Economic Honesty

This blog is a small point, but I think it is important.  I have blogged in the past about this whole idea of "economic stimulation" and here is another small point.

First, is there really any difference between giving a person money and not taking the same amount of money form them in the first place.  No!  Building on this point, is there any difference between spending money on an "economic stimulation" package and not collecting taxes equal to the "economic stimulation" package?  I don't think so.  Here is what we have been doing.

When Obama took office our economy was in a recession (by definition).  The congress under Bush gave the OK for a big economic stimulation package that Obama later implemented with his "shovel ready" programs.  My second question is about how to view the economy "given" the stimulation package.  If the economy starts to grow or stop declining should that be considered a "win".  Not quite!!  This economy is a phony and a phony economy is not a true "hands off" economy.  It is a little like thinking that a person with a broken leg is getting better because they can now get around in a wheel chair.  Follow that?

Now, when the original simulation ran out, Obama started borrowing from China rather than collecting the full amount of taxes needed to pay our bills.  Is that any different from continuing the original stimulation package,  Again, I think it is exactly the same thing and the resulting apparent improvement in the economy is totally phony.  Economist seem to buy into the idea of a economic stimulation packages, but for some reason they don't see running a big deficient as the same thing.  Further, they don't seem to be able to tell the difference between a "normal" economy and a "phony" economy.

No matter what you see and hear on TV, the economy of the USA is still broken just like the guy's leg in the wheel chair!!!

PS--The ten trillion dollar deficit that has been run up by Obama amounts to the biggest stimulation package in human history.  Now, th big question is, "How are our children going to pay it back?"  Or better yet, "How are these immigrants going to pay it back?"

Ice Chest Trick

From time to time, I stumble onto a good idea or two and this is one of them.

My wife and I were taking a road trip and wanted to take along our ice cooler so that we could have cold drinks and snacks on the trip.  Rather than just putting the ice into the cooler and arranging the food around it, I tried a new trick.  In the process of robbing the ice cubes out of our refrigerator, I notice that there was a lot of ice in the plastic box that was in the freezer part.  Rather than dumping the ice directly into the cooler, I decided to just put the whole box in.

It turned out to be a great idea because none of the items in the cooler got wet or damp from the melting ice.  Further, there was no need to drain the water nor was there any chance of a leak of water on the trip, but that was not the best part.  With the ice all in the plastic box, the ice lasted twice as long.  How could that be you might ask?  It all comes down to engineering and heat transfer.  Air is a good insulator, so if you can keep air between the cold ice and the warmer sides of the ice chest you don't have as much heat gain.  It is not a case of loosing the cold.  Cold does not really exist, it is the lack of heat.  If you have melted ice or cold water touching directly on the sides of the ice chest, you have significant heat transfer from the warm outside to the cold water and ice in the ice chest and you don't want that.  There is even a small air gap between the bottom of the plastic box that contains the cold ice and the bottom surface of the ice chest.  This is the area where the most heat gain occurs.

When you drain cold water out of your chest, you are loosing valuable cooling.  With the above, you keep the cold water inside the ice chest.  There is no need to dump the cold water unless you are concerned about a spill inside your ice chest until all the ice is melted.  As long as there is any ice in the plastic box, its total contents is at 32 degrees, so why waste a good thing.

You could do almost the same thing by putting the ice into a plastic bag, but this would eliminate the valuable air gap between the bag and the sides of the ice chest.  Next time you load your ice chest try to find a plastic container that you can put your ice in before you put it into your ice chest and I think you will be very satisfied.

PS---This is also a "Green" idea since it saves energy!!

Simple Economic Math And Amazon

This blog uses simple 4th grade math so don't worry.

First, let's take a look at Obamacare.  The USA, before Obamacare was spending 17% of our GNP on medical.  That is the highest of any country in the world and that money is buried in the products that we produce.  If we make a pair of shoes, the 17% medical is part of the cost of those shoes. Remember that we used to make 99% of our own shoes, but now it is down to less than 5%.  Ask yourself "why"?  It now appears clear that we are up to at least 20% of our GNP under Obamacare and it is likely to go as high as 25%.  That means that every thing we make and try to export is going to cost that much more.  Don't people realize this?  When we import a product from some place like Mexico, they don't have this 20% extra Obamacare cost added to their products.  That is just one reason that many of our companies are closing plants here and moving to Mexico.

Here is another one.  Take social security.  The company pays 7% of the labor cost and the employee matches with another 7% for a total of 14% and that is not even enough to pay the benefits.   I don't know what the real number needed is, but it has to be at least 18% or 20%.  All this extra cost has to be added onto the products made here like the pair of shoes.  Just in these two items alone, we are talking about as much as 35% or about 1/3 of the cost of a pair of shoes.  I can tell you that none of the countries that we import shoes from has this kind of penalty on their shoe manufacturers.

Why don't we hear anything from Obama, Clinton or Trump about adding the above cost to imports so that our shoe makers are treated equally?  If all products were charged the same amount whether made here or in another country, it would add about 25% to imports and reduce the cost of shoes made here by at least 15%.  That is a "swing" of almost 40%.  Are you starting to see how significant this is in leveling the playing field?   What we are doing is taxing and killing jobs here while we give a free ride to imports.  I don't know of a single country in the world that is as stupid as we are.  The only people who come out ahead with our current system are the "retailers" and look at what they pay their "clerks"?  Amazon is even going one step farther and cutting out the "clerk" all together.  You might make money in the stock market with Amazon stock, but it is killing the economy of the USA at the same time.

I am going to repeat it here.  How much does Amazon "export" to help us pay our bills?  Zero!!!  Amazon kills jobs here in the USA while making it easier for imports to be sold here.  Who is talking about that?  A wall on the border is only a small part of the solution.

PS--Here is one for you.  What if we treated the collection of taxes for building and maintaining our roads like we do for shoes?  That would mean we would tax our domestic oil companies and let foreign oil come in tax free,  Thank God we have a sales or consumption tax on gas so Saudi Arabia and other foreign oil companies share in the building and maintenance of our roads,  We call it a "use" tax, but it is exactly the same as a consumption tax so imports pay their share!!!

Interesting Numbers On Russia and China

I just looked up these economic numbers for Russia and China.  How do you think their economies are doing compared to that of the USA?  Between 2000 and 2013 the USA economy has been in the toilet.  The total economy has grown a little, but the per capt has not grown and the median has actually gone down.  The USA is getting poorer by any logical measure.

Here are the numbers for Russia and China. These numbers are what the average person earns.  I am not sure of the unit of measure, but it is consistent and valid for measuring what has changed.

                                    Russia                  China
2000                            6,650                    2,830
2013                          23,180                  11,850

Sorry, but those are the numbers.  Both of two main competitors are getting rich fast while we appear to be dead in the water.  A second fact is that each of these two countries graduate many more engineers, scientists and mathematicians than we do.  No wonder they can "hack" our computers so easily!!

PS---Russia is exporting oil and other natural resource products while China is exporting labor based "value added".  Russia can keep up what they are doing for years, but as soon as China's labor cost get higher, their products will not be as competitive.  Note that there are very few product that we produce with "value added" labor that are competitive in the world.  It is turning out that automation alone can not counter lower labor cost anymore like it once did.  "Water around the world is seeking its natural level" and that means the party is over for the USA and our high standard of living!!

Economic Lesson From Gold Rushes

I was born in California and have visited the Mother Lode area and have panned for Gold there.  I actually did find a small amount of Gold, but that is not the objective of this blog.  It is to analyze the life cycle of a typical Gold Rush type situation.  There is a lot one can learn.

There have been numerous Gold Rushes here in the USA and most follow the same life cycle that the one in 1849 in California did.  As the story goes, one of John Sutter's men by the name of Marshal was building a water way to bring water to the wheel of a new saw mill when he found traced of Gold in the water way.  That started the Gold Rush of 1849 and to this day we still have the 49'ers (The football team).

The area where Gold was discovered was in the foothill of the Sierra Mountains, a place with few small towns and few few people.  That all changed with the discovery of Gold.  Large cities sprang up over night.  After the Gold played out the cities and the people left, leaving just ghost towns where lively cities once were.  The main point that I want to make here is that these cities had thriving economies where there were all kinds of services and people making money.  What is the significance of all this?

You hear today how economists promote "stimulation" for the economy.  This is supposed to get the "normal" economy going.  Their model is like "priming a water pump".  Once the pump is primed, it will then be able to keep pumping water.  I know that most of you have never actually primed a pump, but I have many times.  For priming to work, the pump has to have pumped water before and not be broken in some way.  Priming a pump that is broken on a well that is dry doesn't work.  Follow that?

Now, back to the Gold Rush.  In the foot hills of California in 1849, there was no economy and what the discovery go Gold did was similar to what economists do when they stimulate the economy.  The Gold stimulated the economy, but there was no real economy there in the first place back in 1849 to stimulate like with the water pump.  As long as the Gold was there to stimulate the economy of all those towns, people had jobs, bought homes and sent their kids to school.  Things looked very normal.  The economies of these towns was in most cased many time the size or the amount of Gold being mined.  There was this "multiplier" factor.  I don't know what it was, but it could have been 10 to 1 or even higher.  Now, we are getting to  my main point.

It does not take much in the way of "natural resources" to stimulate a thriving economy, but without that "natural resource" stimulation it is difficult to have a thriving economy for very long based on economic stimulation packages.  I just looked up some numbers on the Russian economy.  Did you know that the median income in Russia has "tripled" since 2005?  How did Russia do it?  They lowered their population and increased their exploitation of their massive "natural resources".  It was much the same for the USA from about 1790 to about 1930.  Since then it has been a big up and down for the USA and economists keep thinking of the USA economy as a water pump that is not broken when the fact is the water level in the well has dropped significantly.  Before about 1920 the farmers in California could water their crops from free flowing springs or from surface water flowing in the rivers, but not now.  They started pumping water out of the ground until the water levels have fallen just like the Gold played out in the hills.

Are you starting to understand how "natural resources" are the main factor that stimulates real economies.  You can steal the Gold like Spain did or you can catch the fish off the Grand Banks as the Portuguese did.  Where are those countries today?  Right now, the natural resources that is driving the world's economies  are oil and food.  Now, how do you think that our university trained economists are going to "stimulate that"?  Sorry, but they don't have any bullets nor did they ever have any real bullets.  Economic stimulation packages are like giving a person with terminal cancer some pain pills.  It does not solve the real problem, but it can get votes!!!

Lesson From The Past

One of the definitions of intelligence is that you learn from the past.  Like wise, the definition for stupidity is not learning from the past!  That is the point of this blog.

I used to live in Argentina and know a little about its history and its current economic situation.  There used to be a common expression, "Rich as an Argentine" and that was true.  At one time Argentina had the highest median income and wealth of any country in the world, including the USA.  That was back about just 75 years ago.  The lesson is, "What has changed" or "What went wrong?"

First, a little history.  Argentina's history is much like that of the USA.  When the Europeans first came to Argentina they found it settled by Native Americans who were hunter gatherers.  They had no Buffalo as did North America, but they did have millions of acres of grass land waiting to be exploited.  The new settlers killed off the Native Americans much like we did here.  Next, the settlers introduced cattle that thrived without the need to clear land, plow or irrigate.  A very few cowboys could handle thousands of cattle.  Imagine that they had about 500 cattle for every Argentine.  A cow today is worth about $1,000, so that would make the median Argentine worth about $500,000.  I would say that was "rich" compared to the USA today that is less than $10,000.  As time went on the raising of cattle got more and more efficient, thus needing fewer cowboys.  What did our of work cowboys do?  Same thing that they try to do here.  Produce something with their "value added" labor.Their problem was just like ours.  No one wanted what they were able to make because they could buy it cheaper some place else.  Starting to see the picture?

Next came WWI and WWII in Europe.  Since  Argentina thought they were so "rich" they let in millions of people from Europe who wanted to get out of forced draft by the armies.  Little did Argentina realize that these new "mouths" had to be fed with the cattle they had.  They did not realize that these new "mouths" could not produce anything of salable value to offset the cattle they were eating.  Sound familiar?  The government of Argentina actually charges a tax on the exportation of beef.  When I lived there, it became against the law to eat beef on certain days of the week so that the immigrants did not eat up all the beef such that none would be available for export.  Argentina needed the money from exports to pay their bills and beef was the only thing that they had that anyone wanted.  I ask you, when was the last time that you purchased anything that was made in Argentina except for wine which is a product of resource exploitation?  Never!!

The USA is lucky because we have a lot more and varied types of natural resources, but if we think we are "rich", just wait until many more millions of immigrant "mouths" get into the USA.  If you can tell me what products these new "mouths" are going to produce that can be sold to the rest of the world, then we don't need the immigrants.  Just like Argentina, our farmers need fewer and fewer cowboys or cucumber pickers.  What are we going to do with the people and their children who were  just a few years ago needed to harvest those farm corps.  You only have to look at the central valley of California to see how bad the situation has become.  I would not want to live between Sacramento and Bakersfield for any amount of money.  It is a hell hole and getting worse every day.

A few countries have figured this out.  Look at Qatar and Saudi Arabia.  They don't let in new immigrants and they are "rich" and they want to stay "rich".  How about Switzerland?  They don't want any immigrants there?  Switzerland won't let them in, period.  How happy do you think the people of British and French are now since they have let in so many?

The bottom line is that it is over population and that problem only has one solution and that is for immigrants to stay home and solve their own problem by reducing their population.  China woke up to this reality about 40 years ago and they know that it may take 100 years or more to actually solve their problem.

Argentina used to be "rich" but not any more.  We also used to be "rich"too, but not any more.  Learn the lesson from the past before it is too late!!

PS---Simple test for immigrants.  What are they going to "make" with their "value added labor" that can be exported to earn the money to feed them?  There is nothing!

Silk Purse Out Of A Sow's Ear

I think that most of you have heard the old saying that. "You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear", and it is true.  It would be nice if you could, but you can't and that is the point of this blog.

First, let's take a simple example.  We have two people, one age about 40 and one about age 20 who claim to be artists.  Both have painted a picture and have entered it in a art show contest.  As it turns out, the 40 year old person wins second place and the 20 year old person wins third place.  This is big show and there were over 100 entries.  Now what do you think of the ability of the two artists?  Which one is really the best artist?  My position is that the 20 years old is the best.  They have gotten to this high level by just age 20 and only into art for 10 years.  The 40 year old person has been working on improving their art for 30 years and can just beat out the young 20 years old with much less experience.  What do you think?

Now for Trump and Clinton.  Trump has been into "professional"politics for a couple of years compared to Clinton who has been in it for most of her life, plus she has had the advantage of marrying a person who was President.  If after all of that, she is just slightly slicker than Trump.  Now think how slick Trump will be after he has had just a few more months of practice?  That is what I am talking about.  Clinton is like trying to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.  She can try for a very very long time, but in the end, "she is no silk purse"!

I have blogged in the past how we all like to think that we are all created equal, but we are not.  What we have here in the USA is equal opportunity, but since we are not really all created equal, why would one expect that we would all end up with equal results?  In the case of Clinton, after she has practiced for over 40 years trying to become Presidential, look what we have ended up with?  I like to do woodworking and have made a lot of nice things, but one thing that I do know is that if I don't start out with "good" wood, my project is not going to end up as nice as if I started with "good" wood.  It is just like the "sows ear" saying.

When things turn out to be true, they often also turn out to be very simple.  Open your eyes!!

Economically Protected Class

I know that a lot of you are proud of the free enterprise system of the USA.  Most of you feel that it is free competition that is best for the economy and I do too.  The problem is that there is much of the USA economy that is not "free" and that is the point of  this blog.

If you have followed my prior blogs, you know that I recognize the importance of free competition.  I also know how you can "game" the system in your favor and a lot more do it than you might think.  We spend almost 20% of our GNP on medical.  The idea behind Obamacare was to make medical care economical for more people, but the fact is that it ended up making medical cost more for everyone.  When the government poured more money into medical care, those in control of medical care saw it as an opportunity to game the system and make more money.  How did they do it, you may ask/?  Here is how.  First, those who were already doctors made it more difficult for new doctors. to enter the market.  They added cost and time to people who wanted to be doctors until they had so much invested that they too had to charge more to get back their investment in college.  They restricted the number of people who could be accepted by medical schools to the point that now we only produce about 40% of our new doctors.  More than half graduate from foreign colleges.  It has been that way as far back as 1975.  I know a girl who just started her medical practice near Stony Brook, NY who is now 36 years old and has been going to school of some kind since age 5.  Now, what do you think that is going to do to affect medical costs?  That is just one problem and one of the biggest.  We meed to produce at least 90% of our new doctors for starters.  Who is proposing that?  No one!!!

How about simple things like barbers?  My wife cuts my hair and does a good job, but she can not cut my friend's hair and charge him.  Why does your plumber cost so much?  Same thing.  The plumbers work hard to prevent competition in the name of "protecting" you from bad plumbers.  Lawyers are another good example.  How about our food inspectors?  You can buy food at the Farmer's Market that is not inspected.  How about school teachers and their unions that do everything they can to eliminate competition.  Note that home schooled kids do better than public school kids and most of their parents are not even college graduates.  Our colleges pile on all kinds of worthless classes to make it cost you more for a degree and provide the professors with life time jobs.

Have you noticed that when ever there is any international competition that the products made outside the USA cost less?  Protected jobs do not have this competition and thus these are about the only people who are getting ahead.  Those of us who make products that have international competition are the losers.  Note also that we have to spend our earnings on services from the "protected" class and that also make our products less competitive.

Undertakers are another protected class too.  In most states they have rigged the laws so that a cabinet maker can not make a casket and sell it directly to you.  The undertaker has to get his :cut".  I read that in some states you have to go to flower arranger school and get a licence to sell flower arrangements.  Who do you think is really being protected by this kind of law.

Medical is the worst protected class and that is why before long we will be spending at least 25% of our GNP on medical.  You can fly first class to India and for basic surgery cheaper than having it done here and it is just a good and safe.  People go to Mexico for dental work all the time, plus a lot of those dentists actually live in the USA and compute to Mexico.  Interesting isn't it?

We need to figure out how to eliminate the laws that protect this special class of workers so that there is true competition for a change in the USA.  Minimum wage is not the solution!!

Is Clinton Another Robin Hood?

Remember Robin Hood?  He was the robber who stole from the rich and gave a "portion" to the poor..  Did you ever hear what the percentage was?  I did not think so.  It is the same with Clinton. She claim to be stealing for the poor, but it seems that she ends up with a lot more of the money than the poor people who voted for her do.  That is the point of this blog.

Years ago, I used to teach Decision Theory at a major university..  When you boil it all down, every decision turns out to be very simple.  Most bad decision are not because the best alternative on the list was not chosen, but because the best alternative was not even on the list.  Some times it is because the "objective function" was not properly defined.  In this election, I think that we are having a serious problem with exactly what is the "objective function".  I am going to give you some help on defining the "objective function".  Without a clear "Objective function" how can you expect to make a decision that optimizes the "objective function"?   Serious problem!!

Rather than continuing to focus of the sex life of the candidates we need to focus on the "objective function".  For some reason, I don't think that the sex life of the candidates has anything to do with the "objective function" do you?  I am going to repeat my "objective function" here if you have not read it in the past.  The objective of our government and thus the President is to, "Keep us all safe and give us all a fair shot at attaining a good quality of life".  That is a little longer than in the past, but it is basically the same.  Notice the two key words?  "Safe" and "Fair"?

Given the above objective function, which of the candidates do you think can get the job done?  Who has the best past record in making the right decisions in the past?  How many people have died due to bad decision in the past by each candidate?  We all know that the future will be different from the past, so I contend that "experience" in a special area may not be the best preparation for the future. That is why I have always favored basic intellect over education and experience. in a close call situation.

I think that we all know that quality of life has almost a one to one relationship with wealth, So if you want a better quality of life, you need income and wealth.  If you have read my notes on economics, I feel that there are several simple components,  (1)  Value added work, (2) Resource exploitation, (3) Governmental efficiency and (4) Social waste.  The first two are positive elements and the last two are negative elements.  We need to maximize the first two and minimize the last two. That is the job of the President.

Value added work.  We have far too many people who are not in the labor force because they are being paid by our government not to work.  We need to start to reduce this.  Welfare is not a way of life and it should not be competitive with working.

Resource exploitation.  You know my position on this one.  We have a limited amount of natural resources and need to keep our population in check so as not to dilute it.  Massive immigration is going to cancel out one of our biggest economic assets and make us "poorer".  You know who to vote for on this one.

Government efficiency. Our government is far too big and is trying to do may things that states or individuals should be doing.  My guess is that we could cut the size of our government at all levels by at least 25%.  We did more than that on our military under Obama and he wasted the savings on more welfare.

Social waste.  This is law and order, completing high school, not getting knocked up out of wedlock and not doing drugs or killing each other. The fact that so many of our citizens are in jail is a good indicator of this basic problem.  We are all in this together and we all need to start acting like it. Now, who do you think is the best candidate for "law and order"?

Advice, think about your grand kids before you vote!

Economics Without Customers

Have you noticed that Economists always assume that they have customers?  If you have customers, then economics becomes very easy.  Remember the old saying that, "if you invent a better mouse trap customers will flock to your doors"?  It sounds good, but nothing could be farther from the truth. That is the point of this blog.

We have a trade imbalance with almost every country in the world and China is the worst.  Did you ever think about why that is?  In the early days of the USA, our economy was "weak", or was it? What did we have to sell?  Fish, fur, lumber, tobacco, Gold and cotton.  Notice that all of these were products based on the exploitation  of our natural resources.  We had no "value added" products that were based on the productivity of our labor.  Is this starting to sound familiar?  What do you think that China would look like if they did not have a "sucker customer" with money to sell their "value added" products too?  China would still be in the poor house.  We are the world's "customer"!

The problem with being the world's customer is that you can not keep it up for ever.  At one time Spain was the worlds customer, but not any more.  Why do you think that was?  They stole all the Gold from the New World, but when that was all spent and they had to rely on their "value added" products, they ended up in the poor house.

Canada is one of our good trading partners and I think that Canada is one of the few countries of the world that we have a positive balance of trade with.  Why is that?  How can Canada buy more from us than they sell too us?  The have all kinds of natural resources and a small population and they can sell those natural resources all over the world for a good profit so they have the money to buy from us.

What products do you think that we sell too China?  It is not high tech.  We buy our high tech products from China, like Apple computers.  We sell China Coal, Corn, lumber and Soy Beans which are all products based on the exploitation of our natural resources.  Notice that China does not buy corn from Mexico.  Further, China does not really buy lumber from us, They buy logs and saw the lumber with their own cheap labor in China.

What countries are our customers today for our "value added" products?  Good question!   I think that Boeing is our biggest exporter.  How is that?  Most of those deals are to countries who don't have any money so we end up "giving" them the money to buy the planes.  The problem with Boeing is that they are buying many of their major components from China.  It will not be long before Boeing is out of business and we are buying our planes from China.  I think that Air Bus is also the biggest exporter of "value added" products for Europe too.  France is one of the big exporters of arms.  Remember that French wine is really the exploitation of their natural resources.

What is the future for the USA  if we continue to be the world's biggest and stupitest "customer" for "value added" products?  With Obama's policy of letting so many immigrants come to the USA who want to come, how do you think they will be able to pay for themselves?   All they can contribute is more "value added" labor that we now have too much of.  What we earn from the exploitation of our natural resources will be further diluted by their numbers mouths until we all end up in the poor house.

For the record, look at Russia!  Their population is going down while the value of their natural resources is going up.  If you can follow that, it means the Russians are getting richer and we are getting poorer.  We have to start being honest with our selves and wake up our economists who seem to be living in a make believe world.  Do you personally know of anyone who is involved in "value added" who is selling their product to China?  I did not think so and that is the problem.

Trump Did Not Pay His Taxes

Given that most of the voters do not pay any federal income tax, it is no wonder that they do not understand most of the laws related to federal income tax.   That is what this blog is about.

I don't contend to be a professional expert on the USA tax laws, but I think that I know a lot more than most people.  First, there are many kinds of taxes besides federal income tax.  Clinton claimed that Trump did not pay his taxes and thus the poor school kids did not have enough money.  As it turns out, most of the taxes that support schools come in the form of property tax and we know that Trump owns a lot of property.  Even if you lose money, you still have to pay property tax, so Clinton was wrong.

Regarding federal income tax, the accounting period is one year or 12 months.  That is too short of a time to properly determine if a business is really profitable or not.  I think that Amazon has lost money for the past 10 or so years as they build up their business and thus would not pay any federal income tax.  Notice that the tax is on "income".  Income is calculated by taking sales and subtracting all of your cost.  In the case of Amazon, they will eventually turn a profit and when those profits add up to more than they have lost, they will then owe federal income tax.  

Most big companies are "public" corporations and thus their books are open to the public.  If you want to see how much tax or how little tax some of the biggest companies paid, all you need to do is to look at their public records.  I don't think that GE has paid any federal income tax in a while.

This is a little off track, but in real estate we have both "land" and "improvements" like buildings.  Because the building does not last for ever, businesses like Trump's are allowed to depreciate the cost of the improvements over time.  Depreciation is just another cost of doing business and is deducted against profits.  It is possible to show a loss on a rental building while you are collecting rent on it if the depreciation is more than the rent.  If the building goes up in value while you own it and you sell it for more than it depreciated value, you would have to pay "capital gain" tax on that profit.  Much of Trump's wealth is in the form of these more valuable buildings that he still owns.  Some day, if he sells them, Trump could owe a lot in taxes.

The end,  I don't want to bore you, but know the facts before you vote or shoot your mouths off.

Global Warming And Ozone

I have blogged on global warming before, but now, I have a new angle.

When I run into people who are concerned about global warming, I have a pet question that I always ask them.  "What is Ozone"?  100% of them don't know.  This leads me to one of my theories.  Some years ago, I heard on the news that there was a hole in the Ozone layer over the South Pole.  Everyone seem to believe that this was a very big deal.  I still don't know why there was so much concern given that 100% of people don't know what Ozone is.

Ozone is Triatomic Oxygen. That means that rather than the normal molecule of Oxygen that is made up of two atoms of Oxygen that Ozone is made up of three atoms of Oxygen.  Ozone is unstable.  It wants go give up that extra third molecule of Oxygen if it can find any other atom that wants it.  This means that the Ozone layer has to be continually be renewed.  We also know that Ozone is more dense than normal Diatomic Oxygen.   This means that it is easier for the gravity of the Earth to hold it down.  Ozone wants to sink down in the atmosphere.  Now it is getting interesting,

From the above, it is clear that for the Earth to have an Ozone layer, the Ozone has to be formed at high altitude, but from what?  There are two choices, water vapor or normal Oxygen molecules.  At high altitude, the impact of the rays of the Sun are much greater and have the energy to split a small percentage of molecules like water or normal Oxygen molecules,  I contend that water vapor is the main source and here is why.  When a molecule of water is split, the Hydrogen, being so light, drifts off into space.  If is were still around, the lone atom of Oxygen would gobble it up.  The only natural place left would then be normal two atom Oxygen that would grab it and form three atom Oxygen or Ozone.

That is my theory, but there is another angle and that is the destruction of water.  I have blogged that we are losing water, but in fact, what we are losing is Hydrogen leaving the Oxygen behind.  I think that this is how our other planets in our solar system lost their water.

One other point.  The South Pole is the driest place on Earth, plus the Sun hits the area at the greatest angle and thus does not have as much energy to split molecules.  This means that less Ozone is formed above the South Pole and we know that Ozone does not last very long.  It is being destroyed above the South Pole as fast as any  place else on Earth, but it is being formed at a much slower rate, thus the hole,