. 1 of economic growth

Let us put our minds together and imagine for a moment, a world in which we ran businesses.

We must buy and sell and add value. We must hire and employ and sometimes even fire. We must take what we have and mix all the depths of our creativity along with every ounce of our passion and most of our effort and life into the raw materials of labor and goods to develop a product. And then we must sell that product for more than it cost us to make it.

Let us say we’ve found that point at which enough people who want it can afford it. That’s something we learned in economics years ago in college when our professors went gaga for a whole semester over these two curved lines and we spent the whole semester trying to figure out where they met.

And we’ve controlled out costs until they are just below that point where the curves of cost and demand meet. That is called a profit. We’re a small outfit and don’t spend too much effort on innovation except to encourage it when and where we can. And so with our costs mostly flat, we can’t really increase the quality or complexity of the product without making it more expensive, which would take us out of that sweet spot in pricing and we’d lose customers as a result.

This is where many small businesses are. This is also where many medium and even a few large businesses are. In fact, most companies who employ most of the people and shuffle the most money around most efficiently are in this boat, right alongside us.

Most businesses don’t operate from malicious greed, despite what Hollywood and the popular culture will try to get us to believe. Most businesses operate with the understand that they can only make money so long as they are making  sufficient numbers of other people sufficiently happy.

Some people don’t get this.

Most professors outside of business school don’t get this. And many professors inside business school don’t either. It’s a curse of our amazing educational system that it has attracted and nurtured minds that are as closed to facts of life as any that walk this earth and still remain sentient.

Most people who get into politics and become successful at it are the same, though they are for a different reason.

You get what you ask for and what you deserve. And because many people in America, average Joes and Janes alike, do not get this, politicians take what is called a populist stance, and become whatever they must in order to win a few more votes.

Sock it to ‘em, the little man says on the corner. And the big Man, because he wants to keep that little man needing him and thus voting for him, echoes the cry. But when the big Man speaks, things may actually happen.

Regulation, taxation, “fair shares” and “spreading the wealth” all sound so very good to those of us living on the dole or spending too much time gazing up the tall ladder above us filled with so many other people and wishing there were an easier way than taking it one step at a time.

In hopes of making it easier to climb the ladder, and perhaps out of a little jealousy at those who have gotten higher on the ladder than you or I, we subscribe to the notion that the government ought to be the arbiter of the “fair share”, the decider of “enough”. Actually, it’s mostly out of jealousy. We don’t want to climb the ladder, we’re content in our squalor and mediocrity. We just want everybody else to roll in the same mud we are.

So there is the promise of taxation and regulation, making it harder and more expensive to make those products and to deliver those services than it was before. We hope that the extra taxes and regulation will fill the government purses and that we’ll benefit from the largesse, but we’re not expecting to buy a new house based on the unearned raise.

Or maybe we are.

The problem is, instead of helping everybody up the ladder, taxation and regulation only chop the ladder a little shorter. Sure, you’re nearer the top, but only because the top was lowered, not because you’re any higher.

So that company we’re each running in our heads right now, it has the costs balanced carefully with the price to hit that sweet spot where we can attract the most people possible. But now you have to task Sally and Harriet and Jim and Larry to filling out these forms and making sure these reports are run. Why? Because the government decided they know better how to run your company than you do. Except, instead of these forms and reports benefiting you, you’re paying 4 people just to fill out forms and run reports instead of produce goods and improve your services.

That’s dead weight.

You have to spend resources without a corresponding benefit to you. Of course you raise prices but you can’t raise the quality, but now fewer people can afford it. Or you cut quality but keep the prices level, and now fewer people buy it because it’s not as attractive.

You have to lay people off. Now you’ve sloughed off your dead weight onto the general economy. Your taxes and everybody else’s taxes are now paying for the employees you used to pay independently.

That’s the reality of taxation and regulation.

Productive businesses don’t like taxes and regulation, and they’ll seek ways to avoid and minimize their exposure to them.

Now, what about the threat of taxes and regulation?

The threat of taxation and regulation is the same effect as the fact of taxation and regulation, except magnified.

Once the taxation and regulation are in place, there is little the business can do. If it wants to survive it does the best it can to manage costs. Quality suffers, but because it suffers for most other companies too, it’s only the consumer (you and I) who lose out in the crap we pay real money for in the stores. That’s inflation. The same dollar used to by a real sweet whiz bang that is still whiz banging away 20 years later and now that dollar just buys a whiz, and a cheap one at that. But the costs have stabilized and now we just have to keep pressing ahead if we’re going to survive as a business.

When the taxation and regulation are threatened, companies go into protection mode. Any ejectable dead weight is ejected. Any loose operations are cut. Anything that can be jettisoned is jettisoned. And real people are fired. And real lives are hurt.

Just for the threat of taxation and regulation.

It’s not that the businesses are mean and vengeful. In your mind-business you know you’re a good employer. You’re caring and you’ve got a great little family growing out of all the individuals you’ve hired. But with your costs already high and threatening to go higher, you’ve got to let someone go. If you don’t let someone go, you’ll be forced to let all of them go when you’re bankrupt. You have to cut their pay or fire them, there’s no middle ground. And even though they say they understand and are glad to still have a job even if it doesn’t pay quite as many bills as it did, you know you’ve hurt them deeply and they really are upset at you.

Were you a fool for getting into business in the first place?

Those who claim to love the most and care the most and feel the most are often guided by uneducated and ignorant feelings into callous and silly actions with effects that are not silly.

Allan Meltzer has seen silly people’s desires ignored to the benefit of entire nations:

In 1980, I had the privilege of advising Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher to ignore the demands of 360 British economists who made the outrageous claim that Britain would never (yes, never) recover from her decision to reduce government spending during a severe recession. They wanted more spending. She responded with a speech promising to stay with her tight budget. She kept a sustained focus on long-term problems. Expectations about the economy’s future improved, and the recovery soon began.

That’s what the U.S. needs now. Not major cuts in current spending, but a credible plan showing that authorities will not wait for a fiscal crisis but begin to act prudently and continue until deficits disappear, and the debt is below 60% of GDP. Rep. Paul Ryan (R., Wisc.) offered a plan, but the administration and Congress ignored it.

We don’t need feelers and healers at the head of this nation. We need heads, brains, experienced and opinionated people with strength of character and resolve. But mostly, experienced and sound.

When there is a strong plan there is hope. Real hope, not in change, but in the future.

For just as the threat of taxation and regulation stagnate and stifle and strangle and hurt, a sure and steady plan which shows how those in authority will not abuse their power but will shrink themselves and leave to the businesses the running of those businesses and leave to the people the living of lives and leave to the churches the telling of morals and leave to the press, the real press and not these buffoons gasping for relevancy in front of their unblinking cyclopses, the telling of the truth, will result in growth as sure as if that plan were in effect.

So throw out the buffoons who don’t know the bitter end from the over priced breadstick they had on your dime at some gala affair list night. Throw out the scoundrels who’d rather take your child’s inheritance than force their own children to work honestly. Hamstring the bums who prefer the golf course to the desk, the courts to the shoreline, make then 1st term lame ducks, the whole lot of them.

After all, we’ve got businesses to run.

I came across the Blueberry Story recently. It didn’t pass the sniff test, but I couldn’t immediately explain why.

Jamie Vollmer was the CEO of an ice cream company that made, at one time, what some considered the best ice cream in America. He was also a sharp critic of the public school system, and shared his criticisms before an assembly of teachers and educators.

I was convinced of two things.  First, public schools needed to change; they were archaic selecting and sorting mechanisms designed for the industrial age and out of step with the needs of our emerging “knowledge society”.  Second, educators were a major part of the problem: they resisted change, hunkered down in their feathered nests, protected by tenure and shielded by a bureaucratic monopoly.  They needed to look to business.  We knew how to produce quality. Zero defects! TQM! Continuous improvement!

At the end of this particular talk he took questions from the audience.

As soon as I finished, a woman’s hand shot up.  She appeared polite, pleasant – she was, in fact, a razor-edged, veteran, high school English teacher who had been waiting to unload.

She began quietly, “We are told, sir, that you manage a company that makes good ice cream.”

I smugly replied, “Best ice cream in America, Ma’am.”

“How nice,” she said. “Is it rich and smooth?”

“Sixteen percent butterfat,” I crowed.

“Premium ingredients?” she inquired.

“Super-premium! Nothing but triple A.”  I was on a roll.  I never saw the next line coming.

“Mr. Vollmer,” she said, leaning forward with a wicked eyebrow raised to the sky, “when you are standing on your receiving dock and you see an inferior shipment of blueberries arrive, what do you do?”

In the silence of that room, I could hear the trap snap….  I was dead meat, but I wasn’t going to lie.

“I send them back.”

“That’s right!” she barked, “and we can never send back our blueberries.  We take them big, small, rich, poor, gifted, exceptional, abused, frightened, confident, homeless, rude, and brilliant.  We take them with ADHD, junior rheumatoid arthritis, and English as their second language. We take them all!  Every one! And that, Mr. Vollmer, is why it’s not a business.  It’s school!”

He was unable to reply to such ideas. And it took me a day to realize what was wrong with this teachers argument.

First, there is truth in both what Mr. Vollmer said and in what this teacher said. Neither of them are completely correct, and neither of them are completely wrong.

The big hole in this educators argument is that children are not the only resource in a school.

When you’re building a product commercially you gather all sorts of raw materials and assemble them and process them to create a finished product. Businesses are primarily rewarded by doing this more efficiently and with more quality than other companies. However, simple physical raw materials are never the entire picture.

You can take blueberries and cream and sugar and eggs and ice and salt and throw them together all day and it will not turn into ice cream. You must have a goal, a guiding principle, a primary idea which directs the process from beginning to end. This idea begins before any raw materials are assembled and achieves fruition and is born into reality in the end product.

In a school children are both a raw material and eventually the fruition and reality of this idea. A healthy, intelligent, wise, productive and strong member of society is the hoped-for result of any school. When children are the raw material (as small children first coming into the school) they indeed cannot be turned away. The school must take any and all. The teacher is right about this.

However, there are many other raw materials which may (and indeed should) be turned away at the loading dock for insufficient quality. Teachers are one of the raw materials of our education system. Those who can’t do, teach, is a sad but true tale of many who comprise the front lines of education in America. Low academic standards does not attract the best and the brightest to this profession. Many of the best teachers teach because they love to. Many others do it because they cannot find so secure a position with as healthy a payroll or extensive benefits in the private sector.

Education philosophies are another raw material that can and should be examined in light of reality and not in light of the establishment’s preconceived notions of the state of the world.

Specific subjects that do not pertain directly to healthy functioning in society also ought to be turned away at the door.

The lesson that schools should take from business, first and foremost, is that competition is good for everybody involved.

The only people who will be hurt by school vouchers, charter schools, more local control of education, and less federal nannying are teachers who aren’t up to snuff and entrenched and ensconced administrators who cannot really justify their silly existence.

The teacher was right, they can’t turn away children from school. Every child can and will benefit from learning truth. But learning and truth are not necessarily the same, and to fail to see the difference and to support a system that is so obviously and painfully failing yet another generation of children is to fail to see yet another blade laid to the neck of our great nation.

A small village in Nepal

Barb posted a letter written to a grandson explaining and illustrating the principles of the free market and the benefits of that system over systems more concerned with equality of outcome rather than equality of potential. She got the original article from the Free Market Foundation of South Africa.

More people need to read and understand this.

April 1942

Mr dear grandson:

I will answer your question as simply as I can. Profit is the result of enterprise which builds for others as well as for the enterpriser. Let us consider the operation of this fact in a primitive community, say of one hundred persons who are non-intelligent beyond the point of obtaining the mere necessities of living by working hard all day long.

Our primitive community, dwelling at the foot of a mountain, must have water. There is no water except at a spring near the top of the mountain: therefore, every day all the hundred persons climb to the top of the mountain. It takes them one hour to go up and back. They do this day in and day out, until at last one of them notices that the water from the spring runs down inside the mountain in the same direction that he goes when he comes down. He conceives the idea of digging a trough in the mountainside all the way down to the place where he has his habitation. He goes to work to build a trough. The other ninety-nine people are not even curious as to what he is doing.

Then one day this hundredth man turns a small part of the water from the spring into his trough and it runs down the mountain into a basin he has fashioned at the bottom. Whereupon he says to the ninety-nine others, who each spend an hour a day fetching their water, that if they will each give him the daily production of ten minutes of their time, he will give them water from his basin. He will then receive nine hundred and ninety minutes of the time of the other men each day, which will make it unnecessary for him to work sixteen hours a day in order to provide for his necessities. He is making a tremendous profit � but his enterprise has given each of the ninety-nine other people fifty additional minutes each day for himself.

The enterpriser, now having sixteen hours a day at his disposal and being naturally curious, spends part of his time watching the water run down the mountain. He sees that it pushes along stones and pieces of wood. So he develops a water wheel; then he notices that it has power and, finally, after many hours of contemplation and work, makes the water wheel run a mill to grind his corn.

This hundredth man then realises that he has sufficient power to grind corn for the other ninety-nine . He says to them, �I will allow you to grind your corn in my mill if you will give me one tenth of the time you save.� They agree, and so the enterpriser now makes an additional profit. He uses the time paid by the ninety-nine others to build a better house for himself, to increase his conveniences of living through new benches, openings in his house for light, and better protection from the cold. So it goes on, as this hundredth man constantly finds ways to save the ninety-nine the total expenditure of their time � one tenth of which he asks of them in payment, for his enterprising.

This hundredth man�s time finally becomes all his own to use as he sees fit. He does not have to work unless he chooses to. His food and shelter and clothing are provided by others. His mind, however, is ever working and the other ninety-nine are constantly having more time to themselves because of his thinking and planning.

For instance, he notices that one of the ninety-nine makes better shoes than the others. He arranges for this man to spend all his time making shoes, because he can feed and clothe him and arrange for his shelter from profits.

The other ninety-eight do not now have to make their own shoes. They are charged one tenth the time they save. The ninety-ninth man is also able to work shorter hours because some of the time that is paid by each of the ninety-eight is allowed to him by the hundredth man.

As the days pass, another individual is seen by the hundredth man to be making better clothes than any of the others, and it is arranged that his time shall be given entirely to his speciality. And so on.

Due to the foresight of the hundredth man, a division of labour is created that results in more and more of those in the community doing the things for which they are best fitted. Everyone has a greater amount of time at his disposal. Each becomes interested, except the dullest, in what others are doing and wonders how he can better his own position. The final result is that each person begins to find his proper place in an intelligent community.

But suppose that, when the hundredth man had completed his trough down the mountain and said to the other ninety-nine, �If you will give me what it takes you ten minutes to produce, I will let you get water from my basin,� they had turned on him and said, �We are ninety-nine and you are only one. We will take what water we want. You cannot prevent us and we will give you nothing.� What would have happened then? The incentive of the most curious mind to build upon his enterprising thoughts would have been taken away. He would have seen that he could gain nothing by solving problems if he still had to use every waking hour to provide his living. There could have been no advancement in the community. The same stupidity that first existed would have remained. Life would have continued to be a drudge to everyone, with opportunity to do no more than work all day long just for a bare living.

But we will say the ninety-nine did not prevent the hundredth man from going on with his thinking, and the community prospered. And we will suppose that there were soon one hundred families. As the children grew up, it was realised that they should be taught the ways of life. There was now sufficient production so that it was possible to take others away from the work of providing for themselves, pay them, and set them to teaching the young.

Similarly, as intelligence grew the beauties of nature became apparent. Men tried to fix scenery and animals in drawings � and art was born. From the sounds heard in nature�s studio and in the voices of the people, music developed. And it became possible for those who were proficient in drawing and music to spend all their time at their art, giving of their creations to others in return for a portion of the community�s production.

As these developments continued, each member of the community, while giving something from his own accomplishments, became more and more dependent upon the efforts of others. And, unless envy and jealousy and unfair laws intervened to restrict honest enterprisers who benefited all, progress promised to be constant.

Need we say more to prove that there can be profit from enterprise without taking anything from others, that such enterprise adds to the ease of living for everyone?

These principles are as active in a great nation such as the United States as in our imaginary community. Laws that kill incentive and cripple the honest enterpriser hold back progress. True profit is not something to be feared, because it works to the benefit of all.

We must endeavour to build, instead of tearing down what others have built. We must be fair to other men, or the world cannot be fair to us.

Sincerely,

Grandfather

Los Angeles School District

The San Francisco Chronicle posted an article today regarding a rather stunning happening in the LA School Board.

Liberal Democrat, former teacher’s union organizer, and current Mayor of Los Angeles Antonio Villaraigosa was the driving force behind a policy just handed down which stipulates that almost a third of the public schools in LA must convert to charter or magnet schools.

Charter schools inject the free market into public education through several methods including merit pay for teachers, competition for students, and greater autonomy for the school from the school district.

Villaraigosa noted the LA School District was plagued by violence and a 50% dropout rate spurred him into this path which is diametrically opposed to the majority of leadership in his party and the teacher’s unions.

One teacher quoted in the story says “this is the power that teachers have always been asking for, the authority to choose what is happening in our schools. With power comes responsibility. We are accountable for the results, and I don’t mind that.”

This is public education’s fall of the Berlin Wall. The old model of the compulsory, one-size-fits-all, factory-style public school is being tossed on the scrap heap of history, to be replaced by upholding the U.N. Charter of Universal Human Rights, which guarantees the right of parents to direct the education of their children.

Props to Mayor Villaraigosa for this stand which will no doubt earn him the ire of many of his regular supporters.

Read the whole article Revolution in U.S. education is in California.

Professor Henry Louis Gates

Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates is a racist. And an opportunist and publicity hound for the sake of his racist cause.

He brings no resolution or improvement to the cause of race relations.

The Story

Professor Gates had just arrived home with his driver from a long trip, and found his front door damaged and unable to open.

In an affluent neighborhood site of two men, with a backpack over one shoulder, trying to shove their way into an apparently locked door is suspicious, regardless of the race.

A neighbor called the police to report a possible home invasion/robbery taking place.

Apparently it took around 20 minutes for the cops to arrive, by which time Professor Gates had found his way in the back door.

The police officer, responding to the possible home burglary report requested identification of Professor Gates.

Professor Gates commented back to the effect asking if it were now illegal to be black inside ones own house.

The Police officer arrested Professor Gates when he exhibited “loud and tumultuous behavior”.

The Breakdown

Professor Gates' House

If I call the Police reporting a home invasion burglary in progress, the Police responding to the call are required to verify the occupants of the home are there legitimately and that the occupants are safe.

The Police officer responding to this situation was trying to ascertain the nature of the situation cautiously and according to his responsibility before the law and those he served. I don’t doubt some of the Police Officer’s pride was injured in the affront he received from Professor Gates, and this may indeed have contributed to the eventual outcome.

How hard would it have been for Professor Gates to respond peacefully and maturely and with deference to the arm of the Law asking him for identification?

A question I’m certainly not the first to ask: If Gates’ house were robbed while he’d been away and the Police Officer who responded allowed himself to be racially browbeaten into allowing the thief to continue on their way, what hell would the Office have faced?

My Opinion

Professor Gates is led from his house in handcuffs. There are at least three cops visible in the picture.

Professor Gates may be well known, but that doesn’t mean he’s universally known. This ignorance may have come as a shock to the tired Professor as he was winding down from his long flight.

But the obvious problem was the chip he was carrying on his shoulder.

Gates’ reaction to this situation can bring nothing but embarrassment to those he purports to represent in his success, and illustrates a point I made a long time ago:

When any person, regardless of any unchangeable characteristic (such as race, gender, etc), is advanced artificially because some higher “level” of society is not “diverse” enough, that one’s most harmed are: first, the individual or individuals being elevated, and second, those they represent symbolically or actually. Role models are important, there are none who can deny this fact. When a whole generation of black Americans are seeing role models in the form of rap stars who are in and out of jail as frequently as they are on and off the stage. When the women the girls look to dress like whores and sluts, selling and subserviating themselves to men and boys. There is no respect or honor here, there will be precious little in the generation who looks up to them.

Professor Gates heads the W.E.B DuBois Institute for African and African-American Research at Harvard. It is telling that the philosophy of the departments namesake is very likely at play here. W.E.B DuBois championed the idea that the best way to resolve racial inequity in reconstruction America, post Civil War, was to find the top former slaves and other blacks, and advance them to very high positions. My commentary above was in response to this faulty idea.

A man is less a product of his surroundings than he is a product of his ability and character.

General Colin Powell, a military strategist and capable man of unimpeachable reputation and ability, was able to come up from roots in poor and depressed inner city life. And the scientist and inventor George Washington Carver was able to leave the life of servitude he was born into and grown into one of the premier inventors and scientists of all time.

The road to success, for all people no matter their immutable characteristics, should be paved only with the sweat of their own effort, the paths of their own choices, and the foundations of their own character.

Professor Gates apparently believes that the Police Officer, because he was white, was incapable of normal and balanced thought racially, and therefore addressed the REAL root of the problem, as he saw it, by accosting the Police Officer with his own queries upon the request by the officer that he identify himself.

The Bible tells that what we are passionate about will be revealed by what we say. What consumes us cannot be hid because it will show in our words.

It would appear Professor Gates’ heart is filled with extreme racial sensitivity. When I see an Officer of the Law, he sees a racist.

Professor Gates has shown he is not worthy of the respect given him. There are many better people than him, more worth of recognition and respect. And when the need for true role-models for the multitude of children and youth and even adults and anybody else aspiring to true greatness look to him, he fails them in exchange for a few fleeting moments of infamy.

One wonders what he sees in the seats in his classrooms.

The Guardian makes a sage observation: Never a good idea to get angry with the Police.

And a commentor on the WizBang Blog’s article opines that Gates’ didn’t get Daddy’s First Rule Of Power: “Never tickle somebody who can hold your feet off the floor.”

Work has been rather busy of late and it’s  been difficult to muster the brain power necessary to put on page coherent thoughts. Therefore, this admittedly incoherent thought shall have to suffice.

ShatteredChina posted this on Facebook and I thought it too hilarious not to pass up.

I thought you all might appreciate this . . . this is about my senior year of High School

RE-POST with name of high school and graduating year in the subject box.

1. Did you date someone from your school? Self love . . . no, I didn’t

2. Did you marry someone from your high school? Not yet, and hope to never

3. Did you car pool to school? Yep. “Everyone climb in the van, we are going to drive around the block.”

4. What kind of car did you have in High School? 18 Speed Human Operated Biped

5. What kind of car do you have now? Anything that is availiable

6. It’s Friday night…where were you? Reading a book.

7. It is Friday night (present day) where are you? Tired, asleep, or studying. Maybe getting together with friends/people.

8. What kind of job did you have in high school? Lawn Care (Hated it), Starbucks

9. What kind of job do you do now? Intern, Day Camp Colunteer Coordinator, Barista (as a friend said . . . once a Barista, always a Barista)

10. Were you a party animal in High School? Oh, all the way . . . The three of us had great parties all the time. Me would get anoid at I am Myself was usually just wiped out on the couch.

11. Were you considered a flirt? How about not? . . . I mean, there were slim pickings

12. Were you in band, orchestra, or choir? All three . . . infact, I was lead piano, and the only soloist

13. Were you a nerd? Um . . . how about I not answer this one? Ok Yes . . . and still am a big one (though I am not a geek . . . big difference)

14. Did you get suspended or expelled? I wish . . . get the day off school

15. Can you sing the Alma Mater? “Dear Mother, Dear Father can I take th 15 passenger out for a spin tonight?”

16. Who was/were your favorite teacher(s)? Myself . . . or Saxon.

17. Where did you sit at lunch? The Kitchen . . . I mean, where else

18. What was your school’s full name? Golden Academy for the Support of Communities Actively Support Excellence . . . No, really just Golden Academy.

19. When did you graduate? This is an impossible question for a homeshooler to answer (that and, “What grade are you in?”

20. What was your school mascot? At that time . . . it was probibly Peanut

21. If you could go back and do it again, would you? Wouldn’t trade it for anything

22. Did you have fun at Prom? Sure . . . with who?

23. Would you talk to the person you went to Prom with? I prefer to not talk to myself.

24. Are you planning on going to your next reunion? Yep . . . next time I look in the mirror, I will be sure to great the entire class.

25. Do you still talk to people from school? Who? Ryan, Matthew, Andrew, Joseph, Anna, or Merrie? Yah, I try to talk to them here and there.

At first blush, the Arne guy is rather interesting.

Barack Obama’s pick for Secretary of Education seems, by all counts, to be willing to make hard choices and push hard policies for the strengthening of the education system.

Pushing past all the arguments (which I tend to agree with) that education is not mandated by the Constitution as a responsibility of the Federal Government, we have what we have, and we must work with it at the same time we work to change it.

The newspapers seemed to be a little less rosy about Arne than for some of the other Obama appointees. And now they’re complaining.

What first perked my ears was when I read in the Chicago Sun-Times yesterday:

(Obama) praised Duncan’s shutdown of failing schools, charter school expansions, push for better teachers and pay-for-performance experiment that rewards teachers and principals for student test gains.

And this further down:

Chicago Teachers Union President Marilyn Stewart conceded Tuesday that she has not had a “love fest” with Duncan, who drew union ire by closing failing schools, leaving teachers scrambling to find new jobs. But Stewart said she also has been able to work with him.

Anyone whose credits include shutting down schools and drawing the ire of a Union President is probably a real reformer.

The Globe and Mail this morning hit the nail on the head:

The former head of the Chicago Teachers Union has condemned Barack Obama’s choice of Arne Duncan as education secretary – proof positive that the president-elect chose wisely.

And then this morning the gloves came off.

The Sun-Times this morning says teachers at the Chicago Public Schools board meeting were less than enthused about Arne:

With the school closing hit list due next month, teachers charged that CPS charter schools — which have replaced some closed schools — are “destroying” neighborhood schools by luring away high-scoring kids. Meanwhile, they said, neighborhood schools are being forced to absorb low-scoring kids.

This is a false argument. It’s like the kid blaming his mom when he drops his cake on the floor.

There are not rules precluding, preventing, any school from using the resources available to it to do a better job than it is doing.

It is a poor manager, superintendent, or principle who thinks because they can’t get more money they can’t improve.

In the real world, one has to improve in order to get more money. “In order” is a phrase of relative position, the process or action before the “in order” generally has to occur earlier in time than the result afterwards.

In fact, principles who complain when Arne encourage and facilitated the firing of poor performers are the worst sort of ingrates around. Our children are at stake, not your favorite pet teacher.

If the schools are so bad that people prefer to take their children out and find alternative and superior methods of instruction, shouldn’t that encourage those failing schools to reexamine their methods and seek to do better? Apparently not to some.

The Union mindset of entitlement has become ingrained so deeply in the public school system in America that someone with the guts to buck the protectionism and croneyism so common in the union is a breath of fresh air indeed.

Kudos to Obama for this selection.

*ghost posted by matthew, while American Texan’s hand is recovering

From this Sunday’s Luann comic:

The memories are not fond, and their benefit is that they are short.

Watching a British humor bit on politics and the education system (a real gem you’d get a laugh out of along with some insight on how to argue for school choice and a minimized Department of Education, read on for the links), it struck me that the great American Education system is an exercise not in excellence or even equality, but mediocrity.

Pushed upon us with the rationale that forgotten corners of America would be educated, that a standardized system would raise all schools to a uniformity of excellence and achievment on par with the best schools in the nation.

Instead, the poor and those who don’t care languish in the scum of poor teachers and poorer facilities, while those who care and those who can, pay for private schools to do their best upon their children.

There is no basis within a non-competitive system for any to excel. Teachers are protected by Unions from having to strive for real excellence and can instead coast on ignorance while their pupils languish in the squalor of low expectations and high bills.

The centralized system is capable only of moving quickly only in the direction of untested and untried educational philosophy promoted by pawns and peons of pop-culture, and is incapable of modifying itself to special circumstances and situation unique to each neighborhood and city.

The monolithic education system is shown to be a false hope by the very awards it offers. Principles, administrators, and teachers who buck the system, go far beyond the call of duty (or their contract) to achieve real results are rewarded instead of expected. The system has not helped them and only pay lip-service to their triumph over it.

The solution? Privatise and allow competition to take over the system. It may be (slightly) humorous, but the truths you’ll hear in the four videos linked below will encourage you.

The National Education Service – 1 of 4
The National Education Service – 2 of 4
The National Education Service – 3 of 4
The National Education Service – 4 of 4

Does the truth we find in this humor scare anyone else?

I’ve had the following images floating around on my computer for a while, waiting for me to actually post them. It seems to me, in their attempt to paint the liberal and Democrat as the loving, caring, truly human leadership, anybody with a mind will recognize the fallacies and dangers of the blanket statements made in this children’s book.

Children reading this book will be cursed with the feeling there is actual truth to be found in the ideas. They will accept without thinking the lies of socialism and liberal socio-political theory and practice.

Read and weep for America.

What parent wants their children to hurt?

What parent tries to protect the children from the pains of life?

What parent can?

Laudable.

But given the current state of Political-Business relations, wouldn’t it be more accurate to say: “Democrats give the Police Officers’ and Firefighters’ Unions the tools they need to keep dead weight and stupid policies in place hampering the heroes efforts, abilities, skills, and desires to serve as they are called”?

And I would want my children to go to those war-zones, indoctrination facilities, stupid-makers, great-levellers of the people they call schools?

I know what they mean is that we can all go to college. But 1) where is that a constitutional right or a universal requirement, and 2) aren’t there plenty of great colleges for cheap?

There are plenty of jobs in which one can work their way up to a comfortable level of pay which require no college. And the government has neither interest nor right to take money from those who aren’t going to college to give to those who are.

Maybe if there were less “free” money floating around from the government, the cost of education would come down, and only those dedicated and intelligent people would stay in teaching as it became less of a lucrative career option.

Democrats are government, not Mommy. This is a legitimate role for Mommy, not government.

To the extent that Democrats seek to usurp this role, they confuse the nature of society and culture. This is immoral.

Pompous, self-aggrandizing, megalomaniacal do-gooders!

Show me someone who believes this and I’ll show you someone certifiably insane.

First, there is no proof the Earth is “sick” with Global warming. There is proof there are regular and natural cycles of warming and cooling, and there is not proof we are even in a warming cycle.

Second, the temerity of the writer and those who agree with him in assuming a political party which has existed a mere 200 years has the might to enact significant change in an entire planet which they believe has existed 4.5 Billion years.

Someone call the nice men in white coats.

False.

The truth is, Democrats make sure schools cannot fire bad teachers. Democrats make sure children know all about condoms and how to have sex with each other, leaving it to the parents to teach reading and writing and true morals.

Individually, Democrats are generally caring people. But are they busy loving people to hell?

UPDATE:

These are not parodies, these are selections from one of two books for children:

Why Mommy Is A Democrat & Why Daddy Is A Democrat