Just Finished Reading Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand

I had already long heard of writer Ayn Rand's Objectivism movement, portrayed in novels like Anthem, The Fountainhead, and Atlas Shrugged, but had never gotten around to reading anything of hers.  I heard that folks like former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, right-wing radio host Rush Limbaugh, former Congressman Ron Paul, and Rush drummer Neil Peart had each at some point in their lives been followers of Rand's...but it wasn't until I saw an episode of the satirical cartoon series South Park of all things that I finally relented and read her so-called "masterpiece", the gargantuan 1957 Atlas Shrugged...

It was the episode in which police officer Barbrady comes out and admits that he can't read...he then goes back to elementary school to catch up.  At the end, he's literate and is given a copy of Atlas Shrugged.  His reaction? In Barbrady's words, "Yes, at first I was happy to be learning how to read.  It seemed exciting and magical, but then I read this: Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand.  I read every last word of this garbage and because of this piece of s--t, I am never reading again."  My reaction upon finishing it was a little more positive, but I have my own criticisms...

The setting of Atlas Shrugged...at least at its beginning...is an America of the mid-twentieth century that initially, at least on the surface, roughly corresponds to what it was really like.  The protagonists are visionary industrialists steel producer Hank Rearden and railway magnate Dagny Taggart. They exemplify the author's ideology of realism and objective reasoning as opposed to the social engineers and mystics around them who try to sabotage their efforts at success.  The political tide turns against "creators" like Rearden and Taggart as "second-handers" and "looters"...neither of which contribute anything real to the economy...take over.  While this is all going on, innovators, rationalist thinkers, and industrial leaders are subtly disappearing...where are they all going?  And who is this John Galt we keep hearing about throughout the narrative?  Mr. Galt finally makes his appearance late in the story...and delivers a monstrously long televised discourse explaining his worldview and why the moochers are doomed to failure...

I'm going to stick to my general pattern of book reviews and avoid telling how it all ends.  I will say, though, that unlike the fictional and hysterically funny Officer Barbrady from South Park, I knew in advance to read Atlas Shrugged more as a treatise of Ayn Rand's ideology than as a traditional novel.  That's a good thing, because the characters came across more as stick figures, with the "good guys" all sounding pretty much like the same person and the villains so similar to each other that they were often only distinguishable by name...and the dialogue was so contrived and unnatural that I found myself laughing at it.  The bottom line is this: Rand believed that pursuing one's own self-interests, especially economic self-interests, is the highest form of morality and that an unrestricted and unregulated economy...based on the gold standard...is the greatest social system ever devised.  Conversely, those who seek to use taxation to fund the government, form labor unions to collectively bargain working conditions and wages, spread any religious or ethical doctrine promoting altruism or social justice, or impose any sort of government regulation are operating from a moral framework of evil...in the author's clearly enounced opinion.  Yeah, I've got lots of problems with the message in this book.  Yet...

I did pick up on a couple of important points that I think Ayn Rand was trying to convey.  There is a blatant degree of hypocrisy in our society as so many openly criticize materialism and those who enjoy the material fruits of their labor while expecting to be handed those same material benefits without having played any substantial role in bringing them about.  Also, on a more personal level, from childhood I have often felt isolated and even shunned whenever I demonstrated special skill, intelligence, and accomplishments in a social setting...the default attitude in this society that outwardly pretends to reward initiative and success but vilifies those responsible for it seems to be that it's okay to achieve or be smart as long as you keep it hidden from others.  That folks would rather seek to be seen as one of the "people" instead of rising above others is a surefire sign of a stagnant, if not sinking, society that exalts mediocrity and conformity over excellence and ambition...

Weekly Short Story: Cost of Living by Robert Sheckley

Robert Sheckley was one of the twentieth century's best science fiction short story writers...and one of the most overlooked.  His story Cost of Living, published in 1952 and appearing in the retrospective anthology Isaac Asimov Presents The Great SF Stories 14 (1952), was one of his first as well as being frighteningly accurate at predicting the current state of affairs in our early twenty-first century...

Carrin lives at some time in the not-so-distant future, when the life expectancy has increased to well beyond 100, the society has progressed into one almost totally oriented toward the consumption of creature comforts, and credit is nearly universally available and unlimited, transferable to the next generation upon one's death.  He and his wife spend much of their time buying stuff...always the latest and most expensive model...some of it they haven't even ever gotten around to unpacking.  His job is mind-numbingly simple, requiring simply pushing a single button on inspected washing machines.  He has already put his son Billy in debt for thirty years, but still feels that he is behaving responsibly...after all, one of his friends has grandchildren heavily in debt.  Carrin hears of another friend who committed suicide and can't imagine why he would do such a thing...and his son is starting to sound discontented...

The problem that Robert Sheckley exposes in Cost of Living is the dangerous disconnect in our society between one's attainment of money and his or her spending choices.  The notion of being able to charge on credit, combined with materialism intensified to the level of idolatry and the desire to "keep up with the Joneses", has resulted in debt being passed on to the future.  And look at our government with its compulsive deficit spending...a huge chunk of our national spending is now the simple payment of interest on our national debt, which is bound to keep increasing.  And that is too close to the author's nightmare scenario of debts being passed on to future generations.  The terrible irony, at least on the individual level, is that if people were to base their spending on what they actually had to spend, then most could fashion very comfortable lifestyles without feeling the need to resort to credit. But sadly, a lot of folks are badly stuck with the desire to collect "stuff"...and with that increased life span comes a higher, much more expensive level of medical care: how will we deal with this as a people without aggravating debt?

One other important thing that Robert Sheckley brought out in this story that came out 65 years ago is that the hedonistic, fanatically consumer-oriented society that he projected us degenerating into also resulted in us never ever having gone to Mars...the notions of real-time endeavor, risk-taking, and exploration had disappeared.  I see the same sad thing going on today: people would rather follow Star Wars than follow and support our REAL space program...

That venerated, ancient Internet website Project Gutenberg has Cost of Living on it...here's a link to it so that you can read it for yourself: [link]...

Tuesday's List: Ted Cruz's Seven Tax Reform Goals

If you are a political conservative, Ted Cruz should be someone you pay close attention to, as his take on the various issues is almost always in line with that philosophy.  Tax reform, which Congress is now taking up, is no exception and the junior Texas senator last September laid out seven elements of what he sees as constructive, effective tax reform...I heard him just last week restate it all on the Senate floor.  In making this list, he emphasizes that his guiding principles are growth, simplicity, and fairness.  For Democrats and others more on the left of the political spectrum, that last one...fairness...seems to be by far the most important, and they have long accused the Republicans, Senator Cruz included, of being very, very unfair with their legislative proposals.  And I agree with them to an extent, especially in the way most of the G.O.P. was willing to wreck health care insurance protections for millions just to score a political victory.  But many on the left have a problem recognizing growth as an essential element in a healthy economy...an element that touches upon all of us...and see things in a more static framework, and in terms of the "haves" and "have-nots".  I think that growth is paramount to improving our standard of living and pushes employment and wages upward.  And our national tax policy discourages it to the extent that its corporate tax rate is highest in the world...and Cruz points out a couple of other areas that need change to enable our companies to stay home along with their money.  That's not to say that I don't see a bit of hypocrisy in what Ted Cruz is saying.  For one, pointing out that because other countries levy lower corporate taxes, we should follow their example while at the same time disregarding the fact that most of these also have successful universal health care systems is a bit disingenuous.  For another, when Obama and the Democrats were running things a few years ago, Cruz's one big overriding issue was to reduce the national debt...where is that consideration in his proposals other than a vague implication that overall growth will compensate for lower rates and increase net tax revenues?  That aside, I'm listing his seven ideas for tax reform, some of which I'm inclined to agree with and others that I admittedly don't understand very well.  So, without further ado, here they are, as Rachel del Guidice reported on the conservative The Daily Signal website:

1. A LOW, FLAT RATE.
2. THE ABILITY TO FILE TAXES ON A POSTCARD.
3. IMMEDIATE EXPENSING.
4. A LOW CORPORATE RATE.
5. ENCORAGE REPATRIATION.
6. ABOLISH THE DEATH TAX (ALSO CALLED THE ESTATE TAX).
7. END THE ALTERNATIVE MINIMUM TAX.

Of the above, I strongly believe Cruz is right on #2, #4, and #7.  Our income tax process is way too complicated for the average American and needs simplification.  I've already expressed that I feel we need to bring our corporate tax rate to the same level as that in competing nations.  And the alternative minimum tax discourages hard-working Americans from making "too much" money to avoid falling into this dreaded category, a cruel joke in our tax code. I doubt that getting #1 to ever become law is a moot point as too many people would regard it as being very unfair to those with lower incomes.  As for #6, when you hear the two sides of this argument debating, it almost sounds as if they are speaking about two separate issues, but I'm inclined to see Cruz's argument: for those passing down less than $5.49 million in assets the tax doesn't apply anyway, but many farms and small family-owned businesses are affected by this tax, which threatens their very enterprises should a death occur.  And that leaves #3 and #5: the way Cruz argues for them makes sense, but I need to study the subject and hear the other side to form a reasonable opinion.  In any event, I put Ted Cruz's proposals on this blog not to endorse them, but rather to try and get people thinking more in terms of issues and less of personalities.  We can all easy idolize or despise a public figure, but it takes a bit more mental finesse and discipline to listen to what they are saying without automatically accepting or rejecting everything wholesale just because of which "side" they are on... 

Two Presidents: Dr. Teleprompter and Mr. Spontaneous

I remember the Oscar-winning 2001 movie A Beautiful Mind in which mathematics genius John Nash hits upon a life-changing revelation: in economic and conflict scenarios the best result does not come about with each party working solely in their own best interests, but rather with each party working both in their own best interests AND in those of the group as a whole.  This principle of duality, which Dr. Nash worked out with mathematical precision, eventually won him a Nobel Prize.  Yet how many of us practice it in our lives?  But today I'm looking up at the leadership of my country, and wonder how one elected by a particular constituency can remain loyal to them and their interests while at the same time administering to the interests of the country as a whole: in other words, duality practiced on a national level.  To this end I am examining the presidency of Donald Trump, now a little more than seven months old...

On some level I think Mr. Trump...as well as his predecessors...understands the principle of duality described above.  But instead of integrating the general national interests with those of his supportive voting base, he has apparently undergone a bizarre schism...much like Robert Louis Stevenson's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.  On one hand, "Dr. Teleprompter", with his prepared texts, delivers relatively reasonable and rational messages that tend to persuade and unify the entire country behind his policies.  But then he'll slip into a different personality: "Mr. Spontaneous", expressing himself through Twitter, rallies, and interviews, emotionally panders to "his" people and rips into anyone or any institution that he even remotely suspects opposes him...in other words, a thoroughly divisive persona...and in that mode he often contradicts his "Dr. Teleprompter" speeches, in spirit if not also in essence.  So I have to ask myself: Who's the President?

That's the question an old friend asked me when I pulled up at his Checkers drive-through window one evening way back in late November of 2000.  Although his intention was to elicit whether I thought Bush or Gore had won the recent controversial and then still-disputed election, I had a quick, smart-ass reply: "Why, Bill Clinton of course!"  Now I'm asking the same question to myself and, looking at the answer, I see nothing at all funny...

The Poverty Mindset: Two Opposing Views

Not being someone who is recklessly extravagant with my own personal spending, I have heard the charge directed at me in the past that I had a "poverty mindset".  The rationale supporting this notion is that people who think of themselves with low self-esteem tend to also see themselves as being poor and unworthy of the "good" things in life.  The remedy for this, according to those who think they know better, is to avoid selling yourself short in life and instead live it to its fullest, with gusto...because after all, you only go around once in life!  Sounds a bit like a beer commercial, doesn't it?

Well, it's true that for many years when I was single, I lived by myself on a modest income and was rather frugal about how I managed my money.  I chose to live well enough not to suffer...I had my home, transportation adequate for my purposes, and no want of food, clothing, or entertainment.  However, within each of these areas I made economic choices with my money, realizing that it all came out of the pool of funds that I had amassed from my paychecks.  During this time I never went into debt and actually managed to save a tidy sum of money.  Now I have a much better-paying job and, by most people's standards have a reasonable standard of living in this world of today.  Yet I still believe in making wise spending choices, and I respectfully disagree with anyone saying that this is symptomatic of a poverty mindset.  But I'll gladly let anyone know exactly what I consider to be a poverty mindset...

People who, in my opinion, have a true poverty mindset are those whose attitudes and behaviors ensure a chronic condition of debt while any windfall of money that does come their way is quickly spent away on "good living"...which they inevitably see as an important necessity of life.  You know the stories of the lottery winners or young superstar professional athletes and entertainers who spend away their riches and wind up impoverished, if not deeply in debt.  But you don't have to be one of them...if you are constantly dreaming of many things you'd like to experience in life...things that ultimately cost a lot of money...you may find those extra funds you might come across disappearing quickly.  Also, folks living on the financial edge who are susceptible to substance abuse may find, upon getting better-paying employment or a favorable break in their housing situation, that those old addictions have returned, sucking away the extra money that they could have been saving for a better life...

I'm not criticizing anyone for dreaming...I do, too.  But you can't have everything, and simple economics dictates that.  It is normal to have to make choices about money based on what you have and how much things cost.  That is reality, not a "poverty mindset"...

I believe that those with true poverty mindsets are essentially unhappy people who lack a capacity for contentment and appreciation for what they already have in life.  They tend to compare themselves with others...especially with those who seem to have more education, a more prestigious job, a bigger house, a snazzier car, lots of world-hopping travel experiences, and so on...with the conclusion that their own lives are comparatively lacking in meaning.  You cannot satisfy people like this and I doubt that they would ever be content even were they to achieve all of their material and worldly dreams...

Stock Market's Ten-Minute Thousand-Point Plunge This Morning

Wall Street's Dow Jones Average shocked the news world this morning as it went into a ten-minute free fall, finally leveling at a thousand points lower and scaring the bejesus (or dickens...or choose your own epithet) out of everybody. This is after Friday's loss of 531 points and right on the heels of a massive selloff in the Chinese stock market.  The prices rose back up to around down a little more that 100 points...but over the course of the afternoon, the average has crept back downward...it's 350 points at this writing.  The White House laid much of the blame for this fall at the doors of Congress, which it claims is dragging its feet at passing important fiscal legislation.  But what seems to be powering it all to me is the bursting of China's financial bubble...and their government's reevaluation of their currency...

It is too early right now to see whether this drop in the stock market is only a temporary scare like those in 1987 and 2010...or the sign of a traumatic economic downturn, as in 2008.  But the market suddenly has MY attention...

One-and-Done Rule Unfairly Exploits Players

According to Frank Deford, the University of Kentucky men's basketball team this 2014-15 season had nine ready-to-go NBA prospects on its roster...meaning that, for all practical purposes, we've had a team in "college" basketball that should have been in a class by itself.  The NCAA rule that a player must spend at least one year in college before turning pro not only creates these artificial one-and-done teams like the Wildcats have had during the past few years, but it is grossly unfair to players whose money-earning craft in life lies not in academics, but rather in sports talent and achievement.  How much money has the University of Kentucky, greater Lexington, and the overall "UK Nation" made from these young men, who have spent their "year" working for nothing but a promise...but still subject at any moment during that span to potentially career-destroying injuries?  John Calipari, the Kentucky coach who went all out for the best players as soon as he saw the implications of the new rule, himself has stated that he opposes it, and other coaches like Mike Krzezewski of Duke have begrudgingly recruited, albeit to a lesser extent, these one-year-pro prospects right out of high school who have no intention of sticking around...

Let's face it...amateurism in sports is an antiquated joke, and the butt of it is the young athlete who aspires to fame and wealth through his or her efforts, but has to play this charade of being an "amateur" for a designated period...while the media, gambling industry, sports paraphernalia industry, and the local economy feeds and rakes in the money for themselves.  The professional leagues should follow the example of what baseball has done with their minor league system or how soccer in other countries has an infrastructure of multiple layers of leagues, allowing the aspiring athlete to develop within the sport...and get paid from the start.  As a matter of fact, you can see in many countries, most visibly Mexico, that several top-level professional soccer clubs themselves are affiliated with local colleges...

The bottom line is that, if others are making money from your efforts, following their own economic bottom line, then you should be paid as well.  And a "scholarship" means nothing if everyone knows you will leave college in only a year...

Recently Read Spencer Johnson's Book, Titled Who Moved My Cheese?

There's a little book out there, first published in 1998, that big corporations like Exxon, General Motors, Goodyear, Kodak, and the like are embracing and distributing among its employees to read: Who Moved My Cheese?, by Spencer Johnson. Johnson also co-wrote, along with Kenneth Blanchard, the famous book The One Minute Manager.  Although the inside jacket of the hardcover copy of Who Moved My Cheese? states the price at a hefty $19.95, the book itself is only 94 pages long...with large print.

Melissa had read it and liked the message, so one evening recently she handed her copy to me to see what I thought of it.  I put it to the side (immediately engrossed at the time with a Mexican soccer match on TV), thinking of coming back to it on some future date. But later on, around midnight, I reached over, picked it up, and breezed through it.  The message contained in it focuses on a childish, childlike story of two mice and two mice-sized people in a maze looking for cheese and how the attitudes of each one affect its chances of success as change comes along and challenges them each to adapt in order to keeping getting their cheese.  Each of the mice reacts instinctively when one (named Sniff) discovers the supply they had initially found by running through the maze to be dwindling (through consumption) and the other (Scurry) immediately sets back off in the maze to look for more.  The two people both linger about the old cheese as it gradually disappears and ponder what to do about it.  One is stubborn and opposed to change and stays put, refusing to go anywhere because this is his territory, by gosh, and it's his cheese that's he's entitled to...and more should be brought here for him.  The other person initially goes along with Hem's resistance to change, but eventually reasons out what the mice knew instinctively: more cheese probably isn't going to come soon, and survival dictates action in the form of following the mice down the maze in pursuit of more cheese.  As Haw, the wise human, leaves behind Hem, the stubborn one, in his stagnation, he discovers some wise principles during his quest...which the book presents every few pages (e.g. "If you do not move, you can become extinct", "Noticing small changes early helps you adapt to the bigger changes that are to come.") Eventually, Haw finds a wealth of cheese (as do the mice) and returns to tell Hem about it...but his erstwhile companion still refuses to budge.

Who Moved My Cheese? is so beloved by big corporations for an obvious reasons: they want to institute a large paradigm shift in their work force away from tradition and community and toward the flexibility pertaining to future job assignments and locations that the company demands.  Of course, the work force can go one step further and say that, if a particular company they are working for is not giving them the treatment they had been enjoying (i.e. "the cheese is dwindling"), they can go look for better work ("get back in the maze").  Still, the lesson here is a bit unsettling: the times we live in, as Alvin Toffler expressed in his decades-old book Future Shock, are accelerating us into ever-increasing demands for change while depriving us of the security of a stable job and home community.

Another aspect I noticed in this book is that all four characters are in agreement about what they all want the most, which is "cheese".  I'm assuming from this is that "cheese" is simply a simplified allegory of the basics for survival, like food, shelter, clothing, and medical care.  The implication that we are all going to have to struggle and scurry around continually for the remainder of our pathetic little lives just to "survive", though, is not a message that I feel marks an enlightened, civilized society...but it is the essence instead of an unregulated, wild-west-type free market capitalism that rejects any notion of safety nets provided by society in the form of government programs.  No wonder the big corporations love this book.  That having been said, though, I have to look at things from my own perspective as an individual person, just as other readers need to do as well.  And the question is not necessarily how things should be, but rather how things really are (for better or for worse)...and from this realization, what's the best course of action for me to take...

Senate Standoff Over Extending Tax Cuts

It looks like a standoff in Congress during this lame duck session. The Senate Republicans, under the leadership of Mitch McConnell, have lined up all 42 of their senators behind the idea of holding up any legislation until the Bush tax cuts are extended in their entirety. These cuts, which the nation as a whole has grown accustomed to being the regular rates, are technically temporary in nature. They are due to expire on January 1 next year, creating a massive de facto tax increase. President Obama and the Democrats want to extend the cuts for the lower and (what they call) middle classes, but want them to expire for those making at least $250,000 per year. It is this arbitrary line that the Democrats have drawn that, in my opinion, is causing the division between the two parties on this issue.

I know that the wealthy can afford to pay more taxes; they won't have to make difficult and even sacrificial personal choices affecting their health care, transportation, energy, or any other areas pertaining to their standard of living. On the other hand, I think that including those making $250,000 as the "wealthy" is stretching things to the point of class warfare. Warfare against the middle class!

I'm afraid that some on the political left hold a stereotypical view of large businesses and small businesses. To them, with the big corporations they see some arrogant cigar-smoking tycoon sitting back in his ritzy penthouse office with his feet on his desk, planning how to exploit the needy for his company's aims and to fatten his own wallet. And on the other end of the spectrum, a small business is typically seen as a little family-owned shop or diner. But while many small businesses are of the mom-and-pop variety, there are others who are larger in scope and whose owners operate their businesses on margins of profit, which they plow back into them. It is with these medium-sized businesses, which employ an enormous number of people nationwide, that dramatically raising taxes will cause hardship to be passed on to "average" people by keeping those affected business owners from hiring new workers.

So I'm holding my nose on this tax dispute and for once siding with the Republicans. We are still in recovery from what the Obama administration itself calls the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression and to which it responded in 2009 with a Draconian stimulus bill. This is not the time to let the Bush cuts expire, for although Democrats can talk until their faces are blue about how they aren't really raising taxes, in fact the sudden rises will be traumatic for EVERYONE. I don't like the way the GOP has conducted itself during the last two years, especially in the Senate, by adopting an obstructionist strategy. This one time, though, that strategy may actually be in the national interest. For a change.

Mr. Andrea Mitchell Gets It

Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, first appointed to the post by conservative president Ronald Reagan and supported over the years by both Republican and Democratic administrations, has come out with what I consider to be reasonable criticisms of how both main political parties are mishandling the national economy, particularly the national debt. Greenspan believes that too much federal deficit spending at the current relatively low interest rates can eventually create an unsustainable situation in the not-so-distant future where inevitably-higher interest rates would combine with the incurred national debt to compound it and possibly even shut down the economy. His reasoning seems sound to me.

The Republicans keep insisting on making across-the-board tax cuts permanent and are primarily responsible for the enormous deficit spending for most of the previous decade through the Iraq invasion and occupation, while the Democrats are holding on tightly to the old Keynesian concept of deficit spending to stimulate the economy as well as preventing various institutions from going under. To me, seeing these parties criticize each other for skyrocketing the national debt while each one is substantially responsible for it may be one reason why some otherwise reasonable, tolerant, and skeptical people are embracing the Tea Party movement.

Not that either Greenspan are I are teabaggers, by any stretch of the imagination. But both of us (notice how I'm associating myself with Greenspan as if we're equals in economic expertise, hah) are worried that no one in Washington seems to grasp that fiscal responsibility is a combination of maintaining a sustainable, regular influx of revenue to match up with a cautious and appropriate dispersal of funds. I don't think it takes an economic whiz like Alan Greenspan, an honest and thoughtful man who has been candid about his own mistakes while Federal Reserve chairman, to see this. Is there anyone else besides me and Mr. Andrea Mitchell who gets this?

Quality, Utility, and Expense

I recently came across a bicycling magazine that seems to be devoted to competitive racing. On the back cover is an ad promoting an apparently very good bicycle, specially designed and built to give its owner the best possible performance in a race. To my untrained eye, it looked just like an ordinary bicycle. But its price, $3300, was anything but ordinary.

A couple of weeks ago, I went to my local Wal-Mart and happened upon the bicycle section. There was a mountain bike for sale, at $75. I bought it and rode it around the neighborhood. Perfect, for my purposes.

Just do the arithmetic: for the price of that one racing bicycle, I could have bought 440 of the Wal-Mart bikes! But I am not a racer; I bicycle for the exercise and fun, more than anything else. I am not into the marginalism involved in trying squeeze out a competitive edge in order to beat out my opponents. So I can go cheap in this area.

But suppose it is a different area in my life where a margin or edge does matter. Perhaps I am a stickler for gourmet cooking; then I might dole out quite a sum on high dining. When someone else might be satisfied with simpler and less expensive food. Or I may feel the need to wear only clothing that has been specially tailored to perfectly fit me, and anything else simply will not do. In these cases, as with the bicycle, it is the “margin” of quality that drives up their costs much more than then the basic utility of the good.

The question I have to ask myself is what areas should I personally take a stand in and insist on the “highest quality”, even when this entails paying much more for it than I would for the “basic package”. And having been rooted in simple utilitarian living, this is not something easy for me to answer.

I tend to search out the cheapest ways to attain the best variety of goods and experiences for myself and my family. There are no areas in my life that I can firmly state I am committed to spend whatever it takes to attain an elite level of quality. Maybe this is good, maybe not. Or am I selling myself short?

Right now, I am interested in running. I would like to invest some money in traveling to various places that hold races. Not only would I expand my running experiences, but it would be a lot of fun sightseeing as well. Or perhaps it is in the area of learning foreign languages where I have been selling myself short. After all, the best way to learn a foreign language is to live for a while among its speakers. This requires money and time, something I have heretofore been unwilling to commit.

Well, I’m not getting any younger, so I had better decide which if any areas in which I really want to take the plunge and invest that substantially higher level of money and time necessary to have optimal outcomes. I don’t want my old age to be a time of regret for opportunities passed by. But I do know one thing right now: no way am I going to blow $3300 on a bicycle!

Conrad Amendment Debate and Vote

I witnessed an interesting U.S. Senate session on C-Span2 Tuesday, with amendments being debated and voted on concerning the bill raising the debt limit. Senators Conrad (D, ND) and Gregg (R, NH) put out an amendment establishing an "independent" commission that would study the congressional budget and make recommendations regarding where appropriate cuts could be made to reduce the national debt. The Senate and House would then be obligated to vote up-or-down on the committee's report, with no amendments of their own possible if the report were passed. And if passed, all of the commission's recommendations would become law, pending the President's signature. This amendment's sponsors pointed out in debate that Congress, with its extreme partisanship and susceptibility to special interests, has repeatedly reneged on its fiscal responsibility in the past and will continue to do so in the future. Deficit spending has run up the national debt to the point where we will soon be considered more of a risk to foreign lenders and the interest on their loans to us will dramatically rise. And that will mark our nation's steep and possibly irreversible decline, both in terms of domestic standard of living and world standing.

Standing firmly in opposition to the Conrad Amendment was Senator Baucus (D, MT), who charged that its implementation would co-opt the proper role of Congress in setting the federal government's financial policy. He pointed out that Congress was able to substantially reduce its deficit spending in 1990, 1993, and 1997 merely through its own conventional processes, needing no outside commission "help" to accomplish this. He also expressed fears which many on his side of the aisle had that Social Security would be one of the programs targeted for cuts by a new commission. Baucus thus put out his own amendment to assure that the commission could not arbitrarily include social security cuts in its report. To this amendment was added a provision from Senator Grassley (R, IA) that inserted a similar protection against raising taxes to reduce the deficit. The Baucus Amendment then went to a floor vote and passed 97-0.

Baucus wasn't opposed to an independent commission per se. He said that he would be offering his own amendment to create one whose findings would be amendable by Congress. Conrad and Gregg opposed this idea, though, saying that this would defeat the whole point of having the commission in the first place.

So opponents to the Conrad Amendment, depending on their political orientation, either feared higher taxes or cuts to entitlement programs. To me, that sounds pretty good, actually, and shows that this is not a partisan amendment hatched by one party to suit its own ideological purposes. I think it is more important to assure that we remain a viable nation with a large financial "pie" to divide up, rather than a weak one with only a small "pie" and an even smaller one in the future. I consider this to be a matter of national security that is on the same level as protection from terrorist attacks. As for the argument that Congress was able to get it "right" in 1990, 1993, and 1997, I can only respond: What about 1991, 1992, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, and 2009 (just looking at the past twenty years)? And this proposed commission would consist of representatives of both parties of both houses (appointed by the respective party leaders in each body), along with two appointed by the President. So we aren't talking about an unelected bureaucracy here, but rather a body beholden to the electorate.

Alas, the Conrad Amendment, though supported by a majority of senators (53-46), failed to muster the necessary 60 votes to gain passage under Senate rules. President Obama had expressed his strong support of this defeated amendment and may establish his own study commission for dealing with the runaway national debt. But its findings won't have any teeth, as Senator Gregg has pointed out.

Economic Recovery Perception Danger

As we look for signs of recovery from our current recession, we may see different trends that may not correlate too well. This past week, the stock market has had a small-scale surge. Whether or not this continues remains to be seen, but I believe that eventually the market will recover and long-term investors (especially in those all-important retirement accounts) will recoup their losses. However, one important fact needs to be taken into consideration.

In a recovery following a recession, one of the last statistics to turn around is the unemployment rate. In fact, unemployment may continue to rise for a while at the same time that businesses are starting to show profitability again. While this tends to bother some people, the current situation dictates restraint on their part.

During this recession, our federal government, under both the previous and current administrations, has pumped more than a trillion dollars worth of economic stimulus and recovery money into the economy and stands to take much of the credit (and responsibility) for ending the recession. With this may come the temptation to criticize profitable businesses who had benefited from the various "stimuli" but haven't rehired their laid-off employees. And some may be continuing to down-size their payroll as they make their comeback. I know that this criticism is on the way, and government officials may be tempted to try to dictate, through hearings and legislation, that businesses take back workers. This would be a horrendous mistake, in my opinion. Some of those businesses needed to change their directions in order to remain viable. As they begin to grow, they will increase their staff to fit their needs. And the unemployment rate will naturally go down. As it has done in the previous five (my own count) post-World War II recessions. As Al Gore has stated (regarding a different topic), this is "an inconvenient truth".

Postal Service Proposed Five-Day Service

I’ve heard that the United States Postal Service, my employer, is considering cutting back to a five day per week delivery. They have lost a considerable amount of money in recent years and are desperately searching for ways to cut their expenses. There is a federal law in the books since 1983, though, that mandates a six-day delivery week. The USPS will need to lobby congress to change that law before any cutback in service is enacted.

I don’t think that cutting back hours and service is usually a very far-sighted, wise thing to do. Sure, in the short run it may save some money. But depriving people of delivery on Tuesday (or some other designated day) will eventually reduce the overall mail flow (and subsequent postage revenue) as customers search for more dependable alternative ways that can substitute for sending things through the mail.

I used to live across a field from a small Krispy Kreme donut store/coffee shop. The man who had subleased this small shop did a thriving business in the morning hours, but in the afternoon, things dried up considerably. He told me that he had done an analysis of how much money he was raking in at various times of the day and concluded that, since he was losing money in the afternoon, he would close the shop then to cut his losses. Unfortunately, the result was that fewer and fewer customers came during the morning hours as well, since many were no longer confident about it being open. After all, who wants to drive out of their way to do business somewhere only to find that the business had cut their operating hours for the sake of their own expedience and convenience? Eventually, that Krispy Kreme store closed down for good.

In like manner, I fear something similar happening if the USPS begins to fine-tune their service hours and days. As far as my own employment is concerned, I naturally want my company to be financially viable. They have already attempted (not hard enough, in my opinion) to offer early retirement to more employees and are eliminating the daytime mail processing shift. If service is cut back to five days, I see this affecting carriers and window clerks the most directly, as many of them would have their jobs reassigned according to the new paradigm. But, at least immediately, I don’t see too much of a change in my immediate position, which involves processing mail. And mail processing takes place seven days a week. What would affect my position adversely would be if a reduction to five-day service caused the total mail volume to be drastically reduced. Which I see as a real danger.

It could be, though, that Postal Service leadership is simply floating this five-day mail service possibility as a way to get some federal funding (i.e. bailout) from congress. Well, mail delivery is definitely a crucial part of our national communications and transportation (of goods) infrastructure. If we’re going to be serious about economic recovery and make sure that our communications and transportation systems are functioning optimally, then the postal service should definitely be included as a full, active participant in this ambitious effort.

Monday Newsbreak: 12/8

--It looks as if our soon-to-be president Barack Obama plans an ambitious public works program as soon as he is sworn in. As a matter of fact, this sounds as if it will dominate the news during the first few months of his administration. But the details are fuzzy, and we'll have to see how this promising story develops.

--I'm excited about the prospects for Caroline Kennedy replacing Hillary Clinton as New York Senator when the latter becomes secretary of state. Will it happen? I think yes, and she will make her presence felt in that body!

--Now that it's almost universally accepted that we are in a recession, I'm beginning to hear opinion makers stating that we're slipping into a depression. I'm no economist, but my experience has been that the last thing in a recession to recover is unemployment. Just because we're hearing reports of layoffs in many places does not necessarily mean that the recession is worsening. Retroactive analyses of the previous two recessions revealed that they had both essentially ended several months before the press reported on any recovery (I'm referring to the recessions in 1991 and 2000).

--The University of Florida football team won the Southeastern Conference championship and a place in the National Championship game with a tough 31-20 win over Alabama on Saturday. The Gators will play Oklahoma, who have made a point of running the score up on their opponents during the past few games.

--The NFL Miami Dolphins continued their incredibly turnaround this year with a 16-3 crushing of their divisional rival Buffalo yesterday. Miami is now tied with the Jets and the Patriots atop the AFC East Division with an 8-5 record. Still, they will probably need to win all of their remaining three regular season games in order to make the playoffs for the first time since 2003.

--Not exactly a general news story, but I decided to forgo the December 7th 5-kilometer running race that I had previously planned to run in. Instead, I intend to run longer in practice and begin to specialize in longer races, from 10-K to half-marathons. Gainesville will have a 15K race in January and a half-marathon in February. My goal is to enter each race and simply finish them successfully.

Monday Newsbreak: 11/10

--Now that Barack Obama is the president-elect, people are wondering whether he will reveal an all-encompassing economic plan on the order of FDR’s New Deal, or simply tackle the various problems one by one, with restraint. I don’t believe that we in America, our problems notwithstanding, are anywhere near the level of trouble that we experienced during the Great Depression of the thirties. Making a complete overhaul of everything may be counterproductive. Part of what makes such a complex world economic system work is a sense of trust, derived in a large part from a feeling of continuity. Ironically, the cascading demise of financial companies makes government intervention necessary to restore this continuity. The stop-gap measures recently taken (“bailout”) may reflect agreement between Bush and Obama, but under the incoming president we should see a dramatic increase in regulation of the financial sector in order to ensure that this very continuity (and trust) continues into the foreseeable future.

--The American auto industry is undergoing bad times. The problem is largely due to the fact that they did not get ahead in technology and production to save mileage and promote alternative sources of fuel (while foreign companies did). Although they enjoy blaming the labor unions for their troubles, the simple fact is that they haven’t been making the products that people want to buy in large enough numbers to sustain their industry. Quality has to come first.

--Hurricane Paloma, a category-three storm, slammed into Cuba Saturday. It is the third hurricane to punish this island nation this season. Meanwhile, speculation is mounting on how far the new U.S. president will go toward lifting the economic embargo against Cuba. The way I see it, all that the U.S. accomplished by ostracizing Cuba and its Communist leaders Fidel and Raul Castro was to shield their people from the more liberal influences of the outside world (and thus help consolidate their hold on political power). We were so concerned that their ideology would spread to other countries in Latin America. But look now at Venezuela, Nicaragua, Ecuador, Bolivia, and Brazil (I’m probably leaving some out), all countries with DEMOCRATICALLY-ELECTED leftist governments sympathetic to the Castros! And Mexico is teetering on the edge of joining this group. Just who do we think we are kidding with this embargo, anyway?

--The state constitutional amendments in California and Florida designed to outlaw gay marriage (under the guise of “saving” marriage) both passed. While we’re standing around patting ourselves on the back about electing an African-American as president, I can see that we’ve still got a long way to go in this country…

--My favorite football team, NFL’s Miami Dolphins, won their third straight game, 21-19 over Seattle. They are now 5-4 and in the running to make the playoffs. The Dolphins are what I would call a “complete team”, with both the offense, defense, and special teams playing important roles in their success this year (last year they went 1-15). Plus, like I’ve said before, they look like they’re having a lot of fun out there! And clearly their fans are as well!

--The University of Florida Gators football team achieved one of their main goals this season by clinching the Eastern Division of their Southeastern Conference with a convincing 42-14 win over Vanderbilt. Like the Dolphins, the Gators are a balanced team this year with strengths in every department. And also like Miami, UF is in the running to win the overall championship if they keep winning.