Finally Happened, Homebrew Is Cheaper Than Gas

I don't know about all of you home brewers, but home brew is finally cheaper than gas. Our gas just went up to $3.49/gal. I knew this day would come and couldn't wait. Now I have a much better reason for laying out on the deck drinking home brew rather than driving to work. I actually save money by staying home and drinking home brew. I now don't have to pay any income tax because I don't have any income. I don't have to pay my medical bills because I don't have a job. I get food stamps for every thing except the sinful things like beer. I make my own home brew so that is not a big problem. I have already stopped making house payments since it will take over 5 years to get me out of this nice house with all the Obama programs for poor people like me and by then my liver will be gone. One nice thing is that they can't turn my water off due to health code. You know that I will still need water to make my home brew. I have another advantage too. My home brew is "green". Not the color green, but, you know "Obama green." What I do is to boil the wort on the stove in the kitchen and use the waste heat to heat my home. It is called, "co-generation". I am going to apply for tax credits too. You know that you don't have to pay any taxes to get tax credits. When I was in the 3rd grade, I got an "F" on my math test for proposing exactly this same thing. Interesting how times change. It must be the new math. The next thing that I am working on is what to do with the spent malt. I think that I can turn it green too. When it rots, it can really stink and I think that there must be some methane in there someplace that I could collect. There must be "seed" money for things just like this someplace in all those green government programs. I will just have to find out where and how to apply. The down side to all this is that since I have not been working and drinking a lot more home brew, I have put on a few pounds. There has to be a way that I can get on some government program to help me lose weight. It seems the rage today to eat more vegetables and I think that fermented barley malt extract should count for something. I think that the key might be for all of us to stop calling it home brew and call it recycled cereal. That might not be a good name because when we had our first kid, she seemed to be doing a lot of cereal recycling and it was bad. You think about a new name for home brew and I'll go along with it. If any of you home brewers are incorporated, the first thing that you need to do is to dump that corporation stuff. When Obama hears you say the word corporation there will be no way that you will be able to get on the gravy train like me. Just a little advise for those who are not well connected. You all know that I grow my own hops and malt my own barley so I don't need a real big government hand out to make this whole thing work. Hey, here is one that I forgot. I don't use bottles for my home brew. I use the regular beer kegs and drink my home brew out of regular water glasses that my wife washes. If that is not being green, I don't know what is. The fact that I make my home brew right in my own kitchen and don't have to transport it to where it will be drunk means that I don't need any diesel either. No pollution. I even have friends who are getting in on this green thing too. Almost every day one or more of them drops over to help me drink my home brew. Obama would call the "coming together". I call it free loading, but who cares if you can get green points for it and more money from the government. I think this whole Blog started out about the price of gas. Sorry, I have to end this Blog, seems this last batch of home brew is giving me "gas".

New Economic Paradigm

Have you noticed that, "the times they are a changin"? It is not just a song, it is a fact. I have Blogged on Econ 101 a couple of times, but I don't think I went far enough. Business school like all colleges are "looking backwards" organizations. They try to find the future by looking in the rear view mirror. That is why they spend so much time on history. The older the history is, the more attention that they give to it. Of all the hours and classes that I have spent in college, I never had one that tried to look into the future. As Yogi Berra used to say, "the future ain't going to be what it used to". All this build up is to point out that we don't live in the past and are only in the present for a split second. It is the future, where we will be spending most of our life, so why is it not given more attention? That is the challenge for us and our educational systems. Here goes.

I tried to prepare myself for the future by taking care of my health from the time that I was very young upto this day. I never smoked or did drugs. Drugs and smoking seemed like a bad idea at the time and it still does. I never got AIDS or any other decease that was a function of personal responsibility. I went to college and took the types of courses that I felt would be needed to prepare me for what I expected the future to look like. I took electives in Real Estate Law that were not required so that I would be in a better position to deal with what I thought would be one of my biggest investment. I took Commercial Law for much the same reason. I became a Registered Professional Engineer and a Certified Purchasing Manager, also for the same reason. When I started out, I concentrated on "Efficiency" because I thought that was the key to creating wealth. I even did graduate work on "Optimization Systems" to be able to wring out the last drop of value. I had it right for my time, but now there is a "New Economic Paradigm".

Figure that in the past, if you broke down the cost of a manufactured item, it might work out to 1/3 raw material, 1/3 labor and 1/3 overhead and profit. What I would do to increase profit was to try to reduce "labor" and "overhead". I would work on raw material too and try to drive the cost down as much as I could. This plan really worked and it did not take long before I was getting promotions. At one time, I was in charge of plants with over 52,000 employees, so you know that I was doing the right thing. The change in the Economic Paradigm was changing right under my nose and I was slow recognizing it. The first thing that I recognized was that in developing countries, the ratios were much different, How about this. 1/3 raw material, 1/6 labor and 1/2 overhead and profit. As it turned out, rather than doing time studies on direct labor, it made a lot more sense trying to reduce indirect labor and management cost. A manager could cost several times that of a direct labor person. I developed all kinds of systems to reduce indirect labor cost and was promoted again. That was then, but not now.

Look what happened? Computers!!! These allowed us, for the first time, to really start cutting indirect labor and over head. Notice that even when you call most companies on the phone, you don't get a real person, you get a computer. The computer is great, it does not have a union that made management difficult. It can work 24 hours a day. We even have a new word for all this......24/7. Now what do you think that means and how companies can do it? I am starting to get to my point now.

Look at the newer ratios. 2/3 raw material, 1/9 labor and 2/9 overhead and profit. Notice that raw material is getting to be a larger and larger percentage of the product cost. Labor is getting less and less. Now are you starting to see the future? The future is not direct labor like it used to be. As the amount of labor in an end product has been driven down, raw material has clearly taken over as the most significant cost component. We have made a lot more progress in reducing direct and indirect labor than we have raw material. At this same time, capital cost have gone down too. It does not take the kinds of capital that it took in the past to gain high degrees of automation, computer again. In all this, we keep coming back to raw material and energy as the last items in the mix. Direct labor is not worth near as much as it used to be and a lot of people don't understand that.

Now for the future. I have said in the past that the currency of the future is Food and Energy and Raw Materials, not labor. Now why is China trying to tie up so much of the Earth's raw materials? They understand the future while most of the world is still looking in the rear view mirror. I'll ask again, what countries will make it? Who has energy, food and raw materials? Oh!, who has intellect? The USA is about 26th, Canada is 3rd or 4th in education. We have Food and Energy, but our uneducated population is going to have an even harder time of it in the future. Stop looking in the rear view mirror and watch what is happening with Raw Materials. Food, Energy and Raw Materials are located whre they are and no one can do anything about it. The only item that we can control is education and population density. If that is the case, then why do we hear so little about the two things that we have a degree of control over???????

Econ 101 Myth

How many times have you heard someone say, "that's not rocket science?" About a thousand times. Exactly what is "rocker science"? I think the Chinese invented the rocket about 4,000 years ago. Exactly how much science did they have back then? Not much. On that basis, I would say that the use of "rocket science" is way over rated. Isn't it much the same with people claiming they are just using "Econ 101". Now I have the advantage over most of you. I have read the books that are used to teach Econ 101. I have also read the catalog of many universities regarding the prerequisites before you can sign up for an Econ 101 class. This should give you a good idea of just how big of a deal Econ 101 is. Let me show you a few facts.

I can tell you for a fact that if you know 4th grade math, you are qualified to take Econ 101 in 90% of the universities in the USA. Now think back and tell me how much real understanding of Math you had when you completed the 4th grade? When one of our kids completes Econ 101 and may even get an "A", the question is exactly how much they really know about economics. Realize that this is the very first class that 99% of our kids ever had in economics. Now, when they complete the 4th grade, they have had a total of 4 years studying math. If you are following this, then you are starting to get a lot better idea of what our kid really know after they have taken Econ 101. I personally don't know why our universities wait until the junior year before they expose our kids to economics. If they started with economics or advanced math in the freshman year, they would have 3 more years to further develop economics beyond Econ 101. The way it is done now, is that they only have one more year to expand the knowledge of economics for our kids. Do you think this is a little strange? If economics is so important, then why isn't more attention devoted to it? Do you think that one class for one semester prepares all the "talking heads" to shoot off their mouths like they are experts? I know for a fact that you don't need to know anything about accounting or commercial law to take Econ 101. Do you really think that someone who does not know a Profit and Loss statement from a Balance Sheet knows anything about economics? I don't.

You all know that I do not have much respect for our public schools and I have a lot less of the many bull shit majors that our kids take in our expensive colleges and universities. Our kids are not the stupid ones, we are. We allow our kids to take these bull shit majors and take classes that do not prepare them to either take care of themselves or contribute to society in general. I have challenged my readers before to go to their computers and read the catalogs from the colleges and universities that we are sending our kids too and see what the classes that they are taking amount too. You will be shocked when you find out that most of what you are spending your savings on are total bull shit and will not help you kids in any way. It is up to you, not the government or the colleges and universities. It is up to you.

Hey, I Think I Figured It Out !!!

If you read my Blog 2/32/11 about Head Start and Nursery Schools, this will make even more sense. In that Blog I presented my theory as to why the oldest child in a family will "on average" have the highest IQ among his or her siblings. Unusual fact, but true. The big question is, Why? I showed in the last Blog that it was because the first born has a more intellectually challenging environment compared to his younger siblings. Now I want to extend this concept even farther and I think you will see why.

I have been watching public school teachers for some time and have concluded that they are a lot different from normal people who are not public school teachers. If you have not noticed this, then much of what will follow will not make much sense. We all know that cops hang around with other cops. It is an accepted fact. It is the same for public school teachers. If you have any friends who are public school teachers, and you are not, you will see right away that most of their are also public school teachers. If you haven't noticed, think again. Now why is this point significant? Here is why.

As I said in my Blog about Head Start and Nursery schools, the fact that the kids in Nursery school hang with mostly kids their own age of 3 to 5 means they do not have a very high intellectually challenging environment. The results is that their brain does not develop as well and they end up with lower IQ's than kids who were home schooled. It is my theory that college graduate public school teachers spend a lot of time with kids who know a lot less than they do. See where I am going? The fact that public school teachers have an environment that is a lot less intellectually challenging than normal working people's environment means that their brains do not continue to grow like the rest of us. If you don't buy this, then their brains atrophy like any muscle that is not exercised. If you carry this one step farther and include the fact that they mostly hang with other public school teachers who are suffering from the same environmental problem, you start to get a good idea of why teachers are so different from normal people.

If you watch what is happening with the unionized public school teachers and try to understand where they are coming from, you will find it very confusing. They do not seem to be acting logically and the reason is that they are not logical in their thinking. We all expect our public school teachers to be like us, but they are not for the reasons that I have proposed above. I think my theory connects a lot of dots and needs to be given serious consideration. If you think about it, there is no way by random chance that the majority of public school teachers could end up with such strange thinking and logic. There has to be some universal cause that is affecting them in some very systematic way. The affect on a single individual does not have to be that great to have a noticeable affect on a large group like what we are all seeing.

Hey, I think I figured it out. I think the cure is to only allow a person to teach in our public schools for a very limited amount of time and then progress onto a higher paying job like most of the rest of us. If these public school teachers are all that smart, they should have no problem entering the private work force and competing against the rest of us. Think of the waste of those minds just teaching 3rd and 4th graders when they could be earning and contributing so much to society.

Obama's Libya "Rope-A-Dope"

Did you hear the speech by Obama about Libya? Notice that he was giving us the "Rope-a-Dope" again. He said that he had assigned his staff to come up with the alternatives on how to deal with the problems in Libya. Does this sound a little like when he formed the budget deficit task force? What did all that accomplish? Nothing, it only delayed any action and gave Obama cover. It was the old "Rope-a-Dope". Now on Libya, he is doing it again.

The big difference between a leader and a true executive compared to a "manager" is that leaders and true executives "look ahead" and anticipate possible problems. True executives don't spend their time solving problems, they act ahead of time and "prevent" problems from happening in the first place. At best, Obama is only a "manager" who only acts after the fact. What we need is a leader. It seems clear from every thing that has gone on in Washington DC since Obama and his Chicago friends took over that they are not "leaders". You could use the military model and it would show the same thing. No general goes into a battle without considering all the things that could happen and have a plan in advance on how he would handle them.

I had the good fortune to have worked at a very high level within ITT many years ago. We had a management system where we made detailed business plans with detailed budgets. This is what most well managed companies did also, but we went one step farther. After our budgets were made and approved, we then made, what we called, "a profit assurance plan". This was a "what if" plan. If sales or key budget items did not perform as budgeted, what action should we take? It is a human problem that when things do not go according to plan, there is a tendency to just sit there and watch while things get worse before we act. It is human nature. By making the "profit assurance plan" ahead of time prior to the "battle" we all have much clearer heads and are able to make better decisions. In that plan, we identified different statistics that would indicate that we were not going to be able to make our budget and when one of these "trip points" occurred, we were prepared to take immediate action.

If Obama was a true leader and not just a paper shuffling manager, he would have had in place specific plans on what to do it if riots occurred in areas affecting our oil supply. All he should have had to do was to push the "go" button, not assign people the job of determining what to do and using up valuable time in the process. Obama is clearly not the kind of leader that we need, so what he is doing? He is giving us all the "Rope-a-Dope" again. I have had enough of the "Rope-a-Dope". How about you?

Vouchers And Home Schooling Revisited

One of my first Blogs was about Vouchers and Home School was back on 2/16/10. I went back and read it again. You should do it too. Now that more water has run under the bridge, I have a few more thoughts on the subject. With what is going one right now in Wisconsin and several other states, this is a subject that needs to be revisited. We all know that we are now spending between $10,000 and $15,000 per year per student. Think about the fact that it can cost almost $200,000 to get one of our kids all the way thru public school. What do you think it costs in a school district like Los Angles that only graduates 40% of its kids? Would you believe that it costs tax payers as much as half a million dollars for every high school diploma? Do the math and see what you come up with. The bottom line is that we can not continue on this path. Stopping is not the solution. We have to start doing things differently or we are all going into the toilet. Here is my take.

Rule number one is, "when you spend your own money, you do a better job". We all know this, so when the government spends our money to "do good" for us, they don't get the pop for the buck that we would get if it were our money and we were the ones spending it, Oh, that's right. It is our money. Now how do we use this one simple rule to improve the quality and reduce the cost of education? Here we go.

Vouchers. I recommend that we give parents vouchers, not cash money, so they can send their kids to what ever school they want. They can send them to church schools or charter schools or even home school their kids. These vouchers would be for 50% of what the schools are now spending on their public schools. Right now kids who do not go to public schools don't get a dine even thought their parents pay taxes that support their local public schools. Remember, I am only proposing that we give the parents vouchers for just 50% of the cost per student in the public schools. If a lot of families take me up on this, it would actually add more money per student to the public schools. Do the math and you will see that this is true. What you hear from the teacher's union is that vouchers take money away from public schools. What they don't explain is that the money per student, however, goes up as a result. Do your own math and see that I am correct.

Now just because we gave vouchers to the parents for 50% of the cost of public schools does not mean they will go out and see that their kids get a good education. For that reason, I have an additional proposal and that is to give each of their kids a graduation bonus. That's right, I propose that we give them a bonus for finishing their high school equivalent education and can pass a reasonable competency test. There are all kinds of tests available that can confirm that the student has learned the material required. Now when they pass this test the bonus is going to be substantial. How about 25% of what we spend on public school education per student per year for the total of all the years that the kid was not enrolled in one of our public schools? I would even include kindergarten, so we could be talking about 13 years. Now if we are spending $15,000 per year per public school student, you do the math, we are talking about a bonus of $48,750. That is almost $50,000. I think that this would be a very big incentive for students outside the public school system to work hard to earn this bonus.

Now when you look at my proposal, you will find two key factors. First, we save money because we never spend 100% of our money on the non public school kids. We only spend 75%, so we save at least 25% right off the top. The second big point is that we will have "better" educated kids and more kids graduating from high school. I don't see anything proposed by anyone else that will address the two key issues of education. We need to reduce the cost and increase the quality. Thing about this. If we reduce the cost by 25% and increase the quality by 25%, the total "value" increase is 1.25 X 1.25 = 1.5625. This an improvement of 56.25% and I do not see any other way that we could get such an improvement and it would not take that long in my opinion. When people and individuals are in charge, things can move a lot faster than you might think. But when the government is going to be in charge, you know that things will move slow and it will cost much more if it works at all.

What I have tried to do is to put down specifics and not just complain. You need to come up with your own plan too and stop complaining.

Obama Is Another Salvador Allende

I told you so back in my Blog of 5/22/10 about the "Rule of Law" and Salvador Allende of Chile. I warned that if we really believe in the "Rule of Law" we had better watch Obama and his Attorney General. Most of us Americans have never lived in a country where the "Rule of Law" was not taken seriously and as a result, don't think that it could happen right here. Now look at what Obama did today. He said that he would not enforce a law that is on the books because he does not agree with it. This is the most serious thing that a President can do. There can be no exceptions when it comes to uniform enforcement of the law. That is what assures that we are all equal. You have heard of being "equal under the law". It is a very big deal. Obama comes from the Chicago model where they seem to feel that if you know the right person, you don't have to worry about traffic tickets or anything else. When this kind of attitude leaks into the highest level office in the land, the end of freedom is not that far way. Go back and read my 5/22/10 Blog and think it over. The fact that this particular law relates to Gay marriages is just a smoke screen, but it strikes to the very foundation of every freedom that our forefathers fought and died for. It is like where the little Dutch boy held his finger in the dike. This dike can not survive if it has just one leak, no matter how small. I had an idea that this day was coming, but not this soon.

Head Start And Nursery School

I am an old person and have had a chance to watch our world go by for over 70 years. I have paid close attention to my kids and kids in general and have come away with some conclusions about why our kids have fallen so far behind the academic performance of other kids around the world.

While in graduate school, my research came across data that showed, on average, that the oldest child in a family had a higher IQ than their younger siblings. This was a very strange finding, considering that the egg and sperm don't know anything about the younger siblings. I am a very curious person and did not let the thought go until I had a better understanding of just how this could be. Later on, I found that the brain of a child continues to grow and mature long after the birth and was affected by both nutrition and the environment. Taking this last point, here is what I think.

A short point before I go on. When China made the decision to only allow families to have one child, I predicted that the average IQ of Chinese children would go up and become the highest in the world. I think that I will be shown to be right. Think about this. When a family has only one child in a normal family of mother and father, the average age of the people who interface with the child is about 25 years. This is a very mentally stimulating enviroment for the child and aids in the development of the child's brain. Now what happens when a second and third child is added to the family. By adding just one child, the environment for the second child is lowered to an average age of, (26 + 26 + 2)/3 = 18 average. Now what happens when a 3rd child is added to the family? (27 + 27 + 3 + 2)/4 = 14.75 average. This might not be the only factor, but I think it is one of the bigger ones. Try this one if you don't believe me. If you have more than one kids, ask yourself, "for which one did you take the most photographs?" It is always the first one. See!

Now let's look at another trend and that is the two worker families. That really started after WWII or about 1950. It also was the same time that the USA became much more urbanized. Before 1950 more people lived on farms and rural areas where the wife stayed home with the kids. As urbanization took place, kids were much more likely to be placed in nursery schools while the mother worked. Seemed like a good idea to have a "real pro" taking care of the kids, but wait. In the nursery school we have a teacher, age 25 and 10 kids under age 5. The average environment in this case is (25 + (10 x 4))/11 = 5.9 average. I think that this is a much worse environment for the kids than staying home with mom. I think this is one of the reasons that "Head Start" has such a bad record and why so many people can't accept the data.

Recall, when you were a kid, and dressed up for Halloween? Often you dressed up in old adult closes and were proud of your costume. Now few kids want to emulate their parents in any way. Why do you think that is? They seem to prefer to emulate other kids of their own age. To my way of thinking, this is just one more proof to the positive impact of an older environment vs a younger environment. How about "Home Schooled" kids? They do better in school than our kids in our public schools. Why do you think that is? What I have found is that when you finally figure something out, it turns out to be simple. Further, when you understand something, more and more things that first appeared to be unrelated seem to be connected. The more things are connected, the better chances of your theory being the correct one. This is a universal principle and I feel that it clearly applies here.

Think about it and what do you think we should do about it.

Foreign Student In Our Public Schools

We are all so proud of our universities that we feel complemented when foreign student enroll in our public universities. I used to be proud too until I found out that we are being played and gamed by all kinds of foreign governments. Why should they fork out the cost of higher education if they can just send their kids here and pay little or nothing. I challenge everyone of you to do your own calculations on what you think we should charge a foreign student to get different degrees from out universities. I already know in advance that you will not even come close to the price that we should be charging. Read on and see if you agree with my numbers. Wait, you probably feel that when these foreign students graduate they will beoome USA citizens and pay back the cost (investment) with their tax money. Don't hold your breath.

Let's just look at graduate programs because that is where most of these foreign students are. American universities are famous around the world for being the best for advanced education. If that is so, then it must mean that they are "worth" more too. Like most public institutions, "worth" is just a few miles south of "cost". I know for a fact that the a typical technical Phd will take at least 5 years and will cost the taxpayers between $125,000 to $200,000 per year for the candidate. I am not going to go into the ones who start and don't finish. We really should add those costs in too to get a totally accurate figure. Let's use the average of the above at $162,500 per years and the original 5 years. We are talking about $812,500 from the tax payers of the USA for this degree for the foreign student. A little more than you thought, right? The trend for the past 25 years is for more foreign students to come to the USA for advanced degrees and for a lower and lower percentage to remain. Now exactly what do you think the annual impact is on the USA with these two trends? We are getting screwed worse every year and we sit here with a blank look on our faces not know what has happened to us. We are stupid and other counties are clearly taking advantage of us. Only a fool would allow this to continue and I hope that we are not all fools.

You might think that USA students also go to foreign schools too, but you would be in for a shock. Our students are not qualified to get into those schools. I know people who were transfered to Eruope by their companies who sent their kids back here to go to school so as to save the imbarassment of their kids being so far behind. This is a one way street with foreign kids coming here and taking advantage of us just like every thing we buy at Walmart is made out side the USA. The get our money by selling us things that we can't make or won't make for ourselves and then send their kids here to collect an, almost free, advanced degree from us stupid tax payers. Some of us are too proud to admit that our kids are as dumb as they are and thus think they can compete. We let foreign kids into our universities and then turn our heads so that we do not see the poor comparison with our kids. Our kids don't even enroll in the tougher majors so as not to have to confront the fact that they can't cut it agains foreign students. We have blinders on at all levels and someone has to be bold or wise enough to get us to take them off. Until we do, there will be no hope or future for our kids. Do some hom work and see what you find. You won't like the picture and you won't like what you will know we will have to do.

Who Is In Charge Of Our Universities?

I think that every news paper should have at least one column devoted to what their state university is doing every week and I don't mean the football or basketball scores. I don't think that tax payers and most graduates of those universities have any idea how their tax money is being spent. I have some data on the University of Wisconsin that I am using for this Blog, but it could any state university in any state. Most tax payers appear to be proud of their university, but I think it has more to do with how they do in bowl games than it does with giving tax payers their monies worth when it comes to educating their kids. Here are some of the numbers.

If you are paying state and local taxes, you would expect some of those taxes to go toward educating your own kids. Well, let's see how the state of Wisconsin is doing.
Where the kids come from percentage
* From Wisconsin----------------56.2%
* From other states-------------29.4%
* From foreign countries--------11.4%
* Other(to add up to 100%)------ 3.0%
Total-------100.0%

Now I don't know about you, but it seems a little strange that almost half of the kids in the university that I paid for are from out of my state. Do you agree with that? I don't like to pay taxes anymore than anyone else and I sure don't want to pay for someone who does not even live in our state. I know what you will hear from the university people and that is that "out of staters" pay more than our kids. I think it is just the opposite. These "out of staters" get the "grant" money and other sources of money that might not show up on the regular budget, but it is still all our tax money in the end. If you look at most university football or basketball teams, the starting line up for most will be from out of state. What is the logic or fairness in that? I want my kid to be able to pay football or basketball since I am the one who is paying, not someone from another state. Think about it and I think you will agree that what we are allowing our universities to do is stupid.

It is difficult to get your hands around exactly what it costs to run most public universities. That's right. It is hard to sort out the numbers. The university of Wisconsin official budget just for Madison is about $3.0 billion dollars. It is one of the biggest items in the state budget. I know that there has been a lot of money donated to the university and I know that they have borrowed a lot too. All of this is really our money, but you can't get it all totalled. I know it is a lot more than $3.0 billion. There is money floating in and out from programs far and wide and it is not "funny money". If you figure these foreign students cost us the same as our own kids, the tax payers of Wisconsin are spending at least $342,000,000 on those kids. Now I know that many are in our graduate classes that are a lot more expensive than a freshman English class. My calculations show that these foreign students are costing us at least $100,000 per year. Is that right? This is just one are where us tax payers are getting screwed and we don't even know it.

Let's take a look at what it costs per kid in our university. I don't have the exact numbers so I am going to "force" the numbers. "Forcing" a number is not just guessing since we do know the total figure and we also know that graduate classes cost more to teach than undergraduate classes. This is a technique that can produce some very reasonable numbers, so let's go. Here are the starting figures:

Class # of Students Cost/student
Undergraduate-----------28,690 $64,060
Graduate---------------- 9,116 85,150
Professional------------ 2,640 96,250
Special ? -------------- 1,653 79,850

Total-------------------42,09 Ave $71,200

These add up to the original $3.0 billion

I know a lot of you will claim that we already pay a lot in tuition, but what ever it is, it does not come close to covering the actual cost per student. I even think that I am low on the graduate and professional students. I have not even added in the student loans that we subsidize and of which few will be paid back with full interest. Our educational system is screwing us at all levels. In a prior Blog, I showed that at least 1/3 of our university degrees are totally worthless and should be eliminated or at least require the student who want to take these to do so with their own money. Not that of us tax payers. I am like Obama on this one and feel that our universities are an investment a place for recreation. How can you look another tax payer in the eye and tell them that your kid got a graduate degree from some university in "Art Appreciation"? I couldn't. You and your kid stole and food out of the mouth of my kids, that's what you did and it has to stop.

What we need to do is to ask just a few of questions about whether or not it is worth offering a class and a degree at our university and that is:
(1) Will it help us export something that will offset our oil imports?
(2) Will it make the quality of life for the general public better?
(3) Will it allow them to make enough money to pay back in taxes with interest the investment that the tax payers made in them?
If it will not satisfy these simple value functions, eliminate it. Don't spent a Penny of tax payer's money on it. Until we start think logically about this business of education we are going to continue digging a deep grave for ourselves and out kids.

PS------

Try this one. Figure that your kid takes 4.5 years to earn a BS or BA degree. How much do you think it cost us tax payers? How about $288,270 and this does not count what you parents had to pay for tuition and room and board. Figure also that your kid lost 4.5 years of earnings if they had a regular job during this time. At just $30,000 per year, that works out to $135,000. Now add in what you parents spent at about $30,000 per year for a total of another $135,000 and we have a grand total of $558,270. That is how much that degree is worth. Now to pay it back, it is not a question of whether or not you can earn that much money as a result, it can you pay that much back in state taxes with a little interest added on? We can do better.

What if we gave each kid in our state $50,000 per year to go to a college out of state? That would cut our education cost by more than half. Think about it. Isn't that what the 11.4% of students from foreign countries are doing to us? I think they must be a lot smarter than we are.

PS----Again----

Above, I showed that foreign students cost the state of Wisconsin $342,000,000 per year, but when you take into account that most are in graduate programs that cost a lot more, a new calculation shows the number closer to $408,000,000. We are starting to talk about some big money now, so why is everyone so silent on this point? Don't be!!

New Look At Public Education

With all the attention on public education in the state of Wisconsin and most of the rest of the country, you could expect that I would have something to say too. I used to teach decision theory and know how to structure a decision. Public education is no different, so here goes.

First of all, in all decision situations, you need to agree and be clear on the objective. So far we have heard little about the basic objective of public education. Here is what I feel is a reasonable definition of the objective. It is to prepare our kids to be productive citizens in our society of the future. Like all decisions, there needs to economic consideration. Preparing our kids has to be balanced against the cost so that we get value for our expenditure. All decisions have to include value as a serious component.

What are the cost components that need to be considered? Now let's look at how different decisions can change the "value" component? The biggest cost item in public education is the pay and benefits for teachers and administrators. What we have been doing over the past several years has been to increase the total compensation package for teachers beyond the cost of living. If we want to increase the value function, reducing teacher pay helps and increasing it hurts. We know that as the pay has increased for teachers, the quality of the product that they have produced has gone down. I feel that an average 4th grader could figure out that higher pay for teachers is not adding to the value function.

How about class size? Is has to have been clear to everyone that reducing the average class size was going to increase the cost per student, but it has not increased the quality of the product. If we increase the class size, it will reduce the cost. We should try it and see if the quality of the product goes down or not. Even if it goes down a little, the reduced cost may still provide a better value. We are always hearing teaching professionals claim that they don't want to do anything that would reduce the quality of education. If that is what they really mean, then they don't understand basic economics and the value function of eduction.

How about the number of years of school? The more years that our kids stay in school, the more it is going to cost. Seems clear to me. What we recently did was to increase the number of years of public school by funding the "Head Start" program. It is clear that this added to the cost per student, yet it has been proven to have had "zero" impact on the quality of the product. This means that it was worthless and reduced the value function of public education. If that is clearly the case, then why has it been so difficult to kill this program? There is another point that makes the "Head Start" program even worse is that if there was any benefit of the program, you would not start collecting on that expenditure for over 12 or 15 years. If that same money were in the bank earning interest, the year in the "Head Start" program would cost more than the first year of college in real dollars.

Let's review the elements.

(1) Higher teacher pay---------------made the value function worse

(2) Class size reduction-------------increased cost and made value function worse

(3) Head Start program---------------increased cost and made value function worse

(4) Student quality------------------has gone down since 1970 with no end in sight

Now what is the state of Wisconsin is doing is addressing (1) above. If they can reduce the teacher pay or the rate of increase, it will improve the value function.

This is off my point, but it is worth adding. What English speaking country in the world has the best quality public education system? It is not the USA, then who is it? It is the country right next door, Canada. That's right, Canada. Why is it that we hear so little about Canada's educational system? What are they doing different from the USA? We should find out. They spend less than we do and yet get the best results of any English speaking country in the world. Seems the answer might be right next door and no one is looking.

Another point that is also a little off the subject is the natural career progression of "most" people. I asked some friends how many different jobs they have had over their careers and how many different companies they worked for. None told me that they worked all their career at just one company doing the same job from day one until the day they retired. Isn't that interesting. I know people who have worked for the same company from day one until they retired and some who did the same job all that time. The common element of those people who worked the same job at the same company from day one to the day they retired was that they were all very dumb people who appeared to have lower IQ's. The people who changed jobs a rose thru the ranks all seemed to be better off economically too. The ones who worked the same job all their life were unhappy and felt that they were victims. They never were sure who made them victims, but that is how many felt.

Now isn't it interesting that many teachers do exactly the same job for the same company from day one to the day they retired, yet expect to keep getting higher and higher pay for doing exactly the same thing? I don't know of any normal person who has worked in the nonunion private area who feels this way. Normal people know that to get ahead, they have to get promoted to a higher level job or increase their productivity. Why is it that a teacher who has been teaching for 30 years can't teach more kids after 30 years than they could on day one? Sounds to me like they have not increased their productivity. I know a few people who started out as teachers, but progressed onto other higher paying professions like law, stock brokers or medical doctors. If the good ones move on, who do you think is left after 30 years teaching our kids? Not a good picture.

What's Right For The Whole Country?

I have, like most of you,have been watching the situatiion in Wisconsin where union teachers have been rioting. It seems clear from their actions that they do not trust the democratic system, where we all vote for the people who represent our ideas. In Wisconsin, they just had a an election where the voters elected both a Republican governor as well as majorities of Republicans in both houses. It would seem that democracy has worked it way. More people in Wisconsin want Republicans to cut cost and reduce the size of state government. Isn't that how democracies supposed to work? The people vote for some thing and they are supposed to get what they voted for. If the people who want a bigger government and higher pay to government employees get fewer votes, then they lose. What seems to be happening is that union members and our President seems to want to cancel the will of the voters of the state of Wisconsin. It seems clear to me that Obama does not believe in democracy if it does not agree with what he wants. I did not vote for Obama, but he is still the President of the USA and he is supposed to represent me too. It seems that Obama only feels that he has to represent those who voted for him.

This is not a game where one team wins. We are all on the same team and all of us should want "What's Right For The Whole Country". Everyone of my grandfathers going back to the Revolutionary War were fighting for What's Right For The Whole Country". They were not fighting for one party or for labor unions. What has happened to our country? For some reason Obama who does not come from the normal american tradition thinks that since he "won" the election that he can now do what ever he wants. He does not seem to understand that he was elected by a democratic ballot to serve all the people. It is no different from a football team who elects a captain and then expects that captain to represent all the players on the team. For some reason Obama does not understand this very simple concept. It may be because he was raised in a Moslem family in a forign country until he was 8 years old. I know for a fact that by age 8 I understood what it meant to be an American. I don't think Obama every got that message.

Now what would I do in Wisconsin. I am not Ronald Reagan, but he did the right thing when he was presented with a similar problem. I would fire every public union person who did not return to work on Tuesday morning. What I would do is to "cancel" their senority. These people do not understand merit and doing a good job. All they understand is senority. If they were hired first, they are the last to lose their jobs. It has nothing to do with merit or performance. I would end that for everyone who called in sick, period. They would get their jobs back, but they would go to the bottom of the senority list. Like I said, those who did not report for work on next Tuesday morning, I would fire. We all know that the state of Wisconsin will have to reduce the number of teachers and when they do the ones who rioted will be the first to go.

It will be very interesting how the Wisconsin situation plays out. You can expect that I will have more Blogs on this subject as things progress.

Wisconsin Teacher's Union Calls Out The Dogs

I was watching the Wisconsin teachers union rioting in Madison and noticed that they were calling out their big dogs from out of state to help their cause. This whole process got me to thinking about the first time I ever saw a similar situation. It was a long time ago.

I think I was in either the first or second grade and we were out on the play ground playing dodge ball. The rules of the game are simple. The group of kids playing stand near a back stop and one kid tries to hit them with a very soft ball. The ball we used was smooth and big, so it was hard for our small hands to throw. It was nearly flat and did not hurt when you got hit. The idea was to keep throwing at the kids until all had been hit. When you got hit, you were out and had to stand and watch until the single final winner was left. It was a good game and it helped to develop coordination. We had this one kid who was a little slower and fatter than the rest of us and he went out early. He complained and wanted a second chance, but we all said, no. He was out fair and square.

What he did is just what the Wisconsin teacher's union is now doing in Madison. He went to his 4th grade brother and had him come over to where we were playing dodge ball and told us smaller kids to put his brother back in the game or he was going to beat us up. We were all afraid and let the kid back into the game, but from then on, we never trusted him or wanted him in any of our games. I was just 6 or 7 when I learned this valuable lesson about people violating the rules and then using out side bullies to get their way.

This is exactly what the Wisconsin teacher's union is doing. Calling out their big brother Obama and the Chicago machine as well as Acorn. Wait and see. The one thing that has always made the USA the best place to live is that it is the most fair place in the world. When people find that the place is not fair and some people are "more equal" than others, they will not stand for it. The teacher's unions feel that they are not being treated fairly and are up in arms, but they do not realize or admit that they have gotten their high pay based on their union membership rather than "merit". They have been in the union world so long and circulated with union friends so long that they have forgotten that "merit" is the only fair way to deal with people.

Even 6 and 7 year old kids understand that what the teacher's union is doing is wrong.

Easter Island Revisited, Obama's "Ropa-Dope"

You all know Easter Island. It is the isolated island off the coast of Chile. I have blogged about this island before, but I think there may be a new lesson that we can learn from the experience of Easter Island. If you don't know the story, here is a short history. A bunch of Polynesians discovered the island by accident about 800 years ago. Easter Island was far off the normal navigation track and thus was one of the last settled by us humans. This was a true virgin island and the new population flourished and grew rapidly. In the end, the island was over populated and went thru a very typical dieing cycle. In the end there were no trees and little food. Family and clan was against every other family and clan until there was almost no one left. It had to have been an awful place toward the end. Here is the lesson that I take from my readings on what happened.

I am a sailor and have talked to other sailors who have sailed to Easter Island. I have also lived in Argentina and have traveled to Chile many times and talked to the people of Chile who know first had about the history of Easter Island. Toward the end, the remaining people who were left got "religion" and started carving big heads out of solid rock to get their God to save them. You have all seen pictures of these big stone heads and have wondered where they came from and why. What the people did was to use what wealth and energy that they had to build these big heads. It is like today with people buying Gold. We are using our energy and our wealth to dig for and buy and sell Gold as a means to save our collective lives. It reminds me of Easter Island toward the end. Rather than using their wealth and energy to grow more food or limit their population, they carved the big stone heads. If you think about it, what possible value could those big stone head be? Isn't it exactly the same with Gold? Rather than digging for more Gold, why don't we address the real problem? Ours is the same as it was for Easter Island. Over population. What do you think the problems in Egypt are? Population. Recall that in just 10 years the population of Egypt increased by 32.7%. I know that people are not moving to Egypt, they are moving out and still the population increased by almost 1/3 in 10 years. If all the people who were born stayed in Egypt, it would have been much more than 32.7%.

What if, for some reason, we found all the Gold that is on Earth and there was no more to dig? What would we do? What if we found that there was a deposit of Gold 100 feet thick over most of the state of Montana? Would that really make any difference? I think that his points out how stupid the people of Easter Island were and how stupid we also seem to be. While we are all busy trying to find Gold, our problems are just getting worse. It is like the famous boxer who used the "Ropa-Dope" to tire his opponent so he could do him in in a later round. I think that Obama is doing the "Ropa-dope" on us while our country dies a slow death just like Easter Island. We need to stop all this Green bull shit, Global Warming and class war fair and solve our real problems. Beware of the "Ropa-Dope", it is not the solution.

Do We Have A Problem With The Teacher's Union?

Have you noticed the news about what is going on in Wisconsin regarding the teacher's union? Seems the new Republican Governor Scott Walker is trying to keep his state out of bankruptcy by taking on the public employee's union. I think that it is about time that we had some Governors who had the courage to step up to the plate and try to hit the union fastball. Public unions are one of the worst things that has ever happened to the USA during my life time. World war I and II were not this bad because we all knew that there would be an end to each. In the case of public unions, there is no end except for total bankruptcy of our whole country. Even the Civil war did not bankrupt the country. It may have made things more difficult for a while, but it came to an end. There is no end to this thing unless people like Scott Walker are successful. Here are some of my ideas on the subject.

We can't allow public employee unions because the governmental units that the unions negotiate with are not playing with their own money. If it is not your money, it spends too easy. When I was a kid and worked for my own money, I was very careful what I spent it on. What I bought had to be worth the effort that I had made to earn the money. When we got money for out birthdays from our grandparents, we spent if very quickly for candy and things that we would never buy with our own money. See how it works? Even kids know the difference between their own money and that of others.

We also have to eliminate the clear conflict of interest in negotiations with unions. Can you believe that the school administrator who is negotiating for use was, just a few years ago, a member of the same union that they are negotiating with. Further, they are most likely qualified to participate in the same retirement programs as the union people they are negotiating against. It is even worse, because most of the time the administrator gets the same increase in salary or benefits as the union people they are negotiating against If that is not a clear conflict of interest, I don't know what is. The pay of the administrator should be based on cutting the pay and benefits of the union, not increasing them.

The unions have negotiated all kinds of special deals that help them "game" the system. Didn't any of the original negotiators for the public recognize this fact? Are the ones who negotiate for us that stupid? The answer is yes. One way public employees "game" the system is to take more classes or get additional certificates. 99% of these are Mickey Mouse classes. Sorry about using poor Mickey Mouse. He is too honest to get involved with something like this. In every business that I have ever been involved with, payed based on the job and what you "did". It was not based on you qualifications. If you are over qualified to pump gas, I'm sorry. We only pay for pumping gas, not for your knowledge of world history or art appreciation. When we look at what some teachers of 4th grade math get paid, we don't realize that it is because they took a class in summer school about "global warming". This type of thing sounds good during negotiations, but as you can see it is total bull shit.

We all know that the quality of education here in the USA has been going down for the past 40 years and the decline has accelerated when the teachers unionized. The union claims that it is because of "class size". If we would spend more and create more union teaching jobs, we could have smaller class sizes and that would fix the problem. We tried that and now have more high paid teachers than ever before. What we have to do is to eliminate any class that does not have at least 20 students in the class. I don't think anyone has found that super small class sizes does anything for improving our quality of education.

The point is a small one, but I would make it against the rules to have a "book pack". These are the big back packs that our kids carry to and from school. I never saw anyone with one of these in the old days and we did better in school. I used to walk a mile and a half to my country school and never needed a "book pack" to carry my things. I don't know who came up with this idea, but I think it is time we got rid of it. If we did, we wouldn't need a cop at every school to see if kids were bringing guns and knives to school. When I was in high school, we kept our deer rifles and shot guns in our pickup trucks out in the school parking lot so we could hunt on the way home. I don't know of anyone who ever got shot.

How about "home schoolers"? They do better than the ones who go to our school and who are taught by the expensive union teachers. Why do you think that is? The "home schoolers" are generally the parents of the kid who a mostly not college graduates or teachers. Isn't it interesting that these, so called, uneducated people can do a better job than our public school teachers? What I would do is to give at least 50% of what it cost to send a kid to public school to the parents who are "home schooling" their kids. Right now the average cost per kid in public school is over $10,000, so 50% would just be $5,000. For every kid that was home schooled, the taxpayers would save at least $5,000. The unions would hate this because it would mean we would have less to spend on them. Sorry. Think about a school district that had 100% of its kids "home schoolled". The kids would do better and we would be rid of the teacher's union. Looks like a "Win Win" to me.

The next thing that I would do would be to eliminate about 1/3 of the classes that are offered. I would get rid of music, art and theater. I would can the student newspaper. It is a joke anyway. If you visited every class that is taught in our schools, I am sure that you would agree that at least 1/3 could be eliminated. This would not only save money, but it would actually improve the quality of education in the areas that our kids really need. I know we could do this. We should all make our own list of the 10 classes that we took in school that have made a difference in our lives and stress these. We should also make a list of the 10 bull shit classes that we took that we now know were worthless. We can do this.

I would require that all kids wear uniforms to school. This would eliminate one of the big costs and distractions that we now have in school. School should not be a fashion show. It should be to learn and to do that economically. My kids wore uniforms when they went to school in Buenos Aires and it worked just fine.

The last thing that I would recommend is that we eliminate all sports from out schools. This is a big deal. Most of the world does not have any sports in their schools. Their schools are for learning not playing games. Sports are a big distraction for school. If you are on one of the teams, the coach will give you an automatic "A". This may help you get on the honor roll, but it does not mean that you have learned anything. School sports favors kids who are a year or two behind in school or who have matured earlier than the other kids. When you think about it, this really has nothing to do with school. I know a school that had very good football teams who encouraged kids to start school at least a year later than other schools. Most of the kids on their teams were 18 or 19 years old compared to the other schools who were only 16 or 17. At their ages, this was a big deal and just another example of how union teachers "game" the system.

Until we eliminate the public employee union, I don't see the USA getting either our quality of education under control or our public budgets at all levels. I think that we are finally starting to see some movement in the right direction.

Skin In The Game, Positive Incentive

We have been hearing that what we need is more people with "skin in the game". Right now we have 50% of our population who do not pay any federal income tax, but still have the right to vote. Us humans, with out big brains, know how to "game" any Check this out.

Why wood 50% of our population who do not pay any federal income tax want to reduce government spending? They would not. We have provided a system to help people who do not earn much, but those same people who we work to help are gaming us. They are taking advantage of our good nature, pure and simple. What we need is more incentives for our population to act more responsibly. What we have is a system that is too easy to game.

I just heard on the news that North Dakota is one of the few states running a surplus. Now why is that? I ran across a small fact a few years ago about North Dakota and that was that a larger percentage of their high school graduates go into engineering than any other state. They also rank in the top 10% of the percentage of their high school kids who graduate. Nationally it is 40%, but that is with the states with high graduation rates in the numbers. That means that a lot of states and a lot of cities have much lower high school graduation rates. Why do I point this out? We need more positive conduct incentives.

When it comes time to slop at the public trough, do you think that high school drop outs should be at the head of the line? I don't. They should be at the back of the line. How about people who smoke or take drugs or have contracted AIDS by their own conduct? Should they also go to the head of the line when it comes to eating out of the public trough? I don't think so. As a kid, I was impressed by the story about the "Little Red Hen" where the chickens who did not help grow the wheat or mill the flour did not get to eat any of the bread. To me it was totally fair. What has happened to us since that story was required reading? It is more than just getting soft.

How about people who have kids out of wedlock? In the black community, it is over 80%. Why should I have to pay for the lack of responsibility of these people? It is not only not fair, it encourages even more of this type of conduct. How about people who have more kids than they can take care of? When I was about 8 years old, I had an aunt who had 14 kids. She never worked because she was knocked up most of the time. The kids were all leaches on the state and never ever paid their share of taxes. My father used to say that her husband "screwed" himself away from the dinner table. That comment stuck with me and I have noticed people over the years who were clearly "screwing" themselves away for the dinner table. As I have gotten older, it is not that they were "screwing" themselves away from the dinner table, but are really setting themselves up to slop at the public trough. We need to stop being PC and punish people who do not act responsibly and have more kids than they can care for.

The bottom line is that we need to reward good behavior and punish or at least not encourage bad conduct. When I was in school no girl would bring her kid to high school like they do now. She would be looked down on by everyone and conduct like her's would be discouraged. Not now. We have a problem. We need to be rude to people who are not responsible and make them know it. When I was a kid, I did not have any shoes, but I was still honest and did not expect a hand out. My grandmother who was just as poor would not accept a hand out from anyone. What has happened? Doesn't anyone have any pride anymore? In the caveman days, irresponsible conduct was quickly punished by being eaten by a wild animal, but not today. It seems the more irresponsible people are the more "do gooder" go out and take care of them. My father used to say that, "you can't help people who will not help themselves". As I have grown older and watched life go by, that comment is more clear to me today than it has ever been.

Everyone needs to have "skin in the game". We need to do everything that we can to make sure that everyone at all levels has some skin in the game. If they don't we can expect the situation to continue to keep getting worse. It is up to you.

Obama's 2012 Budget

If this is the leadership that many voted for, the voters of the USA are a lot stupider than I thought. I don't know why Obama keeps talking about "savings over the next 10 years". Does he think we are stupid and can't divide by 10 to see what he will save per year. Does he think that we can't handle big numbers and figure out what the cost or savings are for the 300 million or so people here in the USA? He must or he would not keep repeating his demented logic. I used my 4th grade math before to sort this all out and I am ready to do it again.

Let's first take Obama's 3.73 trillion dollar 2012 budget. Recall that a trillion is followed by 12 zeros and a million is followed by only 6 zeros. First we have to do a little subtraction of these zeros. Did your old school teacher tell you that you could not add or subtract zeros? Well, you can. If we assume we have approximately 300 million people, that is the same as 3 followed by 8 zeros. Now we subtract 8 zeros from the 12 zeros of the Obama budget and we get 4 zeros. Next we add the 4 zeros to the 3.73 trillion budget and get 37,300. If we divide this by the 3 that is left when we subtracted 8 zeros from the USA population, we $12,433. That is what the Obama 2012 budget is for every man, women and child in the USA.

Now people can get their hands around a number like $12,433. If that is the case, why don't we hear people in the media mentioning this? Why don't they expose this 10 year business. If it were me and I wanted to lie, I would use 100 years or a thousand years. This would be just as stupid as what Obama is doing. Remember when they claimed savings when they collected tax for 10 years and only spent the money over 5 years. Why didn't they use 100 years to see what would happen when costs and revenues got to "steady state:?

The savings that Obama claimed that his budget would save over "10 years" was only about $1.1 trillion. That is only $110 billion per year and further, it is only $367 per person. If you really go wild with your 4th grade math and calculate the percent savings you only have to divide $167 by $12,433. The answer is 2.9%. I think you could find that kind of money under the pillows in your couch. Anyone who is taken in by the Obama claims must be stupid and could never have passed 4th grade math.

PS>---------
The correct way to calculate the percentage of savings in the Obama budget is to "add" the savings back onto the ending budget before the calculation. This produces the correct answer to "how much he saved off his original budget". Rather than using 3.73 Trillion, it should be 3.84 Trillion and the percentage should be 2.86% rather than the 2.95% that I reported before.

Drawing To An Inside Straight

From time to time your hear people caution about trying to "draw to an inside straight". I think that I first heard this in a Roy Rogers movie about 1948. Since I knew that Roy Rogers was King of the cowboys, I marked that rule down and have lived by it ever since. The question is, "how good was that advice?"

This takes a little logic, but not much math. Let's say that we are playing poker and can only see our own cards. It really does not mater how many are playing except for a fine point that I will point out later. In this first pass, we are only looking at our own hand and how to make it better. Consider that we have 4 cards of a straight, but are missing one of the "inside" cards. Here is how the math works. First, there are a total of 52 cards in the deck and you know only the 5 in your hand and that there are 4 cards still in the deck that could make your hand. All you have to do is to calculate the number of "unknown" cards in the deck and that is 52 - 5 or 47. Of these 47, anyone of 4 will fill your straight, so the chances of drawing one of these 4 cards is 4/47 or 8.5%. Now even if you fill out, you may still not win. That's poker.

Now if you had a straight working and your hand was open on each end, there would be a total of 8 cards that could fill you out. Now the odds are much better at 17%.

Now we know that a full house beats a straight and let's say that you were dealt 2 pairs. There are a total of 4 cards that will make your full house. That makes the odds 4/47 or 8.5%, but this would be a full house and would beat a straight.

In real poker, you will seldom see a player taking more than two cards and most of the time it will only be one. Good luck and don't try to draw to "inside straights".

Too Smart To Buy A Volt ????

What I can't figure out is why anyone would buy a GMC Volt. First, you have to realize that a person who had enough money to buy and volt, had to be smart enough to have earned the money required. I keep seeing adds for the Volt on TV that are pure bull shit. In one, they claim that it only needs one charge per day and that only costs about $1.50. They show a women plugging the car into a regular outlet in the garage. I graduated high school and took a general science. Now, armed with all that knowledge, let me dissect the Volt add.

Starting with the $1.50 worth of electricity. I think a fair average for a kilowathour KWH of power is about $0.15/KWH. If you have a different number, you can do your own calculations. Using 4th grade math, and dividing the $1.50 by the price of power, I get 10KW. That is how much power we took out of the house power system and that was supplied by coal. The charging efficiency is not 100% so you have to discount the power you paid for compared to the actual power that you get back when you drive the Volt. I am going to use 85%. I think that is a lot better than the system will actually get, but let's go with it. Let's make another assumption and that is that we will only drive the Volt 40 miles per day and that trip will take about an hour at 40mph. With me so far? I know from looking it up in the dictionary, that .75KHW is equal to a horse power. We all know what horse power is, right. We started out with 10KWH of electrical energy, but only were able to utilize 8.5KWH due to efficiency. Logical so far? If we pull all the charge out of the battery for the hour and 40 miles that we drive, the question is how much horse power were we getting out of the battery? Using 4th grade math and dividing 8.5KWH by .75KW we get the average horse power out put of the Volt system. Would you be surprised that it is just 11.3 HP? My chain saw has more power than that and I don't think it would be enough to drive my car 40 miles, do you? I think I smell a rat here. I don't want to give rats a bad name comparing them to GMC and the Volt.

Here is another point to look at about the add. The lady plugged the car into what looked like a regular outlet. These are rated for about 15amp and the one in the add was clearly 110 volts. In this calculation, we want to find out how long it would take to drain 10KWH out of that plug at the maximum rating of 15amps. Any kid who graduated high school and took a general math class should be able to figure this out. A watt is the current in amps multiplied by the voltage. It is kind of like water. Pressure times volume. The plug shown in the add can only put out 1.65KW per hour. To get the $1.50 worth of power, the charger would need to be plugged in for 6.06 hours. That is not so bad, but when you compare that with the fact that the Volt can only generate 11.3 horse power for 1 hour with the charge.

Notice that the GMC Volt got to drive on our roads for free without paying any road tax like the rest of us. My truck only gets about 20mpg and I pay at least $0.60/gal in road tax per gallon. If the Volt picked up its share, it would have to pay $1.20 for the 40 mile trip. Add that onto the electric bill and you get $2.70. I am sure that if I purchase $2.70 worth of gas that I could run my 18 hp lawnmower for more than 1 hour. Remember that the Volt only generates 11.3 hp, that is less than my lawnmower. Do you think the GMC Volt numbers are starting to look fishie?

I could go on and on revealing deceptions about the GMC Volt and electric cars, but I leave that to you and your friends. If you are smart enough to earn enough money to buy a volt, I think you are also too smart to ever buy one.

Cyclical Systems

Have you noticed how many systems are cyclical? That means things seem to go in cycles. How about the seasons or the tides. There are generally three classes of time function systems. Those that start, expand and seem to cycle a few times before they gradually die out. Those that start,expand and keep cycling and expanding until they crash and die out. Finally, there are those that start, expand and seem to go on cycling forever. There are not a lot in this final class if you keep the clock running long enough. I want to use this model to see if I we can understand the future of us humans on the Earth.

We started out for some single spark in the distant past and over time evolved into a smart animal that has the ability to change his environment and benefit by those changes. I am thinking about growing food and animals or making fire and steam for engines, that sort of thing. I am not sure we were all that smart right after that first spark, but over time, the dumb ones of us died off, were killed or eaten by the rest of us. It was a tough place and few survived long enough to breed new humans, but the one who did were smarter. This went on for a very long time before the humans got to the point where they could build fires and kill and trap animals bigger than themselves. Eventually the smart ones figured out how to grow their own food. Us humans were kicking butt.

Now, we know a lot more about genetics and know that in those chains of DNA that it is possible to produce all kinds of human variations, but over time, only the smartest of us humans survived. The problem is that within those DNA chains are the original humans that we sprang from. Those genes are sitting there waiting to create more humans just like those original ones. If it were not for the hostile living conditions of the past the dumb ones would not have gradually died off. What we are evolving into as humans as 99% of all random gene matches take place is that we are canceling the natural evolution of the past. Don't think so? We have more people living and breeding with birth defects than any other time in modern history. I is a certainty that us humans will have more health problems and cost in the future as a result too. Hard to think about these types of things, much less write about them. You have to admit that these are the facts of the end game.

Let me tell a little short story. I watched a TV show where they were looking for the "real" domestic dog. They were looking for one that was not the result of selective breeding. We have thousands of dogs that all look very different, yet we know that they all originated from just a few original wild dogs. Seems impossible when you look at how different dogs can be, but it is a fact. In the TV show, they went all over the world looking for this "real dog". They looked in poor areas and in garbage dumps and places where the affects of human selection would be minimum and they did find the "real dog" and they all looked the same all over the world. They were a little like the Australian Dingo with a short coat and a tail that curved up over their backs. The snout was a little longer than most of our common dogs. The TV show pointed out that if nothing were done by us humans, over time, our dogs would devolve back to that "real dog". How is that?

Let's try another one. Over the past 100 or so years us humans have developed milk cows that can produce several times the milk cows just 50 years ago could produce. The point is, however, that selective breeding has to continue just to "maintain" the high level of milk production. We can't just stop. Why do you think that we keep having dog shows and that sort of thing? The dairy breeders claims that if cows were allowed to breed randomly from this point, the production would go down about 10% per generation. The point that I am trying to make is that it is like pushing a cart up hill. If you stop pushing, the cart will roll back down.

Now back to us humans. Due to forces that we haven't noticed, us humans have gotten quite a way up that hill and the hill is getting steeper all the time. If we crash and I am sure we will, it is just a matter of time. What do you think will happen? I think that with the current system where the dumbest among us do most of the breeding, we are devolved the human race. When we crash, it will wipe out many of the stupid among us and we will be back near the beginning starting a whole new cycle. In modern times when the Greek system crashed what happened? When the Egyptian system crashed what happened? When the Roman system crashed what happened? When the Inca and Aztec systems crashed, what happened? This one is going to be a lot bigger and it is going to take us back a lot farther. Don't think so? I am not sure I want to be around to see if I have what it will takes to be a survivor. How confident are you that your kids have what it will take to be a survivor? Heavy questions. If us humans are not a one shot deal, we will evolve back much the same way as we did it this first time.

For the pass couple of hundred years, we have had "do gooders" of different types running around the world helping humans who are less competitive continue to reproduce. It is a sad thing to have to say, but all the "do gooders" have made life on this planet worse and it is still getting worse. Think about the "end game" once in a while.

Global Warming or Climate Change?-------Logic?

As a pilot and a sailor, I have studied weather more than the normal voter. We keep hearing all kinds of people warning about the danger of Global Warming, they are now calling it Climate Change, but it is still the same thing. There is an old saying, "if you keep saying something long enough, people will believe it". I think this is the objective of the Global Warming movement. What happens when you pull back the curtain and apply a little logic?

First, let's look at Global Warming. With this argument, there are only two states that need to be looked at. (1) The Earth gets warmer and (2) The Earth stays the same. Now if the Earth gets warmer, is that bad or good? Isn't it interesting that we never seem to get past the slogan and discuss the real implications of the Earth getting warmer. I suspect that we would be able to grow more food if the Earth got warmer than if it stayed the same. If that was the case, more people could have more food and a better life. If getting warmer means less food, then it would be bad for us humans. The problem is that we never discuss the chances of either one of these happening.

Now when you shift to Climate Change, it opens up a lot more alternatives. I think that is why the Global Warming nuts shifted. It makes their argument a lot more complicated. Now climate is a lot more complex than just Global Warming. Even with Global Warming, you still have to consider the impact on rain and snow fall. Anyone who understands high school science knows that warm air can hold more moisture than cold air. Just that one point means if the Earth gets warmer, more water from out oceans will evaporate and be suspended in the atmosphere. If that were the case, it would lower the oceans rather than raise them. The only ice and snow that would end up in the oceans is that ice that is not now floating at the poles in the ocean. I think that you already know that the melting of floating ice will have no affect on the level of the oceans. I feel that warmer air could absorb more water from all the oceans to more than equal the ice that is on land, considering that all the ice on land melted. Isn't that interesting?

Now to some more serious points about Climate Change. Let's keep it simple and think about growing food. There are three basic states that need to be looked at. (1) Climate gets worse (2) Climate gets better (3) climate stays the same. The land masses of the Earth are a real mix, with some closer and some farther from the equator. Some have high elevations and some are flat and near sea level. Notice how elevation has more to do with rain fall and the ability to grow food than does the distance from the equator or the average temperature. Global Warming people seem to think that Climate or Weather is just temperature. The reason for that is that most have not moved around much and the only thing they concern themselves about is the temperature. How else would the know how to dress each morning?

Let's look at an example or two. Now compare Brasil and Australia. These two are about the same size and are about the same distance from the equator. I did not check this out, but my guess that the average temperature is not all that much different. It can be hot in both places. The key thing that you find when comparing these two is that they are totally different when it comes to growing food. Australia is very dry, while Brasil is much wetter. Both have large bodies of water east and west of them, yet their climate is much different. If Global Warming is such a big deal, then why does something that has nothing to do with Global Warming have so much to do with the weather of Australia and Brasil? I think you can see that there much bigger factors affecting climate and weather and their affect on food growing than average temperature. I think the reason that so many very stupid people have jumped on the Global Warming band wagon is that it is simple and their simple minds can grasp the concept. Understanding weather is far too complex for the pseudoscience people who support the Global Warming fear.

You never hear Global Warming people talking about the "end game" when they have done everything they advocate and yet in 100 years the human race is back to being hunters and gatherers. For some reason, they seem to feel that by their sacrifice and their forcing me to also sacrifice with them that we are going to save the world. None of this is going to save the world, it might if they are totally correct allow us humans to survive with our current system a little longer. We should be talking about how long that will be since we know that it is not forever. further, how much should us humans sacrifice from now on to extend this period a few more years. I went thru the math once before on this one and a good life for someone else for a few years a 100 years from now is not worth much in current dollars. If that is the case? Why are stupid people advocating that we sacrifice so much now? You figure it.

What Is The Definition Of Stupidity?

I think it is like beauty. I can't define it, but I know it when I see it. Today, you don't have to look very far to see examples of stupidity. There is one town here in the USA where they have much more than their share and that is Washington DC.

I just heard that the EPA is coming down on dairy farms over spilled milk. My mother used to tell me not to cry over spilled milk and I know my mother was very wise. Now the EPA has me crying over spilled milk. Seems that milk contains a type of fat that can be harmful and could post a risk to humans. Doesn't butter come from the cream contained in milk? Eat too much and you could die. You have to ask yourself, "where do they find the nuts that work for the EPA?" No dairy farmer that I know spills much milk. They could not stay in business if they were spilling milk. I've milked a few cows in my days and can tell you that I spilled very little milk and when I did, I never cried. When you call the cows in for milking, they "let down their milk". It has to do with the expectation of being milked and when this happens, I have seen all for teats dripping milk all over the place. It is a natural thing and now the EPA wants dairy farmers to put diapers on the cow's bag. I feel that it has gone far enough and we all need to let it be know that we are actually "crying over spilled milk".

If the milk thing were not bad enough, wait till the EPA comes to your house with a carbon dioxide meter. Carbon dioxide is considered by the EPA to be a toxic gas and as such they have the right to regulate it. Do you have any idea how absurd that is? If we got rid of all the carbon dioxide, no plants could grow and we would all die. Mother nature developed a very sophisticated system to regulate carbon dioxide in the air. As the amount in the air goes up, plants grow faster and take out the carbon dioxide. When the amount in the air goes down, plants grow slower. If a forest burns down, the burning wood puts carbon dioxide into the air. If the trees in that same forest were allowed to die from old age rather than burning down, their rotting would put exactly the same amount of carbon dioxide in the air. Is our EPA stupid or what?

How about coal? It is our main source of electric power here and in most of the world. The problem is "dirty" coal. 99% of the people who drive by a coal fired power plant think the smoke billowing into the air is from burning dirty coal. What they see is water vapor from big cooling towers that allow the steam to be recycled. Seens there is no shortage of stupidity here in the USA. Have you noticed how in any article about what percentage of gas is in our air that they never list water vapor? It is one of the biggest. Did you ever hear about rain? At a time when we are taxing our power plants and driving up the cost of electricity here in the USA, we are selling coal by the ship load all over the world and we all know that it will be burned in power plants that do not have any modern scrubbers. It only takes a few days before that polluted air is right over our homes. Eactly what has been gained by making power and food more expensive here in the USA. Did we save the world? I don't think so. If there is ever a pay back for all of our suffering, when is it and will we be broke and owned by some other country like China by then?

I talk to a lot of stupid people every day who really believe that we can save the world. The only system for us humans that has been proven to work over thousands of years has been as hunter gatherers and the way we are now going it will not be long before there will be a lot fewer of us and we will be hunter gatherers again. The good news is that we will have gotten rid of a lot of the stupid people.

What? Toyota Again, Government Boo Boo

Back on 3/24/10 I Blogged "Toyota Again". In that Blog, I came to the conclusion that random problems with the Toyota onboard commuters should produce more random problems, not just throttle control. Building on that fact, back on 3/24/10, I stated that the problems with the Toyota was a combination of "fraud" and "two foot drivers". Isn't it interesting that about a year later and after our own President Obama bad mouthed Toyota, our government is admitting that they did not know what they were talking about. Notice that you are not seeing our President Obama admitting that he made a serious mistake bad mouthing Toyota.

At first, I bought into the fact that there was some kind of problem with Toyota and all that I had to do was to figure out in what area. I had all the possibilities in my set of considerations, but jumped to the computer being a likely area. That was because it is almost impossible for management or normal quality control to detect computer software problems. I was playing the odds. I did have "fraud" and "two foot drivers" on my list too. As it has turned out, it seems to have been these last two. Maybe I should explain what a "two foot driver" is and how it could cause the reported Toyota problem. I am an old guy who learned to drive in a "stick" shift car with a manual clutch. With this type of car, you had to use your left foot for the clutch and right for the gas and brake. Since you seldom needed to have your foot on both the gas and brake at the same time, the right foot could handle both of these. Now with the automatic transmission cars, the left foot had nothing to do. Younger people thus used the left foot for the brake and the right foot for the gas. As you can see, in an emergency, a person could push with both feet at the same time.

Watch the news and you will see that the news will not report on the big error that they made. Notice that this error is just like the big non-event Gulf oil spill. I have to ask how the normal person who does not see the big picture can figure this all out? Is it because 40% of our kids don't graduate high school? There has to be a reason why we are generally so stupid.

40 Years Ago In Almaden Valley

It really does not seem all that long ago, but it was 40 years. I was drinking a glass of my home brew out on my patio when I got this great idea on how to make a fortune. I had already gotten my first Patent and was hot on the trail of new ideas. This new idea was to invent a new drug or pill that would arrest any health condition so that you would not die from what ever you had, but it would not actually cure you. From a marketing stand point this would be great. I would have customers coming back again and again for more of my pills. It didn't matter what I charged, the demand would be so great that the government would give people the money to buy the pills. I developed a marketing plan for this new pill on the basis that I only had to invent it and that should not be that difficult. I developed all kinds of statistical data on my potential customers and how sensitive the price per pill might be. I even went so far as to calculate my return if they required the pill one a day or once a week. In every case, I made millions. I could see the future where I could be the riches person in the world. The problem was inventing the pill. I went to the library and reviewed the literature, but it did not help. It looked like I would have to do this on my own. I had invented things before and had been granted Patents, so I had a good idea what I was up against.

I hesitated to reveal my idea to my friends because I knew the potential and was sure that most of my friends could not be trusted. You know that I have my weakness for good home brew and one thing led to another until one day I spilled the beans. It was like wild fire how the news spread. One friend had just promoted the "Pet Rock" and was ready for bigger and better things. This was a good friend, but one that had the eyes that anyone knew could not be trusted. I had to work fast now.

As I worked on my business plan, I had to develop all kinds of alternatives. What if some one ripped me off and sold the pills for less? I had to analyse every possibility. You must know me by now and know that I don't miss a single item. I had already concluded that if I could develop this pill, I had to price it very low or I would bankrupt the USA. That's right. The demand would be so great that the government would raise taxes if necessary to be sure they could provide my pill to every voter. With this pill, a voter could live for ever and vote thousands of times. Think about the implications? If you were President and could provide your voters with my pill, you could be assured that you could stay in office as long as you wanted. We are talking about voters who were over 125 years old and who had been voting since they were 18 or 21 years old. We are talking about power here. From my analysis I could see this problem facing me and the country. I would make million and even billions. At this point I started to get concerned for the future of my country. I should think about not charging so much for my pill.

This whole business of price forced me to develop a whole new business plan. What if I gave these pills away free? Now these pills don't cure anything, they just make you live longer as long as you take the pill. I got to thinking, if these pills were free, after a few years, we would have millions of people over 100 years old who could not do anything or take care of themselves living all over the place. I started thinking about all the young people who would have to take care of all these really old people and the cost. At this point, I realized that no matter what I did, the country was doomed to bankruptcy. If I charged for the pill, I would become a billionaire and the country would go bankrupt. If I gave the pills away for free, I would be a hero and my country would go bankrupt. This really concerned me. So what do you think I did?

It was a difficult decision, but even though I could develop this new pill, I decided that the future of my country and that of my children was more important than either me becoming a billionaire or a national hero. I think that you know what I did. I had another home brew and forgot about the whole idea of inventing this super pill. Now I can sleep nights knowing that I did the right thing. I would be interested in you comments, because I am still not sure I made the right decision.

PS---5/5/17 That was a long time ago, but now I think that you can all see that I was right.  Rather than vote for for Obamacare and have the government pay for your health care, why didn't we just vote to give everyone $25,000 per year so that they could pay for their own health care in "cash".  We would not need insurance companies of complex accounting systems to charge customers and then try to collect from the government.  What if we had to buy gas for our cars like we try to pay for health care?  What kind of mess do you think that would be?  We don't have the money to give everyone $25,000 because most of our people are so poor and unproductive that they pay little or no tax.  We are poor people with champagne appetites   You know what that is and what kind of crisis it can cause.  Aren't you glad that I did not offer my magic pill to the public?  Obama did almost the same thing and see what has happened?

More On The O'Reilly -- Obama Interview

As I have watched the O'Reilly - Obama interview, I have even more concerns. Obama said, in affect, that he was proud of his Obama Care law, because it allowed people with existing conditions to purchase health insurance. What he left out and assumed that his backers knew was that they would be able to buy health insurance with their existing conditions as though they were perfectly healthy. It is clear that Obama flowers and Obama too think that insurance companies are stupid. They have no idea what actuaries do. They don't know that these are the math bookies who figure out the odds of someone making a big claim and figure out how "little" an insurance company could charge the average policy holder and still make a profit. Insurance is a competitive business and if you charge too much, your customers will go some place else. Isn't free competition great? When Obama followers find out that the price for health insurance will increase they will not be so happy. When insurance companies increase their prices, Obama will attack them as being greedy. I would ask if were are that stupid, but I know the answer to that and it is "yes".

The other point that Obama made for his followers was that, "a person should not have to go bankrupt when they have a serious sickness". The implications of this statement is that if you get sick, your neighbor should pick up your health tab so that you can keep your house and will it to your kids. Try these two cases. Two different people have some serious health problem. One owns his home in which he has $100,000 equity and the other rents and has $100,000 in the bank that he was planning on spending on a new home. If the second guy got sick and had to pay $100,000 for his medical bill, most people would expect him to draw out the $100,000 and pay his bill. Seems logical to me, but Obama wants the guy who owns his home to keep his home and have the tax payers pick up his tab. Is this fair?

Obama is so far off from logic that most citizens know that you have to wonder what he is thinking and what he is trying to do to our country. His actions speak a lot louder than his words. To me he seems to be trying to destroy the USA from the inside and I don't know why. That is just another reason that I like many of my friends are so worried about the future of our country and for the future of our kids. For the records, members of my family were part of the original Jamestown colony, while others came over the ice from Asia thousands of years before. They all wanted exactly what I want today and that is a better future for my children.

Bill O'Reilly--Obama Interview Before The Super Bowl

Did you watch the Obama interview before the Super Bowl game? This is a very short Blog. Did you notice the ball faced lie by Obama? I did and he kept with the lie thru the interview. Here is the lie. O'Reilly asked about the courts striking down the Obama health care bill. Obama came back saying that 12 court decisions held that the law was constitutional and only 2 said that it was not. The facts are, and Obama being a lawyer and a law professor knew the true facts, of the so called 12 decisions, they were not really decisions about the law. They were decisions by the court that the person or group bring the case did not have "standing" and thus the case was not heard. In only 2 of the 12 cases that the court did hear, the decisions did not relate to the actual constitutionality of the law. Obama was clearly lying to the people of the USA and he know it. Because he is a lawyer, he can not hide behind the fact that he did not understand the decisions. He lied to the American people, pure and simple.

You can bet that over time, if Americans have a brain, Obama will be exposed as a lyer.