I Wonder Why People Mistrust the Government?

Maybe because some governments (Multnomah county, Oregon) threaten 7 year-old girls with a $500 dollar fine for running a lemonade stand without the proper permit.

Darn kids, always flouting regulations, that's what's wrong with young people today . . .

But, you say, "the county apologized, and no real harm done, right?" (except for fixing permanently in that girl's mind a terrifying first impression of government - oh, wait, that's not harm, sorry). Yes, this was a mere county government worker just acting "by the book." It was easily cleared up by Jeff Cogen, chairman of the Multnomah County Board of Commissioners.

(By the way, when you need a board to manage all your commissioners, doesn't that tell you something?)

But this was one smallish county in a meduim sized metro area in a smallish state. Very few levels between the health department employee and Mr. Cogen. Imagine the same quick corrective action happening in LA county, or New York City . . . yeah, I can't either.

County regulations are simple when compared with State regulations, and nothing compared to the massive and ever-expanding river of regulations continually spewing from Federal agencies.

The photo above is of titles 12 to 26 out of 50 titles of the Code of Federal Regulations. Yes, that's only about one fourth of the Federal Regulations out there - and this is before agencies start creating regulations for "Health Care Reform." (the bill itself was 2000 pages, but it left most of the rule-making to Federal agencies. 2000 pages? That's nothing compared to the regulations that will come out of it - wait and see).

This site gives some scope to the problem:

According to the Office of the Federal Register, in 1998, the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR), the official listing of all regulations in effect, contained a total of 134,723 pages in 201 volumes that claimed 19 feet of shelf space. [Note: 10% or 13,458 pages are IRS regulations alone]. In 1970, the CFR totaled only 54,834 pages.

The General Accountability Office (GAO) reports that in the four fiscal years from 1996 to 1999, a total of 15,286 new federal regulations went into effect. Of these, 222 were classified as "major" rules, each one having an annual effect on the economy of at least $100 million.

134,723 pages?!?! A person could literally be crushed by the weight of Federal regulations, ha ha . . . . sorry bad joke. But seriously, if you could read 1 page a minute, 24 hours a day, you'd finish reading it in a little over 93 days.

There are entire paid publications dedicated entirely to informing industry attorneys that a single Federal agency is going to change regulations. There are currently about 14,800 notices, rules, or proposed rules open for comment on regulations.gov. According to that site, "On average, federal agencies and departments issue nearly 8,000 regulations per year." (Double what they issued in 1996 - 1999).

But why fear the government? Those 134,723 pages of regulations (plus 8000 new regulations per year) plus all the state and local regulations would never affect the average person, would they?

Lets ask the little girl from Oregon . . .

Can Anyone Still Take the U.N. Seriously?

No, it is not April Fools Day, and this story is not a joke.

Without fanfare, the United Nations this week elected Iran to its Commission on the Status of Women, handing a four-year seat on the influential human rights body to a theocratic state in which stoning is enshrined in law and lashings are required for women judged "immodest."

Just days after Iran abandoned a high-profile bid for a seat on the U.N. Human Rights Council, it began a covert campaign to claim a seat on the Commission on the Status of Women, which is "dedicated exclusively to gender equality and advancement of women," according to its website.

Apparently this move was unopposed by everyone, including the United States. Nice job standing up for human rights.

Never Thought I'd Say This...

...and get ready for Hell to freeze over ... but Keith Olbermann makes an excellent point.

Yes, you read that right. The guy is a raving left-wing loon, but he is right about the senate healthcare bill, specifically the requirement that all Americans purchase government approved insurance. He lays out what it will cost the President:

[T]his bill costs you the [support of the political] left —and anybody who now has to pony up 17 percent of his family’s income to buy this equivalent of Medical Mobster Protection Money.

Olbermann continued:

The mandate in this bill … must be stripped out...It is above all else immoral and a betrayal of the people who elected you….

And this sounds awfully rebellious:

I am one of the self-insured, albeit by choice. And I hereby pledge that I will not buy this perversion of health care reform. Pass this at your peril, Senators, and sign it at yours, Mr. President.

I will not buy this insurance.

Brand me a lawbreaker if you choose.

Fine me if you will.

Jail me if you must.

Wow, I couldn't have said it any better myself. What a weird feeling to agree with him...

Granted his reasons for opposing it are much different than mine, as you can see reading the entire post. He's ticked that it is not fully socialized. But I understand his dislike of the mandate. The enemy of my enemy is my friend? . . . well, maybe not quite yet.

Why Trying the 9/11 Terrorists in NYC is a BAD Idea

An excellent analysis of why trying Khalid Shiekh Mohammud in New York is a colossal mistake. The legal jargon is a little dense, sorry.

The writer is an attorney who lays out how the trial will inevitably play out. I think he's exactly right. We've seen this already in the trial of Zacharias Moussoui (however it's spelled), the alleged 20th hijacker. In short it will be a massive media circus, cost incredible amounts of money, give the confessed terrorists an international platform and publicity, and require that the U.S. disclose our secret intelligence gathering techniques. Not to mention setting the defense attorneys up for life financially, and ruining the reputation of the U.S. legal system.

He also speculates on the President's motivations for bringing the trials here, and concludes that it is part of a sinister left-wing plot. On that point I think he gives President Obama too much credit. A plot requires competence and planning. I'm not sure it's a plot, so much as just plain stupidity, naivete, and a fundamental misunderstanding of the world and of human nature coupled with a disdain for any policy or measure enacted by President Bush.

I never thought I'd say this, but I'd rather see them tried at the International Criminal Court. It's reputation has no where to go but up, and when the terrorists are all freed, it would help cement public opinion against international institutions, and strengthen faith in America. All the opposite outcomes of a trial in NYC.

In Praise of the Great Leader!

The lyrics are here (there were two songs) if you have the stomach for it. Now, I know the President didn't have anything to do with this, but when I saw this, it literally sent a chill down my spine. This is how you build up a cult of personality. We do NOT do this kind of thing in America!

As an adult, fine, sing whatever you want, you have the freedom to do so. But to teach children this kind of thing in school is just plain wrong. Music has power, it conveys emotions very effectively.

We teach children songs to impress upon them that some things are worthy of respect or worship. We teach them to sing about our country, and our freedoms because we have reverence for them. At Church we teach them to sing praise to God because we reverence Him.

We do not worship our leaders in this country!

We do not bow to kings or presidents. All men are created equal. This is not the Soviet Union, and this is not North Korea. Leaders come and go, we revere the freedoms and ideas upon which our nation was founded, not whomever happens to have won the last election.

Just two more points:

1. Whoever did this is completely ignorant of history at best, and insane at worst and should not be anywhere near children.
2. This is showing up almost nowhere on the news. Can you imagine the uproar if kids were taped singing a song praising President Bush or the Iraq war?
3. Ok, three points. Maybe we didn't need to worry about the President's address to school children, maybe we need to worry about which teachers have complete access to our kids every Monday - Friday for 6 - 8 hours.

Is this the next song they'll learn?

Amen

A great article in the UK Daily Mail today on the true motivations of a segment of the environmental movement.

Jonathon Porritt, the [UK] Government's 'green' adviser, has said that couples who have more than two children are being 'irresponsible' by creating an unbearable burden on the environment.

Curbing population growth through contraception and abortion must therefore be at the heart of policies to fight man-made global warming.

Apparently this is all because people have to accept responsibility 'for their total environmental footprint'.

That's what having children amounts to, apparently, in his mind.

The blessings of a large family and the contribution this makes to prosperity and progress don't figure at all. Instead, children are to be measured solely by their burdensome impact on the planet.

What kind of sinister and dehumanised mindset is this? It is no coincidence that the country which comes nearest to Jonathon's ideal society is Communist China, which imposed a murderously cruel policy of restricting families to one child apiece. For the desire to reduce the number of children that parents produce is innately totalitarian.

I can't say it any better.

Read the rest of it here.

Would You Visit This Family Therapist?

I ran across this story a while ago, but all the papers are running updates on it today. A woman in San Diego is trying to pay for a Master's degree.

So far, so good. It's how she's raising the money that's unusual. In order to pay for a degree in Marriage and Family Therapy, she's auctioning off her virginity. Talk about a mental disconnect somewhere. Who is going to listen to a marriage therapist with that in her past? I can only imagine the conversation:

Husband: I work and slave, and she socks all my money away in the bank.
Wife: I'm just trying to save for Missy's college.
Husband: Missy should earn the money!
Wife: How? She's only one year away from starting school.
Therapist: hmmmm . . . . . I have an idea!

But that's not all. She has bids of more than 2.5 million British pounds! I have no idea what to make of that. But I do know where she got the idea - according to the article, her older sister paid for grad school by working for 3 weeks as a prostitute in Nevada.

Nice. What a great example for her sister.

When Are You Moving?

WARNING: this is a LONG, dry, economics rant post. Beware!

"When are you moving?"

I get asked this question every time I mention that we live in Ogden, but I work in Provo. The people asking the question have a point. A 156 mile round-trip commute isn't the most pleasant part of my day, and on snow days I often can't get either down or back.

The short answer is . . . who knows!

Here follows the long answer:

I do know why we haven't moved yet. Besides the wonderful generosity of family, for which we are very grateful, housing prices are not . . . shall we say . . . stable. MSNBC has an article today about the housing market. Apparently none of the measures being taken by the Federal Reserve have done anything to stem the tide of foreclosures or to increase the number of homeowners or the median price of a house. They have a spiffy graphic showing what housing prices have done since 1999:

Now, this raises two questions in my mind.

1. Why are homes worth more in the middle of every year and less at the beginning and end?
2. How does this track with median income changes over the same period?

I have no comment on the first question, and I only asked the second because I already knew the answer. That's why I'm writing this post.

So, as to question 2 - the amount a family can afford to pay for a house is related to their income. "Well. . . duh!" you say. Bear with me. It's more obvious when you think about housing prices in terms of years of income. In the UK, for example, the size of a mortgage you can qualify for equals 3 times your annual income (ignoring all other factors). Thus if you earn $50,000, then you can get a $150,000 mortgage. The ratio in the US is a bit more generous, but, same idea. With that in mind, let's look at another chart (thank you Wikipedia):

If you'll notice, median income peaked in 1999. Since then it has declined.

Everyone assumes the housing market was healthy in 1999. So, we'll start there. In 1999 median income was about $46,000, and the average home cost about $138,000 (just eyeballing the chart for the end of the year). That works out to . . . let's see . . . carry the 2 . . . oh, yeah, 3 times the median income. Those mortgage people were on to something. I'll call this 3:1 ratio a "healthy ratio."

Now let's look at 2005. Housing prices that year were $230,000 for most of the year, while median income had declined to $45,326. That comes out to over 5 times the median income. Not a healthy ratio.

When I look at the numbers that way, it's perfectly obvious why houses aren't selling. The latest income figures available are for 2007. They show that median income has risen slightly since 2005. It was about $50,000 in 2007. the housing slump was in full swing in 2007, so for that year the ratio declined from 4.6 times median income to 4 times median income.

What really gives me pause is this:

Looking at the income chart, median income starts to slide before every recession, and continues to decline till well after the recovery is underway. As every news outlet in the country recent told us, we are in a recession. Chances are good, therefore, that median income is falling, and has been for a while. (we don't get income figures till after the fact).

If this is one of the sharpest recessions ever, as we are reminded daily, chances are median income will fall steeply, and housing prices will continue to follow until well after the recovery is underway.

With that in mind, I'm going to make some predictions. Since they will be memorialized on the internet, we'll all see what my predictions are worth in a few years. (it's really win-win: if, as is most likely, I'm wrong, you'll all know to stop wasting your time reading my blog, and I'll know to keep my mouth shut on topics of which I am ignorant). These are also the reasons, in my mind, we aren't moving yet:

• I think housing prices will return to something much closer to the "healthy" 3:1 ratio they were at in 1999.
• Prices won't even begin to recover until unemployment starts to fall, and median income starts to increase at the earliest. (probably more like 6 months later).
• All the fancy things lenders did to make up for the increasing gap between income and housing prices are gone for good.
• I think the national median home price will easily fall below $150,000

I think the low prices will stay around a while because 1) All the speculators fueling shows like "Flip this House" lost their shirts (and good riddance), and 2) Lenders will be gun shy for a while, given the number of banks that went under from bad mortgages.

We'll see what happens, but I'm not optimistic for the next few years.


PS - Sorry for the abrupt ending, I tried to think of a good closing with a smooth transition and a hard-hitting conclusion, but I couldn't. The thoughts have stopped, hence so does the post.

...

Who Knew Detroit Was This Bad? - Part II

As a former Michigan resident, I'll always have a soft spot in my heart for the state . . . well most of the state. I never did learn to like Detroit. I did learn to pity it, however. I have written previously about the problems facing Detroit. Here are some updated factoids, courtesy of MSNBC:

• The jobless rate has climbed past 21 percent
• There are 15 candidates for the Feb. 24 special mayoral election necessitated by the conviction of [mayor] Kwame Kilpatrick for trying to cover up an affair with a former top aide.
• The city's deficit is approaching $300 million, and he ordered all departments to cut their budgets by 10 percent.
• Several dozen schools have been closed in the past three years
• The FBI's latest statistics, for 2007, show Detroit with the highest violent crime rate of any major city. . . some offenders, notably those without homes of their own, were now expressing reluctance to leave jail when their sentences were done. (But, on the bright side, "property crime in some Detroit neighborhoods [has] stabilized or declined because targets of opportunity [are] fewer now that most remaining residents are poor and many of the homes have been abandoned and cannibalized.")
  
• About 44,000 of the 67,000 homes that have gone into foreclosure since 2005 remain empty, and it costs about $10,000 to demolish each vacant house. (do the math, and that means 440 million dollars just to tear down vacant housing created within the last three years).
• The residential real estate market is catastrophic, with the Detroit Board of Realtors now pegging the average price of a home in the city at $18,513. (According to the National Automobile Dealers Association, the average price of a new car sold in the United States is $28,400).

Keep in mind these stats were likely taken before the recent near-collapse of the American auto industry. If the "Big 3" go under, it may just be time to admit that the city has failed, move everyone out and just plow everything under. Over half the population has left in the last 50 years. I've never heard of a city being depopulated like that, not since the black plague in the Middle Ages.

One observer does manage to diagnose the root of the problem, however:

"Up until the '70s, you could come to the city without education, without speaking English, and get a job in the auto industry and instantly be in the middle class, economically speaking," said Mike Stewart, director of Wayne State's Walter P. Reuther Library and an expert on the auto industry. "A lot of folks in the city depended on these jobs for generations — they don't exist anymore," he said. "A lot of Detroiters are unprepared, educationally and technologically, to cope."

If a mind is a terrible thing to waste, then three generations of minds are . . .?

"Unprepared educationally" is a nice PC euphemism. What he meant was "illiterate." As I cited in my previous post on this subject Detroit has a 47% adult illiteracy rate.

The article points out that the surrounding areas aren't doing too bad. I can confirm that from personal experience. Prospects for improvement aren't good when all the need is concentrated in the area least able to deal with it.

Maybe we should declare a hurricane and disperse Detroit's population throughout the country, like we did with New Orleans. Many wouldn't return, but would that really be a bad thing? America can help that many people, Michigan alone can't, nor can the city of Detroit.

I wonder how much we'd need to pay Canada to take Detroit off our hands?

Gay Protestors' Violent Assault on Michigan Christians

It's not just California that gay and lesbian protesters are engaging in violent and destructive activities. Gay protesters interrupted an Evangelical Christian church service in Lansing on Sunday. This hasn't gotten any national press, and only small, dismissive local coverage. There weren't even any gay issues on the ballot in MI to provoke them.

http://www.rightmichigan.com/story/2008/11/10/13335/904

This is one of the biggest churches in Lansing. They have thousands of people at meetings, and their own security force. What's to prevent gay protesters from doing the same, or worse, to our (much smaller) LDS meetings? I worry that this could become a regular tactic, especially in California. I hope someone is coming up with a plan to counter this type of thing. The easiest is probably also the simplest: introduce yourself to anyone you don't know at church and offer to sit with them, find out where they're from, in a word - fellowship. (oh, and make sure they aren't wearing pink underwear or something).

Can you imagine the reaction the media would have if just ONE conservative protester had infiltrated a mosque and yelled offensive slogans, or thrown bacon around? The media would, literally, make a Federal case about it - complete with Congressional resolutions, calls for stronger hate-crimes legislation and Presidential addresses condemning the incident.

Here, in a nutshell is what happened if you don't want to follow the link above:

"The [protesters] were a part of a liberal organization known as Bash Back Lansing and their collection of radical blogs, including one of the state's most widely read "mainstream" progressive blogs (none which will receive a link on this website) called on "queers and trannies" from across the state and the region to converge on Lansing for what they refer to as an 'action.'

Prayer had just finished when men and women stood up in pockets across the congregation, on the main floor and in the balcony. "Jesus was gay," they shouted among other profanities and blasphemies as they rushed the stage. Some forced their way through rows of women and kids to try to hang a profane banner from the balcony while others began tossing fliers into the air. Two women made their way to the pulpit and began to kiss.

Their other props? . . . from another . . . liberal blogs:

'(A) video camera, a megaphone, noise makers, condoms, glitter by the bucket load, confetti, pink fabric . . .'

The video camera they put to good use as they attempted to provoke a violent reaction . . . The "open minded" and "tolerant" liberals ran down the aisles and across the pews, hoping against hope to catch a "right winger" on tape daring to push back (none did). And just in case their camera missed the target, they had a reporter in tow.

An hour after police and security had collected and removed who they thought were the last of the [protesters], a volunteer security person discovered two more, hiding together, in a public restroom. While their compatriots engaged in openly violent protest in front of everyone these two snuck away to potentially stage their own protest of sorts, and only by the grace of God did one of the hundreds of kids at the church not happen upon that particular restroom in those moments. Precisely how long they'd been there and precisely what they'd been up to we don't know."

Nice and tolerant, aren't they? This picture is from the protesters' own website - draw your own conclusions:

The "Work Spouse"

I remember hearing, and telling jokes about someone having a "work spouse." All in good fun, right?

Apparently CNN believes that the phenomenon is real enough and serious enough to warrant an advice column on managing the "work spouse" relationship. Because, after all, no human interaction is so straightforward and uncomplicated that it can't be micromanaged to death if enough psychologists put their minds to it.

Don't know if you have a "work spouse?" You're not alone. Many people have one (or more) work spouses, and don't know it. Luckily, CNN has a quick and easy seven point test you can take to see if you have a "work spouse."

(I can imagine the rationalizations for a positive test result: "it can happen to anyone." "It's no one's fault, really." "When working together in close quarters, work spouses happen." "Don't feel stigmatized, work spouses cut across all racial and economic lines." "We just need to raise awareness . . ." blah, blah, blah)

If you discover that you have, inadvertently, acquired a work spouse - don't panic, you can manage your condition. CNN knows what to do:

Keep the lines of communication open. Make sure that other co-workers are not feeling shut out by the perception that you and your work spouse are an exclusive clique of two. If you are working on a project together that also involves the team, be sure to reach out to everyone for feedback and suggestions.

In other words, be promiscuous in your work relationships, exclusivity leads to jealousy, "Make 'work love' not 'work war'" in that giant corporate commune that is the office.

Avoid crossing boundaries. It's great to have a support system and a close confidante, but be sure to set boundaries for how much to share with your office mate. More importantly, honor those boundaries. If the relationship becomes antagonistic or is too close for comfort, let your work spouse know you need a little space.

Avoid crossing boundaries!?!? You mean like thinking of co-workers as your "spouse?" That kind of boundary? And if the relationship is destructive, by all means take "a little space" don't end it. You can make it work, 'work divorce' is not the answer!

Lighten the mood. If your life at home and at work is filled with complications, bringing a co-worker into the middle of those issues may not be beneficial for you. You should aim to keep the mood light and happy with your work spouse. You'll look forward to enjoying gossip, taking breaks and being able to relax with a friend without any concerns or complications.

Relaxing with a friend without any concerns or complications is the purview of a REAL spouse. if you are more relaxed at work than at home, then you need to seriously re-evaluate your life.

I kept hoping to see some evidence of humor in the article, but I didn't. That fact both scares and saddens me.

The Pet Bill of Rights . . .

. . . has been proposed in Britain. They don't call it that, of course. They call it "proposed new codes of conduct for dog, cat and horse owners"

Some highlights:

The dog code of conduct says they should not be taken for a walk when the weather is too hot.

Cat lovers have their own rules to follow and are urged to make sure, apart from advice on hygiene and diet, that the pet has a "secure place to hide".

Here are some other provisions from "The Daily Mail"

There aren't "plenty of things to stimulate [me] mentally" here at work. I'm a human being, and my employer doesn't even give me a "secure place to hide" or even "suitable toys." I work in a cubicle for crying out loud.

Lucky animals. I need better lobbyists.

Obama's Real Economic Views

This is how Senator Obama talks about economic issues when he's not on his guard. This clip is from an interview he gave with Chicago Public Radio (a friendly audience) in 2001.

Scary stuff. Sounds like Marx's "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need."

Watch the clip here.

Read a more spirited condemnation on the National Review. An excerpt:

I would appeal to any American who claims to love the Constitution and to revere the Founding Fathers… I will not only appeal to you, I will beg you, as one American citizen to another, to consider this next statement with as much care as you can possibly bring to bear: “And uh, to that extent, as radical as I think people tried to characterize the Warren Court, it wasn’t that radical. It didn’t break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the Founding Fathers in the Constitution — at least as it’s been interpreted, and [the] Warren Court interpreted it in the same way, that generally the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties: [it] says what the states can’t do to you, says what the federal government can’t do to you, but it doesn’t say what the federal government or the state government must do on your behalf.

The entire purpose of the Constitution was to limit government. That limitation of powers is what has unlocked in America the vast human potential available in any population.

Barack Obama sees that limiting of government not as a lynchpin but rather as a fatal flaw. . .

There is no room for wiggle or misunderstanding here. This is not edited copy. There is nothing out of context; for the entire thing is context — the context of what Barack Obama believes. You and I do not have to guess at what he believes or try to interpret what he believes. He says what he believes. . .

If this does not frighten you — regardless of your political affiliation — then you deserve what this man will deliver with both houses of Congress, a filibuster-proof Senate, and, to quote Senator Obama again, “a righteous wind at our backs.”

We no longer have an independent, fair, investigative press. That is abundantly clear to everyone — even the press. It is just another of the facts that they refuse to report, because it does not suit them.

Remember this, America: The press did not break this story. A single citizen, on the Internet did.

There is a special hell for you “journalists” out there, a hell made specifically for you narcissists and elitists who think you have the right to determine which information is passed on to the electorate and which is not.

That hell — your own personal hell — is a fiery lake of irrelevance, blinding clouds of obscurity, and burning, everlasting scorn.

You’ve earned it.