Real Equity

 With all the talk about "equity", I thought that I would check out the numbers.  I will show you what I found in the data that I analysed in this blog.

I searched the internet and found some data on income by age.  The data was broken down into "Average", "Median" and the "90% group" and the "99% group"  It looked just like the data I was looking for.  I then calculated the ratios of different groups of data to see if I could develop my "equity index".  That is the ratio between the "average" and the "median".  In a prior blog, I did this for the USA, Mexico and Canada and found that the "Equity ratio" for Canada was better than the USA and Mexico's was last.  If you follow the idea behind the ratio, the closer the median is to the average, the smaller the ratio and thus the better the "equity".

Here is my data for "equity" based on the ratio defined above.

Age Group      Av/50%        90%/50%

20                      1.19              2.43

30                      1.33              2.41

40                      1.30              2.56

50                      1.41              2.90

60                      1.43              2.82

65                      1.43              2.62

Now, how about a litle analysis of the data?  It is clear that the basic :Equity" gets worse as people age. Back when we were only 20 years of the ratio or "equity" was not too bad at 1.19.  But as we aged and worked our way up the ladder, some started pulling away from the pack and by age 60 the "equity" ration had grown to 1.43 or 20% worse.  Why do you think that was?  I think it was because those who had not prepared themselves by education or personal responsibility were left behind by those who had more abilities and responsibility.  What do you think?

The other thing that I did was to compare the "median" or 50% group with the top 10%.  The top 10% are those who end up paying 90% of the taxes that benefit the lower earners. The data shows that the top 10% gain their advantage over the median right from the get-go with a ratio of 2.43 out of the blocks.  Why is that?  I think it is because of education and the fact that some people are just more skilled and since there are so few of these people, they can demand more pay.  I did not look at earlier periods than 2022, but it is my guess that this ratio has gotten bigger over time and that it will continue to grow as the world's economy shifts more to technology and intellectual work.  The supply of top intellect is limited so the trend will continue.

I am going to dig into more data to see if I can get more insight and understanding of trends that are happening and will continue.  Further, I am going to challenge government decisions and compare their impact to the above ratios.  I can already tell you that many of our governments actions are making the equity ratio worse.  A good example is the open southern border.  The majority of those immigrants will be below the median income and thus will have the effect of lowering it.  They will also make some big companies and people richer and that  will have the impact of raising the average income.  It is the distance between the median and the average that is the basis of my equity ration and it is getting worse. In a future blog, I will try to show ways that we could improve the equity ratio and thus raise the quality of life for us USA citizens.  What if we had some "USA First" policies for a change!!!

PS--With socialisms they can achieve true "equity" when everyone is at "zero" or broke.  What I would like to see is a compromise where the "quality of life" was higher and the "equity" ratio was lower.  The best statistic that I can find for "quality of life" is median income.   If you punish the high earners too much will high taxes you also reduce the median income in the process.  That is why it is a "compromise" and exactly where is the best "compromise"?   All we can do is to honestly search for it.

Education Boot Strap

 In my last blog, I pointed out the significance of our decline in education, particularly in math.  Now I have a possible solution.

First off, a little back ground.  I went to a country school where we had four grades in one room.  At the time I thought that my school was bad and the school in town was better.  When I now look back on my experience, I have a totally different view.  My country school was much better than big schools today and I will explain why. 

In the country school, the teachers had a very different attitude.  Think about this.  They had Billy in the second grade and Billy had problems with math.  Billy could not keep up with the rest of the class so in the city school, the teacher gave Billy a lower grade and concentrated on the good kids.  In the country school, the teacher knew that they would have to deal with Billy for at least two more years and did not look forward to have to keep giving Billy a poor grade.  His parent might even ask the teacher about what kind of job they were doing teaching their Billy.  For that reason the teacher invested the time and effort into Billy to help him catch up to the other kids.  That is one of the big differences.

What the teacher would do with Billy was to get one of the better math students who was a grade or two ahead of Billy to work with him and show them how other kids worked their math problems.  It was a true one-on-one relationship with other kids who had to personally deal with the early problems of learning math.  The teacher was far removed from the time they had learned math for the first time and could not relate to Billy like other kids his own age could.  It worked.

There was another benefit too and that was that the older kid who helped Billy discovered new ways to learn math that they had not thought of when they were learning math.  They had to answer questions from Billy about math that they have never thought about before.  This whole process helped both Billy and those who helped him.  This same process was used for many other subjects and has been part of the education system in country school since before the USA was formed and it workded.

I had the good fortune of going to a country school and later teaching at a major university both under graduate and graduate courses.  My experience in teaching in college was the same as helping Billy back in the country school.  It helped me learn my engineering subjects better.  I had to figure out how to explain complex engineering concepts that were easy for me to grasp to others who were having difficulty.  I had to answer question about the subjects that I had never thought about and that helped me too.  I hope that you can see how this whole process works and helps everyone.

Here is my punch line.  Why don't we make the kind of tottering I described above standard practice outside of official school?  If done right, it would help both the slower student and the person to did the tottering.  Billy who was in the second grade could be tottered by Jane who was in the 4th grade at the local library and then Jane herself could be tottered by Larry who was in the 7th grade.  A system like this would help everyone.  It would be like the "rising tide lifts all boats".  You could even award Billy with some money to pay Jane and then Jane could spend the same money to pay Larry and right on up the line.

In some families the tottering is done by the parents and that works too, but I don't think it works as well as what I experienced in my country school years ago.  If we could get a system where kids helped kids, right on up the line, I feel that we might have a chance of catching up with much of the world when it comes to education.  If we do not do something like I have proposed, we can expect our kids to get farther and farther behind as well as our economy and quality of life and that would not be good.  What do you think?

Math Scores

 According to the news, math scores have gone down in the USA, but it is worse than reported as I will explain in this blog.

We all know that the literacy rate of the USA is among the lowest of any country in the world.  Many have literacy rates near 99% while the USA is down in the area of 68%.  It is the same for math.  Why is that?  Are we that stupid?  You may have to answer "yes" to that question.  How does that square with the fact that the USA has the biggest economy in the world?  Well, the fact is that we have been believing our own propaganda.  We may have the largest economy, but when you look at it on a person to person basis, we are well down the ladder when it comes to median or average wealth.  I like to use the median because it tells you how that person right in the middle is doing and tends to eliminate those very few who are multi billionaires.  

The other thing is that we see all these want adds posted every where, so we know there are plenty of jobs.  How does that square?  The problem is that many of those jobs require higher skills and many who are out of work have.  Further many of those jobs produce products that have to compete with products made around the world where many are cheaper than can be made here.  That means the maker of those products here can not pay more or his products will be none competitive.  Most people want to make more than they are actually worth.  That is where our schools come in.

The math scores have gone down significantly in the USA for our kids in school over the passed couple of years, but it is even worse.  Most of us can see that the world is getting more technical and that means we workers have to get more technical too.  The problem is that to just keep up with the ever increasing in technology, the USA has to get better at things like math at a rate that keeps up with the rate of change of technology and we have "not".  That means that while we should have been getting better in math, we have actually been getting worse.  That is double bad.  The world is not standing still and we have to keep up just to stay even.  I think you can see that it is much worse than reported. 

Now, we have to catch up, but we know that is almost impossible.  To catch up we have to first stop going down hill and we don't seem to know how to do that.  To actually catch up it would mean that our kids have to learn faster than others in the world and we know that we are now learning slower.  Look at South Korea.  To catch up, our kids have to work harder and learn faster than the kids now in South Korea.  What do you think the chance of that are?  "Zero".

Now, if we are so bad, then how did we get to where we are now?  That is a very good question and I will try to answer it.  We took over this country about 400 years ago when small pox killed off 90% of the Native Americans.  What we go was on of the richest countries in the world in terms of natural resources.  It was not that we were all that smart or hard working, we were blessed with all the wealth free from the natural resources that were already here.  It was not our productivity that created the wealth that we enjoyed, it was free for the picking, like gold in California or oil in Texas or coal in West Virginia and timber in Wisconsin.  It was free and we used that wealth to purchase items that made our quality of  life the best in the world.  So what happened?

Biden put an end to our use of one of the most critical natural resources and that was oil, gas and coal. Like when the human race switched from muscle power to steam engines to create the industrial revolution, Biden killed the goose.  For some reason most of us humans too credit for the wealth of the USA as being a product of our hard work and efficiency without giving credit to the free natural resources that we were blessed with.  Now the truth be known, it was not us, it was the free natural resources all along.  Now we have to compete with all the countries around the world on the basis of our ability and that means math skills and you know where we stack up on that one.

If we want to continue our good life, it will mean that we have to work harder and smarter than any other country in the world or we have to go back to using our natural resources.  I don't think that any of us would want to work as hard as South Korea and accept their quality of life, plus, we could not out work South Korea even if we wanted too!  Get used to being poorer!

Buckling

 Many of you know about the game where you pull out block until the pile falls down, but did you know that is how our economy works too?

When I was in Engineering College, it always seemed strange that they focused on the strength of structures and materials, but paid little attention to "compression".  Did you find the same thing?  The reason is clear.  "Compression" failure is too complicated  and too difficult to predict.  When your car is in a crash, the fenders or door does not break, it bends in "compression".  That is also how most things in life operate too.

If you look at most of the progress of the human race over the past few hundred years, you will find that most of the progress has been due to "efficiency".  That's right, "Efficiency".  Think about it, when you grow more corn on an acre of land, isn't that "efficiency"?  What if you can build more cars per man hour, isn't that "efficiency" too?  When an engineer builds a bridge with less steel, isn't that "efficiency".  It is all around us and it should be called "efficiency". 

Now, back to the pile of blocks game.  Isn't building a taller stack with the same number of blocks really "efficiency"?  But here is the rub.  When we keep gaining by using "efficiency"  we make ourselves more vulnerable to a collapse, just like the pile of blocks.  Isn't that part of the story when Biden declared war on fossil fuels.  Had he done that 200 years ago when we used horses to pull our carts and plows, it would not have been a problem.  But now, with all of our new efficiencies just pulling out that one block caused our economy to collapse.

Here is another example of what I am saying.  Think about an earthen dam that was easily built using simple tools.  It holds water back like the best concrete dams, but costs a lot less.  But what happens when it over flows?  Prior to the over flow everyone is happy, but at the instant that the water gets to the top and over flows, the raging water eats away the soiled and the whole lake comes rushing out.  It is like that last block being removed.  All is well before that, but at a single instant the world changes and for every.

What we all enjoy today is an economy that has produced the highest quality of life for you and me than has ever existed in human history.  The problem is that it was due to "efficiency" and like the tower of blocks, a single wrong decision can cause it to all fall down.  Biden pulled out that critical block and you can see what has happened.  Many of the people who advised Biden were educated by reading books written by those who promoted more and more "efficiency" and you can see the results.

In engineering, collapse is the most difficult thing to predict.  I was just talking to a friend who pointed out that a human could easily be supported by standing on an empty beer can, but if the beer can was just lightly tapped on the side it would collapse.  That is the "tap" that Biden did with our economy and our quality of life.  In the blink of and eye it all happened.

Now, how do we get back to where we were?  Think of the earthen dam.  The dirt was washed away by the escaping water, so where are going to get more dirt?  I can tell you that to get the pile of blocks back up to where it was may take almost as long as it did to create the pile in the first place.  It is one thing to repair a pile that has partially fallen down, but the damage done by Biden may be much worse and take much longer to correct.  That is my concern and it should be yours. 

How and Why

 I like good titles and this is one.  "How and Why"

We all learn new things every day, or at least we should.  I learned that there is a major difference between How and Why recently.  You know that it is never too late to learn.  Did you ever think about the difference between How and Why?  When I was just a kid, I used to always be asking older people, "Why?"  As a parent I did not understand why young kids so often ask, "Why", but I do now.

When I went to school, the teacher was always explaining "How" to do this or that.  At home it was the same.  My father took great care to show me "How" to do all kinds of things, including "How" to conduct myself.  Did you ever think back to when you were a kid and adults explained or told you "How" to do things?  I know you did.

In a prior blog, I pointed out that there appears to be two kinds of people in this world.  If you remember, they were "Empirical" and "Analytical".  As I have thought about it a little more they are "How and Why" people.  The empirical people are those who were satisfied with just knowing "How" and the analytical people were concerned more about "Why".  Does that make any since to you?  What are you?   

As I explained in a prior blog, the future is much different than the past and the rate of change is also much faster than in the past.  Where one used to be able to succeed by just knowing "How", that will not work in our fast changing future.   We need to know "Why" so that we can adjust the "How" to fit with the future.  This may appear to some as a very subtle point, but it is very critical point if we want to succeed in the future.  Next time one of your young children asks you, "Why" do not put them off.  Take the time to explain "Why".  It will prepare your child for the future that neither of us now know. It is the responsible thing to do even if it is inconvenient. 

More of us should be thinking and asking "Why".  It might irritate some of your friends, but it is clearly the right thing to do.  If we all start doing it, we just might find that we will be more ready and equal to the future!

Brittle Farmers

 Did you know that the US farmers are "brittle"?  I will explain in this blog.

In the past I explained the concept of brittleness.  It is where a system has advanced, but in the process ii has climbed farther out on a limb.  It is a little like the game where blocks are removed until the whole pile falls down.  How does this effect our farmers?

We all take credit for the fact that our US farmers are among the most productive in the world.  That is we produce more food with less labor than any country in the world.  That is great isn't it?  It means we spend the least percentage of our wages on food than any country in the world.  We took that advantage to the bank for years, but what happened?

Look at it this way.  Our farmers had cheap oil and fuel for their tractors, plus cheap fertilizer made with the energy and chemicals from our cheap oil, but what happened when we had a shortage of oil created by Biden?  Like the pile of blocks mentioned above, our farmers collapsed along with much of our economy.

Many of our voters are ignorant of the concept of brittleness and do not understand how vulnerable we have become as we take advantage of what we call "progress".

Carbon Monoxide and Ozone

 This blog may be over the heads of some of my readers, but here goes.

Years ago there used to be a lot of situations where domestic refrigerators were run by natural gas or propane rater than electricity.  Many isolated hunting cabins still use refrigerators that run on some kind of gas.  These units were not a problem in the past because most structures were not very air tight.  Due the combustion of gas, they produced some Carbon Monoxide that could be fatal in some situations.  Even today there are some RV's and travel trailers that still have gas fired refrigerators.  Most are now well vented.  This is just some back ground.

My point is that when a system generates some Carbon Monoxide, why don't we have systems to 
kill" or eliminate it?  I am thinking about Ozone.  Ozone is unstable and releases its third atom of Oxygen soon after it is formed.  That is why Ozone is used to sterilize water ans swimming pools.  Hunters use Ozone generators to kill their smell.  I have proposed in a prior blog that Ozone could be used to kill the virus of Covi19.  

I guess that my question is why doesn't anyone advocate the use of Ozone as a way to get rid of Carbon Monoxide?  It would seem to me that a simple systems could easily be developed with some kind of feed back that could regulate the amount of Ozone generated to convert Carbon Monoxide to Carbon Dioxide. We don't need anymore Carbon Dioxide, but at least it is not toxic and trees and plants need it to live.

I would be interested to know if anyone is working on such a system.  What do you think of the idea and have you ever heard of the idea before?