Why blog?

If you are not a blogger, you may wonder why a person writes a blog. Many bloggers may have the same question. I can't speak for others, but I can tell you why I blog.

I blog because I want to better understand the issues of the day. Television, newspapers, news magazines, the Internet and other media provide a partial story. To gain a complete understanding of any issue requires detective work. For me, blogging is the discipline that causes me to do the appropriate level of investigation and analysis. After research and analysis, the blog acts as a report that forces me to analyze what I have discovered and to make a coherent and cogent presentation of what I have found with an expression of what it means to me. The blog is a set of facts and analysis as I understand an issue, interlaced with, hopefully, informed opinions that I have concluded and that I express through the written blog. So there you have it: Find, analyze, conclude, express is the model I follow in blogging.

A classic argument against writing a blog is that no one ever reads what you (a possible blogger) or I (a confirmed blogger) may write. Undoubtedly, that is largely true. Few read my blog, but I receive statistics that imply that some do. Even fewer comment on what I have written.

Neither the lack of readers nor the sparsity of reader comments diminishes the value that I receive from researching and writing the blog.

I full well realize that, with my blog, I generate millions of data bits that when I depress the 'publish' button, get flung out into cyber space where the effort may or may not find a target. In the true blogger spirit, I have done my part. I wrote and published the blog to the open Internet community. It is up to others to find and read it.

I have little control other than publishing to the medium that allows Google, Bing or some other search engine to find it.

The content of my writing varies, but primarily, I write about government, golf and business. I am retired from one of the three (the 'b'), spend much of my time trying to understand the machinations of one ('g'), and probably way too much time, with limited results, attempting to play the remaining ('g').

Without a doubt a thoroughly researched and concisely written blog helps to sharpen the mind. If I can keep this baby humming along for a few more years, the blogging will have been worth the effort. Aside from the mind enhancing value, blogging is fun. You should try it.

A Republic v. a Pure Democracy

To many the word democracy and republic are synonymous terms. Others have little or no clue as to the meaning of one term versus the definition of the other. History tells us that in the thought process of the Founding Fathers, a principal requirement for the republic was No King.

As we have lived through two hundred plus years of our American republic, the thought of a king as ruler has long since fallen out of the lexicon. Though we were established as a republic and remain so, the word republic is seldom used in describing America.

Commonwealth, another frequently used term, is not an accurate description of our form of government. Commonwealth is sometimes used to describe the governing philosophy of some states, namely Kentucky, Virginia, Connecticut, Massachusetts, among others.

The commonwealth as described by Wikipedia is:

...a traditional English term for a political community founded for the common good. Historically, it has sometimes been synonymous with "republic".

Commonwealth, republic, democracy ...the terms are often used interchangeably.

A republic is a form of government in which the people, or some significant portion of them, retain supreme control over the government, at least in theory, and where offices of state are not granted through heritage.

The Founders thought a republican government (point of clarification, small "r" republican) was the best kind of government they could choose for themselves. They believed that the advantages of republican government were:

• Fairness. They believed that laws made by the representatives they elected would be fair. If their representatives did not make fair laws, they could elect others who would.
• Common welfare. The laws would help everyone instead of one person or a few favored people.
• Freedom and prosperity. People would have greater freedom and be able to live well.

The Founders way of implementing their preferred Republic was to do so with a defining, liberating but lawfully constricting constitution.

Constitutional republic, a form a government that is limited by a constitution.

Its primary purpose was to ensure the common good. But, at the time of writing and ratifying of the Constitution, the common good neither called for freedom for all, nor equal rights for all. Hence, the Fourteenth Amendment freeing the slaves; the Nineteenth Amendment giving women the right to vote. The longevity of our constitutional form of government was made possible to a great extent by the Founding Fathers inclusion in the Constitution of the ability for amendment.

We have been and continue to be erroneously described as a democracy ...sometimes a representative democracy when in fact we are a republic. To some this may be splitting hairs. However, true, pure or

direct democracy is a form of government in which people collectively make decisions for themselves, rather than having their political affairs decided by representatives.

With all options available to the newly forming country, the Founders chose the representative approach as described in Why Government, a previous blog in this series.

The notion undertaken was to build a country that supported the common good, a notion that originated over two thousand years ago in the writings of Plato, Aristotle, and Cicero. More recently, the contemporary ethicist, John Rawls, defined the common good as "certain general conditions that are...equally to everyone's advantage".

To ensure the sticktoitiveness of the common good, the government would be an elected one with a president as the executive, two houses of a congress of representatives (one elected directly by the people, the other appointed by each of the state governments), a court system (including a supreme court) and most importantly, there would be no monarchy, constitutional or otherwise. Election to office would be the means of selecting representatives (direct election for the House of Representatives; indirect election of state government who appointed the Senate. No right of heredity would be included.

In the more than two centuries of our country, we have lived up to the common good. Sometimes we were dragged kicking and screaming to supporting the common good. We had a civil war to bring some into the status of full-Americans. We required an amendment to the Constitution to fulfill the rights of woman to vote. The nineteen hundred sixty-four Civil Rights Act was another major modification needed to help all to share in the common good. Fortunately, our Constitution allowed these amendments, these acts to emerge.

Higher Education Conflict

The Florida public university board of governors just voted to move forward to regionalize the respective state university geographic scope of operation and relevance. Each university will be given a multiple country territory in which the respective school has exclusive rights in developing and implementing education programs, research programs and other work with business and public organizations. For a university to initiate new programs or respond to requests from public or private groups or businesses to perform a role in another university's protected territory requires the approval of the university holding the geographic franchise.

The University of Florida, generally respected as the University of the State of Florida is allocated 17 counties of North Central Florida ...around its home base of Gainesville.

This attempt in restricting large state universities to limited parts of the state is without precedent, short-sighted and an all-around dumb idea. It will go far to lower the prestige and credibility of all Florida universities when compared to private universities and the public universities of other states.

The prestigious University of Florida, shown in an image from the University Admissions Guide is a feather in the cap of the entire state of Florida. Why diminish its current role?

The move to reign-in the reach and influence of universities will have the effect of reducing all of the state's public institutions of higher learning to the least common denominator. With reduced individual university status, students and faculty will not see the need to attend a more prominent university. At a time when schools, even state schools, should be competing on the basis of merit across the state, across the country and around the world, this board action reduces the schools to protected, in-state territories.

The marginal, or less qualified of the universities undoubtedly, applaud this move. It lowers their need to compete, to strive for excellence. It does so by holding back the top performer. Most certainly, the move sends the wrong message to the public, to educators and to students. It is a move that the legislature should immediately take steps to correct.

Academics aside, I doubt that the University's vaunted athletic boosters, the Bull Gators, will want the mighty University of Florida Gators to become the University of North Central Florida Gators ...the UNCF Gators. Somehow the name fails to intimidate The Ohio State University Buckeyes, the University of Michigan Wolverines, Georgia Bulldogs, Alabama Crimson (Isn't that the color of blood?) Tide, the University of Oklahoma Sooners, and cause any of these fine, state-wide universities to back down on the gridiron, on the court, the diamond or other field of athletic play, when facing the mighty UNCF Gators.

Academically and athletically, the move is humiliating for a proud university, counter-productive, dumb and totally unnecessary.

Exceptionalism

Each time I hear the word exceptionalism uttered, I flinch. When I hear the word coupled with American ...as in American exceptionalism, I cringe.

Americans have every right to be a proud people. From the discovery of the continent (by Europeans) in 1492, the community beachheads established in 1607 at Jamestown and 1620 at the landing of the Mayflower (shown in this painting by William Halsall [1882]) on Plymouth Rock, our ancestors crafted and we of more contemporary times have continued to build a marvelous country. Of course, we acted more under the laws of nature than the laws of civilization, for when we arrived, a native people already populated the continent that was to become America.

In forming the new nation of people with origins in Europe, we followed the law of nature, claimed the land from the native peoples and made it our own.

America was conceived in the early 1600's. From that beginning, two small colonies, one in what is now Massachusetts, one in what is now Virginia, America was born, exceptional for the day and time, probably, but American exceptionalism would take a couple of centuries, well into the twentieth century before the term was first uttered.

A new ideology was born in those early settlements. An

American ideology, based on liberty, egalitarianism, individualism, populism and laissez-faire (the statement is generally attributed to de Tocqueville)

attitude and view of life that would evolve into what many now see as exceptionalism.

It may have been de Tocqueville who defined the term, but it was, of all people, the American Communist Party who, in the 1920s, coined the phrase American exceptionalism.

So there we have it, our pedigree has some questionable origins, some trying, sometimes less than civil beginnings.

First, we distinguished ourselves by conquering (or maybe just occupying) a territory that previously was owned but sparsely populated by a native people, the Algonquian and other tribes; secondly, we suffered the travails brought about by the dislocation from the relatively civil society of Europe to the wilderness of the new continent; thirdly, during the early years of the new world, we were dubbed exceptional by one of the world's foremost scholars of the time; and, subsequently, as a people, we were labeled and dubiously flattered by the term American exceptionalism by the American Communist Party.

We built a nation, the envy of much of the world. We must guard our borders because the people of the world want to come in and enjoy the freedom, the opportunities that we Americans take for granted. In the eyes of a vast majority of the world, our country, our people truly are exceptional. What history, what contemporary times that we are fortunate to live in.

But has American Exceptionalism morphed into a euphemism for global military power?

Unquestionably, the world needs an effective mechanism to provide governments and the governed to fully and freely participate in the fruits of our planet. To move the communities away from the laws of nature and fit the multifaceted interests of different countries into the world community, a policing and legal infrastructure must be available to allow for the resolution of differences and enforcement of agreed-to actions. Whether the United Nations or another participatory body, a means must be available to allow for resolution of differences. In place of a UN, that is too unwieldy to act, the United States has stepped to the fore and confronted many of the world's injustices. Unfortunately, many in our country construe our world policing role in recent years as a demonstration of American exceptionalism. In fact, as has been demonstrated lately, our interference in the affairs of others is more defined as American arrogance ...far from the original concept of exceptionalism.

We are at somewhat of a crossroads in America. On the one hand, we can pull back to our borders and allow the countries and peoples of the world to fend for themselves; or, we can lead the nations of the world in making the United Nations or a follow-on to the UN become the keeper and administrator of the world's welfare. We must step back from unilateralism.

We shouldn't become isolationists, but America must step back from dominating the forces of good in the world and let some of the other wealthy countries participate in leading and funding the struggle for world peace and world prosperity.

Why government?

Freedom as provided by the laws of nature allows the unimpeded exercise of whatever you wish to do. The consequences delved out by nature may provide harsh punishment for some of your pursuits. However, nature does not prohibit your repeating the action. The problem with the laws of nature ruling the world is that every other individual would have the same freedom of action, under the laws of nature, as you.

Let's use an example of how this might work. Under the laws of nature if someone lives in a nice house and you wish to have the house as your own, you need only take away the house from the other person, assuming that you are strong enough to do so. Likewise if you were able to take the house and someone else came along with the ability and desire to take the house from you, he or she could or would take it away. The laws of nature are akin to what we generally recognize as the laws of the jungle.

As civilization was invented and evolved, the laws of nature that gave the individual complete freedom to act as his or her capabilities and desires dictated, was replaced with more of a communal or civic freedom. This freedom, as enjoyed by many peoples of the world, allows a high degree of freedom but constrains that freedom to actions that do not infringe on the freedoms of others.

From the Magna Carta, 1215:

The role of government, then, is to secure the liberties enjoyed in the state of nature by limiting individual behavior when it harms others.

And this from John Locke's, 1690 Second Treatise of Civil Government, Chapter 7, Section 87: Of Political of Civil Society

... Man being born, as has been proved, with a title to perfect freedom, and an uncontrolled enjoyment of all the rights and privileges of the law of nature, equally with any other man, or number of men in the world, hath by nature a power, not only to preserve his property, that is, his life, liberty and estate, against the injuries and attempts of other men; but to judge of, and punish the breaches of that law in others, as he is persuaded the offence deserves, even with death itself, in crimes where the heinousness of the fact, in his opinion, requires it. But because no political society can be, nor subsist, without having in itself the power to preserve the property, and in order thereunto, punish the offences of all those of that society; there, and there only is political society, where every one of the members hath quitted this natural power, resigned it up into the hands of the community in all cases that exclude him not from appealing for protection to the law established by it. And thus all private judgment of every particular member being excluded, the community comes to be umpire, by settled standing rules, indifferent, and the same to all parties; ...

Undoubtedly these historic documents were key to the discussions that birthed our own government. Surely our founding fathers had each of these documents on their respective desktops as they sat in Philadelphia to craft our Constitution.

With Governor Morris, shown here in this B. Wilkinson portrait, as the lead writer of the Constitution, no doubt with input from many of the future signers, a historic document was created. What many of us mistakenly think our Constitution is the constitution of the world's leading democracy, in fact it is the constitution of the world's leading republic.

Federalist Paper #10 helps to explain the difference between a democracy and the republic that we have in America. We, in fact, are a republic and not a true democracy.

... it may well happen that the public voice, pronounced by the representatives of the people, will be more consonant to the public good than if pronounced by the people themselves, convened for the purpose.

On the other hand, the effect may be inverted. Men of factious tempers, of local prejudices, or of sinister designs, may, by intrigue, by corruption, or by other means, first obtain the suffrages, and then betray the interests, of the people.

So there we have it. The republic was selected over the pure democracy with the belief that representative government would provide a smoothing of the fluctuations of passions of the people preventing the jerking of the country in one direction and then another.

In today's media driven frenzy of public discourse, our elected representatives oftentimes get caught-up in, and amplify the jockeying that takes place between individual citizens of our country. In getting sucked-in to factional battles, our many of our elected officials abdicate their republic(an) responsibilities of elected representation of the people.

Unfortunately, it seems that many of our elected representatives haven't read the Constitution, the Federalist Papers, or other historical papers that provide guidance in the representation of the people.

These representatives are empowered to analyze the needs of the country, to make laws and present to the president for enactment. The representatives take a constitutional oath that commits themselves to Constitutional performance.

Senate Oath:

I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: So help me God.

The role of the Congressperson and the Senator is defined by the oath taken. The role of the people is to elect the congressperson, the senator and to hold them accountable to the Constitution for the laws enacted, the representation provided.

Federalist #63 speaks to the Congress in making the laws and the interaction of the Courts in interpreting and validating the constitutionality of the laws:

The Constitution imposes certain restrictions on the Congress designed to protect individual liberties, but unless the courts are independent and have the power to declare laws in violation of the Constitution null and void, those protections amount to nothing.

Our Founding Fathers understood the need to balance the powers of government to ensure that one branch of government could not go astray of the powers vested by the Constitution. Three branches were formed, the legislative; the executive; and the courts ...each branch with powers limited by the strictures of the Constitution. Again from Federalist #63:

The judicial branch of government is by far the weakest branch (I'm sure the Framers never envisioned the Roberts court). The judicial branch posses only the power to judge, not to act, and even its judgments or decisions depend upon the executive branch to carry them out. Political rights are least threatened by the judicial branch. On occasion, the courts may unfairly treat an individual, but they, in general, can never threaten liberty.

Today many people seem upset that our democracy is not working the way it was designed. Boiled down to its essence, I suspect it is working just as planned.

In my opinion, our representatives are pursuing the laws and actions that they believe support the best interests of the country. That is the privilege, sanctioned by the Constitution, of the elected representatives of our "republic".

The views of our representatives may not be democratic in nature ...they may not reflect the views of individuals, citizens of the republic. If sufficient numbers of people believe the country is moving in the wrong direction, that our representatives are not accurately and diligently performing their Constitutional duties, then that issue can be corrected at the next election.

Why else have elections?

A government too far

It ain't just public golf courses that should be returned to the private sector. Our county, Alachua, in North Central Florida has gone and is continuing to go the way of the non-ratables.

Much of the county land is off the tax roles, in fact 44% of County real property is not taxed. Compared to some other counties in the state: Marion and Duval counties each have exempted 31% of the real property; Broward, 23%; and Dade has 21% of the real property exempted from taxes.

The Alachua County burden for real estate taxes and the funding of government falls directly onto the backs of the residents and commercial businesses while competing government businesses and exempt properties skate-by, tax free (e.g., hospitals, colleges and universities, golf courses, etc.).

The county is the proud home of the University of Florida (non-taxable properties); several state parks, e.g., 7000 acre San Felasco Hammock, 22,000 acre Paynes Prairie Preserve; the Ironwood Golf Course; the University of Florida golf course, and also, the 1146 acre Gainesville Regional Utilities, Deerhaven Generating Station likewise off the tax rolls.

Added to these exempt properties are the many administrative, law enforcement, maintenance and other government locations owned by county, city, state and federal agencies within the county.

Alachua County has migrated into one of the highest tax counties within the state of Florida. To add insult to injury, until recently the county had a one half percent sales tax assessment to allow for purchase of additional properties to be placed in the county land reserve. Not to be outdone by real property and sales tax assessments, the county has levied a five cents per gallon tax on gasoline intended for roads and mass transit projects.

Our county commissioners would like to add more taxes. Maybe they could match the City of Gainesville and buy a golf course. A recently closed commercial golf course is available.

The city, not to be outdone in keeping commercial businesses off the tax roles recently formed a Limited Liability Partnership between the Gainesville Regional Utilities (an arm of Gainesville City government) and American Renewables to build a biomass power plant ...to be off the tax rolls, of course.

While generation of electricity using the biomass method is a controversial topic, nevertheless, the City Commission voted to pursue the project. Beginning in 2013, the new plant is expected to generate 100 megawatts of new energy for the area.

The new biomass plant will be located on the 1146 acre Deerhaven Generating Station property.

As an aside, fuel for the plant will be supplied by the forestry industry ostensibly from the waste product of the vast lumber and pulp tree cuttings that take place throughout North Florida.

Florida must come to a more equitable method of financing state, county and city government. The disproportional distribution of state facilities across counties and municipalities begs the question of fair treatment for all taxpayers. Citizens within the various locales of the state should not be penalized for having a university, a government owned power plant, a prison or other government owned facility located within their respective communities.

In our capitalistic society, governments should also remove themselves from ownership of properties better left to the private sector whether power generation facilities or golf course facilities.

Notable exceptions to this private sector rule that must be made are the social safety net services and the public education of our children and young adults.

How not to run a golf club ...for that matter, any business

Recently, I and many of my fellow community and golf club members, had the misfortune of loosing the golf club located in the midst of our neighborhood. It is not one of the major misfortunes of the now struggling US economy. However, it is a tragedy for some workers who had the misfortune of working for a failing business.

Those of us who were members will just move along to another golf course and continue to play our silly little game. The former employees face a bleak jobs market with virtually no golf courses hanging-out help wanted signs. To a great extent, the golf business is a failing business. With each failed course, the failure means the loss of livelihood for about twenty workers. this loss of jobs is the real concern. Those of us who attempt to play the game will move our business to one of the survivors.

When a business fails, it can be a worthwhile exercise to look back at what drove the failure. Usually, as is likely true at our course, there are many factors.

Before we look back, take a look at the table shown below. Some statistics about the golf marketplace are helpful in understanding how tenuous the golf club business can be.

With the price of golf at about thirty dollars per round, clubs are by nature high risk. The future for golf clubs is laced in changing demographics, uncertainty in the economy, and the effects of a wide variety of other activities that children and adults pursue. Consequently, many golf clubs will follow the path of the dinosaur. To counter the evolutionary fact that many Americans are moving beyond golf as a leisure activity, clubs have done many and varied things to keep current members or to attract new members.

With the fact being that almost all golf courses are struggling, let's look at how the management of one course attempted to stem the tide of departing members and per round players.

A brief review of the club shows the following:

• The club is embedded in a community of approximately 1000 homes of moderate to high value, with householders in the middle to upper middle income class and a few moderately wealthy.
• The course is mature, approximately thirty years old.
• The course is mortgaged in the amount of two million plus dollars.
• Over the past several years the course has struggled with multiple owners, most of whom were under-financed.
• The course slide into disrepair over the past several years. Greens and fairways deteriorated and are in bad shape. The sprinkler system was mostly in failure mode. Management scrimped on fertilizer, insect chemicals, workers to perform maintenance activities and maintenance equipment. Denial of qualified golf operations, greens keeper, social activities management, and general management talent was followed to generate what become false savings.
• Club house facilities, the sports bar, swimming pool, tennis courts for the most part have been poorly run as has the pro shop, new golfer programs, and other club activities / amenities.

When things got really tough financially, course maintenance was seemingly at a low, members were continuing to abandon ship, management choose to take $100,000 out of the year's maintenance budget. The course deteriorated further and finally culminated in the course closing.

As the club traveled down this pathway to financial failure and closure, one management action stands out as indicative of the clubs failings.

NOTICE: FINAL COMMUNITY CLUB MEMBERSHIP INVITATION was sent to all property owners within the community ...an invitation to join or else.

The business management takeaway NOT: When your business is showing signs of failure, threaten your customers and potential customers in an attempt to coerce use of your product and services else be damned to inevitably, suffer the consequences ...an all new high point in customer relationships management.

Else happened. The club is closed. The business is defunct. The remaining land lies dormant. Weeds grow higher and higher. The club is no more. May it rest in peace.

Hey pal, want to buy a golf course?

Golf courses, can there be a worse investment?

Last year, the city of Gainesville, Florida made the decision to upgrade their dilapidated golf course. Was it a rational decision to borrow money to upgrade the municipal course? The upgrade plan included the reassignment of the course from what had been an enterprise venture required to pay its own way and into the Parks and Recreation department. With this budgetary maneuver, taxpayers will pick up the tab for what was understood to be continuing losses even with the upgrade.

The course has been under city ownership since its purchase in 1992. Ironwood has suffered a deficit each year of operation, currently a loss of about $15 per paid round this year with (see Table shown below) similar losses in each of the nineteen years since its purchase by the city. Now, with the move of City ownership into Parks and Recreation, operating losses by Ironwood will have a convenient mask from critical public view.

I am an avid golfer. I play Ironwood three or four times each month. While I had not played the course prior to its reconstruction, I must say that the spruced-up course is very playable, a credit to those who performed the reconstruction work.

For the golfer, the course upgrade can be considered a winning undertaking. For the voter and the 85 to 90% of the people who do not play golf, most likely, the money could have been better spent. Streets, parks and recreation with more widespread applicability would have been a more equitable place to spend the taxpayers money. In these days of fiscal constraints, maybe the money should not have been borrowed at all, for any purpose.

If questioned, a cross-section of the American public would probably label golf a rich man's game. In some regards that might be a reasonable characterization, but it is not an accurate description of golf. Many people from all walks of life enjoy the sport. That is especially true of retirees living in the great state of Florida, many of whom in no way can be classified as rich.

Irrespective of the facts about who and how many people play golf, the Gainesville City Commission used the argument of a need by a wide spectrum of the community as a justification for spending the million plus dollars to fix-up Ironwood. It was being done for the children, for those who couldn't afford a private golf club.

What was left unsaid is that commercial golf clubs in the area are failing for the most part because of too few customers for the courses available. Much like Ironwood, some of the commercial courses are and have been money losers, year after year. Unlike the Gainesville city course, the commercial courses cannot look to the taxpayers to bail them out of each year's operating deficit. Consequently, they fail. They go out of business.

By the way, the city course, remodeled to benefit the children and others who found golf unaffordable, charges $37 per round, $31 for seniors. Several commercial courses in the area charge in the range of $24 to $31.

With all that I have said, the Gainesville Sun in an article (Ironwood remains in the red; some progress) by Chad Smith, Sunday, June 12, 2011, reports the following revenue, expense and rounds played statistical history for the past five years.

Note that the number of free rounds, presumedly that go to deserving children and not to polls or political hangers-on who feel themselves entitled to free golf, has declined since the upgrade. What's with that?

Looks like a loosing proposition, before and after the remodel. But what the heck, Gainesville can forego fixing a few potholes, repainting the stripes on the tennis courts, maybe even close a municipal pool, or some other amenity to cover for the ill-spent loses at Ironwood. If taking money away from other more deserving projects fails to cover all of the golf loses, taxes can always be raised to keep my golf course playable.

Jobs ...will we recover?

Jobs, or better stated the lack of jobs more than any single criteria sways the American public to the left or to the right. Seldom does the underlying ideology of the country massively swing either to the right or to the left. Contemporary circumstances are interpreted by the commentariat as ideological shifts.

If jobs are plentiful and most people who want to work are happily employed, the country moves along smoothly, on an even keel as the sailors among us would say. But when employment sags, public opinion conspires against the incumbent from whatever party. Usually, the most ire is directed at the top of the ticket ...the president; in states, the governor; and in cities, the mayor or city executive.

How realistic is it to blame the chief executive of our country, our state and/or our city when jobs disappear? For that matter is it right to give these same government executives credit when jobs are plentiful?

An ample supply or the lack of jobs is a complex issue that warrants more thought than the visceral reaction to one or more of our politicians. In today's depression-like job market, is there some culpability on the part of the current office holders? Without question there is some blame, but it is a blame that should be shared with past office holders, ourselves, the whims and expediency of businesses, the fickleness of the international community and maybe even the Gods.

The chart to the right is a simple diagram of the relationships between and among the supplier, the consumer, the importer, the exporter. A major factor, implied in the chart is the interactions of people in consumption and in foreign trade. These interactions among others determine the creation and/or maintenance of jobs and where the jobs will be located.

Naturally, domestic companies, foreign companies and companies of global reach, American and foreign, help to drive this model. The actions of the consumer in this country and in countries around the world have a profound impact on the workings of the model. Vitally important, governments, both our own and foreign, play a commanding role in the demand / supply chain, as consumers and as internal, external and cross-geography regulators of the flow of goods and services. Global business, cultural and ruling dynamics while fluid have formed into a directional flow. In this fast changing world marketplace of recent years, the jobs tide has begun to ebb from Americans.

We need look no further than the loss of manufacturing jobs in the last decade to understand the peril of the American worker. The Fiscal Times article by James C. Cooper reveals the hurt placed on those Americans, formerly high paid factory workers, who are now in the ranks of the unemployed or the devastatingly under-employed.

Previously high-paying jobs in manufacturing have gone the way of the Edsel. U.S. factories lost 3 million jobs from 2000 to 2004, jobs that did not return during the boom leading up to the recession, along with another 2.2 million from 2007 to 2010. Those are unlikely to come back, as well.

Manufacturing jobs were 20 percent of private-sector payrolls in 1990, 15 percent in 2000, and just over 10 percent in April. Large multinational corporations have cut 2.9 million U.S. jobs over the past decade, while adding 2.4 million workers to their overseas operations.

In the first decade of the twenty-first century, 5.2 million factory jobs have disappeared. Some because of the economy, but most stem from the transfer of work of American companies being transferred to cheaper labor markets overseas. While many of the jobs have been in the low or medium skilled areas, professional, managerial and other high skilled workers are in the target zone. You should believe that the executives of your company, even now, are in a search for a way to do the work of your company for less costs. If that means transferring your job to another country to improve the bottom line, say good-bye to your job. Sooner or later it will go.

There is an all-out economic war on by other countries with the objective of attracting most if not all of America's portable jobs. In the technological sophistication of the current work environment, a greater and greater percentage of our jobs are portable. The skills and education needed to perform our most intricate work are now available in many of the low wage countries. China, India, Taiwan, Indonesia, the Philippines are a few that are among the many.

What can Americans do to protect their jobs? Should we boycott all foreign products coming into the country? Should we demand tariff's and other restrictions be placed on imports? Should we throw all the rascals out of government and restart with a new crew of legislators, governors and a new president? Should we just throw our hands in the air and resign ourselves to the decline of America?

Maybe we should do something that many of us seem to have lost the ability to do. Maybe we should think, analyze the problems, find solutions and implement the solutions. I doubt that we will go there, unless and until the country has plunged to the depths of depression (mental and economic) that America has never before seen.

A life altering crisis will be required to get us off the frivolous course that we now so willingly take. Until our thinking has more depth than Sarah Palin's e-mails, Glen Beck's hallucinations, Donald Trump's ego, Anthony Weiner's crotch and the likely winner of Dancing With the Stars, we are doomed.

Are we capable of making the transition from media gossip to developing solutions to substantive issues, from reality shows to reality? Yes we are. Are we apt to make the changes needed? Probably, but not before first, we smack against the ground.

So what's wrong in America?

Maybe it stems from the beginning of America, certainly it is true in contemporary America, we have a problem understanding our facts. It seems that we are so damned lazy that we would rather accept the opinions of all the talking heads, print editorial writers, bloggers (the collective of us all), split-tongued politicians and pseudo politicians, and, of course, all the self-promoting artists and snake-oil salesmen that have come to dominate public discourse. We seem to have lost the ability to find information, analyse the information available, dig out the facts and come to rational and factual conclusions.

A case in point is a factual look at the causes of our deficit and the Congressional Budget Office projections of future deficits and the underlying causes of the deficit spending.

This data sourced from Think Progress' Matthew Yglesias web article of June 9, 2011, entitled: Public Overestimates Cost Of Wars, Underestimates The Impact Of Bush Tax Cuts. Here is fact, reality.

For the skeptic, these facts may be sloughed-off as not facts, just estimates. The skeptic would be right because any forecast of the future is by definition not fact but projection based on historical precedence and documented assumptions for the future. The suspicious mind could conjure a partisan conspiracy theory that has the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office favoring one side of the political argument at the expense of the other. But truth is, this is the best, non-baised information available that looks at all sides of government spending (In this case spending also includes the loss of revenue caused by changes in the tax code ...the Bush tax cuts). As a government, we gave back a large chunk of the paycheck.

Partisan politicians, lobbyists and others with narrow agendas may take the same set of facts, the history of actual expenditures and project into the future a much different scenario.

By manipulating projections for interest rates, cost of living, program spending cuts or increases, swings in the economy caused by commodity or other price changes and/or any number of other factors, partisans and other interest groups attempt to sway the electorate to their way of thinking. They do this to win reelection or to get favorable treatment from the government for whatever may be beneficial to themselves or to their paying clients. We must always remember to be wary of the narrow agenda. With enough marketing and PR, distorted facts become public opinion.

In recent years, political action groups, media companies, the rich and powerful (corporations, individuals and frequently foreign interests) have used every means of persuasion available to them to move the body politic in their favor.

Public opinion is the chosen path that many take to sway government in their direction. The threat of voters not voting for incumbents is the most powerful political force afloat.

The industry, set up to manage public opinion, is one of the largest, fastest growing and most powerful industries in our country. The table shown above is ample proof that the influence industry is alive and well. Unfortunately, that industry, informally known as The Lobby, is well on the way to destroying America.

People, as a general rule, will not take the time to think. They much prefer that someone else do the thinking for them.

The unscrupulous commentariat, the fake news organizations, biased columnists, partisan editorial writers, certain industry groups, a growing number of private companies and others are all too willing to provide that thinking. Consequently, the lobbying effort with the most money and the best PR professionals usually sways Americans to this self-defeating type of erroneous thinking.

Will we awaken before we strike the wall? It's doubtful.

In politics, the game is mean-spiritedness

Have we grown so small-minded as a country, as a people that we will stoop to mean-spiritedness: (Having or characterized by a malicious or petty spirit) as the mode of our political discourse?. To quote President Obama, but cast in a very negative context, Yes We Can. In point of fact, yes we have. In our political discourse, we have reached a very low point in civility, a very high level of nastiness.

Mean-spirited politicians are nothing new. Even Thomas Jefferson warned of the pitfalls of the mean-spirited in his Second Inaugural address:

Let us then, fellow-citizens, unite with one heart and one mind. Let us restore to social intercourse that harmony and affection without which liberty and even life itself are but dreary things.

And let us reflect, that having banished from our land that religious intolerance under which mankind so long bled and suffered, we have yet gained little, if we countenance a political intolerance, as despotic, as wicked, and as capable of bitter persecutions.

For many years, I was of the opinion that a split congress and presidency was the best approach to federal government. With one party holding the executive branch and the other holding the majority in one or more of the congressional bodies, compromise would be required to get anything done in the federal government. That opinion was dashed several years back when it became apparent that the two parties were pulling so strongly in opposite directions. Compromise seemed and continues to appear to be out of the question. The fact that these two fighting forces have no concern for the welfare of the country is leading to our self-destruction.

Where does this approach lead us? For a look in the mirror that may portend our future, check out this speech by Abraham Lincoln on the occasion of his June 16, 1858 selection, by more than 1,000 Republican delegates (meeting as the Republican State Convention in the Springfield, Illinois, statehouse) that chose Lincoln as the Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate, Speaking of slavery, but just as applicable for intransigence of the two ideological-driven political parties of today, Lincoln stated:

... In my opinion, it will not cease, until a crisis shall have been reached, and passed. "A house divided against itself cannot stand. ..."

Undoubtedly, Lincoln was not so prescient that he understood the circumstances of today's differences between the political parties, but Lincoln makes clear in this speech and other of his observations that he well understood human nature and its failings.

Move to the twenty-first century, in 2011, we are divided, perilously divided and I fear we have no plans for reconciliation. So, maybe we will prove Lincoln right all over again. The last time, it took civil war. What will it take today to bring our politicians, our country-men together for the good of our country, for our own well-being and for the benefit of future generations?

Undoubtedly, democracy thrives on the tensions of two parties straining against different ideas. Out of differences can come solutions to problems that all fair-minded people will accept. But to reach fair solutions to our problems and to make the best choices on opportunities that present themselves, the decision makers must be fair minded and willing to listen to the other side, to consider their needs and to compromise on the best choices. Today, our two parties are unwilling to do that ...to listen, to consider, to compromise.

Our citizenry, either as the driving force or, I believe, as separate herds of followers are divided behind camps of intransigent politicians. We are not just followers aligned behind the leaders of two parties, Democratic and Republican. We have broken into smaller factions, Democrats, Republicans, liberals, conservatives, independents, tea-partier's, and many others. We are aligned behind a gaggle of personalities (more often than not, driven by paid lobbyists), people with few qualifications to lead our country, but an ample supply of self-promotion, the chutzpah to do or say anything that will get themselves one more minute of air-time, one more opportunity to enrich themselves and their patrons at the expense of the American people. Finally, the patients have taken over the asylum. Divided we are. Must it inevitably always be?

Fatalism or to hell in a hand basket?

In a post today, Paul Krugman worries that we are becoming a people overcome by fatalism. Is that true, or do we just believe that the country has gone to hell in a hand-basket? Is there a difference?

As you look around at housing, joblessness, government budgets, the failures in our education system, there is no denying that we have reached a low point not seen since the Great Depression of the 1930's. But, to be called fatalistic, must we also believe that there is no way out of our dilemma?

In earlier posts, I have lamented the overlap of governments. Why can't we start there? We could reduce the numbers of government officials, the infrastructure needed to support large government workforces each occupying its own set of buildings, having its own equipment and supplies but oftentimes delivering overlapping services. We could do this and yet keep the most important of the programs currently in place.

The elimination of redundant government versus the elimination of programs works for the citizenry, but it does not work for government officials and their staffs.

A couple of days ago, in the local paper, the sheriff gave notice that she wants an additional two million dollars in next year's budget to be added to her current budget of $66,000,000.

The county has approximately 256,000 residents. Included in the county is a medium size city of about 125,000 people, several small towns and cities. A large public university with a student population of about 50,000 is located in the county. Many of the cities and the university have their own police departments wherein the Sheriff's department is not responsible to police.

With these populations subtracted from the policing responsibilities of the Sheriff, a rural population of less than 100,000 falls into the Sheriff's bailiwick. The rural land-mass is the responsibility of the Sheriff's office. Also, the Sheriff owns the county jail and provides a prisoner housing and administration service to the municipalities within the county. Likewise, the Sheriff is responsible for the court house, trial and other justice administration duties.

Suffice it to say that the Sheriff is responsible for policing a population of less than 100,000 people. She is assisted in this duty by a State Police force with troopers located throughout the county.

The $68,000,000 budget request works out to be $600+ for each citizen (man, woman and child) living within her jurisdiction. And, remember, there is a State Police budget for this same territory, these same citizens.

Policing of the county, the municipalities could be more efficiently and just as effectively accomplished with one police department for the county. This is a proposal that will never come to pass mainly because it eliminates one or more organizational infrastructures. Much like any bureaucratic organization, the police agencies will fight any merging of their overlapping responsibilities or changes in their current territories. In our society, the people tend to side with the wishes of our policing forces. Consequently, our county citizens will continue to allow the annual spending of $100,000,000+ for its overlapping police services ...incredible.

And so the dilemma of fatalism or just having gone to hell-in-a-hand-basket remains. Little change is likely as long as we allow our divisions of government to respond to our criticisms with smoke and mirrors. Demands for efficiency in government, fairness in the distribution of the tax load and for programs, that better peoples' lives, will go unmet. Government must equitably meet constituent needs in a diverse range of people's lives. Successful government will cause some to be hopeful, hopeful that we will return from hell. Unfortunately, others will follow the path of gloom and doom, the fatalism pathway, and write-off the country's future as hopeless.

Our elected governments have the duty to corral all of us into a force that leads America back to its best ideals. We have the responsibility to move our own lives in a direction that ensures that America is the best it can be for ourselves, but most importantly, for the future of our children, our grandchildren and all of the future generations.

Sick and Tired

How do you stop it? In years gone by, newspapers, radio and television were reasonably honest outlets for gathering and presenting newsworthy information on the happenings of the day. In recent years, the reliability of these outlets is called into question. In many instances, the information dispensed is outright lying.

Where did we go wrong? A growing number of people believe that things changed when the fairness code for broadcast media was dropped by the Federal Communications Commission. Without this regulatory policing and with the excuse of the need to compete, television, radio, newspapers and magazines soon followed into the abyss of unaccountability.

If in fact that was the genesis of todays discredited news channels, news anchors, news reporters, pundits and editors, recent history indicates that the loss of the fairness ethic is a genie that can never be restored to the bottle. Unfortunately, the lack of journalistic ethics, politician duplicity and lack of accountability plays into the hands of modern-day charlatans.

When the journalism community was placed under the business structure of a for-profit business, coupled with the demise of the mandate for ethical and fair behavior, it was inevitable that the profit motive would soon override decades of journalism integrity.

Today, news reporting must be popular or it will loose its appeal to readers, listeners, or viewers. When ratings plummet, the news reader soon finds himself / herself unemployed. Consequently, these folks, many of whom were never reporters themselves, take on the persona of actors, narrators, and/or fiction writers. Some become clowns, buffoons ...anything to keep the audience entertained and continuing to tune-in.

The lack of real reporting by real journalists is contributing to the demise of honest politics, ethics in business and a general decline in the public's confidence in government, business organizations and most other institutions of authority.

When you couple the decline of journalism with America's growing acceptance of meaningless words, you accelerate the societal decay. Marketing, advertising, business executives, politicians and government have chosen to move from the restrictive dictionary definition of words into a conversation and presentation mode wherein common words are used but with distorted, not universally accepted meanings. This distortion of the language allows deception to be sold as fact. The media accepts this garbage without question least they offend someone whose agreement to appear on their respective shows is required to keep the ratings climbing and the hosts employment continued. In the past decade, the media's approach to journalism has been very destructive to the country and continues to screw America into the ground.

If we are ever to get out of this death spiral, America must wake up and demand honest and factual talk from its business owners, politicians and governments of all levels. Additionally, we must demand that media get back to journalism, not rest until they get honest, factual and complete answers from those whom they interview and present in their print, visual or voice outlets. If we continue our current trends, we are destined to fall into third world, banana republic status ...and it will be a short time coming.