7 Days to the Election...And Healthcare is Again the Subject

It is 7 days until election day, November 8, 2016, and many in the country are gripped by the letter of FBI Director Comey about the Clinton email scandal. Meanwhile, Donald Trump is again in Pennsylvania criticizing Obama care and promising to repeal it once elected and replace it with...what?

In the meantime, it might be helpful to take a second and look at just how bad, yes bad, the healthcare is in the United States by comparing prices for drugs and procedures with those from some other countries around the world. Because Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, and President Obama should be ashamed of what their respective plans won't do in terms of reducing the costs that Americans pay for their healthcare.

The International Federation of Health Plans is a global network of health insurance members world wide. Here are some drug and procedure prices for a set of drugs and procedures from their 2015 Comparative Price Report. The US prices are based on 370 million medical claims and over 170 million pharmacy claims that represent actual prices negotiated and paid (not list price) by insurers. The prices for Austria, New Zealand, Spain, South Africa and the U.K. are from the private sector from at least one private health plan. In many countries the private health plans compete with "socialized" health care.

Drug	Use	South Africa	Spain	Switzerland	New Zealand	UK	US
Xarelto	Blood Clots	$48	$101	$102	$n.a.	$126	$292
Humira	Rheumatoid Arthritis	$552	$1,253	$822	$n.a.	$1,362	$2,669
Harvani	Hepatitis C	$n.a.	$18,165	$16,861	$n.a.	$22,554	$32,114
Truvada	AIDS	$n.a.	$559	$906	$n.a.	$689	$1,301
Tecfidera	Relapsing M.S.	$n.a.	$1,399	$1,855	$n.a.	$663	$5,089
Avastin	Cancer	$956	$1,534	$1,752	$n.a.	$470	$3,930
Oxycontin	Moderate to Severe Pain	$n.a.	$84	$36	$n.a.	$590	$265
Angiogram	Diagnostic	$n.a.	$240	$191	$1,089	$2,149	$1,164
C.T. Scan Abdomen	Diagnostic	$233	$85	$383	$483	$860	$844
MRI	Diagnostic	$455	$130	$503	$811	$788	$1,119
Colonoscopy	Diagnostic	$632	$589	$604	$1,421	$3,059	$1,301
Cardiac Catheterization	Diagnostic	$2,596	$2,974	$181	$3,196	$4,046	$5,061
Hospitalization	Cost per day	$631	$424	$4,781	$2,142	$n.a.	$5,220
Appendectomy	Hospital and Physician	$1,786	$2,003	$6,040	$6,199	$8,009	$15,930
Normal Delivery	Hospital and Physician	$1,271	$1,950	$7,751	$n.a.	$n.a.	$10,808
C-section	Hospital and Physician	$2,192	$2,352	$9,965	$7,901	$n.a.	$16,106
Cataract Surgery	Hospitalization and Physician	$1,186	$1,719	$2,114	$2,740	$3,145	$3,530
Knee Replacement	Hospitalization and Physician	$7,795	$6,687	$20,132	$16,508	$18,451	$28,184
Hip Replacement	Hospitalization and Physician	$7,685	$6,757	$17,112	$15,465	$16,335	$29,067
Bypass Surgery	Hospitalization and Physician	$18,501	$14,579	$34,224	$32,480	$24,059	$78,318
Angioplasty	Hospitalization and Physician	$6,510	$7,839	$10,006	$13,667	$7,264	$31,620

Note that these prices are for private insurance. A standard claim against countries with national health care "aka socialized medicine" is that people have to wait until they die to get care. Anyone that can afford private insurance can get care they want any time outside the national health care. Even then, Americans pay substantially more than people in other countries. Why?

Is it possible that national health care might work to keep private prices down?

Regardless, it is readily apparent that Americans, for whatever reason, pay too much for health care. Perhaps it is time that that changed.

No Supreme Court Justices for a Democratic President

The way we operate our government in America is by convention: we collectively agree on a set of rules until we no longer agree. And one of our (at least recent) agreements is no longer working.

This Washington Post article covers the recent announcements from John McCain and Ted Cruz that indicate they no longer hold to the convention that the President nominates a Supreme Court Justice candidate and the Senate "advise and consent" on the nominee. They hold a hearing and vote up or down. Since President Obama nominated Merrick Garland to replace Justice Scalia and the Senate (Republicans) indicated that they would not hold hearings on his nomination because a 4th year nomination should be held over for the incoming new president. But now that it appears that Trump may lose, McCain and Cruz have declared that Senate Republicans could refuse to consent to any nominee of a Democratic President.

Think about what that means. There is, as the article points out, plenty of precedence for the Supreme Court to operate with less than the full nine. The existing members have indicated that this burdens them greatly. It also allows for more tied votes, leaving existing decisions to stand.

But aside from that, what does this say about our government? What does this say about the Senate? What does this say about working together as Americans?

Did the Republican Senators suddenly stop being Americans? Are they so scared of the Tea Party and their base, stoked up to a frenzy by talk radio and Fox News?

I recommend to everyone the book Why the Right Went Wrong: Conservatism -- From Goldwater to Trump and Beyond. Most Republicans look back to the glory days of Ronald Reagan, but the current far-right, no compromise, limited government, social restrictive views date back to Goldwater, and even further back to the migration of conservative southern democrats to the Republican party and the emigration of moderate to liberal Republicans to the Democratic party or to Independent status.

As an example, Eisenhower received 40% of the black vote. Goldwater and his supporters did not court the black vote. One of his biggest supporters, William Buckley, touted the superiority of the white race in 1964 in his magazine National Review. This has continued to the point that Trump fails to poll more than a few percentage points of black voters, and his outreach effort to blacks seemed to be symbolic only. The party of Lincoln became the party of dog whistle politics, and their share of the African-American vote decreased to 13%.

Eisenhower, Nixon and Reagan governed by practicality over principal. The current crop of Republicans practice principal over practicality. This too harkens back to Goldwater, who offered no compromise.

"I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice! And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue."

The current brand of Republicans practice extremism in the defense of the type of liberty that they believe in. They will go to extremes, like shutting down the government instead of raising the debt ceiling. Or refusing to act on a judicial appointment from a president that is not in their party.

But does that brand of liberty they believe in include the Constitution of the United States?

The only way that Americans can ensure that their Senators follow the Constitution, instead of practicing extremism in the defense of the type of liberty they dream of is to punish them at the ballot box. That is if the voters themselves believe in the Constitution.

Time for Trump to Go

As a liberal and progressive, I was a Bernie Sanders supporter, despite the fact that I could not see how some of his proposals could possibly be funded. I was disappointed to see Hillary Clinton receive the nomination. My disappointment stems from Bill Clinton's presidency:

1. The descriptions of the Clinton White House as being operated by a bunch of kids that couldn't keep to a meeting schedule or meeting agenda.
2. The failure of the Clinton Administration to bring about health care reform.
3. The degree of contempt exhibited by the Clintons for the military.

I saw the selection of Trump as the Republican nominee as a mixed affair. While I thought him to be the easiest candidate to defeat, I feared that the divisiveness of his primary campaign would continue into the general election.

Trump has continued to disappoint me.

But the events of the past week have highlighted so many terrible things about modern day American that I believe it is no longer time to accept what is happening. The sequence of the release of the 2005 tape of Trump and Bush bantering about abusing women, "locker room talk" as Trump puts it, followed by the denial of any sexual assault by Trump at the second presidential debate, followed by yesterday's (Oct. 12, 2016) accounts of assault by at least five women, now puts into sharp relief the status of the 2016 election.

We have a sexual predator running for President on the Republican ticket.

I do not see Trump's running mate, Mike Pence, as much better. At the end of the Vice-Presidential debate, both candidates showed real thought and emotion describing their struggles to reconcile their religious beliefs with the requirements of their offices. I believe that Kaine gave the more correct response required by our system of government: that as governor, he had to subjugate his personal beliefs and support the law of the land. Pence, on the other hand, described how his beliefs were more correct than the law of the land, which he sought to overturn.

Make no mistake, Trump has to go. While the U.S. can survive a bad president, electing a sexual predator would have serious consequences. Already, teachers are describing the Trump effect in schools around the country.

But I think it will be useful for the Republican party to retain Trump so that the people can have their say on his candidacy. I think it fitting that the Republican party reap what they have sown.

For years the Republican party has tried to fuel and use the anger of middle class whites, using mouthpieces such as Rush Limbaugh and Fox News, for the benefit of the 1%. Gaining office through the (cynical) manipulation of the many on social issues allows the enactment of economic policies that flow to the top. Trump is no different. He fires up his supporters through calls for a wall to keep out Mexican rapists, a ban on Muslim immigrants, defunding Planned Parenthood, implementing "stop-and-frisk" nationwide, reintroducing torture. Yet his economic plans are designed to help the wealthy: tax cuts that chiefly benefit the top 1% and 0.1%, corporate tax cuts, special treatment of carried interest for hedge funds and investors, elimination of the estate tax (which uniquely benefits his family as real estate developers).

In fact, Trump's economic proposals are a return to the 1980's, where the combination of tax cuts and increased defense spending drove up the deficit. Under Reagan, the public debt rose from 26% of GDP in 1980 to 41% in 1988 (from $712B to $2.052T, a 3x increase). Most of the benefits went to the wealthiest Americans (see chart below).

Perhaps in the 2016 election, like no other before it, we can finally have a referendum on the Republican plan that started with Newt Gingrich (another Trump supporter). Perhaps now, the people will see a plan that uses the middle class to fund the rich.

Or perhaps not. In one CNN video clip aired of a Mike Pence rally on Oct. 12, 2016, a woman in the crowd, when offered the microphone to ask Pence a question, stated that she was "...ready for a revolution on election day if Hillary Clinton was elected. I mean, come on, guys. Aren't you?".

Perhaps the Republican party, and Donald J. Trump, really has managed to capture the desires of the crowd. Or did they manufacture it?

What about the orchids...?

I knew this lady, Mary Elizabeth. She was the youngest of seven, the only girl from an Iowa farm. She got tired of the tricks boys will play on their younger sister, and decided she wanted off the farm. Her ticket out was a nursing degree, and after earning her RN, she decided she wanted to see something of the world. She joined the Public Health Service and was assigned to the Panama Canal Zone. This was back in 1928, the time of the flappers, just before the Stock Market Crash.

There was a circle of people in the Canal Zone that consisted of the doctors and nurses of the Public Health Service, the Army Officers, Foreign Officers and delegate to Panama, and Canal Zone Engineers. Mary Elizabeth met and married a U.S. Army Psychiatrist, originally from Minnesota, Robert Paul. Another friend in the circle was a man named Harry Dunn, an engineer that liked to trek into the jungles to find and collect orchids. Harry had a lathe house in which he kept and raised his collection, which included several examples of Peristeria elata, the Dove or Holy Ghost orchid, the national flower of Panama.

Mary Elizabeth and Robert Paul were my grandparents. Her eldest daughter, Elizabeth Jean, was my mother. In 1972, my grandmother, my mother, and I took a trip to St. Petersburg, FL. While there, I met and listened to Harry Dunn's stories of collecting and raising orchids, in Panama in the '30's and '40's, and other Central and South American countries to which his career took him. Mr. Dunn gave me my first orchid, a dark reddish-purple Cattleya that was in bud and which opened about 4 weeks later.

When I got back to San Antonio, I wanted to learn more about orchids. I found an orchid nursery less than a mile from my house, Worth Orchids, and I asked the owner, Nicklaus Worth for a job. He gave me my first job, working in his greenhouses. I learned about different orchid varieties, their temperature, water, humidity, lighting and fertilizer requirements. At 15, I received a course in operating an orchid nursery.

Since then, whenever my lifestyle permits, I have raised and enjoyed the beauty of orchids. At first, it was a Cattleya or two. Phaleonopsis became popular, and I tried one in a window. In high school, every girl wanted a cymbidium corsage and I tried growing a big cymbidium on the porch. Eventually I learned to choose orchids to fit the climate/microclimate that I could offer. Over the past several years I have acquired a number or orchids which I have struggled to maintain despite living in an apartment and traveling frequently for work. Fortunately I have discovered some varieties that adapted to my conditions, and I have never shied away from experimenting.

Here are some photos of my orchids in my new home:

In my Kitchen

Up on my mantle

A lady slipper: Paphiopedilium americium "Gold Cup x Paph. concolor '#1'

Ondontocidium Sunlight "Pesky Panther'

Aliceria Stellar 'Hoku'

Aliceria Hilo Ablaze 'Hilo Gold'

An equitant: Tolumnia Jairak Flyer 'Fantastic'

The famous green Cattleya type: Blc. Ports of Paradise 'Emerald Isle' FCC/AOS

Lysudamuloa (lycaste) Red Jewel

One of the best white Catts: Cattleya Bob Betts

And yes, I have a Peristeria elata that I am trying to bloom, in memory of Harry Dunn and my grandmother, Mary Elizabeth Carney Hargreaves, 1903 - 1993.

Traitor?

Words have meaning. People sometimes forget that when they are excited or angry and can use words they wouldn't ordinarily use. People sometimes ask themselves "Did I really say that? Did I really mean that?" The emotions fade but the words remain.

The word this week was treason.

“Anyone that commits treason should be shot,” Al Baldasaro, an adviser to the Trump campaign for veterans issues, told The Daily Beast. “I believe Hillary Clinton committed treason. She put people in danger. When people take confidential material off a server, you’re sharing information with the enemy. That’s treason.”

Wow! Treason.

"Treason against the United States shall consist only of levying war against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, or giving aid and comfort to them."

Treason against the King was used so loosely by the British that our Forefathers laid out a very specific definition of the crime. Furthermore, they stipulated that no one could be convicted of treason without two witnesses of the treasonous act.

The act of calling your political enemies traitors has a very long history, which is probably why the charge is once again being thrown around. One should keep in mind, however, that once the standards of proof are lowered for a crime it becomes far easier to be charged for it yourself.

Added 7/20/16 18:48:50

The Secret Service is officially investigating Al Baldasaro, an adviser to the Donald Trump campaign for veterans issues, who called for Hillary Clinton’s execution for “treason.”“The U.S. Secret Service is aware of this matter and will conduct the appropriate investigation,” spokesman Robert Hoback told The Daily Beast on Wednesday afternoon.“Anyone that commits treason should be shot,” Baldasaro told The Daily Beast earlier in the day. “I believe Hillary Clinton committed treason. She put people in danger. When people take confidential material off a server, you’re sharing information with the enemy. That’s treason.”Baldasaro was expanding on a comment he made on Tuesday, when he called for Clinton to be “put in the firing line” over her mishandling of classified emails.The Trump campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.—Asawin Suebsaeng

And the VP Candidate Is - Not Newt!

The Donald finally did something smart and picked Mike Pence as his VP candidate. Fortunately, he didn't pick Newt Gingrich. This, a day or two after Newt, responding to the Nice Truck Massacre, said that we needed to interview every Muslim in America - he didn't indicate if that included American Citizens or just aliens - and deport every one that said that they believed/followed/had heard of Sharia Law.

Now, I like Newt. Not when he is a politician, but when he writes fiction. I loved his "Pearl Harbor"/"Days of Infamy" alternate history series, where he examined the "what if" of a Japanese Invasion of Hawaii as part of the Pearl Harbor Strike.

But that was fiction. Let's talk about the real world.

I get that people find terrorism scary. That's why it's called terror. But responding to it with proposals that tear down our Freedoms is just not the way to go. Terrorism is not an existential crisis for the United States.

Let me say that again in another way. We have been suffering from Middle Eastern terrorists since the 1970's. Look at the Islamist Terrorism Attacks Wikipedia page. Yes, it is long, bloody and painful. But the West is still alive and thriving. America is still kicking.

Back during World War II, America faced an existential crisis. We pulled a Newt stunt: we packed our Japanese up and sent them to immigration camps. When it was over, we came to two conclusions:

1. We lost the use of a number of our own citizens, both in the military (the 100th Infantry Battalion/442nd Regimental Combat Team) and in civilian labor forces.
2. The land, homes, and businesses that the Japanese (Isei and Nisei) were forced to liquidate was property that jealous whites had coveted and were able to grab at fire-sale properties.

While I suppose that some of the people that benefited from the WW II Japanese situation believed that the "Dirty Japs" didn't deserve their property, most Americans do, and believe that we did something wrong.

Why are we proposing the same types of things today, when our country is not faced with nearly the same type of threat?

Are we really scared of Islam and Islamic terrorists so much that we want to risk our Constitutional Rights of Religious Freedom and Citizenship?

Or is it that we respond so well to politicians that use the fear of others, outsiders? Are we hoping to find some group that we can hang for all the problems we see?

There were another class of politicians that did the same thing back prior to WW II. Does anyone remember Mussolini, Hitler and Stalin? They stoked the fears of their peoples with the outsiders, the others, the Jews. It worked pretty well.

When Newtie issued his call for interviewing all the Muslims, I wondered if he would be willing to just accept their denials of Shariah Law. I suppose he would require a lie detector test, something we reserve for guarding our highest secrets. (I didn't need to go on the box for a secret clearance.) Or maybe that wouldn't be good enough. After all, the Donald want's to bring back waterboarding, and things even tougher. Definitely brings to mind the Gestapo and KGB, and the way they interrogated suspects to ensure their "reliability".

People, get a grip! Show some faith! Our country has done well with our traditions and freedoms under our Constitution. It allows for a lot of different people to live and work together. If we start tearing it down every time one outside group or another starts bugging us, then we are truly lost. Let's show some resolve to ignore these crazy politicians that incite our fear to get what they want. Let's instead find people like Marshall, Eisenhower, Nimitz, and our grandparents, that go out and fight the problem to protect us as we are, not as we shouldn't be.

Am I Going to be Killed By a Muslim Terrorist?

Has the whole world gone crazy?

Today, Friday, July 15, 2016, the world is reverberating in the wake of a presumed Muslim ISIS terrorist killing 84 people on Bastille Day in Nice, France, mowing them down with a truck. Donald Trump says "It's War". Newt Gingrich says we should test every Muslim and deport all that say they follow Shariah law.

Terrorism is designed to get its target population to change the way they live. I get that some people are scared. The way that the media continuously rebroadcasts these events pushes them into everyone's mind. But what is the risk? How likely are we to be killed by terrorists? Should we change the way we live, indeed, give up our basic principals, based on the risk these terrorists pose?

Here is a table for the last 5 years of terrorism related attacks in the U.S.

Year	Total Attacks in the U.S.	Total Fatalities in the U.S.	U.S. Fatalities in the U.S.	U.S. Fatalities in the World
2010	17	4	4	6
2011	9	0	0	3
2012	13	7	6	12
2013	16	7	5	13
2014	19	18	17	32
Total	74	36	32	55
Average	14.8	7.2	6.4	11.0

Even when you go back to 9/11, 3,066 Americans have been killed in terror attacks from 9/11 through 12/31/2014.

Compare that with 42,773 Americans who commit suicide every year.

Let's look at the same period for drug-related deaths:

Year	Prescription Drug Deaths	Opioids	Benzodiazepines	Illicit Drug Deaths	Heroin	Cocaine
2010	22,134	16,651	6,479	8,408	3,036	4,183
2011	22,810	16,917	6,872	10,284	4,397	4,681
2012	22,114	16,007	6,524	11,641	5,925	4,404
2013	22,767	16,235	6,973	14,775	8,257	4,944
2014	25,760	18,893	7,945	17,465	10,574	5,415
Total	115,585	84,703	34,793	62,573	32,189	23,627
Average	23,117	16,940.6	6958.6	12,514.6	6,437.8	4,725.4

More people are dying due to drug overdoses by far. But OD'ing is something you can control: just don't do it. Terror is something that happens out of the blue.

How about some other causes of death?

Year	Lightning	Workplace Death
2010	29	4583
2011	26	4,693
2012	28	4,628
2013	23	4,585
2014	26	4,821
Total	132	23,310
Average	26.4	4,662

Any unwanted death is a tragedy. We spend a considerable effort to try to prevent any unwanted death. And we should work hard on eliminating terror attacks. But we don't change our way of life, give up our basic rights, question our fundamental beliefs. We do our best to prevent what we can and go about our business.

Our founding fathers were of differing religious beliefs. What they wanted was to be left to worship the way they wanted, free of the state questioning them about their religion. We need to worry more about politicians wanting to look into religion than we do about terrorists. In revolutionary America a standing army was a bad thing, because of the temptation for the state to use it to repress the people. Our founding fathers new that war was a terrible thing, the very last choice when all other means had been exhausted. We need to worry more about politicians who want to start a war when anything bad happens than we do about terrorists.

America is the land of the free and the home of the brave. Maybe it is time we start showing a bit more bravery in the face of terrorists. And maybe it is time we worry more about our freedoms than we do about being killed by Islamists (or white supremacists or black protestors or Mexican drug cartels or any of the "others" that alarmists might throw in our face).

Am I going to die at the hands of a terrorist? Most likely not. But I would like to hear a candidate that has a plan to save me from lightning.

"Shareholder Revolution" and Modern America's Lack of Job, Wage and Innovation Growth

What is a company for? I was taught as a child that the purpose of American companies was to generate wealth broadly by allocating capital to productive purposes - investing in people, factories, production lines, new ideas, and business. What was good for American Business would be good for America and Americans. It worked that way for a while, after WW II. Where those times an anomaly?

Regardless of the post-WW II era, the modern business climate is marked by stock buybacks and shareholder payouts. Modern American companies are sitting on large reserves of cash and debt. Let's use Apple as an example. Apple has $215B in reserves. Apple has $16.8B in cash. It has $177B in long-term securities that it intends to accrue interest for at least another year. Of those reserves, $200B (93%) are located overseas, and Apple does not intend to return those funds to the U.S. and pay taxes on them. Apple has $53B in long-term debt, as well as $32B in non-current liabilities, a result of selling corporate bonds. Apple spent $8.8B in the fourth quarter on dividends and stock repurchases, and has another $47B promised to stockholders.

This pattern of increasing dividends, shareholder payouts and stock repurchases is a direct result of the "Shareholder Revolution" which states that the ultimate measure of a companies success is the extent to which it enriches its shareholders. Corporate strategy changed from the one I learned as a youth, maximizing overall value as a broad measure by investment in people, facilities, innovation and business, to one of short-term shareholder enrichment.

Higher profits in recent business cycles have not resulted in higher wages or higher levels of investment. Corporate America invests about 10% of every borrowed dollar, a rate that has remained constant before and after the Great Recession of 2008. The other 90 cents went to shareholder payouts, varying in amounts based on credit and growth conditions.

Post-WW II management models met 1970's stagflation, and corporate leaders sought changes. Takeover artists and corporate raiders convinced themselves they were ousting inept CEOs. Institutional investors convinced themselves that CEOs should be payed for performance. Analysts convinced themselves that forecasts were better judges of stock price than current performance. Overall, the incentives changed for corporate strategy.

Research at Stanford University shows that once a business undergoes an IPO their funding for innovation drops 40%. Wall Street punishes long-term strategic investment. For example, StarBucks was one of the first retailers to offer comprehensive healthcare to its employees. In 2015, it established a plan to fund employee's bachelor degrees. For both, StarBucks received pushback from investors.

Private and family owned businesses do much better at resisting the inhibition of financialization. Several years ago, all of the public car battery manufacturers were very worried about competition from Korean battery makers. The push from Wall Street was for cost cutting and outsourcing. Yet East Penn Manufacturing, a family owned battery maker founded in 1946, ignored the wisdom and continued to invest in facilities, and is now the world's largest single-site battery manufacturer.

So what's wrong with American Business? Help from Wall Street.

"Summer day, make me feel fine..."

It has been a while since I made a post. As a way of easing back into things, I decided to create a book list. Summer is traditionally the time when people relax a bit, take a vacation, maybe buy a book to read while at the beach or the lake. So, here is a list of the books that I have been reading, and recommend.

• Makers and Takers - Rana Forooba. More than any other book I have read, this one explains why America in general and the American economy in particular are struggling so hard to recover from the Great Recession most recently and since 1970 in general. Forooba is a Times Magazine economic columnist and CNN Global economic analyst. The book is not just about the recent economic problems, such as the 2008 Financial crisis, but rather about the great changes in American business from the 1870s through the Great Depression, the post-WW II stability, the 1970s slow down, and more recently. Everyone should read this book to understand why the politicians can't solve the problems of America until the business of America is changed.
• The Party's Over: Oil, War, and the Fate of Industrial Societies - Richard Heinberg. Whether you believe that Peak Oil is here or that fracking and other technologies will save the day, this book will explain how and why society and population is directly and entirely determined by energy. The author ties together such disparate areas as history, anthropology, ecology, technology, sociology and psychology into an overall explanation of why everything depends on the availability of energy.
• Demagogue: The Fight to Save Democracy From It's Worst Enemies - Michael Signer. Americans have always worried about Demagogues. Alexander Hamilton warned about the danger of demagogues in the first and the last (86th) of the Federalist Papers. James Madison's vice-president, Elbridge Gerry, wrote that democracy was "the worst...of all political evils" because the ignorance of the people would result in the election of demagogues that would take away their freedoms. The demagogue is a mob leader who takes advantage of a power vacuum to gather ultimate power to him/her self. James Fenimore Cooper wrote "A demagogue, in the strict sense of the word, is a 'leader of the rabble.'...The peculiar office of the demagogue is to advance his own interests, by affecting a deep devotion to the interests of the people." We have seen many such types: Hugo Chavez, Moqtada al-Sadr, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Slobadan Milosevic, Fidel Castro, Benito Mussolini, Adolf Hitler, Jimmy Hoffa, Louis Farrakhan. Perhaps we are seeing it today, in a man who thinks that his ideas alone are better than anyone else...
• Twilight's Last Gleaming - John Michael Greer. In the '80s and '90s I gobbled up the techno-thrillers of Tom Clancy. In Clancy's world, the U.S. always won, despite the odds. John Michael Greer is a believer in Peak Oil, limited resources, and the coming decline. Imagine a techno-thriller set in the 2020s where foreign powers, chiefly China, gang up on an over-extended U.S. A great book, but with a different ending for the good guys.
• Failures of Imagination: The Deadliest Threats to our Homeland - And How to Thwart Them - The Honorable Michael McCaul. Chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, the author has a book of eight possible future attacks on America. Such threats as a "dirty bomb", a massacre at the Mall of America, a cyberstrike on the U.S. financial centers, and a Russian Cold War attach, the book seeks to stimulate thinking and planning for the kind of "failures of imagination" that lead to Pearl Harbor and 9/11. Thinking about the unthinkable might help prevent it.
• Light's Out - Ted Koppel. Light's Out is about the destruction of the U.S. electrical grid by cyberattack, EMP or extreme solar storm (Coronal Mass Ejection). In 1859, the world's first observed solar flare, known as the Carrington Event, took down parts of the U.S. telegraph system, shocking telegraph operators and melting telegraph lines. In 1962, a 1.4 Megaton detonation outside the earth's atmosphere above Johnston Island caused damage in Hawaii 1,400 kilometers away, destroying streetlights, setting off burglar alarms and taking down microwave relays. The increasing number of cyberattacks on the U.S. have included attempts to hack and install malware into the software that controls the three U.S. electrical grids. On April 6, 2013, some unknown number of perpetrators cut fiber-optic telecom cables to the PG&E Metcalf Transmission Substation in San Jose and then used AK-47s to fire on and knock out seventeen giant transformers. While grid operators where able to avoid a blackout, the substation was offline for 27 days to repair the damage. There have been any number of warnings about the dangers to the U.S. electrical grid. Where the grid to be taken down for one year, denying electricity to Americans, the loss of electricity would result in the deaths of millions of Americans, due to loss of water, food, transportation, health and medical care, etc. Koppel warns about the dangers, and just how little is being done about it. (Homeland Security has no plan for a grid loss scenario.)
• American Amnesia: How the War on Government Led Us to Forget What Made America Prosper - Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson. It takes government - a lot of government - for advanced societies to flourish. This is uncomfortable because Americans cherish freedom. Eleven years after the Declaration of Independence - with its ringing declaration of "certain unalienable rights"... fifty-five American notable gathered in Philadelphia because they had become convinced that the absence of effective public authority was a mortal threat to the fledgling nation. James Madison [wrote]: "There never was a Government without force. What is the meaning of government? An institution to make people do their duty. A Government leaving it to a man to do his duty, or not, as he pleases, would be a new species of Government, or rather, no Government at all." We suffer from a kind of mass historical forgetting, a distinctively "American Amnesia" what both our history and basic economic theory suggest: We need a constructive and mutually beneficial tension between markets and government rather than the jealous rivalry that so many misperceive and help foster.
• War By Other Means: Geoeconomics and Statecraft - Robert Blackwill and Jennifer Harris. The United States has the most powerful economy on earth. Yet too often, the U.S. reaches for its gun instead of its purse, in conducting international conduct. As the U.S. has forgotten the use of economic statecraft, Russia, China, and other countries have used economic measures as their first resort. Why has the U.S. fallen behind?
• The Truthful Art: Data, Charts, and Maps for Communication - Alberto Cairo. This is a book about telling a story, a truthful story, from data, using maps and charts. The author talks about spending the 2014 fall recess (re)learning R, ggplot2 and tableau. Since he needed a data set to use, and wanted one that was meaningful, he used a set of reading and math scores from the Miami-Dade County Public Schools web site, to check the schools in his area. Using R and ggplot, he was able to generate scatter plots of reading and math scores for the 9 school districts. The scatter plots showed which districts had better and which had worse scores. Then, he gathered a map of income data for the area from the Census Bureau website, and overlaid the math and reading scores with the income areas. The exercise generated many questions regarding association, causality, etc. This book is about using data to tell stories, and to find stories, in data.
• Dark Territory: The Secret History of Cyber War - Fred Kaplan. On Saturday, June 4, 1983, President Ronald Reagan spent the day at Camp David. That night, he settled in to watch a movie. The movie was WarGames where Matthew Broderick hacks into NORAD and nearly start World War III, thinking he is playing a new computer game. The following Wednesday, Reagan couldn't get the movie out of his mind. In a meeting to discuss arms talks with the Soviets and a new nuclear missile (the MX) he asked John Vessey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, if it could really happen. General Vessey reported back a week later: "Mr. President, it is much worse than you think". In 1983, the first laptops were becoming available. Public internet providers were yet to come. Yet NSDD-145, "National Policy on Telecommunications and Automated Information Systems Security" stated that the new systems being acquired were "highly susceptible to interception, unauthorized electronic access, and related technical exploitation." Hostile foreign intelligence agencies were already "extensively" hacking into these services already, and "terrorist groups and criminal elements" had the capabilities to do so also. This was the first time that an American President discussed cyber warfare.

These are some of the best books I have read lately. Hope you enjoy your summer reading!

Trump: Pope Francis "Disgraceful"

Donald Trump indicated that "For a religious leader to question a person;s faith is disgraceful", this in response to Pope Francis saying that "A person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not building bridges, is not Christian", according to the New York Times. "I only say that this man is not Christian if he has said things like that.

Trump further stated that "If and when the Vatican is attacked by ISIS, which as everyone knows is ISIS's ultimate trophy, I can promise you that the pope will have only wished that Donald Trump had been president", Trump said. "Because that would not have happened."

Trump also discussed what he believes is the "tremendous" crime happening in Mexico with drugs "pouring" through the border.

"It's not coming from us, it's coming from the other side," he said.

Unfortunately, Mr. Trump seems to see something everyone else doesn't. Or vice vera. Because almost everyone I know understands that it is the tremendous appetite for cheap, illegal drugs (demand) that is driving the illegal importation and smuggling of drugs into the U.S. Only in Donald Trump's fantasy land do the cartel's "push" drugs into the U.S., as opposed to the users "pulling" drugs into the country.

But then we always knew that only Mr. Trump sees the world as he does. Although, it seems that many people are being converted to his distorted world view.

American Employer-Provided Healthcare Insurance

Last night, in the sixth Democratic Presidential debate, Hillary stated that she was in favor of keeping the "American Way" in healthcare. That is a code for employer-provided healthcare insurance. She stated that America had done it that way since the 1940's.

Specifically what she said is this:

And we are not England. We are not France. We inherited a system that was set up during World War II; 170 million Americans get health insurance right now through their employers.

So let's talk about this. Because Secretary Clinton implies that the system we have was "designed" specifically for the American economy. There is nothing further from the truth.

Healthcare costs were minor in the early 1900's. People paid cash for what little healthcare they needed. But there was a group of Americans who wanted some kind of protection because of their meager pay: teachers.

While its origins can be traced back to 1929, when a group of Dallas teachers contracted with a hospital to cover inpatient services for a fixed annual premium, the link between employment and private health insurance was strengthened by three key government decisions in the 1940s and 1950s. First, during World War II the War Labor Board ruled that wage and price controls did not apply to fringe benefits such as health insurance, leading many employers to institute ESI (Employer Sponsored Insurance). Second, in the late 1940s the National Labor Relations Board ruled that health insurance and other employee benefit plans were subject to collective bargaining. Third, in 1954 the Internal Revenue Service decreed that health insurance premiums paid by employers were exempt from income taxation.

The first decision, by the War Labor Board, was made totally in isolation and without much consideration of the impact. It was during the middle of the war. Wages were fixed. Control of what plants and cities critical workers chose could not be done by offering premium pay, so the War Labor Board decided that ESI could be a bargaining chip to hire workers. No thought at all about the long term impacts.

The second decision by the NLRB was done in a time of far higher unionization. And it was a mistake (in my opinion). Because it touched off the competition amongst unions that ultimately brought the disgust many Americans have today for unions: the appearance that unions cared more about getting anything they could than working.

And the IRS decision simply made it economically beneficial for companies to offer ESI, in a time where healthcare costs were low because many Americans didn't use all that many healthcare services.

So there was nothing designed or planned about it.

The quote above is taken from Employer-Sponsored Health Insurance and Health Reform . It has a bunch of interesting information about the economics of ESI. Including this:

Since economists typically assume that workers pay for health benefits through reductions in wages, why do workers choose to purchase insurance through their employers rather than on the individual market? The answer is that there are significant savings associated with ESI. First, there are substantial economies of scale when purchasing insurance through a group. Second, the problem of adverse selection (sicker individuals being more likely to sign up for coverage) is reduced in an employer-sponsored group, since a large group is likely to have something approaching the population average level of risk. Third, the fact that health insurance premiums are not subject to income taxation effectively reduces the price of insurance purchased through the employer.

Interesting:

1. Economies of scale. Gee, if the federal government, or a single insurer, was handling healthcare costs for everyone, would they have the best economy of scale?
2. Adverse selection. If the whole population is in the group, adverse selection is eliminated by definition.
3. Taxation. It's already tax-free, isn't it?

Universal health coverage, single payer, whatever you call it, seems to fit the same economic advantages that ESI does, and in spades. Maybe it boils down to whether you believe in continuing to support the Healthcare Insurance Industry.

But the fact that Congress prevents the Federal Government from negotiating the price of drugs for Medicare is just a tip-off that those Pharma donations really do buy something. And perhaps it is time we separated capitalism from healthcare. Sure, you might be willing to pay every penny you got to be better, but why should you?

I went to Medical School for a bunch of reasons, not one of which was to get rich. There are a class of medical students and physicians that do so, but maybe they don't belong in medicine. There are lots of bright young men and women trying to become doctors and nurses and PA's and NP's. Maybe they should have a chance, for reasons not related to money.

Oh, and the argument that we have done it this way since the 1940's, so it's good enough for me?

Bullshit!

What Vision For America?

Anyone who has met me can probably guess which way I would tend to vote. I am that vocal. And yet, last night in the Democratic debate, I heard two different visions for America. They seemed very much in contrast to me. And I know which one I would like to see be implemented in the future.

I am the son of an FDR liberal mother and a flapper grandmother. My father was killed when I was six months old during an Air Force Mission, and my grandfather was killed when I was 10 by a patient's .38 (he was a psychiatrist). Perhaps as a reactionary young man, and certainly as a result of the failed Iranian hostage rescue, I voted for Reagan in 1980, and thought I was conservative throughout my 30's. But I came to realize that I was only a fiscal conservative, and, perhaps true to my upbringing, a social liberal. And so, in my late 50's, I have come to see politics somewhat the same but also very different from my mother and grandmother.

They were products of the Great Depression, WW II, and Ike. Republican Failure, Democratic Rescue, Democratic Triumph, Republican Main Street.

If you study a bit of history, you will read of Hoovervilles: the cardboard shanty towns that the then homeless built in reaction to President Hoover's economic policies. FDR did a lot more than simply saying "All you have to fear is fear itself", and WW II provided the economic stimulus that ended the Great Depression. But it was a popular General who became a Republican President that brought true economic prosperity to many Americans. A Republican President who today would be regarded as a Socialist. For FDR was "That Socialist in the White House" and Ike continued and built on (in his own style) the economic policies remaining from the the previous decade. (Poor Ike would be banished from the party, or forced to recant, in today's climate.)

But today is different. Or is it?

In some ways it is very different. By the 50's America had a near monopoly on foreign trade, because a good deal of the world was still in recovery from WW II. No Japan or China or Europe to compete with for selling manufactured goods. Americans were proud of their accomplishments, and most (at least in the white world) where fully participating in a society that was much more economically equal.

Americans had a choice too, then. Sit back on their triumphs. Do their jobs, come home to their houses, enjoy life. After all, American Life had been paid for in blood. And yet they didn't. Remember the iron lung? Polio? That was conquered. Go to the moon in a decade? Done. Transistor? Invented. Digital computer? From one in world in the 40's to one in every company in the 60's.

America had the choice to sit back and incrementally improve. It didn't. Perhaps the ideological race with Communism was the reason. Perhaps not. But it didn't.

Perhaps I just hear in black in white. But last night, in the sixth democratic debate, I heard a clear choice. Strike out in a new direction, the way we should go. We haven't been there before, but we should. Or, make small, steady improvements, that we know we can make. That we know we can handle.

That's what I heard. And I know which way I want America to go. I want America in 2016 to strike out the way America did in 1940. In 1950. In 1960. The way Americans have always gone. Blazing a new trail, towards a better, newer, richer country. That is the American Way!

Who Would I Vote For Today?

Since the primary election day is less than a month away in Texas, and early voting starts in just 12 days, I suppose it is time to start thinking about who to vote for. Anyone who knows me knows that I believe that the election cycle is way too long, with the results that vast sums of money are spent and wasted. Yet, it is what it is, and so I should start to make my decision.

Much has been made of the current state of American security. The San Bernardino shooting has instilled a great deal of fear in Americans, needlessly I believe, since the risk of being killed in a terrorist shooting in America is lower than being killed by lightning. Yet, many of the candidates are interested in showing their resolve by talking of putting boots on the ground against ISIS or Al Qaida or the terrorist de jour.

Then there is the blowhard with the comb over, who insists that America doesn't win anymore. I think he means that America isn't great anymore.

I just finished three months on a project in Wilmington, DE and I decided to drive back to Austin. Periodically I like to head out on the roads in America to visit it again. My mom was a school teacher and every summer we spent 2-6 weeks driving around the country, first from Texas to Iowa to revisit the family farm, and then somewhere interesting. So it was good to be traveling down some wide, straight, beautiful American road.

There was a lot to see that reminded me how great America is. Such as the I-95 bridge over the Susquehanna river, itself just one of several bridges in parallel crossing that river. Or the I-40 bridge crossing the Mississippi in Memphis, also one of several running in parallel. Another was the port of Baltimore, where huge cranes were loading and unloading ships in the port. Or the four bores of the McHenry tunnel I dove into just prior to reaching the port of Baltimore.

As I drove through Knoxville, TN the signs for Oak Ridge reminded me of the technological and economic effort that were invested in the creation of the atomic bomb. Over and over Americans have created innovative technology that has influenced history, and anyone who thinks that America doesn't continue to do so is sadly mistaken. America does have real problems that we need to overcome. While driving back and forth between Philadelphia and Wilmington, I saw bridge overpasses scabrous with rust. Back home in Austin, my apartment is less than a mile from a section of I-35 that frequently has homeless transients traveling north or south.

But the effort by politicians to tap into the frustration over our problems by saying that America never wins is wrong. It's just like that effort to distract people by waging a foreign war. It's frequently done and harmful.

Concentrating on bread and circuses, or foreign wars, or wars in general, instead of economics, is dangerous.

Those victorious battles in which only men are killed without causing any other damage weakens the enemy little if the pay of the men he has lost remains and is sufficient to attract other men. An army of one hundred thousand well-paid men is an army a million strong, for an army to which men are attracted for pay cannot be destroyed: it is then up to the soldiers to defend themselves bravely; it is they who have most to lose for there will be no lack of replacements determined to face the perils of war. It is therefore wealth which upholds the honour of armies. The hero who wins battles, captures towns, acquires glory and is soon exhausted is not the conqueror. The historian who limits himself to relating the wonders of military feats does little to inform posterity of the issues of decisive events in wars if he keeps it in ignorance of the state of the fundamental forces and of the politics of the nations the history of which he writes; for it is in the constant affluence of a country's taxpayers, not in patriotic virtues that the permanent power of the state is to be found.

F. Quesnay, Maximes generales du governement economique d'un royaume agricole et notes sur ces maximes, xxvi, 1758

And so, it appears to me, that all the talk about social issues, security, crime, etc. is important but secondary, to the issues of economics and wealth, and I hear little talk except from Bernie Sanders. Oh, the Republicans talk about tax policy, but that is really about helping the 1%. (Along with the talk about abolishing the IRS, returning to the gold standard, abolishing the estate tax, etc.) The only candidate willing to talk about wealth inequality is Sanders. All the candidates pay lip service to the economic problems of the middle class, but it sounds to me just pro forma.

Is Sanders electable? Can anyone who has called himself a socialist be elected president in the U.S.? Will we get the chance to find out?

Why are Republicans the way they are?

Great post on Quora which I copied (too bad I didn't write this myself):

Why are there no moderate Republican candidates?

David Schneider, Retired Professor of Psychology

Many good answers here. The GOP long ago make a bargain with the South (based at the time --1968 election-- onn race issues -- not so much now) and with evangelical voters among others. Others have mentioned that there are two wings to the party -- roughly interested in economic or in social issues. The bargains they have made have meant that a significant number of GOP voters are less interested in economic issues than in social, and the latter tend to be one-issue voters, passionate in their beliefs, and not open to compromise. Over time the social wing has captured the party. The fact that many, perhaps most, voters either disagree with them or don't care about things like abortion, gay marriage, crime, immigration, etc. means that they fight an uphill battle when it comes to the general election. They don't seem to get that.

Another issue is that the far right wing can rightly say that the the more moderate wing has had a terrible record in national elections. Bush I, Dole, Bush II, McCain, and then Romney. Yes, I am well aware that Bush II won both elections (well the first one by the deciding vote of the conservative Supreme Court) but he has become toxic as witnessed the poor showing of bother Jeb. The Bush issue is complicated, but along with the war many conservatives hold him responsible for a gigantic increase in the debt (those few Republicans who acknowledge being aware of that fact) and his support for social programs including the drug additions to Medicaid. There are, of course, lots of reasons why these other candidates have done poorly -- lack of charisma is one -- but nonetheless uninformed GOP folks blame those loses on the fact that they were moderate. Then there's Ford and Nixon both moderate by contemporary standards -- Ford did little and lost an election, and Nixon -- well another complicated case. And they point to Reagan's success as a "real conservative" ignoring the fact that he was moderate or silent on a lot of social issues, and that by contemporary GOP standards he would be a moderate on economic issues; also they ignore his many failures (dramatic increases in the debt as one example). He was popular for several reasons, but at the end of the day he was pragmatic (meaning, among other things, willing to compromise) and far less doctrinaire than his rhetoric might suggest. The net result is a myth that the reason that the GOP keeps losing Presidential elections is because the candidates are too moderate. If only they would present a real conservative platform, voters would flock to their messages.

There is an interesting social psychological theory called naive realism. The simplistic but basic idea is that we tend to think that we are in contact with reality so that those who disagree with us are either deluded, ignorant, or crazy. Sound like any political rhetoric you have heard? People tend to overestimate (sometimes wildly) the extent to which others agree with them. So, for example, we've heard a lot from right wing folks that the idea of gay marriage is wildly unpopular when in fact it's supported by a majority or plurality of voters (by small margins admittedly). Those who oppose abortion think that their position is held by far more people than is the case. So they are convinced that if a GOP candidate ran on a platform that endorsed their views, he would win handily because, well, everyone knows that abortion is wrong, that gay marriage is an abomination, that illegal immigration is leading to the downfall of civilization as we know it, that Muslims are evil, etc. Three points to make in that regard. First, liberals also overestimate support for their ideas (although typically not as much as conservatives). Second, a lot of these hot button issues are subject to framing effects -- shorthand for saying that how the question is phrased makes a big difference. So some ways of asking about abortion show more opposition than others. And third this over-estimation of the popularity of one's opinions is not a mystery. Most 0f us live with, work with, and socialize with people who are mostly just like us and who tend to share the same views. It's just as hard for a Northern CA liberal (say from Silicon Valley) to understand why an Indiana farmer has fairly conservative views as the reverse. Speaking personally, to the best of my knowledge, I only know well two Republican families, and we just don't talk about politics for obvious reasons.

In that regard, conservatives have made a bargain with the devil in supporting people like Rush, Glen Beck (and the other Fox "commentators"). It's not so much that they are conservative as the fact that they deliberately lie, distort more than most political commentators, and use inflammatory language (who wants to listen to a conservative who is reasonable?). These folks get many conservatives fired up and eager to show their displeasure with any form of moderation. It's comparatively rare to hear any GOP politician openly criticize these folks although privately many of them wish they would go away. Until we hear GOP candidates openly saying that Rush is crazy, he will continue to influence some voters and they will continue to lose elections. I quite appreciate that anyone who criticizes the crazies probably forfeits chances of being nominated, but there you are. Not my problem.

Finally the GOP primaries are rigged to lean conservative. When your first three primaries are Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, there's no percentage in being a moderate if you hope to still be a candidate in March.

GOV CALLS ON FEDS TO ACT ON ARMED GROUP

From the Daily Beast: "Oregon Gov. Kate Brown on Wednesday called on federal authorities to take action against the armed group occupying the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge. Brown told reporters at a news conference that she has expressed frustration over the standoff to the U.S. Department of Justice and the White House, adding that the situation is “absolutely intolerable and it must be resolved immediately.” Brown said she plans to ask federal officials to reimburse the state for the nearly half-million dollars the occupation has allegedly cost Oregon taxpayers. A spokeswoman for the governor said the cost includes paying for additional law-enforcement presence, overtime, travel reimbursement, lodging, and meals."

Typical politician!

Previous standoffs like Waco and Ruby Ridge that were "forced" ended in death and destruction. Anyone with an ounce of knowledge of psychology knows the best and safest practice is to wait and exhaust the subjects. They have the limited amounts of food and water. Their electricity is under the control of the outside parties. Wait for them to exhaust their resources and give up.

But no! Some politician gets their ego involved, and death and destruction ensues, on both sides. That last comment about the cost is a red herring. What is the cost of death, for both sides?

What a fool!

Jihadist Terror Attacks in the U.S.

For way too long I have listened to presidential hopefuls in 2015/2016 scare us about the dangers of radical jihadists in our country. They come in both flavors. You hear more from Republicans, because they all scream it. But that lady Democrat shrills the same thing. Just go to her website and listen to her plans to crush ISIS.

The media aids and abets. Most people are scared silly because of Paris and San Bernardino, because the media played the blood and gore, over and over, until everyone was scared.

Well, enough is enough. Because the risk is very, very, low. Nobody talks about the real numbers. Here they are:

Since 9/11 (that is, not counting 9/11, since that was a one-time, skewing event), the number of people that have been killed in the U.S. due to violent, jihadist attacks: 45. The number killed in far right violent attacks: 48. See the tables here.

So you want to include 9/11? OK. Including 9/11, there have been 3,380 terrorism related deaths in the U.S. In the same period, there have been 406,490 deaths due to gun violence (see here)

Now before you get revved up about your guns, I am not saying anything about the rights or wrongs of guns, as related to those deaths. Only pointing out relative risks.

In an average year, about 3 people are killed by jihadists. In an average year, 41,149 commit suicide, 33,636 are killed by firearms, 29,001 die due to alcohol, 47,005 die to drug overdose, 18,893 die of prescription opiate overdose, 10,574 die to heroin overdose, and 0 die from marijuana overdose (see here). And 32,719 die in auto accidents.

Come on people, get a grip! Worry about something appropriate, and stop listening to the media and the politicians!

President Obama's SOTU Address 2016, A Response, And My Response to the Response

I missed President Obama's last SOTU Address; I was tired, I had a headache, and I elected to sleep and read about it after. I was confident I could read a summary, or even the transcript, or watch a video, after the fact. Unfortunately, the first summery I read was Joel B. Pollak's editorial (it isn't a summary) "Fact Check: Top 10 Lies in Obama's State of the Union." I shouldn't have bothered. But I did, and so I felt compelled to reply. Actually, I should feel smart that I am bothering to debate a Harvard-trained attorney and political commentator, even if his "facts" aren't quite correct...

Note: The following are taken from Breitbart; I claim the "Fair-use" doctrine. Ask Pollak; he's the attorney.

Remember: These are all claimed to be lies by Pollak.

1. “ '[W]e’ve done all this while cutting our deficits by almost three-quarters.' This is pure fiction. Obama has doubled the national debt, and it’s not because he cut the deficit. Rather, he spent staggering amounts of money in his first months in office–which he assigns, dishonestly, to the previous fiscal year, under George W. Bush. He “cut” (i.e. spent more gradually) from that spending, but only under protest, after Republicans took the House in 2010."

Where do I start? With the numbers. Here are the numbers taken from OMB, the Office of Management and Budget.

Year	Surplus or Deficit, $	Surplus or Defecit, %GDP
2000	296.4	2.3
2001	156.7	1.2
2002	-189.6	-1.5
2003	-441.4	-3.3
2004	-470.1	-3.4
2005	-350.5	-2.5
2006	-264.1	-1.8
2007	-166.6	-1.1
2008	-459.4	-3.1
2009	-1,412.7	-9.8
2010	-1,279.2	-8.7
2011	-1,259.5	-8.5
2012	-1,034.0	-6.8
2013	-637.5	-4.1
2014	-447.7	-2.8
2015(estimate)	-531.0	-3.2
2016(estimate)	-424.5	-2.5

Gee, those numbers look terrible, especially in 2009-12. What was happening? Financial crisis? Who caused that? Obama?

Republicans say the stimulus and the spending it required was terrible, did nothing and failed. Democrats say it prevented another Great Depression. If you were out of work, you loved it if it gave you a new job. If it didn't, or if you had a job, you probably resented paying for it.

We will never get agreement on the need for all that spending.

But what is important, and the lie in Mr. Pollak's claim of an Obama lie, is this: regardless of the need for the spending, it was curtailed, and deficits were brought down.

Obama said the deficits were cut by three-quarters. Minus 1.4 Trillion to minus 400 million. -9.8% GDP to -2.4% GDP.

All the other interpretation that Pollak supplied was pure spin. Starting with an opinion and then fitting the numbers to suit his view. Or ignoring them, as the case may be.

2. “ 'Anyone claiming that America’s economy is in decline is peddling fiction.' With that line, Obama took a shot at his would-be Democratic successors, as well as his Republican critics. But the truth is that despite the slow recovery–the slowest since World War II–labor force participation is the lowest it has been in decades. Wages are stagnant, household incomes still have not recovered from the recession, and young people see a bleak future."

Where do I begin with this one? "Wages are stagnant". Yes, this is a big problem, especially for the middle class, of which I am happy to count myself. This has been a big stalking horse for the Republicans this year. But wages have been stagnant for a lot longer than Obama has been president. Look at the chart here. While worker productivity has been increasing linearly or better since 1945, wages leveled and have remained flat since roughly 1973. So this same charge should be shared with Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush I, Clinton and Bush II. Republican, Republican, Democrat, Republican, Republican, Democrat, Republican, and now Democrat. I don't think we can blame this solely on Obama.

"Young people see a bleak future". Maybe because they get told that by the media? The top ten hits to the query "Do young people see a bleak future?" on Google returned hits about youth in the UK, world, US, Gaza, and East Ukraine. I think the young all over the world are pessimistic right now. Did Obama do this to the whole world?

"Labor participation is the lowest it has been in decades". Here again a refer you to a chart. You will see that while labor participation in 2013 was 62.7% and trending down, it turned down from its peak in 2000. Who was the president that started driving it down? Further more, the labor participation rate in 2013 is right around the same as it started in that chart in 1978. Was the participation rate actually lower before that? Maybe Nixon and Ford had lower participation rates than Obama? We don't know, because the chart starts there.

I could go on and on, because Pollak does. A total of 10 "lies".

But I won't. I will get right to the point.

Pollak, just like hundreds of other politicians - and that's what he is, since he ran for Congress in the Illinois 9th district, and lost with only 31% of the vote, despite the fact he claims to be a member of the press - starts from his viewpoints and shows you only part of the picture, the part that proves his point. And that is what is so toxic in our current political environment (my beliefs). We have far too many people that will try to sell you on what they think, rather than looking at the facts as they are and then reaching a conclusion.

Sorry, I was trained as a scientist and work as a technician. I believe we would be much better off if we stopped to look at our problems (and we have many) objectively and then tried to figure out solutions, rather than the methodology of politicians, which is bass-ackwards: make the facts fit your views by selective examination and trimming of what doesn't fit your opinion.

I will go further. So long as we have professional politicians (of both parties/stripes) we will continue to have problems created by the politicians themselves. It's time we returned to the days of our founding fathers, when real people, doctors, engineers, merchants, left their home temporarily and served for a short period and then went home again. So long as we have this class of professional politicians who claim that government is too important and complicated to be left to amateurs we will continue to have people that screw up, obstruct and destroy our government and our country.