The Progressive Myth

Do you consider yourself as being "progressive"?  If you answer "No", then what are you?  Are you then, a person who wants to go backwards?  From the very beginning, this whole business of "progressive" has been a mental play on words.  The problems is that most of the voters in the USA are so stupid that they could not see that they were being taken in by the "Progressive Myth".  That is the point of this blog.

Take any subject in the social world and explore it to see it there is some aspect where the situation could be "better" for at least "one" person.  With the above definition, it is clear that you could find at least "one" person in any social area that would be "better" if something were changed.  This is the essence of whole "progressive" concept.  If something is "good", then to be a true "progressive" we would need to advocate for that something.  Anyone who does not go along with us is blind and thus "not" progressive.  If they are wrong and can not be changed by logic, they should be neutralized.  To be a true "progressive" one has to buy into the axiom that "the ends justifies the means".  You can not make an omelet without breaking a few eggs.

I think that the idea of being "progressive" also grows out of the life boat example where some women screams out, "do something".  It sounds logical to the person who is screaming, but it only makes any situation worse.  What it does is encourage all listeners to reject real logic and "do something" even if it is wrong and destructive.  I give you Obamacare as one of the perfect examples of this point.

Why is it that "doing nothing" is not even considered in 99% of all decisions situations?  That is what I can not figure out.   Right now, there is a lot of snow on my roof and my wife points out to me that there is a lot of snow on the roof and if I am going to do anything about it.  She is telling me to "do something" about the snow.  Many of my friends have hired people to clear the snow off their roofs and my wife knows that.  I tell my wife that I am not going to do anything about the snow.  I am going to wait for Spring when it will all melt by itself.  I am clearly not a "progressive".  In many situations, I have done nothing and doing nothing was the right decision.

Another point.  I think that young people who have little understanding or experience with the world fall for the "do something" or "progressive" myth.  Once they have been around the track a few times, they tend to look a little farther ahead and notice that we have the warming of "Spring" at about the same time every year.  When a young person tells you that this is the most snow that they have every seen and that "something" needs to be done, as an older person who has experienced more than two or three seasonal changes you try to assure them that "doing nothing" is the right course.  They will accept your advise, but deep down, they still would prefer that you would "do something". 

I don't know what it is, but this whole business of being "progressive" seems to be part of our human nature and politicians have capitalized on it to gain their ends.  What are their ends?  Simple power over other humans.  They just can not stand to see other humans going about their own business without interference.  Human ego is a strong force and no politician that I have ever seen was short on ego.  Think for yourself and be aware of the "progressive myth".

The New Model Of Economics In The Age Of The Darwin Limitation

I have been thinking further about the Darwin Limitation concept and it has pointed to another problem.  Economics has mostly been a study of the past with a significant amount of weight being given to correlation factors.  This is the mathematical matching of two or more events, one being something to do with economics.  Some times this process comes up with the correct answer, but not always.  Historically, people who graduated from college earned more than those who did not, so it became an economic axiom that going to college would thus make you more wealthy.  The problem, was not the going to college that made one wealthy, it  was the fact that most "smart" people went to college.  Smart people have always been more wealthy than dumb people and that is not going to change.  Now the Darwin Limitation.

If the distribution of mental abilities is not going to change very much over the next many years, even in the face of more efforts on education, how will this  affect our current economic models?  First, I would like to define the economic objective and that is for a national unit, like the USA, to produce as much GNP as possible.  Simply, make as big of a pie as possible.  From simple math, the way to do that is for all the players to produce wealth at their individual maximum rate.  When all added together, this results in the biggest pie.  Got it?

This means that, given the Darwin Limitation that we need to start discussing a major change in our thinking about economics.  I think that this new model is going to look much like this.  We need a way to allow those with lower mental abilities to produce "some" wealth even if it is much less than a person with higher mental abilities.  This means that we need more menial jobs for those people and system to provide some kind of supplement.  In the past, a graduated income tax provide a partial solution, but I do not feel this will be the correct solution in the future.  The other group of people who our system needs to deal with are those who have more mental ability than is required for their job.  I am thinking here about people who work for the Post Office and other government agencies.  Most of these jobs are entry level jobs that people are milking for a life time.  They need to move on to jobs that produce more wealth.  This is one area where resources my be available to supplement those who can only do menial jobs.  This can be done by lowering the pay for the Post Office and most government employees to  encourage them to move on.

Now on the top end.  These are people who earn more due to their mental ability and personal motivation and risk taking.  If we try to cut too deeply into this group, we could easily kill the goose that layed the Golden Eggs.  It is a fact that those at the top will earn much more than those on the bottom and there is nothing that can be done about it that will not, at the same time, reduce the size of the total pie.

If we do not recognize the Darwin Limitation and look backwards for solutions, the result will be the lowering of the quality of life for the average person.  Some of the things that I have proposed in the past for slightly different reason were "auctioning off day workers".  For a person of low mental ability to earn their supplement, they need to produce what they can..  If this is reading stories to children, a parent should be able to bid for and hire this person to read to their children.  The rate the person should have to pay is what ever the high bid is.  If some liberal wants to challenge this concept as not being ethical, I would challenge that to get a supplement the person needs to work to the best of their abilities.

I think that the Darwin Limitation is a real thing and needs to be taken seriously.

Was Ted Nugent's Comment Correct About Obama?

I watched the video on Ted Nugent's interview about Obama and agree with most of what he had to say, but that is not the point of this blog.  If Ted Nugent had it right, he would have accursed Obama of being a Judas leading dumb sheep to slaughter.  My point is what has happened to Ted Nugent since he made the speech.

As I understand it, Obama has call down his tax paid goons to attack Ted in every way that is possible.  Our government has the financial power to bankrupt anyone who they chose to attack and that is our real problem.  Most people have families and are not as rich as Ted and thus have no choice but to give in to the attacks by the Obama goons.  That is a fact.  I think everyone thought that the Obama's government attacks on the Tea Party was the only story, but it is going on every day against individuals like Ted who speak out against Obama's policies.

You should go on the internet and see how the Obama government has been attacking Ted Nugent.  It has all come from the Federal government agencies from the DNR on down.  Even when state officials were along on Ted's hunts, the Federal goons still attacked Ted.  To end many of the charges and to prevent having to pay even higher legal fees, Ted pleaded "no contest" to some of the charges.  This did not mean he was guilty of anything, only that there was no way to get Obama's leaches off his back.

In an earlier blog, I mentioned how Salvador Allende in Chile did almost exactly what Obama has done.  He had the OSHA goons in Chile attack businesses that did not agree with his policies.  I predicted this when Obama was elected.  Check it out!  I also said that the most dangerous person in the Obama government was going to be his Attorney General and it has been.  He has hand picked who to attack and who not to bother.  Open your eyes before Obama and his goons attack you.  Don't try to hide and not speak up when you know what Obama is doing is wrong.  Ted Nugent is one of the only people that I know of who has the courage to speak up. 

If you don't do anything, what has happened to Ted Nugent could happen to you.

Diversity Is Not The Answer To The Darwin Limitation

I noticed over 50 years ago that Blacks were under represented in the STEM's.  I had "zero" Blacks in any of my Science, Math and Engineering classes in college.  At the time, I thought that Blacks were just not smart enough to handle these more difficult classes.  I was wrong, but the answer was not some kind of liberal "diversity formula" where unqualified students were given a free ride.  As I have blogged in the past, we first need to find the "cause" and address that rather than fudging the numbers by packing classes with unqualified students just because they look Black.  This might look good on paper, but it does not address or solve the basic problem.  Here goes.

I don't know what the basic problem is with Blacks and STEM's, but there has to be something that is happening or not happening with in the Black community.  I am not willing to accept, at this point, that Blacks are victims.  The reason is that to be a victim, there has to be someone who is making the Blacks into victims.  You would think that by now, with all the research, that we would have discovered exactly who those people are who are making Blacks victims. 

For the record, I have lived near Black families as well a many other racial groups.  I have engaged in many social activities with almost all racial groups except Blacks.  I have never been into the home of a Black person, nor have I ever been invited into one's home.  I have been into the homes of many other different racial homes and have eaten at their tables.  I have gone hunting and fishing with many others too, but not with any Blacks.  As I look at myself in the mirror, have I acted differently with Blacks?  I don't think so.  During all this time, there has never been a situation where an invitation by me or from a Black that would have been a natural event.  I don't know why.

When I was a kid, my mother used to tell me not to go around with a "chip" on my shoulder.  When people chopped fire wood, there was always a few wood chips on the ground.  To initiate a fight or a challenge of some kind, it was common for one person to dare the other to "knock" the chip off their shoulder as a sign that they wanted to start a fight, thus the expression.  Now, this is a simple minded concept, but I think that it may play a role in the Black community.  Many Blacks seem to walk around with a "chip"  on their shoulder.  I think that I mentioned in an earlier blog that I was the child of a typical Oakie family who suffered thru the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl.  The people who went thru this ordeal lost every thing except their "pride".  Many went around with a "chip" on their shoulders daring anyone to "knock" it off so that they could defend their "pride.  I think that many Blacks are still in this same position.  They came thru an ordeal that stripped them of every thing until the only thing that they had left was their "pride" and this they would defend just like us Oakies did.  With me on this point?

Many Oakies never recovered, but most did and I think that most Blacks will recover as well.  What I do not understand is why it has taken so long.  Here is an idea.  The church was a big part of the life of us Oakies as it is with Blacks, but here is where the difference comes in.  I never heard a sermon from one of our preachers preach hate against anyone else for the state that we were in and we were poor.  We prayed for help from God, we did not blame anyone else for our poor state.  As I see it, the Black preachers are one of the main problems in the Black community.  I know that many Blacks who have been brainwashed by their preachers will disagree with me on this point, but I think I have a good basis for this view.  You only have to watch the Black preachers on TV, and you know who they are, to see the hate that they spew almost every week.  Martin Luther King only wanted a level playing field for the Blacks and they now have that. Slavery is over and has been over for more than 150 years.  During the 60 years that slavery was legal in the USA, no more than 50% of the states had slavery.  It was a big deal for Blacks, but it does not justify the hate that is renewed every Sunday by these Black preachers.  How does all this link to diversity and STEM's?

The message that has to come home from Sunday schools in the Black community.  They have to preach that each person is in charge of their own future and that future means finishing high school and not getting pregnant out of wedlock.  To be all one can be means taking the harder STEM classes even if it means working a lot harder.  Sunday school needs to teach that there is no free lunch and that no one is a victim except for their own lack of will. 

I think, every day, how could Obama and his family sit year after year for 20 years in the Rev.  Wright church listening to him spew hate and promote Blacks as victims.  There is only one person in the Black community who can turn this whole thing around and that is President Obama.   His problem  is that he has bought into the idea of hate and victimization preached by Rev Wright and most other Black preachers.  I think that if the weight of this hate message were taken off the backs of the Black community that they would see the light and dig themselves out just like the Okies did.  Rather than helping with "diversity" we should try to take away the hate that is holding Blacks back. 

Blacks need to rise up and shoulder their fair share of the "job" of growing our economy.  There are plenty of Blacks with under utilized mental abilities.  Blacks are not at the Darwin Limitation.

The Darwin Limitation

I know that you have no idea what I mean by the "Darwin Limitation", but you will after reading this blog.  The Kentucky Derby is coming up soon and many of us will be watching.  A key thing that I learned a long time ago from the Kentucky Derby is that the winning times for the race have "not" changed significantly in many years.  That is because race horses have reached the "Darwin Limitation".  I got to thinking about this whole idea and now I think that the human race may be close to a similar "Darwin Limitation".  Let me explain why.

The pattern of recorded human history has been one of ever improving quality of life due mainly to our increases in productivity driven by our mental abilities.  What I think has been happening is that the human race had an excess of mental abilities that had not been fully utilized.  As those abilities were used to increase human productivity and efficiency, the quality of life increased accordingly.  I don't think that anyone foresaw the time when the human race would no longer have an excess of mental ability.  Some people thought that all we had to do was to "educate" the human race better and we would have all the mental ability that we needed.  That has turned out "not" to be true.  More and more people are coming to the conclusion that going to college does not make one smart.  You have to already be smart before you go to college to come out smart.

In the case of the race horses, what they are finding is that there is a limited amount of genetic material to rearrange thru selective breeding and we have just about maxed that out.  It has taken a lot longer for the human race to max out, but the end result is the same.  Historically, there has been a need for a mix of mental abilities and the human race matched up reasonably well with the historical demand.  That has all changed and it has changed much more rapidly than Darwin could adjust the mental abilities of the human race.  One of the biggest complaints of businesses here in the USA is that they can not find "qualified" people to hire.  There are plenty of jobs, but most require a higher level of mental ability.  The other side of this problem is that those who are "qualified" and get the jobs make much much more than the fewer and fewer jobs that require less mental ability.  This has lead to a situation where there are more and more humans at the bottom of the income ladder.  As I see it, this is only going to keep getting worse.

If there were only a few at the bottom who can not provide for their own welfare, those at the top who have more mental ability and thus earnings can support those few at the bottom.  This idea works fine in the beginning, but in the limit, it does not work.  We have fewer and fewer people at the top with the needed mental abilities and more at the bottom who need to be cared for.  It is clear that at some point this shell game has to stop when we hit the "Darwin Limitation".  What we are going to end up with is a  Kentucky Derby type situation where the average quality of life for us humans stays the same or starts going down.  It may be that we are at that point right now.

There are other drivers of the "Darwin Limitation" like food supply vs population growth or energy cost vs population growth.  It is a fact that all new energy will cost more than the old energy.  Oil wells will have to be deeper and so will coal mines.  We don't have any more land to farm or rivers to dam.  The only question to me is how soon will most of us humans come to realize that we are facing the "Darwin Limitation".

PS---Obama's minimum wage or Obamacare are not the solution to the "Darwin Limitation".  Is there a solution?  What are the alternatives?

PS---Check it out, sienceagainstevoltution.org/"the Kentucky derby limit"  on the internet, you will find it interesting.

PS---If we are up to the Darwin Limitation here in the USA and are importing mental ability from around the world, why don't we figure out how to take advantage of the under utilized mental ability from our Black and Latin American communities?  How do we do that is the bigger question.

How Did Education Get So Screwed Up?

You don't think education in the USA is not screwed up?  Humor me on this one and go ahead and read this blog.  I have an idea how we got education so screwed up and if I am right, it may point to how we can get it corrected.  You can't solve a problem is you don't know what caused the problem.  You could take an aspirin for the pain in you finger, but if you had not hit your finger with the hammer in the first place, you would not need to aspirin.  Regarding our education system, it seems that the only think we know to do is to throw more money at the problem.  The fact that this has not worked should convince some of you that lack of money may not be the cause of our poor performance!!

Here is my take.  Our education model started back several hundred years ago in jolly old England.  Who were the people who went to college back then?  They were the rich and landed.  What did they need education for?  So they could talk smart at parties and speak in different languages so that the lower classes could  not participate.  They studied literature which were mostly made up stories or a slanted view of history.  Don't you think it strange that few mathematicians or scientists' writings were considered "literature"?  I guess that it had to have some kind of "make believe" element to it.  The affect of all this was to create a model of education that had little to do with helping one succeed in life.  Most of the real mathematicians and scientists of the time were self taught or learned by correspondence between each other in the form of "letters".  Many of these can be found today, but are not included in any study of literature.  Math and science have their own languages, so why are they not considered worthy of being taught in language classes?  It is because of how and where our education model started.

I think that we would all agree that our need for education has changed from the time when the study of made up stories was the theme of the day.  For the past 100 years we have been on technology driven ride that does not appear to be slowing, so why has our education system not recognized that simple fact?  I just spoke with the mother of a 17 year old son who is getting "A's" in German and wants to study German in college.  The mother was so proud of her son.  I would have been more proud of him if he was as interested in playing pool.  Studying German and playing pool have about equal values, but look how much money she would save if he studied pool instead.

In a prior blog, I pointed out the number of degrees earned in our colleges and that 10 times as many of our kids get degrees in Political Science and Communications than in the Sciences.  While the number of school teacher degrees increased by 50%, the number of Science and Engineering degrees stayed the same.  This was while our total spending on college and the number of kids in college increased.  If that does not give you reason for concern, I do not know what will.  It is even worse when you look at advanced Science and Engineering degrees where over 50% of the degrees are earned by kids who were not born in the USA.  How can that be?  Not only are our kids dumb and lazy, so are most of their parents.  They have turned the minds of their kids over to the government run schools and see what they have gotten.  It is like the Post Office and labor unions are running our schools.  Oh, that is exactly what is happening.

My first point was that we picked up this education model from jolly old England from 500 years ago and it need to be changed.  We need to look a education as an investment that it is.  Further, we need to look at both the public tax money and personal money that we spend on our schools and make sure that we get our monies worth.  What do I mean by monies worth?  I mean that it should make the economic pie bigger, bigger GNP and it should improve the general quality of life.  The quality of life is the difficult on to quantify, but I think  we can do it.  We have no control over the money that individuals chose to spend on education, but we do on the public tax money.  We need to rank all the classes from grammar school thru college in terms of how they will affect the future GNP and the general quality of life.  This will be difficult, but any logical system is better than what we now have.  What I think is going to happen, if we are all honest in this process, is that many of the classes that we now spend a lot of tax money and human resources are going to end up far down the "worth it" list.  If we can change the "liberal arts" mentality that we got from jolly old England and refocus on what we need for the future, we will have done a great service to our children and grand children.

Liberal arts is not going to go  away, but it will be in the class of hobbies like pool and volley ball  where it belongs.  The result is that we will be spending more of our resources on Science and Engineering where it will prepare our children so they can compete in the world of the future.

PS---I lived around musical people all  my life and not one ever learned to play in any school or college.  They not only played music, they wrote music.  Some even made their own musical instruments.  Do we have some shortage of musicals to the point that we need to spend tax money for the Post Office and Labor Union to produce more!

PS---Why don't he TV news people ever ask the student rioters what they majors in college were?  I know that most will have some Mickey Mouse major that the tax payers paid for.

Saving The World From Global Warming

If you have been watching the President of the USA, Obama, then you must be as confused as me about how he is going to "save the world".  I have blogged on this point before, but here goes again.  If you are going to do anything, it has to have some kind of "objective".  Why did the chicken cross the road?  The "objective" was to get to the other side.  Simple concept, right?  Only three things can happen related to the temperature of the Earth over time and those are (1) Gets hotter, (2) Stays the same, (3) Gets colder.  Those are the three.  Do you  know of any others?  If so, drop me a line.  Next, we have us humans and what is our "objective"?  We have to answer that one before we start going off "half cocked".  I have researched my family history here in the USA and have discovered that they all had the same "objective" and that was to improve the quality of life for themselves and their children.  That is why they worked so hard.  Having fun is part of the quality life and they tried to do some of  that too.  They took time to smell the roses along the way too. Now back to the point.

We already know from geography that there are places on the Earth where it is both colder and hotter than in New York City, so we do know what the affects might be if the Earth's temperatures changed. We also know that humans now live in most of these areas, so we know it is not the "end of the world".  If you lived in an area where it is now cold, getting warmer would improve your quality of life.  If you lived in a hot area, getting cooler would also improve your quality of life.  We also know from history that there was ice several hundred feet thick extending down from the North Pole into the USA and it is not there anymore.  What happened to it?  It melted, that's what.  It got warmer.  Do you really think that it was because of too may Indian camp fires in Texas putting CO2 into the air?  Was the quality of life better for the Indians in Texas during the Ice Age than today?  How about the Indians in Montana?  Just think if we had President Obama back during the Ice Age and his policy was affective?  What do you think life would be like now in New York City?  It would be much worse.

This is only part of the problem.  Many of you watched the movie Titanic and saw that the ship was going to sink.  The only questions was. "how long was it going to take?"  If the people did not get off the ship and into life boats, they were going to die by drowning.  If it only took a few hours for the ship to sink, those people would die by drowning.  If the ship took a very long time to sink, some would  die by old age or starvation.  As you can see that "time" is a very critical consideration.  In the case of Global Warming, 100% of the people alive today will all die by something other than Global Warming.  If that is the case, what is the concern?  Oh, it is for our children yet unborn!  Rather than them living in Miami, they will, most likely, prefer to live in Toronto.

Here are a few facts.  The population density of the USA is 84/Sq.Mile while in Italy it is 515/Sq.Mile.  Kenya is 171/Sq.Mile.  These numbers have changed over time and will continue changing.  Look at Canada where the number is 9/Sq.Mile.  For my money, I prefer to live in a place where the population is no more than 25/Sq.Mile.  With that density, the thousands of trees that I have planted on  my own property can easily remove any CO2 that I have put into the air and produce  enough wood to heat my home.  If the population of those countries goes down to acceptable levels, even the worst case Global Warming will not be a serious problem, and the quality of  life will improve.

We should not spend a penny on global warming.  When we run out of oil and coal, where will the CO2 be coming from?  Without those forms of energy, there will not be enough food to feed the same number of people who are alive today, so who will care about Global Warming then? 

Is Religion A Hoax?

Are you honest when it comes to making decisions?  What does this have to do with Religion?  It really does not have anything to do with religion specifically. To assure that you come to the correct answer in any decision situation, you need to first start with all the possibilities on you list.  The next step is to pick the correct possibility out of that list.    If you don't have the correct possibility on your list, the best that you can do is to "pick" the "best" answer that "is" on your list.  Many people assume that the "best" answer from the list is the "correct" answer.  That is "wrong".  Did you ever take a test in school where "none" of the multiple choice answers on the test was correct?  I know that most of you have never had this happen and thus have been mentally programed by our school system to fall for the "wrong" answer.  Let's see if you are honest.

Is religion a hoax?  If you were asked why you believe in religion would you consider the possibility that you have been taken in by a hoax?  I have talked to a  lot of people about why they believe in one religion or another and 90% who believe in religion believe in the same religion as their parents.  With all the possible religions in the world, what are the chances of 90% accepting the religion of their parents by "chance"?  Is this random?  No way.  The religion of ones parents has more to do with the religion they chose than does their brain coming to a logical answer.  Do you believe that?

Is it possible that one of your friend's beautiful new baby might be mentally retarded?   If you held the baby and their eyes moved in a strange way, would you consider that they might be mentally retarded?  Similarly, if you were having a conversation with a friend and they asked about something that you had just explained, would you think that they were mentally retarded?  I know that most people would think that the baby was "normal" as was their friend.  Neither would consider that either was mentally retarded.  This is not a question of whether or not either was mentally retarded or not.  Only an examination by a qualified doctor could determine if they were mentally retarded.

How about our President, Obama?  Do you think that he is a Judas who is out to destroy this country?  I have put this question to many people over the past 5 years and "none" have had this possibility on their lists.  I have noticed a few people now on the TV news who appear to be coming to the conclusion that Obama wants to destroy this country.  My main concern is that for 99% of the people don't even have the possibility on their lists.  If that is the case, how can they be sure that they have come the "correct" answer and not just the "best" answer?  I know that most people are very proud of themselves for coming up with the "best" answer off their list.  Coming up with the "best" answer is a requirement for coming up with the "correct" answer but is not a sufficient reason.  Do you recall this from your class in "Logic".

I could have presented other examples, but I think that you can get the idea for those above.  Most of us think that we are good at coming up with the "correct" decision when, in fact, all we have do is to come up with the "best" answer.  I think that in a prior blog that I pointed out that the most common reason why decisions turn out to be wrong is that the "best" answer was chosen off their list of possibilities which did not contain the "correct" answer.  If "all" possible answers are on your list, it is guaranteed that some where on that list is the "correct" answer.

 In the case of Obama, we can construct our list with just two possibilities,  Obama is a Judas and Obama is "not" a Judas.  Being honest with your decisions is not all that complex as pointed out above.  Back to the top.  Is religion a hoax or not a hoax.  Are you honest enough to add the "correct" alternative to your list?

Woodworking PVA Glue Tip #3

Here is another glue tip.  It is a take off of some of my earlier tips, but you may not of thought about this one.

I do a lot of woodworking and do not like to use plywood or particle board for many of my project because of the difficulty of dealing with ugly raw edges of the material.  Years ago, I used to use "T" molding for the edges.  Many of you are familiar with this product.  It is a "T" shaped strip of plastic that has a tang that presses into a slot cut along the edge of the material.  It works, but it is not wood and still looks ugly.  The second product that you can buy at your woodworking supply store is a preglued edge banding.  It comes on rolls with a coat of "hot melt" glue on the back side.  You put this on with a hot iron.  It has two problems.  The wood never matches the other  wood exactly and the bond can be a problem on particle board.  Here is my tip.

Cut your own edge strip with a good sharp saw blade about 1/16" thick or less.  The thinner the better.  The reason for that is that you want the glue line to be stronger than the wood strip so that the glue bond wins in any tug-of-war with expansion and contraction.  Make the strip 1/32 wider than the material that you are covering.  Next, apply your PVA glue to "both" the strip and the edge of the item to be covered and let "dry".   Next, cut your strip to the length required with about 1/16" extra.  Now, using masking tape, tape the strip onto the edge being covered.  Now that you have it all aligned, take your hot cloths iron and press the strip onto the edge being covered.  As you go along pull off the tape ahead of the iron.  Pay special attention to the corners, inside and out.  I like to true up the first strip at the corner before I apply the strip for the other side of the corner.  It seems to work better if you "lap" the corners rather than using a 45 degree.  When you first applied the PVA glue to the edge of the material being covered, take care to get good coverage at the corner.

If you have done this right, all you need to do now is to sand the edge with a sanding block to remove any of the 1/13" over lap.  Put a good radius on the finished edge.  Now all you have to do is the staining or painting and every thing will match.  I some time use contrasting colored wood for affect.

I make my strips about 1/32" thick and cut them to length with scissors or a school paper cutter.  You can saw wider strips on a good band saw and use this technique to reface your cabinets.  If you were to try the above with "wet" glue, it would require all kinds of complex clamping and you still would not get as good of a job.  There is a saw blade that you can order from  Totalsawsolutions.com that will allow you to cut perfect strips as thin as 0.020".  That is what I use.

Happy woodworking!

What Is Your Credit Score? (Social Responsibility Score)

We all know about "credit scores".  That is the score that banks and money lenders use to determine if you are responsible enough to pay back the money  that they might loan you.  If the banks did not do something like this, they would all go broke in no time.  We all know that and accept the concept as logical and responsible, so why don't we try to use the same concept in other areas?  That is the point of this blog.  The banks are so regulated that they are an extension of our government.  With the credit score system, we know what it is made up of and we know what we have to do to improve our credit scores..  If we are not responsible and do not do what we need to do to improve our credit scores, we can not expect to get a loan for a car or a home.  We all know and accept that simple fact.

We are all dues paying members of  this democracy and as members, we have responsibilities to remain members "in good standing".  I propose that we develop a concept similar to a credit score to represent how well you have satisfied your responsibility to this democracy.  As individual tax payers, we pay into the democracy pot for the mutual benefit of our members "in good standing".  Isn't that what we do or should do?  We have a broad spectrum of members with a wide variation in their abilities to pay  into the pot and who are allowed to remove money from that pot.  We don't seem to have had a problem defining those who have to pay into the pot, but we have a serious  problem defining the limits on who can take money out of the communal pot.  That is where I think we need a concept like "social responsibility score" to manage who can take out how much.  Isn't it as logical to control the out flow as we control the in flow?  What should this "social responsibility score" look like?

We have a system of laws now to help maintain social order.  If you kill someone, you go to jail.  If you commit a felony, you lose your right to vote for life.  Now Obama wants to change that so more Blacks can vote.  We have a history of making laws that protect the health and welfare of our members who are in good standing.  Why don't we now create a different law similar to the credit score concept where your score determines what part of the collective pot of money you have a right too.  Now, you have a right to as much as you want without requiring anything from the person except being on USA soil.  You may not even have to be a citizen of this club.  Here is my list of the factors that should be considered when calculating one's "Social Responsibility Score".

(1)   Did you graduate from high school?
(2)   Have you been convicted of any serious  crime?
(3)   Have you tested positive for any illegal drug?
(4)   How much income tax have you paid?
(5)   Have you had or fathered a child out of wedlock?
(6)   Have you served in the armed services?
(7)   Are you a citizen of this country?
(8)   Do you have a college degree in a discipline deemed important for the country?
(9)   Are you current on any government insured loan?
(10) When were you born?
(11) Are you mentally or physically handicapped?
(12) Are you over weight?
(13)  Are you gainfully employed?

You can make up your list and give weights to each of these items.  The weights can be either positive or negative.  Finally, we need to calculate a "Social Responsibility Score" and based on this score define exactly what in the communal money pot that this person is qualified to take out.  The amount may be zero.  If this person does not like their "low" score, they can change their ways and earn a higher score.  If they do not change and improve their scores, they will have to find help from the "private" sector.  Sorry, but they will have to learn that this is how the world works.

 I have blogged on this point before, but notice that none of the above actually cost the person anything except "How much income tax have you paid?"  It is all free and only requires the person to conduct themselves in a "Socially Responsible Way".  Simple and it not only does not cost a penny, it could be the ticket to saving our country!!

Who Understands Econommics

I have had problems with the subject of economics all of my life.  We all kick around the word "economics", but who really understands economics?  I have been watching the world go around for over 70 years.  During that time I have lived and worked over much of the world.  What I have tried to do is to make some kind of order out of what I have observed first hand and square this with what I have studied in economics in college.  One of my economic professors in graduate school was the late Ted Kreps who was active in the Roosevelt administration during the great depression.  Ted thought that he understood economics, but much of what he said did not square with the fact that I observed in the real world.  I guess that is when and where that I started searching for "Who Understands Economics".  So far, I have not found that person.   What I would like to share in this blog is some of the questions that I still have.

First, let's look a China and what has been going on in their economy during the last 25 years.  For years since WWII, most of the people of China have been poor and many have starved to death.  Now we know that they are doing much better with a fast growing economy.  It is like global warming, if we don't know what caused the ice age to come and go, how can we claim to understand global warming?  Economics is the same.  What caused China's economy to improve so much?  Here is my take.

After WWII, China go caught up in the Communism and Socialism experiment.  These concepts never have worked any place in the world in any large group.  They have had some success in small village and family size groups, but not in any large group. What changed?  China started giving up on Communism and Socialism and allowed individuals to take greater control and responsibility for their own welfare.  What this did was to allow them to work and keep the fruits of their labor.  What they noticed was that they could produce many products cheaper than could us Americans.  At the same time we found that we could buy products from China cheaper than we and our companies could produce here.  We were "qualified" buyers because we had a combination of net worth and good credit. It was like water flowing down hill.  All China had to do was switch from Communism and Socialism to Capitalism and let the rules of Darwin and free enterprise flourish.  Is this a lesson in economics?  Does this sound logical?  Is this really how China has progressed in terms of quality of life so rapidly?  What principles of economics are revealed by the China example?  It is really simple isn't it?

There is a problem with the China example however and that is that at some point China's biggest customer will run out of wealth to buy their production.  This is unless America can continue to produce wealth faster than their rate of spending.  We know how China did it and it was by  a simple economic model or a simple lesson in basic economics.  Did China do it by borrowing and printing money to "stimulate" their economy?  No!  Did China do it by graduating more lawyers?  No!  Did China graduate 4 times as many scientists and engineers?  Yes!  Has China progressed from those early simple labor intensive products too more and more complex and sophisticated products?  Yes!  There is now no product that we make that China can not also make, but they can make it cheaper.

Are you starting to see the "key" to economics?  Guess?  Here it is.  The name of the economic game is "producing the highest value at the lowest cost".  Is that too simple?

Now, how is America doing?  We are borrowing about 20% of our federal government spending.  We are only paying about 80% of the federal taxes that we really owe.  How healthy do you think that is for the  future of our country?  How long do you think we can keep up something like that?  GNP is the basic measure of a countries production of wealth and how are we doing on that one?  The quality of life is a direct function of GNP per person.  Our current quality of life is based on a "false" GNP.  It needs to be adjusted to account for all the money that we are borrowing and thus do not produce.  If we do that, the GNP per person goes down while the total GNP goes up slightly.  This hides the fact that the quality of life here in the USA is going down.

We know what caused the economy of China to grow so much, but Obama and his gang does not want to do any of those things that have proven to work.  Obama wants to "kill" the USA economy by doing many of the things that China tried with Communism and Socialism.  I forgot to mention that Obama is a "Judas" who is out to get even with the USA for what we did to Blacks under slavery.  Do you think that is why Obama has not adopted any of the things that caused China's economy to grow so much so fast?  Maybe, Obama is really the one "Who Understands Economics" after all!!

Problem Cause Solution

I used to manage a large group of field technicians who worked on very technical systems and machines.  To keep track of what problems they were dealing with in the field and to help prevent similar problems from happening in the future, I had a simple reporting back system.  It was based on them reporting back, "Problem", "Cause", "Solution".  It sounds simple and it was, but it worked.  The purpose of this blog is to share this simple concept.

I know that you have all heard that the first step in solving a problem is "defining the problem".  Well, that is partially correct, but the first one is "admitting that there is a problem".  I give you Obamacare and our President Obama.  Until he realizes that he has a "problem", he is never going to solve the problem.  Further, until he admits that "he" is the problem, he is not going to ever get to the "cause" of the problem, since "he" is the cause.

As I understand, the purpose of Obamacare was to provide health insurance for about 5% of our population who did not already have health insurance.  Based on a population of 350  million, that works out to 17.5 million.  I don't think that Obamacare was ever supposed to cover 100% of the above people, but no one ever said exactly how many or what percentage that Obamacare was supposed to cover.  My guess is that getting 2/3 of this group covered would be a reasonable estimate.  That works out to 11.7 million.  To start with we were spending 17% of our total GNP on health care.  If our GNP was $18 trillion, to cover the 95% or 332.5 million people who were covered in some way, we were spending $9,203 per person on health care.  If you don't like the number, come up with your own.  Remember that the medium "household" income is less than $48,000 and that is for about 3  people.  That means that the median family only has about $16,000 per member.  If they spend the average amount on health care, it would be 57.5% of their income.

Why do my numbers look so bad?  It is because there are only a few people who are well educated and work hard and risk their own savings in order to make more money.  These are the same people who pay over 90% of all the taxes.  The people who are below the "median" should be very thankful that these people are around and are willing to work so hard, because most of them are getting a free ride.  If these people whose labor is worth so much more were not around, most people would have a much lower quality of life.  Those are the facts.  So what is the "problem"?

We actually have "two" problems.  High cost of medical care and the low median income.  It is real simple, we need to spend less and earn more.  What an idea!!!  Now, how does Obamacare solve our problem?  It doesn't!!  It actually make both or our problems worse.

Like the Post Office, when our federal government gets deeper into anything, the cost goes up and the quality and service go down.  If you can tell me some where that this is not true, I will apologize.  With all the red tape and slow pay that we are going to see with Obamacare, many doctors are going to drop out or just retire.  I know a lot of doctors and many have told me just that.  That is point one. Will Obamacare cause the GNP to grow?  I think you know the answer to that one.  The new spin is that "now you can quit your bad job and follow your dreams".  Sounds to me like many will be working less, while those who do keep working will have to be taxed more to make up for those who "followed their dreams".

What would be the solution if Obamacare is not the solution?  Good question.  Reduce medical cost by minimizing expensive legal liability.  Get the lawyers out of medicine pure and simple.  We have ten times as many lawyers per population than any other country in the world and we should do some thing about it.  We waste too much of our brain power in lawyers when we need them in technology or medicine.  Remember that in 1975 we went over the 50% point where over 50% of our new doctors are born out side the USA.  We need to fix that.  We need to get doctors thru college sooner so that they would have less debit and more years to work as doctors.  The average age of the beginning doctor is about 33 or 35 years.  In Europe and most of the world the average age is almost 10 years less.  We need to specialize more with doctors so they can get thru school faster and cheaper.  We need to have faster approval system for new drugs like most of the rest of the world has.  We also need to allow pharmacies fewer restrictions on the drugs they can sell without a prescription like most of the rest of the world.  By the time a drug is approved here in the USA, the patent has almost run out.  What company would spend money developing new drugs with that kind of system?  You know the answer.

How about earning and producing more wealth in terms of the GNP?  Get rid of 90% of the regulations, starting with those on coal.  How about oil drilling on public land or the pipe line from Canada?  How about raising the tuition on college majors for which there are "no" job or for which the pay is so low that the student can not pay back their loans.  Force our lazy children to take those college majors that are more difficult, but for which there will be a good paying job.  Stop illegal immigrants from crossing our borders and send back as many as we can.  They pull down the median income which means that they are not pulling their own weight.  Just working here does not mean it is worth having them here.  Reduce social spending so that more people with get hungry and more willing to work.  Being on the public dole should not be a pleasant experience.  Come down hard on school drop outs.  Draft them into work farms and the same for people who have kids out of wedlock.  Have zero tolerance like most of the world.  Have one kid out of wedlock and zero public services for 10 years.  We have to stop "screwing" around.  Reduce government spending including hidden spending like the sugar subsidy.  Sugar anyplace in the world cost 50% of what it costs here.  The sugar farmers should start growing some crop that can compete in the world market.  I know that 99% of you were not even aware that you were being screwed by the sugar farmers.

All Obama wants to do is to spread your tax money onto problems to buy votes, not find the "cause" and solve the problem by eliminating the "cause".  He will keep doing it as long as people keep voting for what is good for themselves in the short run and not for what is best for their children and grand children.  We don't need to change that many things to get this team pulling together in the right direction, but first we need to stop this train from going in the wrong direction and that one is Obamacare!!!!
  

Obama Bakes Smaller Pies

One of my interests is cooking and that includes cooking pies.  I have blogged on pie making before, but I think it is a subject that needs to be revisited.  In this case, the pie is our GNP, our Gross National Product.  This is the total of all that we produce.  When a farmer grows a bushel of corn, that is part of the GNP.  When you go to your job and put the lug nuts on a new car, that is part of the GNP.  In our economic system, the value of what you produce is the amount that you get paid or earn.  Today, those people in technical jobs earn more than people who drive trucks.  That is because the people in technical jobs produce more GNP than does a person who drives a truck.  The bottom line is that the quality of life for us all is based on the amount of GNP that we produce.  Look around the world and you will notice that those that produce the most GNP per person have the highest quality of life.  Are you starting to see the connection between GNP and quality of life?  Now, what does this have to do with pies?  Well, that is next.

If our objective is to have the highest possible quality of life, then we need to produce the highest GNP  possible or produce the biggest pie.  What Obama and the liberals are promoting is for people "not" to work and produce their share of the GNP pie.  They are proposing that people who do work should "share" their product of their efforts (their pie) with those who "choose" not to work.  If you ever heard the story about the "Little Red Hen", you know that this is a very stupid idea.  Rather than helping to make a bigger pie, we have Obama and his friends telling their supporters to wait until someone else "makes a pie" and then get to the head of the line for a piece of that pie.  Obama is proposing that a person does not have to graduate from high school or not get knocked up out of wedlock in order to get a position at the head of the line for a share of the "pie".  As a "Little Red Hen", how many pies do you think that I am going to work to produce if I know that one of Obama's friends is going to get the same size piece as my children?  You know the answer to that question.  I am going to cook the minimum number and size of pies.  I am going to do what ever I can to keep from having to share the product of my labor with those who have chosen not to work.

 What are you going to do when the sheriff comes to your house to take your pie and give it to someone who has chosen not to work?

The right way to make the most and biggest pie is for everyone to develop their individual skills thru education and responsible conduct and then to work hard and spend their earnings wisely.  When we have a major portion of our population who chose to drop out of school or get knocked up out of wedlock or do drugs or commit other crimes, we can't then expect this country to produce the biggest pie.  I think it is much better that you share in the pie to the extent that you helped to produce the pie, not based on the fact that you voted for Obama.  Those who voted  for Obama and his policy of "fairness" may eat well themselves, but in the end, it will be their children who will starve when there is no more pie.

 Look at the facts.  Where do we rank in education?  Where do we rank in earnings per person?  Where do we rank in net worth per person?  Where do we rank in life expectancy?  Where do we rank in national debit per person?  If you are smart enough to be able to look these numbers up, you will not like what you find.  We have to start thinking about how to produce a bigger pie!!!

How Bad Are Obama's Economic Policies?

No one seems to be looking at the real numbers on the economy.  Of all the numbers to monitor, I feel that "median family income" is the best.  The way this is calculated, it includes "all" the money coming into the family including wages, unemployment, disability, food stamps and any other money that flows into a family.  The good thing about this number is that a family can not drop out of the family like they can out of the work force.  The reason that unemployment has gone down is that people have dropped out of the work force so that the divisor number is smaller.  This all has happened while the number of Americans and Mexicans have increased.  If the unemployment numbers were calculated correctly when more Mexicans come across our southern border, it would cause the unemployment to go "up" and our per ca pita income to go down.  Now let me check the median family income numbers.

Back in 1999, the median family income was $55,000 and in 2013 it was down to $52,000.  This all this happened while we transferred more tax money and borrowed money thru social programs to these families.  Much of this money was not earned money.   Another point, these numbers have been adjusted for inflation so that these dollars buy the same amount of quality of life.  Now, a little 4th grade math.  During the past 14 years, the median family income has gone down by 5.5%. 

Next, compare that with the prior 14 years from 1999 to 1985.  In 1985, the median family income was $47,000.  With my 4th grade math, that would have been an improvement of 17% or the median family improved their quality of life by 17%.  If we had kept up that rate of increase, by 2013, our median family income would have been up to $64,000.  Rather than going down by 5.5%, we should be 22.5% higher than were we now are.

How do you think we are doing with the Obama policies?  With these number it is clearly a lot worse than most of the talking heads on TV are reporting.  I did not dig out the numbers on the "average" family income, but it has actually gone up.  How can that be?  As I have been pointing out in my blogs for some time, the name of the game has changed.  Smarts are more in demand and pay more than sweat and strong backs.  This is the impact of technology.  People in technology jobs produce more GNP and are thus are paid more.  If one technical person replaces two sweat and strong back people, the affect is to lower the median while increasing the average.  If you can follow that very simple concept, you will be starting to understand modern economics.

If you or your children do not finish high school they will "not" be part of the future economy.  If they do not take the more difficult classes, like math and science, they will "not" be part of the future economy.  If they do not work hard and act responsibly, they will "not" be part of the future economy.  They will be that lower half of the median that is going down and not be part of the upper half of the median that is going up.

Obamacare's True Cost

Isn't it interesting that we are still finding out what the true cost of Obamacare is?  Maybe we should have "read" the law before it was passed and maybe we should have calculated what it was going to cost.  Great idea or should we have just trusted the future of our country to Obama and Pelosi?  Oh!, isn't that just what we did?  What was the batting average of Obama and Pelosi on making decisions that affected 17% of our economy?  I think that these two came to the party with "zero" batting averages.

My family spent 28 generations and 250 years helping to build this country.  They did a few things wrong, but they were mostly right.  Now we get two people who have never had real jobs or did anything to help build this country, asking us to "trust" them on Obamacare.  If this were not true, no one would ever believe it.

How about a lesson in insurance. When I talk to people about health insurance, 99% think they will "save" money by purchasing the right health insurance policy.  These people are the same ones who tell us that they always win when they go to Las Vegas.  Notice a simple fact.  The insurance companies and the gambling casinos all turn a profit.  How can that be?  They take in more money than they pay out.  They also take in enough extra money to cover all their "handling cost" and who has the largest "handling cost"?  The Government!!!!

What we need to do is to establish some kind of a ground zero base line on what health cost would be if there was no insurance or government program and each person paid for their own health care. I tested this out by paying cash for a simple medical procedures.  I paid $108.00 for a physical exam that was required for my pilot's license.  This included eyes, heart, lungs, urine, blood, etc.  If this were covered by any kind of insurance policy it would have been billed for over $1,000.  You would see this $1,000 bill and think that you got a good deal on health insurance, without knowing that the insurance company only paid the doctor $500.  By my calculations the insurance cost you 5 times what it should have cost.  When Obamacare gets into the picture with their "handling cost" that figures goes up by 20% or to $600.  This means that the share of GNP goes up from 17%  to 20.4%.  I predict that the affect of Obamacare will cause the GNP to go down 5% from where it would have been without Obamacare.  That means the 20.4% will then amount to 21.5% of the new or real GNP.

Why don't more of our citizens understand simple 4th grade math and see that there is no free lunch.  It is clearly better to do "nothing" than to do some thing like Obamacare that is worse.  Can't people see that?  Do you think that preventative health care will "save" lives or "reduce" medical cost?  Wrong!!!

You can not "save" a life, all you can do is to prolong one.  The question that we need to consider is whether or not it is "worth it" or not.  Why is it that our simple minded citizens never consider the "worth" of anything?  There is not hope.

PS---Why don't we focus on why some people have health insurance.  If we were to focus on the "positive", like why some people have health insurance and see if we can get more people to do what those who have health care did, then I may get behind it.  All the people who I know have health care insurance or enough wealth to fund their own health costs.  They are people who "graduated from high school" and "did not have children out of wedlock" and who "worked hard" and "spent their earnings responsibly".  If that is how they did it, why don't we try to get those who do not have health care to do the "same thing"?  If they are not willing to pay in the terms above, why should the government be allowed to send the police to my home to take my money from me and give it too them?

PS--Why do you think that Google will "not" accept "Obamacare" as a legal word?  Are they on the Obama take?

3D Printing, Is It Worth What The Media Claims?

How long did you think it was going to take before I had an opinion about 3D Printing?  This is really a big new thing and really high tech.  We all know that high tech is the future, so why an I so skeptical about the promises of 3D Printing?  I'll tell you.

Remember the sculpture Michel Angelo?  Here is how he described what he did.  He looked at a piece of marble and saw a figure "trapped" inside. His job was to "free" that figure without hurting the figure trapped inside.  In math, this is call the "dual", which means coming from the outside and removing what, "is not" the figure.  The "primal" is 3D Printing, which means coming from the inside out and building up to the figure.  Another way to understand is a sculpture who works in "clay".  He builds up the figure one piece of clay at a time.  Isn't this exactly what 3D printing does?  Or look at a bricklayer. Doesn't he build a large structure one layer of bricks at a time?  Notice, also, what all these processes have in common?  The build just one piece at a time.  This may be a good idea for making jewelry or pieces of art where cost is not the major concern, but when it comes to improving the quality of life for us common humans, it is not of much value. 

How about a door for a car?  We need a million car doors.  Now the steel is rolled in a steel mill going down a "cheap" rolling mill line at 150 feet per minute.  That roll of steel is then run thru a big punch press that stamps out a complex 3 dimensional door every 10 seconds.  In the process, the steel is work hardened and thus strengthened in a way that a casting or 3D can not do. This is just one example of the myth of 3D printing.  My prediction is that it may be great for making fancy "class rings" for our kids who graduate from high school, but not to really impact our quality of life.

Did you ever do any welding?  With the new wire feed welders, it is almost like 3D printing.  You take two pieces of steel that were rolled in a steel mill to a basic shape and you join them with a weld.  What the welder does is to use an "ink jet printer" (welder) to print liquid steel around the joint and glue the two pieces of steel together.  With the 3D printer, it is my guess that they would try to print the two pieces of steel too.  Who could afford that kind of waste.

What we have here is a common situation regarding technology and that is because some high tech thing can be done, it must be good!  Right?  Being "good" is not good enough.  It has to be both "good" and "worth it".  What I have been blogging on is that we never consider it some thing is "worth it" or not.  Obamacare is just another example of something that appears "good" , but has turned out to be "not worth it".   3D printing is a "good" idea, but I think that it is "not worth" what the public and the media are claiming.   That's my bottom line.

Obama's Interview With Bill O'Reilly

Our President looked like a little kid caught cheating in some game on the play ground.  His total lack of  managerial maturity showed thru in black and white.  How he could defend his secretary Sibelius is beyond me.  She must know some dirt on him that he just can not allow to come out.  I think that after he is out of office that there are many people on the inside who will be cashing in on what they really know.  As long as Obama can turn his goons onto people, he has them intimidated.

With regards to Benghazi, I go back to Bayes Theorem.  If our President or anyone among his advisers knew a single thing about Bayes Theorem and how it applies to decisions, they would never have tried to sell the American people on a story that it was some "youtube" movie that caused the problem.  How stupid does he think we are?

As I have stated in the past, people who are in over their heads predictably turn to stubbornness as their defense when they are caught with their pants down.  They know if they engage their critics that their stupidity will be revealed.  Stubbornness leaves open the "possibility" that they are not as stupid or as incompetent as they appear.  Obama is clearly grasping for straws.

Remember how many years ago that I blogged that Obama was a Judas?  So far he has not done one single thing that would cause me to change my original opinion.  His comment on the IRS was an insult to every one of our citizens who have a brain.  "No body did any thing wrong".  Do you feel insulted by  your own President?  What was wrong with the people who elected him in the first place?  That is a problem that it is going to take a long time to cure.

Observations On Education And Testing

As many of you may have guessed, I am an old timer.  I think that gives me a special advantage when it comes to blogging my opinions.  They are not just based on factual analysis, but on a life time of experience.  I was blessed with a very good memory and a gift for observation.  I have used that God given talent as responsibly as I can.  I passed thru the standard education system, starting with a country school with 45 kids and 8 grades.  I have had some observations along the way that I  would like to share.

First of all, what is the objective of education?  If we can't answer that simple question, why spend a penny on education?  I think the objective is simple, and that is to prepare our kids to deal with the world of their future and to attain the best quality of life for themselves and their families that they can.  Further, that they should do this in a moral  and ethical way without taking advantage of others.  Can you agree with that simple objective?  If so, let's go onto education.

I am going to keep this short.  Exactly what do we do in our schools?  We provide out kids with information and various mental exercises that are supposed to help them meet the objective above.  Is it that simple? I think so.  The area where I have my biggest problem is the testing to see if we are meeting our objective.  How can you expect to do anything if there is no way to check whether you have done what you set out to do?  Testing is one way to find out.  We all agree with that, but I think there is a problem with how we test.

Look at a typical test.  It is some kind of a test of whether you know certain "facts".  Knowing "facts" is not education.  If not what is?  It is the ability to reason logically and to find the correct answer to problems that one faces thru out their lives.  Questions like, " is the interest rate on my mortgage reasonable?"  Or, "is it smart to buy a lottery ticket?"  If you look at 90%  of the tests that you have taken, you will find that most only require the regurgitation of "facts".  There is the "assumption" that if you know the "facts", then you must know their significance and how to apply them in the future.  It is based on "correlation" and you know what that is.  It means to measure some simple parameter with the expectation that the parameter that you have chosen is a predictor of the other parameter. 

Here is an example.  Have you talked to people who say that they did well in math and got good grades on the tests, but had difficulty doing "word problems"?  I know you have.  That is because the test was poorly related to the basic objective of education.  This happens over and over in our education system.  A person who has a good short term memory can do very well in medical school, but turns out to be a very poor doctor.  This happens over and over in our educational system.

It is difficult to test students to see if they meet the real objective.  I know from experience.  I once gave a graduate class an assignment to research and write a report on different complex topics and to present their findings to the class.  It was great and all learned a lot, but I had to grade their work.  I had 30 students who wrote papers that averaged about 25 pages.  Can you imagine the work that I had to do to grade their work?  Many students told me later that it was one of the best courses that they  had ever had and I would agree, but what about me. I had to work my ass off just to grade their work fairly.  Most teachers would not have done what I did.  They would have given simple true and false tests of "facts", never knowing what their students actually learned.  The bottom line is that if your are "good at taking tests", you can get a BS, MS or PhD without knowing anything.

Some how we have to get beyond these simple minded "fact" tests and start educating our children.  Now with computers and the Internet, it is possible for students to access and find all kinds of "facts", but does it make them smart?  I don't think so.  What we now have is a system where our kids "game" the test system and then think that they are smart because they can look up the answer to any question posed to them.  Education is supposed to prepare you to know the answer with out having to be asked.

PS--Over the years, I have noticed that students from India are very good a regurgitating "facts" without any real understanding.  We have a  lot of Indian doctors who have gamed the system who I feel are not qualified as doctors.  They can follow procedures that they have memorized, but have no understanding of the subject.  We don't need that and our education system is perpetuating the problem.