This is America - a year later

Is this your mother, your grandmother, your sister, your aunt?  Do you know where she is, how she survives?

Last year I wrote a post about Barbara, the woman who stands outside the building where I work, begging.  She is 75, which is 10 years older than my wife, and she is still there.

She has been hospitalized a couple times that I know of in the past year.  Once was for pneumonia, and I am not sure out the other.  It may have been after she was mugged.    Who mugs a 75 year old woman for the change she has managed to beg in the streets?

She is having more trouble getting around these days, and I no longer see her every day.  And when I do see her she is often using a walker, always at least using a cane.  I used to make sure I had some ones in my wallet, so I could always give her a dollar or two when I saw her.  But as she is able to make it out less frequently, I think perhaps it should be fives or tens now.

I have never seen her intoxicated, never smelled alcohol on her breath, so I suspect that her only crime against society was that she didn't make a lot of money.

If you have no children to take care of you, if you have the temerity to live past the age when you can be useful to the machine, then this is what the Republican Party has planned for you.  They are trying to drive down wages so that you will need to spend every penny they pay you to survive.  Then they will deride you for not saving.

Is this really the America you want?  If not, then fucking do something about it.

What Ron Paul would bring to the debate

For the most part I cannot stomach watching the Republican debates.  There have been way too many of them and they have been long on bullshit and short on substance.  That is because, for the most part the candidates themselves are long on bullshit and short on substance.  The exception has been Ron Paul.

Let me say that much that he has to say is completely wrong.  If his economic policies were every implemented, our slide into feudalism would be completed.  It would be like Europe during the dark ages.  But on the libertarian side, he does get some things right.

But this is my thought.  Both Paul and Obama are intelligent men.  And I suspect a debate between these two would expose once and for all the issues that the American people really need to think about.  It is about what kind of country that we intend to be.

What should the role of government be?  What should the role of business be?  And just as important, what has worked, for the benefit of us all, and what has proved to be a failure?  All this matters, all this needs to be discussed, and I think that, during a debate between these two, that would happen.

How would Obama respond to Paul's observations on the failure of the War on Drugs, of his contention that the Patriot Act is unconstitutional and contrary to all our ideals as Americans?  How would Paul respond the  historical evidence that the middle class has prospered and grown the most during the periods that our tax code was most progressive, and that regulating business conduct had kept us out of this kind of economic malaise since the Great Depression?  These are just a few of the issues where it is important that both sides be heard so that informed choices can be made.

Perhaps I am being naive, but I believe that Paul being the Republican nominee would raise the level of discourse, and allow the real issues facing us to be discussed and debated.  Any one of the other Republican candidates would be running on slogans and personality and character assassination.  Either way, Obama gets re-elected, but a real debate about real issues would do much to elevate the American consciousness on the decisions that lay before us.

There is a war of ideas going in in this country, but the right is doing it's best to conceal what those ideas really are from the public at large.  I think this would get those ideas out in the open.

What Protect IP is really about

The new media has many people scared.  It has the oligarchy scared.  Anyone with a cell phone can record a video of police brutality, of a demonstration of thousands of people, of any event that they would prefer to marginalize, to deny.  But what really makes that an issue is that the video may end up on a blog or on Utube and be viewed by millions of people.

It is really very simple.  If the oligarchy can control what you see and hear, then they can shape what you see as true.  If there are other sources of information that will show you what is really happening, then they lose that control.  Hence, the Protect IP act.

The pretext of this is protecting intellectual property.  That is a worthy goal.  If you put your sweat and effort into producing something, then you expect to be able to reap the rewards.  So if you produce a film, or music, or a novel, then you have a right to expect that someone else will not copy it and sell it, or even give it away.  That is what copyrights are all about.

Now lets look for a moment at the new media,. and how it works.  Think of any of the major alternative news sources, like the Huffington Post or the Daily Kos, or even the quasi mainstream source like yahoo news.  All of them accept commentary, they allow readers to voice their opinions relative to what they have read.  What happens if a commenter posts something quoting a copyrighted source?

Well, under Protect IP, not only is the blog author responsible, so is the web host.  This blog here is hosted by Google, so if you post a comment that someone feels is infringing on a copyright then Google becomes responsible for shutting this site down.  Google becomes the police and the mere complaint by someone requires that this site be shut down.  Now the burden of proof is on me to prove I should be allowed to continue.

Note, I didn't say the the offending content has to be removed, I said Google has to shut me down.  And someone complaining about copyright infringement does not have to prove it to Google, there is no reasonable doubt standard or preponderance of evidence standard that would be necessary in a court of law.  That burden falls on me to justify why my site should be reopened.

Protect IP is about suppressing the truth and nothing else.  That is why it must be defeated.  But, should it become law, then the progressives of this country should invoke another law, the law of unintended consequences.

Any web site which is engaged in soliciting funds for right wing causes, and right wing candidates, should be challenged.  Claims of copyright infringement should flood the service providers, placing them into a constant battle to defend their web sites.  Add to that list the sites of anyone who voted for the law. 

The same rules?

Perhaps someone can explain this to me.

We on the left, would like to limit the influence of corporations and their money, on electoral politics.  Defining a corporation as a person, with all the rights under the constitution afforded a person just seems absurd.  So the struggle goes on to try and rein them in.

Those on the right, would like to limit the influence of unions and their money on electoral politics.  They would be aghast if a union were treated as a person.

How are these two entities different?  Both are composed of people who are the ownership/membership.  Both have a hierarchy that is elected by the ownership/membership to make the day to day decision of operation as well as decisions about political contributions and lobbying.

So why are unions held to a higher standard?
There is never any talk about limiting political activity of a corporation based upon the preferences of an individual shareholder.  And yet the right would say that a union member should be able to object to political contributions made from his or her dues.
When shareholders vote on electing members of the board, or any other business presented to the shareholders for a vote, shares not voting are never characterized as 'no' votes.
Having union dues withheld from your paycheck is no different from having your 401K investment withheld from your paycheck.  Neither is to the benefit of the employer, they are for the benefit of the employee, and yet one is attacked while the other is not.

So here is my suggestion.  In all legislation where there is an attempt to muzzle the unions, the progressives should be fighting tooth and nail to insert 'and corporations' into the text.  Will they fail?  Sure they will.  But at least they will be highlighting the hypocrisy of the right.

Whether or not you can win is not what defines if a fight is worthwhile.  The right relies upon the public not understanding what they are really about.  So every opportunity must be taken to show them for their true colors.

How it would play out here: Part two

When I was growing up, the army was where you went if you had no idea what you wanted to do with your life.  If you were not smart enough for college, you just wanted to get away from home while you figured out what you wanted to do with your life, or you wanted to get away from the high school girlfriend who expected you to marry her, the army was sort of a catch-all.  Then came the Vietnam War.

That war had been around for a while, but it was under the radar of most Americans.  Our military commitment there had been relatively small.  As it grew and grew, and started chewing up and spitting out in pieces more and more of our young men, attitudes toward the army changed.  Eventually the draft was eliminated, and the all volunteer, the 'professional' army emerged.

In Egypt, the military decided that it was not there job to attack civilians to prop up a corrupt regime. In Libya, many in the military defected to the opposition, and actively supported the overthrow of that regime.  What would happen here?

One need only look at the behavior of the police to get a picture of how the military would respond in this country.  They show up at the Occupy Wall street demonstrations in riot gear, even though the demonstrations have been almost universally peaceful.  Of course there have been isolated incidents of trouble, but nothing more than any police officer on a regular patrol might encounter.  And they do not wear riot gear on patrol.

The police are essentially a closed culture.  Protecting each other is the highest law, far more important than protecting you and I or the law.  Why do you think police Internal Affairs units are looked down on by other officers?  It is because they are perceived (an not always correctly) as placing the law above that 'highest law'.

With the advent of the 'professional' army, the same exists there.  Yes, unemployment has helped the military swell it's ranks, but for the most part you have a military that is completely separated from society as a whole.  They will follow orders, even if it means killing unarmed civilians.

In the military, unit cohesion is a matter of life and death.  A military unit that does not work together is ineffective.  Each individual needs to be able to trust that the person beside him will do his job.  But that is not what I am talking about here.  Especially in the wars that we have fought most recently, it has never been about protecting America, defending freedom, or any of that nonsense.  It has been about getting a job done and getting out alive.

Because if soldiers were encouraged to think too much about what the job actually is, then they might find themselves hesitating at just the wrong time.  They might even refuse to follow some orders, or report to someone on some of the things they have seen.

Just following orders, as the Germans said at Nuremberg, is alive and well in the US military.  This is by design, as more and more they are being asked to do things that have nothing to do with safeguarding our country.  So if a movement like Occupy Wall Street starts to really threaten the 1%, and the military gets involved, do not expect any sympathy from them.  It has been drilled out of them.

An observation

I was reading a article on the Daily Kos today, and while the entire article was worthwhile, there was one point it make that stuck in my mind more than the others.  The author said that the markets of today, rather than being vehicles for the creation of wealth, are now vehicles for the concentration of wealth.

That sounds very much like the feudalism of the middle ages.  A small oligarchy which produced nothing controlled most of the wealth.  Food and clothing was produced and consumed, but the society as a whole was stagnant.  Innovation of any sort was suspect as it had the potential of challenging either the interests of the ruling class or those of the church.  Literacy was the exception, rather than the norm, even among the ruling classes.

Which is exactly where we seem to be going.  The public school system is being systematically dismantled, science is being subjugated to ideology, the middle class is being driven to extinction, and ownership of essentially everything is slowly being concentrated into fewer and fewer hands.  Our own home grown version of the Taliban seeks to exercise their control over more and more aspect of our lives.

The Roman empire is crumbling, and the new nobility stands ready to resume their rightful station.

How would it play out here

I was watching the live video feed from Al Jezeera English on the web a while ago, watching the events in Libya unfold as the rebels took Tripoli.  I thought about Egypt, I thought about the other places where events like this have occurred, even going back to the collapse of the Soviet Union.

So a couple of thoughts crossed my mind.  Like how bad would if have to get, before something like that happened here?  And if it did, would enough of our military decide to side with the people to actually put some muscle behind a popular uprising?

It is important to note that in each of the Arab countries with a successful uprising, the government unintentionally turned what were essentially demonstrations of discontent into a revolution by the virulence of their response.  If Gaddafi had, for example, recognized that the demonstrators had legitimate grievances, even if very little changed, he probably would still be in power.

The appearance of sympathy and some token concessions would likely have blunted the anger of the populace.  Instead he proved to them that they were right by his violent response.  It is possible to make the population cower in submission, but it has become harder to do in the age of the internet and social networking.

Demonstrations of any size against the status quo in this country are usually downplayed, while tiny demonstrations in favor or right wing causes are treated as major events.  You need look no further than Minnesota where massive demonstrations in support of organized labor and a dozen tea party members with signs across the street were given equal weight by the mainstream media.   

So the tactic in this country would be very different, it would be to marginalize the demonstrators, try and convince each group that they represented a tiny segment of the population.  I attended a large demonstration in San Francisco before the invasion of Iraq, and one person had a since that was prophetic.  It read "Remember what you see here, because they will lie about it on the news".  And it was very true. Despite massive demonstrations all across the country, the anti-war sentiment was marginalized in the media.

So what would it take?  How many people out of work, how many families tossed onto the streets before there would be enough opposition that the oligarchy feels threatened? 

You only need look to the early union movements to see what has happened in the past.  As recently as 1920, there was the Anaconda Road Massacre where company guards fired on unarmed miners, shooting 17 in the back.  Or look at the Colorado Labor wars of 1902-1903, where the military was used to violently suppress striking miners.  Look to Herbert Hoover's reaction to the Bonus March of World War I Veterans, which eventually led to his downfall and the election of FDR.

In many homes around the country, there is an air of quiet desperation.  How long does this continue, when does the pot boil over?  And on who's side would the military end up?

When they talk about high US Taxes

The right is always talking about high US corporate tax rates.  You could compare us to places that have legalized slavery and always make us look uncompetitive.  Instead lets compare us to a successful industrialized country, one that is essentially eating our lunch in the marketplace.  Let's look at Germany.

First let's start with the VAT (Value Added Tax).  That is essentially a sales tax, that is tacked on to each transactions at each level.  The rate is generally 19% but for certain foods, books, magazines, flowers, some transportation, it is 7%.  And some things are exempt.  Doctors do not charge VAT tax, nor do public theaters, museums.  This is not a complete list of things that have a reduced or waived VAT tax, but you get the idea.

The tax is charged by the seller. The manufacturer pays it on the raw materials they buy.  The distributor pays it on the finished goods they buy, the consumer pays it.

Let's take the case of the manufacturer.  On a quarterly basis they will pay the tax that they charged to their distributors, minus the tax they paid buying raw materials.

Then there is the corporate tax rate.  According to taxrates.cc the combined (federal and local) tax rate for corporations is 33.3%.  This is actually a rough summary of three different taxes applied to corporate income.  And unlike US corporations, German corporations are taxed on their world wide income, minus of course any taxes paid on income in other countries.  So they cannot hide their income in low tax countries.

Now let's talk about the other two facets of this.  How are German companies doing under this burden, and what do the German people get for their money?

Well, you know that in manufacturing and exports, they are beating us in the marketplace and have been for years.  So paying employees a decent wage, a mandatory 25 vacation days, and taxes on their world wide income does not seem to have stoped them from doing well.  And look at CEO salaries, well in 2009 Deutches Bank CEO Josef Ackermann had a total compensation 9.55 million euros.  He was the higest paid CEO in Germany that year.  It does not compare to some of the packages US CEOs were getting in that same year, but he is still getting rich.

And what do the people of Germany get for these taxes?  How about universal health care, pensions, and tax-funded child, housing, and educational allowances?

So our taxe rates are not, and never have been what is killing our manufacturing, destroying our middle class.  Rather it is the blind faith that if you only appease the oligarchy that owns this country enough, that they will eventually share a few crums with the rest of us. 

You want to see jobs moving back to this country?  Stop giving businesses a free ride to hide their profits overseas forever. When you give them economic incentives to send your job overseas, what do you expect?

Pension Reform - the San Francisco Treat

There is a new catch phrase, and it is pension reform.  Pension reform is like tort reform, who's primary purpose it to make it harder for people injured by neglect or even deliberately faulty designs to hold businesses accountable.  Pension reform is another example of kick em when they are down.

The City and County of San Francisco will have two competing pension reform measures on the ballot, each of them trying to outdo the other on screwing city employees.  Before I describe them, let's talk a little about the bargain that city and county workers everywhere accept when they go to work.

• You will accept less pay than your counterparts in private industry.
• You will work in a bureaucracy that whose rules and working conditions will always lag those of private industry.  Change takes so long that you will always be using obsolete practices.
• You will be led by managers who's sole qualification is that they are a friend of the mayor a supervisor or the son or daughter of a somebody's big campaign contributor.  And they will never have to deal with the consequences of their decisions because:
• Every few years someone new is elected and all those managers will change, and you start all over again trying to explain to them what it is the department is supposed to do.

In exchange, you will get decent benefits and a decent pension.  The pension is a defined benefit plan, meaning that how much you will receive is based upon a formula that factors is the age at which you retire, the number of years you worked, and what you were paid while you worked.  It allows you to plan your retirement, because you can know what your income will be. 

So now that you know the terms of the bargain, let's see what our politicians have come up with.

First, they will increase how much of your salary they will take for to help cover the cost of your pension.  The more you make, the higher percentage they will take.  This could actually result in a raise reducing your take home pay.

Second, they will no longer count all of your salary when figuring your pension.  For a long time overtime has been excluded from most plans, and with good reason.  You don't want to encourage people to game the system and tack on a bunch of overtime in their last year or two of employment to goose up their pension.  But under these plans, you stop accruing benefits after a specified number of hours each year.

Third, they will modify the benefit calculations, so that the amount of your income that the pension will replace when you retire will be less.

Fourth,  there will be some cost of living adjustments for retirees, widows, and orphans that can just disappear.  If the Retirement Board and the actuaries decide there is not enough money in the trust fund to increase your pension a specified percentage, not only will they not pay it, but they will take away the cost of living adjustments they have been giving you over the years.  The adjustment is specified at 3-1/2 percent.  If there is enough money in the trust fund to pay only a 3 percent increase, they not only will not pay any increase, but they will take away all the increases from previous years.  This could be an unexpected pay cut of 10, 20 percent or more, depending upon how long you have been receiving it.

Finally, when times are hard, and the city is asking you to take unpaid time off, and pay cuts (while of course the politicians are not cutting their own pay), then they will raise the amount you must contribute to your pension.  So first they cut your pay, and then they take more of what's left.

There you have it, pension reform in a nutshell.

If the mantra were true

Over and over you here the right saying you don't raise taxes during a recession.  And on the surface, it even sounds like it might make sense.  After all, the last thing you want to do in the middle of a recession is to take money out of circulation, have people spending less.

Most of your basic necessities, you know, food, clothing, utilities, gas, those are all spent locally.  Even if most of the manufactured items were made elsewhere by slave labor, at least someone in the country is making a buck on it.

The people who's taxes they don't want to raise are the one's who are not going to spend it anyway. All of their basic needs are already covered, and most of their luxury desires are too.  They already have the boat.  And if they do spend it will not be on stuff that is going to have any impact on the US economy.

Because when you get beyond that stuff, well hiring another illegal alien to clean your toilets does not do all that much for our economy.  Nor does investing in more slave labor factories in countries with no worker protections, no safety standards, no child labor laws do much to pull us out of this.

Now contrast with their other big passion, cutting government spending.  What do you think happens when you cut government spending?  You take money away from people who are going to spend essentially all of it here in this country.  Every dollar you cut ripples through the economy many times.  So that completely belies the argument that they are doing this for the economy.

Of course there are exceptions, we could stop paying mercenaries in Afghanistan, the gold-plated benefits our elected representatives grant themselves could be cut back to something comparable to what the rest of us have to live with.  But that is not what they want to cut. They would cut meat inspectors and the FDA and other agencies whose responsibility is protecting you and your interests.

It really does come down to this.  The Republican party, and many Blue Dog Democrats, work for their corporate masters and only their corporate masters.  And they do not need the US economy to make money.  They don't need you.

What they mean by entitlements

Whenever you hear the deficit being discussed, you hear the party on the right discussing entitlement reform, or reducing entitlements.  Sadly, you also hear some of this crap coming from the lips of those who have promised to protect us.  So let's talk a little bit about what they are really talking about.

First of all, who do you think is in that room while they are negotiating what should be cut and what should not be cut.  Let me give you a hint.  There is nobody in that room that will ever need medicare or social security.  They are vested in the federal health and retirement plans in just 5 years.  These are the same plans that they would like to strip from people who do actual work. And of course there is nobody in that room with a net worth of less than a million dollars. 

So, in their viewpoint, what are entitlements?  That's easy, that is anything the government does that benefits you, that does not also benefit them.  They don't need social security or medicare.  They must be entitlements.  Unemployment benefits?   Same thing.  How about Aid to Families with Dependent Children, WIC, food stamps, college grants (or public education in any form), veterans benefits?  None that applies to them.

What you will not hear them talking about is them raising their own taxes, cutting their own salaries and benefits.  Nor will you see them cutting out the loopholes and tax giveaways that their corporate masters receive.

You don't matter.  Your role in this picture is to provide cheap labor then hurry up and die.  And they will raise the specter of welfare mothers cranking out children to increase their income or overpaid government employees (only the ones not in the room) to convince you that they are only taking food out of the mouths of the undeserving.  But of course to them, the undeserving is you.

And if you buy into that, then you deserve what you get.

Revival of the Whipping Boy

Today Rupert Murdoch revealed a little more of his belief system to the world.  The working class does not matter at all.  Two hundred people lost their jobs, while the managers who directed them walked free.  But that is how he thinks.  He will toss those people aside like so much garbage, he wants to buy Sky television.  

How much those people had anything to do with the policies that have publicly embarrassed him (for getting caught, you know he has no moral qualms what was done) is questionable.  They are not the policy makers.  But that is why they are so disposable. 

Those of you who watch and believe what you see on Fox News, that is how he thinks about you too.

If corporations are just like people

Over the years there have been supreme court decisions that have looked at corporations as having similar rights (but somehow, none of the responsibilities) of a person.  Well, perhaps we should take that to the next step.  If they are a person, perhaps they should be treated more like a person.

Interest deductions?  We get to deduct our home mortgages, so I guess it is fair that you can deduct the interest on your factories and office buildings.  And if you would like to take out a line of credit on those, well that would be deductible too.  But interest on bonds, and other sources of capital?  Well when we whip out the credit card to make purchases, or even the loan we take out to but a new car, now of that is written off our taxes, so why should it be written off yours?

Now if I own a small business, even as a sole proprietorship, I can write off the salaries and benefits and taxes I pay to and on behalf of my employees, so those would be remain legitimate deductions.  How about dividends?  Well, using the sole proprietorship model (and admittedly bending it some), any money I take out of the company is income to me, and I pay taxes, social security, all that stuff.  So dividends are just income to the owner, and the owners should pay the same taxes as any other business owner pays on income from their business.

But wouldn't that defeat the whole purpose of the corporation?  Bullshit.  The purpose of a corporation is to permit the formation of capital while limiting the liability of the investors to the money they put in.  Put another way, if you open a bar, and that bar runs up a pile of debts, well, you have run up a pile of debts.  Your creditors can go after your bank account, your house, your car, anything you own.  If a corporation runs up a pile of debts, the creditors can look only to the assets of that corporation.

The morons on the right are always talking about running the government the way you run your family budget, as though that made any sense at all.  So let's test out their theory.  We will require that corporations be run that way, and if it works, well then maybe we will consider running the government that way.

The new economic model

Anyone who is paying any attention know that the recent attacks on Planned Parenthood have nothing to do with abortion and the sanctity of human life.  Abortions are not the main purpose of Planned Parenthood.  The main purpose is women's health and birth control.  But taken in context will all of the other actions of the right, it makes perfect sense.

Let's try to summarize the current Republican agenda.

• Implement laws to make it harder for the poor to vote, as evidenced by a spate of voter suppression laws being passed in Republican controlled states.
• Under the guise of 'torte reform', make it harder for individuals to hold businesses accountable for their actions.
• Attack public education, stripping both primary and secondary education of funding, demonize underpaid teachers, resulting in less educational opportunity for all but the wealthy.
• De-fund organizations that provide birth control, and cancer screenings for women.
• Remove 'restrictive' regulations on business, like child labor laws, or those that protect worker safety, food safety, or the air you breath, the water you drink.
• Strip workers of their rights to collectively bargain.

 But if you think about it, this all makes sense.  In a feudalistic society, the purpose of the peasants are to supply labor and soldiers.  The value of women is to produce children and then hurry up and die so that your workers do not waste time caring for them in their old age.  The more children they produce, the cheaper your labor costs are.  And if you disenfranchise them, both by taking away their vote, and their rights to organize, they will not be able to do anything about it.

And if you have plenty of them, you don't have to worry if too many of them are poisoned on the job or die in the mines.  There are plenty more where they came from.

Of course, you will still need a tiny middle class.  Someone has to be the physicians and the engineers and scientists who take care of the needs of the landed gentry.  But you don't need many of them.  And knowing they could be tossed back into the pile of peasantry at any moment should make them easy to control.

This model has worked for the benefit of the ruling class in one form or another for thousands of years.  You think our little 200+ year experiment is viewed as anything except a fluke by those on the right?  Think again.  You have a front row seat to what has happened to other social experiments of the past, when the old guard decides that enough is enough.

Unless you decide to do something about it.

A small jab at hypocrisy

I am sure it came as no surprise when it was revealed that Teahaddist darling and stimulus critic Michele Bachmann sent a letter to Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack thanking him for the use of stimulus money to help support the Minnesota pork industry, and encouraging him to spend more.  After all, who doesn't expect hypocrisy from a politician?

Now it is my understanding, that in many cases, exactly where money will be spent is not in the legislation itself, there is considerable flexibility by the federal agencies that are disbursing the money.  So how about this?

If you as a congressman voted against it, then none of the money goes to your district.  If both of the state's senators voted against it, skip that state.   You want to take credit for bringing home the bacon, then actually help bring it home.  Time to play a little hardball.

When Dell's mistake is your problem

My wife's printer is running low on ink, so I went onto the Dell website to order more. Yeah, their ink is over-priced but it is convenient.  We had checked a couple of local stores, and none of them carried the specific size cartridges (do they make so many different types to discourage after-market ink?) that we needed.

The following week I received this in an email from Dell:

Dear Customer,We're sorry but your order will take longer to fulfill than previously communicated and is now scheduled to be delivered on or before 6/8/2011

Because we did not meet the date previously communicated to you, we need your permission today to continue your order with this new date. If we do not receive your permission, the Federal Trade Commission requires that we cancel your order.
I also received several robo-calls repeating the same message. 

Well my wife has a lot of stuff to print between now and when she is leaving on a trip, so I decided to look around online and see if I could find someone else that would have compatible ink.  I found some and ordered it.  It was cheaper and faster too.

So just to be sure, I went online to Dell, to 'Order Status', and selected the 'Cancel' link.  After all, I had just bought enough ink for the next year, who knows if the printer will even live past that.

Two days later, on the same day my ink arrived from the alternative supplier, an email came from Dell saying they had shipped my order.

Needless to say, I was pissed.  I called them and they started to tell me how I could return it for a full refund.  My response was essentially this.  This is your mistake, not mine, your problem, not mine.  You fix it.  Call FedEx and tell them to cancel the shipment, or don't, but I'm not paying for it.  I called my credit card company, and they had not billed me.  I figured I would be nice and leave a note on the door to tell FedEx that I was refusing the shipment, and that would be the end of the it.

Last night my wife noticed that they had billed us.  She goes online to check the credit cards regularly.  I called the credit card company and told them that this was a fraudulent charge, and I am disputing it.  Their response was "Have you returned the merchandise yet?".  They are essentially siding with Dell, that is is my problem not Dell's.  This is what the FTC Website says about this:

Whether or not the Rule is involved, in any approval or other sale you must obtain the customer’s prior express agreement to receive the merchandise. Otherwise the merchandise may be treated as unordered merchandise. It is unlawful to:

1. Send any merchandise by any means without the express request of the recipient (unless the merchandise is clearly identified as a gift, free sample, or the like); or,
2. Try to obtain payment for or the return of the unordered merchandise.

I run a business.  Sometimes I make a mistake.  But here is the difference.  If it is my mistake, I own it.  My customer will not pay for my mistakes, I will.

Missed opportunity

A lot of people, left and right will disagree with me, but the killing of Osama bin Laden was the loss of a tremendous opportunity.  We lost the opportunity to demonstrate to the world not only that we are strong enough to win, but that we deserve to win.

Returning him to the United States in shackles, making him stand trial in the full public eye, would have demonstrated to the world that we are not only strong, but just.  Yes, it would have been a magnet for trouble.  His presence would have incited radical Muslims to try and free him, prolonged the ordeal not only for him but for all of us,  It would have been messy and a pain in the ass.  But guess what, that is what justice is.

He would have been exposed to the world for what he is, in the way releasing home videos never will.  And our insistence that he stand trail would have been a demonstration to the world that we are a nation of laws, even when those laws are inconvenient.  Essentially, we would be telling the world that George Bush and Dick Chaney do not represent the United States, that we are better than that.

Now having said that, I do not fault the military who carried out the execution.  I don't know what their real order were, but given the circumstances, a covert mission in a fortified facility, I believe that they are justified at the slightest hint of danger to open fire.  They found weapons caches and barricades inside the compound, it is not unreasonable to expect Resistance.  So if somebody has to leave in a body bag, I would rather it be Bin Laden than one of our troops.


Still, if Bin Laden had been arraigned on Tuesday morning in front of a judge, that would have sent a powerful message to the whole world.  It would have told them that although we are the most powerful military force in the world, we are not a lynch mob.  We practice what we preach.

But it will never happen

I was reading an article online today. about the passengers that airline employees most dislike.  One of them was people who shout and complain, who become belligerent, when they are getting bumped.  As those it was perfectly OK for the airline to sell something they don't actually own (a seat they have sold to someone else) even though if you or I did the same thing that would be fraud.

Now it is in the airline's best interest to leave the airport full.  Actually, that is not completely true.  I have read that for many types of aircraft, they actually make more money with a couple of empty seats. The amount of additional fuel they use flying completely full is not paid for by the fares paid by those last few passengers.  But for arguments sake, let's just say full.

So they want to leave full, and they done want last minute cancellation cause them to leave half empty.  So they sell more seats than they have, and somebody gets screwed.  But let's look at it a different was.  Not completely one-sided, just different.

Have you ever bought a non-refundable airline ticket?  The airline is requiring that your travel plans be cast in stone, or you forfeit your money.  So that should work both ways.  It is simple.

If the ticket is non-refundable, then you own that seat.  If you miss the plane, the airline cannot sell it to someone else unless they are going to give you back your money.  If they only get half what you paid, you get half back.  If they get twice what you paid, you get all your money back, and the airline gets to keep the difference.  And if they can't sell it, you lose all your money and they use a little less fuel.  Isn't that fair for everyone?


And since you own the rights to that seat, you cannot be bumped.  They want to overbook, they do it only with seats that are refundable.  You buy a refundable seat, you do so knowing the risks.


How about some of the airlines that don't treat you like shit?  Even if a Southwest ticket is non-refundable, they let you change it for a different flight.  You only pay the different in the cost between the old and new ticket.  You do not want to punish a company for treating you fairly.  So let's add a couple more caveats.

Say even a refundable ticket becomes non-refundable 48 hours before your flight is due to depart.  Maybe 5 days for international flights.  And after that point, you have to pay for the ticket if you cancel and the airline does not re-sell it, and you cannot be bumped.

Yes the airlines have been screwing their customers forever, but that doesn't mean the rules should be revised to screw them.  We just need a little balance.

A modest proposal

As I was driving in to work this morning, one of the radio shows I listen to was talking about a caller who had said that $250,000 a year is not really all that much.  This from the same people that say a teacher making $50,000 is greedy and overpaid.  It is time for a small dose of reality, and I think I know how it can be accomplished.

• Members of congress and the senate would no longer be paid by the federal government, but by the states they represent.
• The salaries of U.S. Representatives would be fixed at the median income for a K-12 public school teacher in their home state.  Their benefit packages would also be the same.
• The salaries of U.S. Senators would be fixed at the median income for public high school principals in their home state.  They too would recieve the same benefit packages.
• There would be no federal retirement for members of congress or the senate, rather they would participate in the same plan as the teachers in their home state.
• In recognition of the cost of maintaining two residences, the elected representatives would qualify for Section 8 housing in our nation's capital.

OK, it will never happen.  Because if it did, then our elected representatives would have to find someone else to demonize other than teachers and the working poor.

Another take on "freedom isn't free"

You hear that a lot, "Freedom isn't free".  That is the excuse you hear all the time for letting the government listen in on your phone calls, torture suspects, and arrest and threaten people without a warrant, and lie to you every day.

But that is not what I think about when I hear that.  When I hear that phrase, a completely different thought comes into my mind.

Freedom is not for the timid.  By that I do not mean that a timid individual has no place in a free society, but that society as a whole cannot be timid.  Freedom is dangerous.  In a free society, bad people will do bad things, and it is the responsibility of society to punish them for those bad things.  But until they have actually done something bad, they are just free people in a free society.

But what about....there are a whole lot of those.  And the answer is the same.  You want to be free, you have to give that freedom to everyone else.  And that means big brother is not constantly stepping in to prevent someone from hurting you.

Does that mean they government cannot tap the phones of organized crime or suspected terrorists?  Of course not.  But it does mean they have to stand up in front of a judge and lay out a real reason why they should be allowed to.

Would we miss some threats, if the government could not be constantly mining all of your cell phone calls and emails for key words and patterns?  Probably yes, although not as many as the government would like you to believe.  But you know what?  That is the price of freedom.  That is what freedom not being free really means.

There really are only two choices.  A free society, or a police state.  Yeah, you can put a pretty face on a police state, make most people feel like they are mostly free, but it is all a facade.  You are free or you are not.  And it takes courage to be free.  The politicians who write things like the Patriot Act are counting on you been too much of a coward to object.

Nuclear Power and the free market

There has been a lot of talk about our need to be getting more of our electricity from nuclear power, and of course a lot of people raising concerns in view of what has been happening in Japan.  But for all you free market get the government off our back types, there is one more tiny little gotcha.

A lot of the free market types (except for the tiny percentage that is ultra rich, who are living off your back, and your tax dollars) believe in self reliance.  That means taking responsibility for your actions, and the consequences of those actions.  Sometimes you take risks and you lose, and you suffer those losses.  This is essentially the way the rapidly diminishing middle class lives today.

But when you are talking about nuclear power, there is a different set of rules.  The Price-Anderson Nuclear Industries Indemnity Act limits the liability of the operators and builders of these power plants.  And the government offers loan guarantees for the construction of new ones.  These were part of the Energy Policy Act of 2005, and there has been a proposal by the Obama administration to expand them significantly.

So I pose these questions.

• If they are really safe, and it is the intent of the operators to operate them in a safe manner, then why can they not purchase private insurance.  Why are they unwilling to accept the consequences of their own actions?  
• If the consequences of their actions are limited by law, what is their incentive to not cut corners?  After all, if they screw up, you pay for it, not them
• If nuclear power plants are such a good bet, why cannot the money be found on the private market?

So all of you rugged individualist types, how does the idea of subsidizing a power plant on the other side of the county with your tax dollars sound to you? 

A small step for a more polite society

I had occasion to got to Kohls department store today, to pick up some dress shirts for work.  I am mentioning the store not because they are unique to this practice, only because it just happened there.  I know Target does it too.

There were three registers open and six to eight people in each line.  The lines were not moving quickly.  Then the cashier rung up the woman about four customers in front of me.  A big notice on the display at the check stand told the woman that she could receive an additional twenty percent off if she applied for a Kohls credit card.  The cashier reinforced that idea with her own pitch.  The woman said yes.

For the next ten minutes, that line did not move.  I moved to another line, and was finished with my purchases while that woman (and of course the people behind her) was still waiting for approval of her card.  When my cashier told me I could receive an additional twenty percent off if I applied for a Kohls credit card this was my reply.

"I cannot imagine being so rude as to make the people behind me wait in line while I apply for a credit card, and I find it offensive that you as a store would encourage such rude, antisocial behavior."

So next time you are offered a discount if you will inconvenience the people waiting behind you, tell them the same thing.  If enough people say that, perhaps the customer behind you will think twice before being so rude, and maybe, just maybe, the stores will find a less offensive way of drumming up credit card business.

It has always been here

As was true in Europe, there has always been class warfare in the United States.  The difference is that in this country it has been, for the most part, a one-sided fight.  The middle and lower classes have always been pitted against each other, made to fight over the same scraps.  It is another variation of the game of 'blame the victim'.

When Malcolm X suggested that blacks should respond to violence against them by having guns to defend themselves, that was called advocating violence.  When someone points out that the disparity between the ultra rich and everyone else in society is the largest it has ever been, they are 'instigating class warfare'.

Think about it this way.  When was the middle class was growing, when people were moving out of poverty into the middle class?  What is different about then, than now?

• The income tax rates were higher, particularly for the most wealthy
• Inheritance taxes were higher, which, despite the rhetoric, had little impact on the lives of ordinary Americans.  The tax has never applied to the passing of an estate between a husband and wife, and the amount excluded from taxation for everyone else in 2001 (the earliest date I found in a very brief internet search) was $675,000.
• There were real limits on how many media outlets in the same market a single company could own, so that a real diversity of voices existed.  One or two companies did not control all you see and hear.
• Your tax dollars were not subsidizing the shipment of your job overseas.

Was life worse for you then?  Were your kids likely to find decent jobs when they graduated from college?  Could you actually afford to send them to college without having to bankrupt yourself or make your child hang debt to last the rest of their life around their neck?

Yes, there is class warfare going on..  And we are losing.

Checking my kid's homework is too hard, let's blame the teacher

You read all about declining graduation high school rates and how hard it is get rid of bad teachers.  Couple that with complaints about them being over paid, and having bloated benefit packages.  And while you're at it, you can blame them for not doing a good job of instilling your kids with good values, a strong work ethic. Wait a minute, that was your job.  Oh, whatever.

Getting kids to graduate is not the teacher's job, it is your job.  It is the teacher's job to give them the information, and the work they need to make sure they learn it.  It is your job as a parent to make sure they do the work.

And on the subject of compensation, who can name another job requiring that much education, and that many hours of work that pays so little?  You do realize that preparing lesson plans, grading Junior's papers, and a lot of times going out and buying classroom materials with your own money is all time spent outside of the classroom?

So if you want to make sure your child is one of those statistics that cannot finish high school, let alone go to college, here is my prescription.

• Don't check their homework to see if it is right, or if they even did it.
• Make it clear, in the example that you set for them, that their goal in life should be to do as little as possible.  They should not find any honor or self satisfaction in doing something well, it is just about getting by with as little effort as possible.
• Remind them that their teachers are lazy, overpaid incompetents, and they should not pay any attention to them.
• Make sure they know how bad you think their school is.  Give them an excuse to fail..It is not their fault, and it certainly isn't yours.
• And finally, don't read.  Spend your free time camped in front of the TV, the remote firmly in your hand.  If you read you may be exposed to ideas.  That might make you think, and we all know thinking is dangerous.

An after you have carefully followed that recipe, blame the lazy, overpaid, incompetent teacher for your child's failure to finish high school.