Is The Free School Lunch Program A Good Idea

Remember one of my earlier blogs where I show that many things that are "good" can also be "bad" at the same time.  In this blog, I am going to challenge the Free School Lunch Program as being  both "good" and "bad" at the same time.

I have a grandson who has a food allergy problem and thus he takes his lunch from home each day.  There are many kids who have similar problems which requires their mothers to prepare their special lunches.  When I was going to my two room school, my mother came to school in the morning and prepared lunch for us kids just like most schools do today.  On with the story.

Kids used to work on the farm before and after school and were generally stronger than kids are today.  Now kids don't ride their bikes to school, they ride the bus.  The fact is that kids today do not get near the exercise that kids used to.  Farmers have automatic loaders to handle their heavy bails of hay and the result is that farmers are not as strong as they used to be either.  This same principle applies to all areas of human physiology.  If you want something to get weaker, figure out a way to make it easier.  Simple isn't.

I think that we can all agree that the biggest problem with our schools is not the teachers, but the parents of the children.  I know that I have bad mouthed teachers in the past and they have a share of the blame, but parents are a bigger factor.  You only have to look at home schooled kids compared to those in our public schools to see that on average the home schooled kids do much better.  My point is that if you want the parents to be worse, make their jobs easier, just like I said above.  By having the school provide the free lunch and often a free breakfast too, we make the parents job easier and easier and thus we end up with worse parents.  Do you follow that?

Most do gooders feel that the free lunch and breakfast are "good" ideas and they are, but there is clearly a bad side too.  You can't get away from the fact that many decisions have this good and bad side.  The problem is to look at both sides and decide if the good side is "worth it"!  In the case of the free lunch, I don't think so.  I know that when I started kindergarten, I had to be able to tie my shoes, feed myself and go to the toilet by myself.  My mother had to teach me that or I could not go to kindergarten.  My point is that parents have responsibilities and to let them get off from their responsibilities under the name of the tax payers doing "good" for the kid is bad for everyone.  If a parent does not send a lunch to school with their child, someone should got to their home and find out why.

I think that it would be a lot better in the long run if we corrected the parent responsibility problem early rather than having their kid spend time in jail years later.  If you have been following my blogs, I try to search out the "cause" of a problem and correct that rather than just treating the "symptoms" with pain pills.  If kids are hungry in school, giving them "free lunch" does not solve the real problem!   Think about it!!

PS---I could have used the example of schools having janitors to clean up the mess made by the kids when it is clear as a bell that having the kids clean up their own mess would be a much better solution.

Social Justice And Piece Work

This blog is from a slightly different angle, but I will try to make it easy to follow.

As a kid I worked in the fields and orchards picking crops.  We also camped in the fields and orchards too.  We were what was then called "fruit tramps".  We followed the harvest from spring to fall when we had to go back to school.  I did not see anything wrong with the process.  I had a good time and learned life long skills and ended up with money in the bank.  By the time that I was 10 years old, I had over $500 in my bank savings account.  Today, that would be worth at least $5,000 today.  Tell me how many 10 years olds do you know who have earned and saved $5,000 today?  Not many.  This was all done on "piece work".  That means that I did not work on the basis of how many hours I worked, but on exactly how much I produced.  It is a fact that I made more than most other kids at the time and that was because I "produced" more.  Even today, I can not think of a system that was more fair.  To me social justice was served because I was paid what I was worth.  Now, look at today.

Today, there is almost no jobs that pay on the basis of piece work.  Most are by the hour or month.  It is the clock and the calendar which determine how much a person is worth, not what they actually produce.  As I have stated in prior blogs, the range of what people produce with physical work does not vary too much.  The difference between the best a worst worker might be only a difference of 50% with most near the middle.  For management simplicity it can be easier to pay by the hour rather than by the piece even though those the few at the bottom get a free ride and those at the top get screwed.  For most people who only look backwards, they saw the by the hour system as being more fair and more in line with their idea of social justice.  The problem with only looking backwards, these same people have a hard time dealing with the current situation or the future.

What has happened is that there has been a major shift in the "currency" of economics.  Historically, the currency had been a person's physical attributes like strong back and good eye sight.  Now, that has all changed.  The currency of today is intellect.  For those who were being screwed by the old by the hour system, they can now be paid on the basis of what they produce.  Here is what is going to happen.  The median family income is going to go down and there is little that can be done to change that fact.  If you are not familiar with the term "median family income", it is that family in the middle where there are as many families that make less than you do as there are families who make more than you do.  It has little to do with the growth of the economy.  If in terms of social justice, all families got an equal percentage raise in pay, it would have zero affect on the median family income.  What those on the social justice band wagon want is for those below the median to get a bigger raise in pay than those above the median and that is never going to happen.  I think that most people understand why the top technical people make so much more than those who do physical labor like drive a truck or cook your meal in a restaurant.  The difference is going to get even worse.  What is happening is that most technical people are paid on the basis of piece work or what they are able to produce.

School teachers are paid on the basis of how many hours they work and how old they are.  If anyone thinks that is a system of social justice, they need to stop smoking something.  Technical people are not paid on the basis of how old they are and in many cases younger technical people earn more than their older counter part.  Would it be an example of social justice if the more productive young technical person earned less than the older technical person?  Any social justice system that I have seen proposed screws someone, either at the top or at the bottom.  In the case of piece work, no one gets screwed!!

PS--What if salesmen were hired like school teachers based on their grades in Salesman School and then paid on the basis of their age.  Do you think that any business would put up with that?  Why is it that our colleges and universities do not offer degrees in Salesmanship?  Salesmen are paid on a piece work system which is fair and assures that we really do have social justice!

Business Executives And Affirmative Action

This past Sunday I watched part of a TV News Show where a group of our "hot shot" executives discussed how they deal with the concept of affirmative action.  Most were no less than pathetic.  I have no idea what rock many of these crawled out from under.  That is the point of this blog.

First off, I think that racism and favoritism of any kind is totally sick.  I have blogged in the past about how colleges used to ask on their application, "what college did your parents attend".  The purpose of that was to give people like John F. Kennedy special treatment on admission.  We have the same thing today in our military academies and that is clearly how John McCain got into Annapolis over people like me.  I am one quarter Native American and have no desire for that to be taken into account over "merit"!  With me so far?

On the TV show, I listened to executives one after the other explain how they have problems finding and hiring qualified technical people.  Many were against Trump's policy on immigration because it limited their ability to import foreign technical people.  They claimed that it was difficult to meet affirmative action goals if they could not get people from foreign countries.  This has to be sick logic!
Do you understand why this is sick logic?  If not, I will explain it.

I will use engineers for may example.  If you look at most technical companies, you will find that they have far more male engineers than they do female.  They clearly have far fewer female engineers than the ratio of females in our population.  Males and females are about 50%-50% in the general population.  The problem with this sick bunch of business executives was that they were trying to meet a 50%-50% ratio of female engineers.  They believed that they might be able to meet that goal if they could "import" a bunch of female engineers.  Do you see that was a sick idea?  The fact is that females only account for less than 10% of new engineering graduates because females, by free choice, select other careers.  You have to ask why the goal of businesses is not the ratio of engineering school graduation rates?

If the executives had a brain, they would adjust their goal to account for trends in engineering school graduate rates.  Here is how it should work.  If the mix of your engineers is such that the median years that they are out of college is 15 years, you should look at the graduation rates 15 years ago and use that as the goal.  For the record, I never had a female or a Black in any of my engineering classes nor did I have any when I was an engineering instructor.  I know that times have changed and now there would be a few females in those classes.  If the ratio today were 50% female or Black, it would be sick logic to expect that a company that had been business for 50 years should be expected to have 50% female or Black engineers.

As I pointed out earlier how I believe in "merit" not favoritism of any kind.  That applies to sports as well.  Would you watch professional football or basketball if the players were selected on the basis of current affirmative action policy?  I don't think so.  This business of sick affirmative action will continue if you don't speak up and get businesses to start applying real logic.

What Do Politicians In Washington DC Think?

I have been listening to PC talk from politicians in Washington DC for years and I never hear anyone tell us what they actually think.  Don't  believe me?  I will explain my position in this blog.

Remember when a reporter asked Obama what his opinion was on a particular subject?  How did he answer?  The reporter wanted to find out what Obama was thinking about the subject.  Seems clear to me, but how did Obama answer?  He never revealed his opinion or what he was thinking.  What he did was to lecture the reporter on what "many people think".  How does he know what anyone thinks?  He only knows what he is thinking and he never reveals that.  Now, do understand the political two step?

This morning a reporter was asking Ryan what he thought about Trump's promise to shut down the government if they did not approve building the "wall".  How did Ryan answer that simple question?  He state that "the public" did not want a government shut down.  Does that simple minded statement have any real content?  No!  It would be like asking if he agreed with the idea of raising taxes.  Ryan would respond in PS political talk with, "people would not like a tax increase".  How much did we learn about Ryan's opinion or thinking?  Zero!

The idea of this blog is to point out how our politicians give us PC talk and never really answer our questions.  Most people go away thinking that the politician has answered their question when he has just pulled the wool over their eyes.  Are you one of those people?  I hope not!

PS--I have a friend who I regularly have coffee with who answers question about "his" opinion about something just like politicians do.  When I am face to face with someone, I want to know what they think, not what some stranger thinks.  Does this irritate you as much as it does me or do you even notice that you are being manipulated?

Destroyer McCain It Happened Again

Are you getting tired of tankers and container ships running into our expensive state of the art destroyers?  Well, I am and that it what this blog is about.

I have never sailed thru the Malaccan Straits, but my Passport sailboat has.  The old owner after sailing around the world in the sailboat, he left all his charts on the boat.  One chart showed a red line where he had sailed thru the Malaccan Straits.  It is a very narrow area with a lot of pirates.  Every Captain of every boat that sails thru that area knows that they have to keep careful watch all the time.  It is no different for the Captain of one of our expensive state of the art destroyers.  In this case, we are going to have another Navy Captain "fired".  How many do we have left?

As I pointed out in my blog about the Fitzgerald, these expensive new destroyers are constructed so that they have a very very small radar return.  They can be almost invisible or appear to the tanker as a small fishing boat.  From what happened to the Fitzgerald you would think that all the other Captains of our expensive destroyers would take a lesson and deploy a radar reflector when they are in tight quarters like the Malaccan Straits.  I had a radar reflector up all the time on my Passport sailboat when I was off shore.

I know that our Navy wants to keep quiet about the location of our guided missile destroyers, but they have to realize that there are bigger boats out there that can run into them if they can't see them on radar.  When I went aboard a couple of modern destroyers while they were in dry dock, it was clear that they did not have armor like a battle ship.  I think that the steel on the sides was no thicker than 1/2".  I think that "Hum-v's have thicker armor than that.

The bottom line is that whoever is in charge of our Navy needs to wake up.  The top guy is responsible for those below them.  He can't just keep firing Captain's of destroyers without someone considering firing him!  We need someone who is a little more concerned about taking better care of our tax money!

PS--Remember that McCain did not get into Annapolis on merit.  He got in over more qualified candidates because of nepotism.  Both his father and his grandfather were Admirals. Did McCain get into Annapolis over one of your kids?  We need more honesty in our military.

PS--It finally happened, the 7th Fleet Admiral was fired!  Notice that none of the talking head experts mentioned that our destroyers are almost invisible on radar.  What has our Navy done to deal with this?  Few want to say that Affirmative action was a major part of the cause too.

Gray Squirrels Produce Black Squirrels

This is a blog that appears to need to be repeated.  If you did not read my first blog, here goes another one.

I have a real problem with Black squirrels eating all the sunflower seeds from my bird feeder.  Many of my neighbors have the same problem too.  One of my neighbors has been trying to get rid of his Black squirrels by shooting everyone that he sees at his bird feeder.  He has been doing this for several years and the Black squirrels keep coming back.  Even poison has not helped.

He was over the other night sharing a homebrew with me and telling me his sad story about Black squirrels.  He said that he had shot at least 50 over the past several years and they still keep coming back.  I listened for a while and then explained how I had gotten rid of all my Black squirrels.  His ears perked up while listening to my story.  First, I explained the breeding patterns of Gray squirrels and how they had a gene that caused Gray Squirrels to have a certain ratio of Black squirrels.  Further, I explained that no matter how many Black squirrels he shoots, killing only Black squirrels will never eliminate Black squirrels from invading his bird feeder.  He had to start shooting Gray squirrels and when he got rid of all the Gray squirrels, he would then be rid of the Black squirrels!

My friend was puzzled at first, because all of his prior experience told him that to get rid of a problem, all he had to do was to deal with the problem directly.  That worked for almost everything else, so why not Black squirrels?  After a few more homebrews, my neighbor finally understood his problem with Black squirrels.

We had a few more homebrews and my neighbor asked me if this same cure would work for radical Muslim terrorists?  He noted that with all our efforts to screen out just radical Muslim immigrants, there were still a lot of "home grown" radical Muslim terrorists" killing people.  Going after non-radical Muslims may be the solution, just like it was the solution for getting rid of Black squirrels.  At that point, I proposed a toast to the wisdom that comes from a few homebrews.

Do you think that we just have a Black squirrel problem or do we really have a Gray squirrel problem?  Is there enough homebrew in the USA for our voters and politicians to figure out that the real problem with radical Muslim terrorism is Muslims?

PS--Notice that Gray squirrels did not stop having the Black squirrel, just like Muslims have not eliminated the radical Muslim terrorist with in their community.  In most communities, the good guys eliminate the bad guys within their communities, but not Muslims  Why don't the good Muslims do this?  Starting to see the real problem?  Where are all the good Muslims when we need them?

Change And Not For The Better

I just got  back from an airplane fly-in.  There were a total of 79 planes for the complementary lunch and free hats. What was interesting is that the median age was about 65.  That seems old to me, but it is happening all over the place.  I had my high school year book along to show some friends and noticed how things today are so much different from those shown in my old year book.  That is the point of this blog.

The number of people playing golf is down by at least a third while our population has actually increased.  I think that I could say the same about tennis.  In my year book, it showed our radio club where we made our own radios from scratch.  I don't mean just receivers.  We made our own transmitters too.  That was real technology, not just pushing buttons like kids do today and calling it technology.  There is more.

Look at a company like Apple.  Where did all those sales come from?  Those sales did not occur on some desert island.  What people have done is to buy Apple type products with the money that they would have spent on golf or some other activity that is now in decline.  When a company grows faster than the over all growth in the GNP, that extra money has to come from some other activity.  With me on this?  Not only did they buy the Apple products, they spent their golf and tennis time play with the buttons on the devices.

Look at Amazon.  Their growth has clearly been faster than the growth in our GNP.  That money had to come from some place else like Sears, Dillards and Macys,  Are you surprised?  You should not be.  I know that most of you believe in free competition and I do too, but it is not 100% for the good.  There are some bad aspects.  Our kids don't ride bikes like they used to.  Modern bikes are a lot easier to peddle.  That means our kids get less exercise even if they were to ride the same amount and we know they do not.  How about jump rope?  When was the last time you saw a bunch of kids playing jump rope?  Think hard!

Look at Harley Davidson, the motor cycle maker.  Their sales went up as the baby boomers got older and had more money, but now with their kids taking over, sales have gone down significantly.  Kids today do not want to drive out in the open and feel the clean fresh air blowing in their faces.  They want sit and punch buttons on an electronic box they purchased from Apple.

My bottom line is while all this progress is going on, who is watching the store to see that we don't lose some of the real good things in life?  There are forces out there whose only objective is to separate your money from you and your kids.  To many, that is the definition of progress, but those of us who are old enough know that is not true.  It is up to us to see that many of these good things in life survive.  Are you up to the challenge?

PS--Yesterday I was talking to some young kids and asked them if they knew what a "skate key" was.  They had no idea what I was talking about.  This is just one small example of what I have been blogging about above.  Why don't you go and ask some young kids about things that you used to enjoy and see what they have to say.

Immigrants And 4th Grade Math

I was just watching Varny on Fox Business News and he had some guy on who said that immigrants from Venezuela would be good for the USA economy.  He claimed that it would help "grow" our economy.  That may be true, but its clearly a lie at the same time.  Recall that our economic objective should be to raise the "median family income", not just grow the economy or raise the "average" family income.  More people could be worse off even if we grew the economy or raised the average.  That is the point of this blog to open your eyes to the real facts.

If the 10 riches people in the USA were to double their income, it would raise the "average", but the guy in the middle might actually go down in terms of income.  It is the quality of life of that family in the middle that we should be concerned about, not just economic growth.  Here are some simple 4th grade facts.  It has been reported that 50% of immigrants are now on welfare.  That means that they are below the "median".  If 50% are below the middle, there is no way that immigrants can help to raise the "median family" income, no matter how much they might earn.  Do you follow that?  Think about it!

What about the other 50% who are not on welfare?  Let's assume that they are just average Americans and 50% are above the median and 50% are  below the median.  Do you see a problem with that assumption?  Using our 4th grade math, it is clear that 75% of immigrants are below the median family income.  Any claims for some kind of brain drain from places like Venezuela are over powered by the 75% who do not appear to be in this exclusive group.

The other disappointment with the Varny show was that he just sat there and listened to the BS from his guest and did not question how immigration might affect the "median family income".  If this guy was just talking about himself and if more immigrants would allow him to sell more of his widgets, that might be true, but it is clearly not in the best interest of the USA.  When people like Varny interview people like this, they should ask if the person talking about their own personal interest or the interests of the USA.  You all know that we need to vote on the basis of what is best for the USA and our children in the long term, not just what is best for us for the next 4 years, or do we?  That is our problem and we all need to recognize that.

Immigration might be good if we could get the "right" people, but do you know how we would ever do that?  Since every system to screen immigrants always ends up letting in more than 50% who would lower the median family income, I do not see any alternative other than to not let in any!  Remember that Gray Squirrels can often produce Black Squirrel off springs!

PS--How about this key decision principle.  What if  by not letting in any immigrants, the median family income stated the "same", would that be bad?  No!  Because the quality of life would be better if we had a lower population density.  Find me someone who believes that the quality of life in Los Angeles is better today than it was in 1960 or any other big city.  Is Pheasant hunting better today in California than it was in 1960?  How about fly fishing for native trout in the stream in the Sierras?   I think that you know the answer.  If there were a trade off between my definition of quality of life above and the median family income, how much higher would median family income have to be for things to be just "equal"?  The fact is that median family income is not higher.  Now what?

Merit Based Immigration

What do you think about a merit based immigration policy for the United States?  Merit is the only system that I know of that is really fair.  That is what this blog is all about.

The cry that we keep hearing is that, "We need more immigrants to help grow our economy".  Is that really an honest statement?  I don't think so.  Why don't we hear people claiming that those immigrants should stay home in their own countries and help their economies grow there?  Why don't we hear  people talking about things like "quality of life" and the "median family income"?  It is because our population is so stupid that they have no understanding of economic or most anything else.  What we are now doing is letting in immigrants who end up well below the median family income level and thus "lowering" our median family income.  It is the same for median family net worth.  We hear people talking all the time about Japan and the fact that their economy has not been growing like it did in the past.  Is that bad?  Most people think so, but not me!  The fact that the population of Japan has gone down "more" than their GNP means that, on an individual basis, the Japanese are richer!  Further, they now have a better quality of life.  They don't need more roads or bridges because they don't have more people.

Do you think that the people of Los Angeles or New York City have a better quality of life because they have more immigrants?  I don't think so.  How about Minneapolis?  It used to be a nice clean and safe city, but it is going down hill due to the many poor low skilled immigrants that they have let in.  In the whole United States, over half of all immigrants are on welfare and it is worse in Minneapolis.  If we want to feed poor immigrants, it would be a lot cheaper to send them food back in their old countries.  A house in most of the countries where immigrants come from cost about 10% of what a house would cost here.  Do we need more garbage and sewage here?  Does more make our quality of life better?  Look at our schools.  Do you think that schools with a higher percentage of immigrants are better than schools with fewer immigrants?  That is an easy one.  You know the answer.

What we need to do is to be more honest and think about our won children first rather than immigrants from around the world.  From my prior blogs, you know that I think that over breeding by most poor countries is their main problem and the cure is not letting them immigrate here.  They need to clean up the mess that they have made rather than abandoning the mess that they have made.  As a parents, we make our kids clean up their rooms because they are the ones who made the mess in the first place.  Why is that not good enough for all these poor immigrants?

Most of the world does not have enough doctors, yet we plan on letting in more doctors from these poor countries who do not have enough doctors in the first place.  Do you think that "cherry picking" the most productive people from poor counties is moral?  What we need to do is to focus on our own quality of life and the median family income and make sure that our political decisions address those objectives.  When you start hearing the talking heads on TV using terms like Quality of Life and Median Family Income, you will know that we are finally getting onto the right track.

PS--The terrorist attack in NYC could have been prevented had we had in place a merit based immigration policy.  We used to let in immigrants when we had open land available for homesteading, but we do not have any more open land.  We used to give 160 acres of land to a family of immigrants, now worth over a million dollars.  Times have changed and we need to change our thinking about immigration.  The terrorist was a "black" squirrel who was the product of "gray" squirrels.  What are we not doing more about "gray" squirrels?

Global Warming Thoughts

I have been following the global warming debate for some time and notice that there is more emotion than facts.  I try to base my opinions on facts and logic.  That is what this bog is about.

We hear all the talk about the ice caps on both poles melting, but we never hear anything about why the big glaciers that covered North America formed or melted.  Why is that?  If you don't understand what actually happened in the past, how can you predict what may happen in the future?  Logical isn't it?  One of the things that I never hear any of the global warming people talk about is the "permafrost" that covers much of the land near the North Pole.  We are talking about millions of square miles of land that is much larger than the polar ice floating around the north pole or south pole.  There is permafrost under Anchorage Alaska even though there are trees growing on top of the ground there.  Did you know that?  Look at Russia and how much permafrost that they have.  Even though the glaciers have been gone for thousands of years, there is still permafrost under a large amount to the land that it once covered.  Interesting!

Here is another point.  Did you ever have a problem in your home with your carpet where the carpet seemed to move and create lumps?  As you walk on an elastic carpet, it causes it to "creep" and that is what I think has happened here on Earth.  Over time as the Earth rotates, gravity of the Sun pulls on the surface, much like the action of your carpet.  We know that the Sun pulls on the oceans and causes our tides.  It is the same for the land, but you can't see it like you can the tides.  Are you with me on this?  The pull of the Sun on land also causes "heat".  It is like the tires on your car.  As your tire flexes it creates heat.  The faster that you drive the hotter your tires get.  This is because the rate of heat generation gets faster than the rate of heat rejection.  When a body gets bigger the amount of mass grows faster than the surface and thus the rate of heat generation gets bigger and the rate of heat rejection grows slower.  This is just step "one".

Look at what happens with the Earth.  The Earth rotates on its poles and thus the rate of heat generation is larger around the equator than at the poles.  Are you following this?  Even if there was no heat coming from the Sun, our poles would be colder than the equator.  This is one more reason why the permafrost will be very slow to melt if it melts as all.  The heat generated by the pull of the Sun on the Earth while it rotates is what causes our volcanoes!  Don't think so?  Do your own research.

We know that the Earth has tectonic plates that have moved over time.  What do you think caused those plates to move?  It is the pull of the Sun on the Earth as it rotates.  We also know that the rate of rotation of the Earth is slowing down.  If that is the case, at one time it must have been rotating faster!  It would be like the tires on your car getting hotter at high speeds and cooling as you speed slows down.  That is what has happened to our Earth.

What else happens as our Earth's rotation slows down?  Don't know?  The temperatures get more extreme!..What happens when you BBQ a steak on your grill?  If you don't turn your steak very often, it burns on one side and is cool on the other.  It is the same with the Earth!  This will cause our atmosphere and water to be boiled away into space.  As this happens the rate will increase rapidly like an explosion in celestial time.

My bottom line is, "Why don't we hear any of these global warming people talking about any of the points above?"  Is it because my ideas are all wet or is it that they are so stupid?

PS--There is a big difference between frozen liquids and frozen solids.  Frozen water or ice melts much faster than frozen soil because it is subject to convection of liquid water and air.  Frozen soil is not affected by these.  Heat has to be conducted in from the out side boundary of the soil for it to melt.  Permafrost will be here a long time after ice floating in the ocean is long gone!

PS--Another point.  Did you ever notice that the ice in your ice tray if left in your refrigerator for long time tends to disappear.?  It does not melt, it evaporates or sublimates.  Could that be what is happening at the South Pole?  Remember that it is one of the driest places on Earth.