Do you remember "Schoolhouse Rock"?

Back in the early 1970's, back when Saturday morning cartoons were still popular, ABC had a series of short vignettes called "Schoolhouse Rock". 
They dealt with grammar, history, math and such. 

For everyone who remembers.....

 

Latest sign that The Apocalypse is upon us

From a recent conversation with a college graduate.....

Whited Sepulchre: We give out three awards at our Libertarian Party National cCnvention.  There's The Thomas Jefferson award....,

Twenty-five year old: Cool.

Whited Sepulchre: And we give out an award for best communicator of the Libertarian message called The Thomas Paine award....,

Twenty-five year old: (nods head)

Whited Sepulchre: And for service as an activist, we have The Samuel Adams award.

Twenty-five year old college graduate:  (looking genuinely perplexed) Why did they name that one after a beer?

 

Why the sudden increase in Income Inequality ??

If I see one more Rent Seeker trying to get more money for the Democrat Party Vote Farm by pointing out income inequality, unequal growth, and comparisons of The Golden Age Of Disco to now, I'm going to lose my damn mind. 

Yes.  The bottom 10% of the lowest quartile has not done as exponentially well as the upper quintile of the top 1%.  Or something.  

This disparity will only increase with globalization, and I'm glad of it.  Bill Gates has done far more for me than I've done for him.  This also applies to office personnel in Korea and Shanghai who use Bill Gates' software. 
Gates make money in ways that Henry Ford couldn't touch.  Very few Fords made it to Korea and Shanghai in Henry Ford's lifetime. 

Justin Bieber sells well in Russia and in Jerusalem.  Jenny Lind, the "Swedish Nightingale" who died in 1887, did not. 

But I digress.....

Here's one of the only charts that matter.  Male earnings are in red, female in blue.  Bachelor's degrees are at the top, less than a high school diploma is at the bottom. 

Look upon this, and despair. 

Let's take it a notch higher, shall we? 

Paul Krugman had a column in today's issue of Pravda about "The Undeserving Rich".  (Paul Krugman's net worth is now around $2.5 million.  And unless worth is generated by flip-flopping around like a catfish on a riverbank, Krugman is truly undeserving of his millions.) 

The column linked to this gem by Lawrence Mishel and Colin Gordon. 

Disregard that people generally don't wake up in one income percentile and stay there for their entire lives. 
Disregard that there is a 20% chance that you will, for one year of your life, be part of the Top 2%. 
Disregard that America's poor have higher incomes than the average European. 

Here's the income change from 1979 to 2012, according to Mishel and Gordon.  This is on the front page of the piece linked to by Krugman. 

But, thanks be to God, you can hit the little button on the right and take a look at what has happened since "The Greatest Government Orgy Of Recovery And Jobs Spending In History" took place. 

Despair some more, O Ye Keynesians. 

That's all I've got. 

Hope you finish school.  Don't get pregnant to someone you're not married to, and don't get married until you're about 25.  Don't become an alcoholic or a drug addict.

Abide by that, and you have a 98% chance of escaping poverty. 

Unless, of course, Barack Obama decides to help us some more.  The Porkulus Package, Cash For Clunkers, the Green Scams, and most all legislation of the last 5 years were for the rich, and not for you. 

If Washington keeps helping, then all bets are off.  Go ahead and start your drug habit now. 

Libertarians just want to turn back the clock....

Engage an old leftie in political conversation, and he'll eventually resort to one of his favorite clichés.... 

"Libertarians just want to turn back the clock to a time when....." 

Insert: Black people were slaves.  Women were cattle.  The Lord Of The Manor had a right to your wife's virginity on the wedding night.  The Koch brothers could hollow out a volcano and plot to destroy your bibles with a death ray. 

Here's how I've  responded to that line. 

You're damn right I want to turn back the clock. 

LBJ famously declared War On Poverty fifty years ago today.  If you've read this blog for any time at all, you know that poverty was dying nicely without government help, but poverty made a full and complete recovery as soon as government tried to kill it. 

So yeah, we want to turn back the clock on this debacle to 1964 and start over.  (I don't think anyone has charted the depths which poverty has hit in the later years of the Obama administration.  Too depressing.) 

Speaking of taking a mulligan, how much do you owe?  I'm not talking about your debt on your house or your Amex, or your car, or your student loan bill. 

How freakin' huge is your share of what Obama is spending?  If you're a smart person and not even bothering to work any more, your share of the government's fifty-year spending spree is only around $50,000.00.  If you're one of the dwindling number of net taxpayers, your share is around $100,000.00.

Would you like to turn back the clock and make a few changes in this?  (BTW, the debt is now close to 17 trillion.  Remember the good old days shown here, when it was only 10 trillion?) 

Let's move on.  would you like to earn a dollar and be able to keep the dollar for longer than a few minutes without it losing value? 

The Federal Reserve was given the job of stabilizing the money supply way back in 1913.  Here's what has happened to the value of a dollar (as determined by the money supply) since 1971.  The red line represents the inflation rate - AKA the increase money supply. 

Want to invent a time machine, turn back the clock, and for the sake of everyone on a fixed income tell Tricky Dicky Nixon  to leave us on the gold standard? 

Let's move on to Nixon's dirty little War On Drugs, and what it's done to the incarceration rate.  (BTW, a white woman has a one in 111 chance of going to jail at some point in her life.  But for a black dude, it's a one in 3 chance.) 

Want to turn back the clock and convince Nixon that his War On Drugs is a bad idea?  Or is wanting to turn back the clock, under any circumstances, a sign that someone is a racist reactionary? 

Let's dive into that one a little further.  Here's a chart of the drug addiction rate vs the amount of Drug War spending....

Has it worked? 
No. 
Are we going to keep doing it? 
Well, do Barack and the Democrats rely on Narc, Jailer, DEA, Homeland Security, Torturer, Prison Contractor and Police Force votes to get elected? 
Yes. 
That's why we're going to keep doing this crap.  But check out the chart....

Speaking of wasted money....  Spending on public education has tripled since the early 1970's, and test scores are still flatter than the Global Warming trendline. 

Yes.  I'm guilty. 

I want to turn back the clock to somewhere around 1970 and say NO.  Please do not do this stupid crap.  Let people keep their own money because government will waste it. 
I'd rather see the money burned than see Washington D.C. misuse it for wars, bureaucracy, red tape and social programs that have done more harm than good. 
Don't burden people with your social engineering schemes, because they're not going to work.  You bureaucrats really aren't that smart. 

Libertarians want to turn back the clock.

Do you? 

Best quote ever on government-funded education

"The education of a free people, like their property, will always be directed more beneficially for them when it is in their own hands. When government interferes, it directs its efforts more to make people obedient and docile than wise and happy. It devises to control the thoughts, and fashion even the minds of its subjects; and to give into its hands the power of educating the people is the widest possible extension of that most pernicious practice which has so long desolated society, of allowing one or a few men to direct the actions, and control the conduct of millions. Men had better be without education—properly so called, for nature of herself teaches us many valuable truths—than be educated by their rulers; for then education is but the mere breaking in of the steer to the yoke; the mere discipline of a hunting dog, which, by dint of severity, is made to forego the strongest impulse of nature, and instead of devouring his prey, to hasten with it to the feet of his master." - Thomas Hodgskin, Mechanics' Magazine, 1823

The picture of a dog bringing a duck back to the feet of his master came from here. 

Grocery School

I've watched the documentary "Waiting For Superman" twice in the last few weeks.  The damn thing haunts me. 

Go here for details. 

Basically, the film follows five or six kids from failing or inadequate public schools in their effort to be accepted in charter schools. 
It comes down to a drawing.  A lottery. Pure, blind luck. 
Imagine being trapped in a public, bureaucratic hell-hole for 12 years, where the only thing that matters is having your ass counted as "present" in a seat. 
Ugh. 

Don Boudreaux likes to make the supermarket analogy.  I'm going to reprint part of it here. 

Suppose that we were supplied with groceries in same way that we are supplied with K-12 education.


Residents of each county would pay taxes on their properties. A huge chunk of these tax receipts would then be spent by government officials on building and operating supermarkets. County residents, depending upon their specific residential addresses, would be assigned to a particular supermarket. Each family could then get its weekly allotment of groceries for “free.” (Department of Supermarket officials would no doubt be charged with the responsibility for determining the amounts and kinds of groceries that families of different types and sizes are entitled to receive.)

Except in rare circumstances, no family would be allowed to patronize a “public” supermarket outside of its district.

Residents of wealthier counties – such as Fairfax County, VA and Somerset County, NJ – would obviously have better-stocked and more attractive supermarkets than would residents of poorer counties. Indeed, the quality of public supermarkets would play a major role in determining people’s choices of neighborhoods in which to live.

Of course, thanks to a long-ago U.S. Supreme Court decision, families would be free to shop at private supermarkets that charge directly for the groceries they offer; such private-supermarket families, though, would get no discount on their property-tax bills.

When the quality of supermarkets is recognized by nearly everyone to be dismal, the resulting calls for “supermarket choice” would be rejected by a coalition of greedy government-supermarket workers and ideologically benighted collectivists as attempts to cheat supermarket customers out of good supermarket service – indeed, as attempts to deny ordinary families the food that they need for their very survival. Such ‘choice,’ it would be alleged, will drain precious resources from the public supermarkets whose (admittedly) poor performance testifies to the fact that these supermarkets are underfunded.

And the small handful of people who call for total separation between supermarket and state would be criticized by nearly everyone as being, at best, delusional and – it would be thought more realistically – more likely misanthropic devils who are indifferent to the malnutrition and starvation that would sweep the land if only private market forces governed the provision and patronizing of supermarket. (Some indignant observers would even wonder aloud at the insensitivity of referring to grocery shoppers as “customers”; surely the relationship between suppliers of life-giving foods and the people who need these foods is not so crass as to be properly discussed as being ‘commercial.’)
….

Does anyone believe that such a system for supplying groceries would work well, or even one-tenth as well as the current private, competitive system that we currently rely upon for supplying grocery-retailing services? To those of you who might think so, pardon me but you’re nuts.

To those of you who understand that such a system for supplying grocery-retailing services would be a catastrophe, why might you continue to count yourself in the ranks of those who believe that government schooling (especially the way it is currently funded and supplied) is the system that we should continue to use?

Think of the millions of lives wasted in the public school-to-prison pipeline.
You cannot give me a good reason why we're still doing this. 

Spending Vs. Results

Here's a handy infographic showing U.S. spending per tricycle motor, and comparing it to English, Math and Science skills. 
Sources are the CIA Factbook and the U.N. 
Came from here. 
The spending, of course, is much, much higher in some places like D.C., which get truly miserable results. 
One day, someone is going to put out the definitive spending vs. results data for public vs private (and home) education. 


Via: MAT@USC | Master’s of Arts in Teaching

I'm not saying the government is too big, but....

I'm not saying the government is too big, but....

if it really is too big, what would it look like? 

Here's the Samizdata quote of the day -

What if we have reached a point where the scale and scope of government have become absurdly large? What you would observe is a growing gap between the theories used to justify government expansion and its practical impact. You would observe the cost of education and health care rising, without commensurate benefits. You would observe stimulus programs that increase employment according to computer models but not in reality. You would observe crony capitalism. You would observe budgets distorted by public-sector unions. You would observe fraudulent accounting that shifts costs for pensions onto future generations.


- Arnold Kling

Well, if you're going to put it that way....

Picture of bloated guy came from here. 

Since the other government departments have been so freakin' great....

Please allow me to beat the crap out of a few dead horses before getting to my point....

The Department of Education was founded in 1980. 

Here's a graph showing education spending vs. test scores.  Did you notice how test scores improved and lurched upward in 1980, when all the insane spending on education got started?  I didn't either. 

Next topic....The Department of Energy was founded shortly after the oil non-crisis of 1977 during the Carter administration, and now has 16,000 employees, 100,000 contract employees and an annual budget of over $24 billion.  The Department was created to reduce our dependence on foreign oil. 

(I firmly believe that wanting to reduce our dependence on foreign anything is a silly concept.  You can reduce your dependence on Proctor and Gamble by making your own soap.  You can reduce your dependence on Joseph A. Banks by sewing your own suits.  You can reduce your dependence on the internet by going to the library.  But that is no way to live your life.  Depending on others is good.  The only truly self-reliant people on our planet live in mud huts and have trouble keeping their feces out of their food.  But at least they don't depend on foreigners.  And they have a very small carbon footprint!!!) 

Sorry for the digression.  The Department of Energy was supposed to reduce our "dependence" on foreign oil.  Here's another chart.  Do you see the massive decrease in oil imports after the founding of the Department Of Energy?  I don't either. 

Let's pick on another recent Cabinet level Department, just for grins and giggles.  Lyndon Johnson birthed the Department Of Housing And Urban Development in 1965 because some government employees conducted a study that found there was a larger possible role for the Federal Government in solving urban problems, a role that would save and create jobs for more government employees. 

One of HUD's most notorious blunders was to round up large numbers of the urban poor, bulldoze their homes, and move them into high-rise hellholes where they had no connections to former neighbors, no sense of community, and no real reason to give a rip about their surroundings. 

Forget the charts.  Forget The Village Voice claiming that HUD was "the worst landlord" in New York City.  For these guys, we need video !!!!

Here's a time lapse of the destruction of the infamous Cabrini-Green housing project in Chicago:

Why the demolition of a beautiful HUD project?

During the worst years of Cabrini–Green's problems, vandalism increased substantially. Gang members and miscreants covered interior walls with graffiti and damaged doors, windows, and elevators. Rat and cockroach infestations were commonplace, rotting garbage stacked up in clogged trash chutes (it once piled up to the 15th floor), and basic utilities (water, electricity, etc.) often malfunctioned and were left unrepaired. On the exterior, boarded-up windows, burned-out areas of the facade, and pavement instead of green space—all in the name of economizing on maintenance—created an atmosphere of neglect and decay. The high "open galleries" were enclosed with steel fencing along the entire height of the building to prevent residents from emptying rubbish bins into the yard, from falling, and from being thrown off to their deaths (giving the visual appearance of a large prison tier, or animal cages, which further enraged community leaders).

Here's a video of Missouri's Pruitt-Igoe housing project implosion:

To be fair, this particular hellhole was built prior to HUD's existence. But it was still a government housing project. You can scour the 'net in vain trying to find someone saying a good thing about the place.

If you're really into this kind of thing, you can go here to watch all the videos of the demolition of Chicago's Robert Taylor Housing Project. 

Now.  Just to cleanse the palate before our main course, here's the video of the last flights out of Saigon, April 1975. 

I could bring up ethanol subsidies, the Department of Motor Vehicles, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, TARP, the Bailouts, the government-inflicted Housing Bubble, the looming bankruptcy of Social Security, the Porkulus Package, the 15 trillion dollar debt/bar tab we're going to leave to our unborn fetuses, and our government's thousands of other debacles.

I don't have time for those.

Here's the kicker.

Barack Freakin' Obama, who couldn't organize a dinner luncheon, is seriously thinking about creating a Department Of Jobs.

The administration may also merge the Department of Commerce, the Office of the United States Trade Representative and some economic divisions at the State Department into a new agency, administration officials said. Possible names include the Department of Jobs or the Department of Competitiveness.

May God have mercy on us all.  I can't imagine how badly he's going to screw that up. 

We've had a good run since 1776.  Maybe our time is over. 

It has been a pleasure writing for you.  Good luck, everyone. 

Illinois Protesters: Raise My Taxes !

From The Chicago Tribune:

SPRINGFIELD --- Thousands of protesters bused down by labor unions and social service advocates rallied at the Capitol today in an attempt to pressure state lawmakers into raising the income tax to avoid more budget cuts.....

"Raise my taxes! Raise my taxes! Raise my taxes!" they chanted, lined up shoulder to shoulder for a few hundred yards stretching a street in front of the Capitol.

(See all the homemade, witty, and creative signs these protesters are using to display their commitment to their cause?  What a spontaneous, diverse, grassroots group !  You can go here for the complete photo gallery.) 

....Jennifer Ritchason, a middle school social students teacher in Bloomington, came armed with hundreds of letters from her students asking legislators for more money for schools. She said she hopes the children’s words will resonate with the governor and House Speaker Michael Madigan, among other legislators the letters are addressed to.

“If you don’t care about your future, I don’t know what you can truly care about,” she said.

Well, Jinny, there are lots of ways to care about the future. 
Here's a chart showing Federal Spending vs. Federal Revenue.  I care about it deeply.  O so deeply:

Well, you say, if taxes aren't rising as fast as spending, shouldn't we be paying more taxes?  Or should we take a long hard look at where the tax money is going? 
Here's a look at what we're now throwing down the Government School Rathole, as compared to 1970:

See the flatlines running along the bottom?  That's not Jimmy Hoffa's pulse rate.  Those are the reading, math, and science scores. 
The government spending line in blue has been adjusted for inflation.  I suspect that the flatlines at the bottom have been adjusted upward for grade inflation also. 

I'm so tired of banging on this particular drum. 
1) If you want to pay more taxes, pay more taxes.  Don't go on talk shows or attend protests demanding that your rates be raised.  Just pay more taxes.  It's easy.  Don't take any deductions.  Write the check for 50% more than you have to.  Then explain your actions to the men in white coats, because your friends and family are going to call them. 
2) With the possible exceptions of a few things relating to infrastructure and the use of force, everything that is privatized runs more efficiently than things that aren't privatized.  Don't bother bringing up G.M. or Chrysler as examples to the contrary.  No one reading this woulda voluntarily contributed their own money to saving those companies.  In the real world, businesses that don't work properly go under. 
3) Can you imagine the employees of Microsoft, Target, Exxon, or Starbucks taking to the streets with signs, demanding that we, their customers, give them more money?  If you felt that they deserved it, would you shop there more?  Or would you politely hint that they get a job with better hours, pay and benefits elsewhere?
4) Does anybody know anyone who has been laid off from a government job in the last two years? 

The Cato Institute on the true cost of public education

Here's the latest Cato Institute video on education.  The link will get you to a PDF explaining the methodology used to get the numbers in the video.
If you need a standard for comparison on this, you can send a fairly low-maintenance kid to Texas A and M, one of the best schools in the state, get her in classes, buy books, rent a dorm/apartment, and keep the kid fed for around $16,000.00 per year. 
You can put a child in Fort Worth Country Day, or Trinity Valley, two of Fort Worth's finest private academies, for somewhere around $16,000.



Please allow me to counter a few objections to privatizing our school system tomorrow:

1) Private schools don't have to accept anyone who shows up (special needs kids, for example). 
Well, we're currently spending a QUARTER OF A MILLION DOLLARS per classroom.  According to the Cato Institute, it's double that in D.C. All that money is going someplace, and it isn't to teachers.  There is some slack to be found in the savings for special schools for kids with special needs. 

2) Some parents, if given vouchers, would not make good choices for their children. 
Ok, think of the worst school choice a Fort Worth parent could make. 
The defense rests. 

When we misbehaved back in the 1970's, the coaches made us run laps

I got this link via an email from Spain, from a guy found it on Weasel Zippers.  The Department Of Education is needing new equipment:

Added: Mar 08, 2010 10:39 am

The U.S. Department of Education (ED) intends to purchase twenty-seven (27) REMINGTON BRAND MODEL 870 POLICE 12/14P MOD GRWC XS4 KXCS SF. RAMAC #24587 GAUGE: 12 BARREL: 14" - PARKERIZED CHOKE: MODIFIED SIGHTS: GHOST RING REAR WILSON COMBAT; FRONT - XS CONTOUR BEAD SIGHT STOCK: KNOXX REDUCE RECOIL ADJUSTABLE STOCK FORE-END: SPEEDFEED SPORT-SOLID - 14" LOP are designated as the only shotguns authorized for ED based on compatibility with ED existing shotgun inventory, certified armor and combat training and protocol, maintenance, and parts.
The required date of delivery is March 22, 2010.
Interested sources must submit detailed technical capabilities and any other information that demonstrates their ability to meet the requirements above, no later than March 12, 2010 at 12 PM, E.S.T. Any quotes must be submitted electronically to the attention of Holly.Le@ed.gov, Contract Specialist (Contract Operations Group), with a concurrent copy to Sherese.Lewis@ed.gov, Contracting Officer (Contract Operations Group).
The following clauses are applicable to this requirement:

52-212-1 Instruction to Offerors - Commercial Items
52.212-2 Evaluation - Commercial Items
52.212-3 Offeror Representations and Certifications - Commercial Items
52.212-4 Contract Terms and Conditions - Commercial Items
52.212-5 Contract Terms and Conditions Required Implementing Statutes or Executive Orders - Commercial Items

In accordance with 52.212-2, the fill-in applicable to this requirement is below:
52.212-2 Evaluation-Commercial Items.
As prescribed in 12.301(c), the Contracting Officer may insert a provision substantially as follows:
Evaluation-Commercial Items (Jan 1999)
(a) The Government will award a contract resulting from this solicitation to the responsible offeror whose offer conforming to the solicitation will be most advantageous to the Government, price and other factors considered. The following factors shall be used to evaluate offers:
(i) Technical Capability
(ii) Price
In accordance with 52.212-5, the following clauses are applicable to this requirement:
52.225-1 Buy American Act - Supplies (February 2009)
52.232-33, Payment by Electronic Funds Transfer-Central

New equipment only; no remanufactured products. No partial shipments
Offer must be good for 30 calendar days after submission.
Offerors must have current Central Contractor Registration (CCR) at the time offer is submitted. Information can be found at www.ccr.gov.
This is a combined synopsis/solicitation for commercial items in accordance with Federal Acquisition Regulation Part 12, Acquisition of Commercial Items. The Government will award a commercial item purchase order to the offeror with the most advantageous offer to the government. All offerors must submit their best price and delivery capabilities.

Place of Delivery:
U.S. Department of EducationOffice of Inspector General
c/o: Gary Pawlak, Special Agent
500 West Madison Street - Suite 1414
Chicago, IL 60661