Cabin Fever Blog On Slavery

It is that time of year when many of us suffer from "cabin fever",  I think you know what that is  It is the time when some of us get on the internet and see what we can find.  I did that and found some facts about slavery in the USA that I would like to share in this blog.

One of the first facts that I want to share is that the USA did not exist until all 13 Colonies signed the contract which is our constitution.  Keep that in mind.  It all started with the election of George Washington and him assuming the Presidency on April 30, 1789.  That is when the USA began!

Now, slavery.  From 1532 to 1832 there were approximately 12 million Black slaves imported into the the Americas.  Here is where they ended up:
Brazil--------------------35.3%
Spanish Areas----------22.1%
British Areas-----------17.7%
Dutch Areas-------------4.4%
British North America-4,4%

I don't think most people realized that only 4.4% of slaves imported from Africa ended up in what is the USA.  Further, realize that from 1608 to 1789, there was no USA.  The British and the Queen of England were running things here in what is now the USA.  The official law that prohibited the importation of slaves to the USA went into affect on Jan 1, 1808.  That means the window where slaves could be imported into the USA was only 19 years long, or 10% of the period of slave importation into North America.  Does that start to put some of this into perspective?

The next thing is just who did all this importing and selling of slaves for a profit?  Here is the list:
Portugal------------42%
Britain--------------24%
Spain----------------15%
France---------------11%
USA------------------ 3%

The USA is guilty, but look at the ones who really profited.  If anyone has to pay, the USA should not have to kick in more than 3%!

The next fact is about the reason for the importation of slaves from Africa.  Here are the numbers:
Sugar Cane---------------54.5%
Coffee---------------------18,1%
Cotton---------------------  4.5%

How many stories and pictures have you seen where some Black person was picking cotton?  I think that you can see that you were misled.  Remember that when I was a kid, I could out pick anyone, regardless of their color.  The reason for the importation of slaves was not racism, it was simple old financial greed.  The well connected to the Kings and Queens of Europe who were given land in the New World and who wanted to get even richer, those are the ones who could afford to import Black slaves.

Why is it today that people in the USA who had nothing to do with Black slavery are expected to feel guilty and owe some kind of "pay back"?  I think it was clearly a dark time in the World when slavery was practiced, but I don't think that I am to blame.  How about you?  Interesting when you have a few facts about the situation isn't it?

Next time you get "cabin fever", try digging out the facts on something.  It might cheer you up!

PS---George Washington was the only President to get 100% of the electoral college vote..  Ronald Reagan came close with 49 out of 50 states.

PS--To get a better understanding of how much of what you were taught in school about American history is biased, you should do some of your own research, but cautiously.  Did you ever learn anything about the "Battle of Alamance"?  It was the first battle of the Revolutionary War where 2,000 colonists fought the British army for two days in 1871 in Alamance, NC.  Didn't know that did you!!!

Social And Economic Efficiency

Do you think that we have an efficiency problem?  We do and this blog will explain it.

I am going to prove my case using examples that are right under your noses.  The first one is your local "barber".  Did you ever think that we have an efficiency problem with our barbers?  Well, we do and here it is.  Why do barbers have to go to a "beauty college" and spend that time and money learning what they could learn in your local barber shop in less than a week?  It is to make it more complex and expensive to become a barber and thus the barber has to charge more to get their "bait" back.  My wife has cut my hair for the past 40 years and does a great job while never having gone to beauty college nor having to be licensed by the state.  What a waste.

I am a wood worker who has made all kinds of fancy boxes, trays, picture frames and even classical guitars.  A few years ago, I made the coffin for my father.  It was a work of love.  The problem is that I can not legally sell you a similar coffin.  The local undertaker has got it set up so that he gets a "cut" by having to legally go thru him to sell you a coffin.  That efficiency problem ends up costing you extra money!

How about the college monopoly?  If you go to college to earn a degree and are able to pass the class final exam without having taken the particular class, it still does not count.  In some cases, they will count the class, but then require you to take an additional class so that you do not end up saving time or money.  If your degree requires you only have to pass Calculus I and you challenge it and pass the final exam, they don't really count it because they make you take Calculus II in its place.  This type of thing happens all the time.  If a student could actually really challenge classes and get full credit for them, many students could save money and time and graduate in 3 years vs 4 or 5.  Why do us tax payers allow colleges that we pay for to get away with this kind of screw job?

If you think our colleges are bad, how about, Medical Colleges?  They are among the worst.  I have kids who have gone thru this so I know first hand.  Rather than going directly from high school into Medical School like most of the rest of the world, our kids have to get "Pre-Med" degrees that eat up 4 or 5 years of their lives with cost much more money.  It actually gets worse when the kids graduates from Medical School, they have to serve an "internship" of several years.  All this time they are getting older and the meter is running on cost while they have not yet earned a penny.  If that isn't bad enough, it gets worse.  Now, what if your kid wants to "specialize" in something?  He has to almost start over again while getting older and older and spending additional money.  Now that they have become a specialist in carpel tunnel they can start earning and paying back the bait.  Why isn't this all reversed, where they start learning how to do carpel tunnel surgery right out of high school?  Explain that.

I could keep this going on and on all day.  Think of plumbers who have to jump thru more hoops than almost any other profession. Or how about Dentists or Optometrists?  I think that people selling hearing aids may have slipped thru a crack.  How about people who sell shoes?  Do you think they need to be licensed by the state?  99% of what I see are cases where a small group who practice a profession work to restrict new people who want to get into their profession.  I don't think that most of the regulations and licensing protects the public as much as it helps those who are already in the professions.  In prior blogs, I have pointed out less than 50% of our new doctors got their degrees or were born in the USA!   What is wrong with us that we can not produce our own medical doctors?  The primary reason is the BS that I explained above is going on right under our noses.  I used to teach at a major university, but I can not legally teach my kids at the local grade school.  How screwed up is that?  In some states, I may even have to join a labor union to teach kids in our public schools.  I have had it!

PS---I have a very good friend whose wife is a dental hygienist.  Here is her story.  She paid to go to college to become certified as a dental hygienist, but when she want to get paid to clean teeth, she found that she had to give a regular dentist a "cut" or she could not clean teeth.  She can clean her husband's teeth or her children's.  Why is it against the law for her to come to your house and clean your teeth?  Is it screwed up or what.  It is just a scheme by dentists to screw us out of more money!

What Was The Cause?

Have you noticed that few of us look for the "cause" when we are dealing with a problem?  We tend to jump to "first order" solutions.  Does that sound confusing?  This blog will try to explain it.

I keep jumping back to Sir Isaac Newton and for a good reason.  Newton's law of motion states that, "If a body is at rest, it will remain at rest until some outside force moves it".  Further, he said that, "A body in motion will continue in straight line motion at the same speed until some outside force changes it."  The beauty of Newton's Laws is that they apply in almost 100% of situations which leads us to "looking for the cause".

Now, my point.  I was talking with some friends about our current school lunch program.  We each explained our childhood experiences related to school lunch.  Most brought their lunch from home in a brown paper bag and some paid for their lunch in the school cafeteria.  None got a "free lunch"!  Compared to today, where, upto 50% of kids get a free lunch we all wondered what has changed.  Some commented that it was "progress" that poorer kids could now get a better lunch and thus did not have to go hungry.  The new school lunch program was thus good and it solved the problem of some kids having to go hungry. However, none of us recall any kids going hungry when we were in school.

When you look back at the above, was the free lunch the solution to the problem?  Why did no one in the discussion bring up the "cause"?  It was  clear that when we were all kids there was no free lunch program to solve a problem that did "not" exist.  As Newton might ask, "What has changed?"  Some thing had to have changed since we were kids to have caused the problem of some kids not bringing their lunch or not being able or willing to pay for their lunch.  What was that?

I seldom use the word "all", so don't expect that a single cause will have caused "all" kids to have gotten a free lunch.  Here is my list of what I feel are the "causes".
(1)  Parents can afford to prepare or pay for their kid's lunch but free load because no one complains.
(2)  Parents have made poor life choices and have had kids that they are not prepare to support.
(3)  Fathers have abandoned their children because society does not hold them responsible.

If we would admit to the "causes" of the need for a free lunch program, it would be a first step in the elimination of the "cause" for the program.  If we could get rid of "PC" in our thoughts and in our discussions we might be able to make some of the "tough love" decisions that would solve the problem rather than the application of a "band aid" as the free school lunch program clearly is.  It would restore some "pride" to those who eat those free lunches and allow them to become a responsible part of our adult society!

PS--I read in the news that in the state of New York, more black children are aborted than are born. I an not taking a position about abortion, but it has to be clear that too many blacks are choosing abortion as a means of birth control.  Rather than argue about the morality of abortion, why don't we look for the "cause" for the need for abortion and address that?  Are you starting to see that we need more focus on the "cause" of our social problems and then the honesty and will to address them?

Socialism And Distributed Control Systems

I hope this does not get too complicated, but I am still going to try to explain Socialism vs Capitalism in this blog.

As a bee keeper, I have a lot of respect for both bees and ants.  Did you ever notice how both bees and ants appear to be going in every direction?  How is it then that bees can collect all of that honey from the small amounts of nectar in single flowers?  Or how ants can survive where almost noting else can?  If you were a socialist, you would think that you could better organize the efforts of bees and ants so that they collect more food and thus thrive better.  Do you agree?

Well, if an ignorant socialist tried to better organize the efforts of bees and ants, the results would be the extermination of both.  When ignorant people look at complex "distributed" systems, they never seem to understand that the individual members of that system make much better decisions than does a central control system.  For any kind of central control system to have any chance of working would require some kind of "sensor" on each member of the system.  Even if the senors were very small, they would interfere with the individuals to such an extent that the system could not come close to collecting the same amount of honey or food.  Does this sound like "red tape"?

Long before us humans were here on Earth, mother nature was experimenting with different types of control systems.  After millions of years of trials, the only ones that worked were the "distributed" systems.  I used bees and ants to make my point, but I could have used schools of fish or flocks of birds.  Did you ever see flocks of birds where birds were crashing into each other and falling out of the sky?  No you have not!  Did you ever wonder why?  The reason is that the birds and fish use "distributed" controls where each bird or fish looks after themselves.

Now for my punch line.  Isn't the capitalist economic system a "distributed" system like the bees and ants where each individual looks after their own interest?  The unfortunate situation is that us humans have egos and want to have power and control over others.  Notice that us humans came up with the King system.  There are no large systems of any kind in nature that are run by anything that looks like a King system.  In the case of bees and ants, the Queen does not run the hive or the colony.  Even where us humans have tried the King system, there is no example where the King system produced more wealth, food or quality of life for its members than the "distributed" or capitalist system.

Given the clear evidence that "distributed" controls systems work best for large systems, why do us humans keep going back to this dry hole?  The only reason that I can think of is that too many of us humans do not have the mental capacity to understand how complex most social and economic systems are.  It is like the "sophomore affect" where a little knowledge can make one dangerous.  I think that most of those favoring socialism think they know a lot more about systems than they actually do.  The word is "ignorance".  I think what those who favor capitalism over socialism need to realize that, and to deal with those who favor socialism in a much different way.  They need to drive the discussion down from only generalities to the small details that drive the decisions of individuals in a distributed system.. Challenge socialist to explain how individual bees and ants make decisions about collecting food and bring it back to the hive or colony.  I can tell you that they will "bomb out" when they try to get down to the details.  They prefer to deal only in "generalities".

Talcum Cancer Debate

My coffee group has fallen prey to the Talcum Cancer Debate.  The discussion have gotten hot at times and I think it may be interesting to share some of the"sport" with you in this blog

I am not sure if any in the coffee group would possibly be seated in a real jury, but that aside, here is how the discussions have gone.  To keep the group focused, we agreed on a simple set of data that looks like this.  A pole was conducted with a group of "typical" women.  The size of this group alone was enough material for a lengthy debate by itself.  The data was divided this way:

*  80% did not use talcum and of those who did not, 4% had cancer
*  20% did use talcum and of those who did, 5% had cancer
^  100% regardless of use of talcum, 4.2% had cancer

This data was tested by our resident statistician who certified that the data show a significant correlation to 95% confidence level. This data was used by the lawyer for the plaintiff to argue that, "It is clear that talcum is 25% more likely to cause cancer."  Our test jury thus, quickly warded the defendant millions of dollars.  Does this sound normal to you?

What about the defendant's lawyer?  It is clear that the plaintiff has cancer, but only 1 out of 100 who have cancer attribute it too using talcum.  That means that a jury who rules in favor of the plaintiff will be "wrong" 99% of the time!  This brings us to the point of whether it is morally correct to punish the "one" provider of the talcum millions of dollars when there is a 99% chance that they are totally innocent?

This last point generated the most debate about "how sure" does a jury need to be to convict and take property from some one? I was surprised at how many favored the punishment on the basis of so little evidence.  Words like, "beyond a reasonable dought" came up and exactly what is "reasonable". 

Most agreed that those who manage technology need to be competent in the technology they manage, so do lawyers who deal with statistics and probability.  Neither can rely totally on "experts". Take this simple test to understand what I am talking about there.  You are play poker with 5 other people and have a hand which would be a straight except that you have a "10" right in the middle where you would want a "6".  By drawing only "one" card, what are your chances of drawing the "6" that you need?

PS--I'll post the answer in my next blog so you can see if you were right.

PS--Notice that Trump is more expert in the real world than most politicians who have to trust "experts" like many lawyers have to?  That is one reason his "style" appears out of step with most people who are, themselves, minimally expert in anything!

China Trade Deal Truth

Is this China trade deal the biggest thing in the world?  This blog will point out a new way to look at it.

Remember one of my earlier blogs on the Economics where I pointed out that we need to look at Economics as being made up of (1) Labor value added (2) Natural resource exploitation  (3) Capital?  China has tons of skilled low priced value added labor, but is short on natural resources.  For the USA we need fewer and fewer people to exploit our natural resources.  That leaves us wondering how our growing population of value added workers are going to make a living in the future.  China knows that their value added labor group can easily kick our ass, so they really only want more of our natural resources.

Look at what China is giving up.  They are going to reduce their purchases of natural resources from countries like Argentina and Chile and buy those from the USA.  Who is hurt?  Argentina and Chile.  If you look at all the players, you will find that the USA is a little better off and China much more better off, both at the expense of other natural resources countries around the world.

Look at this from another point.  Who buys most of the value added things that China produces?  It is the USA and if the USA has more economic growth, we will buy more.  If there was more economic growth in some of the countries who are hurt by this deal was better, it would result in a smaller amount going for buying China's value added products.  Why would China want to help countries where they got less for their investment.

Look at the USA being oil independent?  Who does it help the most?  Not the USA, it is China who has been helped the most.  The USA having more oil has kept the price for oil down. They need cheaper natural resources to feed their value added economy. Are you starting to understand the strategy of China now?  It is a good deal for the USA, but like anything, "nothing is free".

Much of the money that the USA has been using to buy value added products from China is the result of our exploiting our oil natural resources.  Our value added products cost so much that China is not interested in them.  Name something that we "make" that China wants to buy?  Notice that China buys corn but not corn oil.  The reason is that they can extract the oil from the corn cheaper than we can.

Here is another point that most will not see for a while.  With China purchasing more corn from the USA, the impact will be that our farm land prices will increase proportionally.  The value or price of farm land is a function of two factors.  The price of corn makes the land more expensive and lower interest rates also make land more expensive.  Isn't this what happened to our banks and the housing market just a few years ago?  The other thing is that it makes our farm economy much more "brittle".  That means that farmers will be in a worse place in the future if corn prices go down and you can bet they will.  Argentina and Brazil both grow a lot of corn and can do it with cheaper labor than we can.  Further, Brazil has a higher percentage of asians than does the USA.  China is more involved in the economy of Brazil than they are here in the USA.  The future for farmers might look great now, but what if China reduced their purchases of our natural resources like "corn"?  The future does not look so bright to me!

PS--Did you notice that 50% of the, so called, benefits of the China Trade Deal were the purchase of our natural resources?  They were "Farm Products" and "Energy".  Only about 25% of the China Trade Deal was related to our "Value Added" exports.  Interesting?

PS--Here is one.  How much "sugar" do you think China will import due to the Trade Deal?  You know that our sugar has a cost that is 3.5 times as much as China could buy it on the world market.  American consumers are still being screwed by our government's price support on sugar and sugar beets for rich farmers in North Dakota.  What ever happened to putting the voters in the USA first?

PS--Here is another way to look at the China Deal.  I think we know that China is only interested in importing raw materials or natural resources and they want to export their value added production. Given that, China is not interested in countries who depend on exporting their own value added production.  We know that most of the countries that are wealthy, get their wealth from the exporting of their natural resources.  Those countries who export food to China are the ones who are going to suffer due to the China Deal.

Politics And Economics Revealed

I think this is going to be a new series, because I don't think that I can get my point across in just a few blogs.  This series is based on a couple of observations. (1) Politics and Economics are not separate, so why don't we stop pretending. (2) There is no such thing as a "Static" system.  Things are changing all the time.  Here goes on chapter #1.

 I am going to start out by defining three basic political/economic systems that are each divided into two parts.  Here they are:

(1)  Capitalism    (A)  Prosperous   (B)  Poor
(2)  Monarch       (A)  Prosperous   (B)  Poor
(3)  Communist   (A)  Prosperous   (B)  Poor

Isn't it interesting that the three groups seem so similar with both having a rich group and a poor group?  I could have added one other thing and that would be the size of the pie for each of the three systems.  If I were to have done that the spread would look like this:

(1)  Capitalism-----------Big pie
(2) Monarch--------------Very small pie
(3) Communist-----------Small pie

I think that we would all agree that a system that produces a "big" pie is potentially better than one that only produces a "small" or "modest size pie".

Here is where I think that most economist and politicians go wrong.  They look at these systems as fixed or in steady state of some kind where little is changing.  If you have ever looked into an active honey bee hive, you will see a mass of thousand of bees moving in every direction.  It looks like a mess, but those bees are very efficient.  They do not waste a movement as they collect and store honey.  It is the same way with our political/economic systems too.

Here is simple example.  Ask yourself, if you were in one of the "6" groups that I defined above, how would you judge your individual situation?  Depending on the characteristics of each individual, they may see things differently.  Take the case of extremes in age or intellect of an individual.  What if you were a young very smart and ambitious person?  Here is my guess at your feelings if you were in one of the "poor" groups.

(1) Capitalist system  You would be reasonably content because you knew that by your individual hard work that you had a very good chance of moving into the well off group on your own merit.  Further, you would feel that the system was fair because you could see the most of those in the well off group were there by merit.

(2) Monarch system  You would be bitter because you could see every day individuals who were clearly less qualified living the rich life only because they were born to some nobility,  You would look around your group and see others who were abused just like you were.  You would have contempt for those in the well off group and be ready to revolt to any system that was more fair than the one you were in.  You would accept the communist system as being better than the monarch system.

(3)  Communist system  You would feel very much like the person who was stuck in the Monarch system, but you knew of a few individuals who were able to leave the poor group on merit while you also knew some who got there who were not qualified, but who had connections.  The more you understood the different political/economic systems the more you would prefer the capitalist system.

It is human nature for one to want something better in life and it is natural that those in the poor groups above want out.  The process is dynamic with individuals moving out and a few moving back in.  Even with in the poor groups, there are differences and there is anxiety present all the time.  Those in the poor group are not equal.  Some will abuse and climb over others in the group in order that they might climb out.  Sad but true.

This is a little jump ahead, but how can the powerful in the better off groups hold onto their position?  The main tool that each have is to prevent individuals from the have not's to move into their group.  That is the way it works.  The capitalists are clearly the group that has the least power over the have nots, but they do have some and they use it.  The main control to keep the well off in the capitalist system from total domination is the legal system.  That is only true if it is enforced equally for all.  I am not sure who said this, but I think it was Hamilton back in the 1700's.  The USA has been blessed with a "Democracy by the people, if you can just hold onto it".

I should have pointed out that both the Communist and the Monarch systems are run by dictators.  If you think that I forgot to mention a socialist economic system, I did not!  All systems run by humans will end up as dictator systems if adequate controls are not maintained.  Look at North Korea it is now a Monarchy and Venezuela is a dictatorship.  It is the natural progression.

Russia went from a Monarchy to a socialist system to a dictator system in just a few years.  Japan went from a Monarchy to a democracy only because it was defeated in WW11 by the USA.

That's enough.  There will be more.

Winter Reading

What ever happened to "winter reading"?  I can personally say that I used to do more "winter reading" than I do today and I feel that I am the worse for it.  How about you?

"These are the times that try men's souls.The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their county; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and women."

Who said and wrote this?  It was Thomas Paine back in 1775.  I think that reading his pamphlet "Common Sense" during this cold winter has warmed me up and shown a light onto me.  I have been very discouraged with the new attitude of our young people where they take so much of our good life for granted.  They seem too eager to try to change things when few have any understanding of exactly where we came from or how difficult that journey was.

You always learn something new when you go back a re-read early literature and in this case I found that Thomas Paine was a Quaker and that he did not feel that a person should be compensated for public service or being a preacher.  Notice how this contrasts today with all of our TV preachers who drive around in fancy cars and live in very expensive houses?  Go ahead and read that quotation above again and this time "our loud".  I know you will feel something special when you do.  Now look in the mirror and see which type of person Thomas Paine described that you are.

The other book I just read was "Two Years Before The Mast".  I had read the book years ago when I lived in California, but this time it had even more meaning.  Most of what was in the book, I still recall, but there were a few new things.  Can you believe that Dana collected 40,000 died cow hides in that two years and hauled them all back to Boston on the sailing ship?  He also commented that the local people who he met were the laziest people he had ever seen and that many strutted around in fancy cloths even though they were dirt poor.  It gives you an idea of the Spanish influence of the day.

I also read a detailed account of Sir Francis Drake's sailing to California and claiming California for the Queen of England.  Remember that this took place in the late 1500's before there was any James Town or Pilgrims at Plymouth Rock.  I don't think that most people today have any idea that the first claim by England in the New World was in California, not Boston!  I had the good fortune to sit beside a gentleman on a flight to Hawaii who had just written a book about "New Albion"..  There is still an active debate about exactly where Drake made his claim for the Queen in California and that is "good".  It brings more attention to this very significant event in American history.

This is my challenge to you.  Read some "older" classic books rather than what is on the New Your Time's top ten.  I think it will brighten some of those winter days and nights!

The Cure Is Worse Than The Disease

Have you ever heard this one before?  I know you have, but we still need to be reminded of this fact more often  In the blog, I will give some simple examples.

Our basic problem is that we appear to have a generation of people who believe that there is a "perfect" solution for every problem if we just looked harder for it or we spent more on it.  I am here to tell you that is not the case.  Most problems do not have perfect solutions and we all need to get used to that fact or our country is going down the rat hole.

In all decisions we need an objective that is realistic.  That is step one.  The second thing is we need a list of the possible choices or actions.  That list needs to be complete, but it can not contain choices that are impossible.  It is possible that a choice on that list might be "perfect", but most often there is not a "perfect" choice on that list.  Most of  the choices contain parts that are "good" and parts that are "bad".  Some times there is no choice where the "good" is greater than the "bad".  This is the situation where the, "cure is worse than the disease".

Here is a good example.  If we were to switch our economic system from "capitalism" to "socialism" and our economic objective was to reduce the differences in income, the choice of "socialism" might work.  If we were only looking at the simple "cure", we would have made the correct decision, but when we look deeper, we find that the average person is now much poorer.  It looks to me like we have a situation where the, "cure is worse than the disease"!

If you are s simple minded "one mover" who does not look ahead, you might vote for socialism, but if you look several moves ahead it will be clear that socialism is on balance "bad".  One of the big differences between children and adults is that children tend to look only one step ahead, where as, adults look well beyond that first step.  You know this is true and it is why poles of the voting preferences of young people accept socialism over capitalism.