School Updates by Erin

Erin at MinnPost has written some interesting pieces.  Here are links to them for your convenience.  Thoughts?

Why charter school advocates have mixed feelings about the state Supreme Court's integration decision

The number of majority-minority school districts in Minnesota has doubled in the last five years

Filling the summer meal gap for Minnesota youth: ‘It’s not a supply problem. It’s a distribution problem.’

'You’ve gotta think outside of the box': Facing teacher shortages, Minnesota districts get creative

Recent assault case reveals opposing Harrison Center narratives: ‘Our kids need something like this’ vs. ‘It has to be dismantled’


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Redefining Capital Gains?

From Sean:

"Oh, hi, it's just the Trump Administration mulling over executive action to give wealthy folks another $100B tax cut.  NYT: Trump Administration Mulls a Unilateral Tax Cut for the Wealthy"

Get in Line with the Program

I found these comments by Bannon humorous.
NW Bannon Tell Koch's to Get with the Program


I mean the Koch brothers are wealthy, old, popular, smart and real Republicans. (ie free trade, pro-business, lower government cost, etc)  Why would they care what Bannon thinks...
Axios Charles Koch Criticizes Trade Actions
Yahoo Koch Network Pushes Back


I mean the mess is of Trump's making, the GOP will need to deal with the potential consequences in Nov.

Should Trump be Impeached?

Sean was not very interested in discussing Trump's Good Day, so here is what he would like to discuss.

"Everything I have said in this thread has been *if* what Cohen is saying is true. You yourself said you think Trump knew about the meeting. 

So what's the threshold that has to met for you? Why are you so reluctant to talk about it or offer any sort of opinion about this? You ran multiple threads on the merits of impeaching Obama where you opined freely on the pros/cons. (Oops, your bias is showing again!)" Sean

Now just for the record...

"Please remember that I was actually against the silly Conservatives who thought impeaching Obama made sense. 

"J, Maybe you can enlighten me and save me some research. With some Conservatives openly dreaming of impeaching Obama, could you tell me what grounds they are imagining using? I may not always agree with the President, however this seems a bit out there. Thoughts?" G2A 

"I don't think I ever said I supported impeaching him. Or encouraged anyone to do so. Please note the question mark in the post's title. Hiram and yourself said it would be a big deal if it happened and that the GOP and/or country would be damaged if they took that action. I said that ~50% of the population would support or not be against it. As for grounds, here is what one group thinks... It does seem they would need a better smoking gun to sway that middle 20%." G2A 

I am happy to discuss the pros / cons here however I think you want to just "get out the rope"... Kind of like Jerry wanted to do when Obama was President. In both cases I recommend letting the process work." G2A

Since I was not for impeaching Bush or Obama, I will need to do some research on what offenses are cause for impeachment.
Heritage Stds for Impeachment

The Atlantic Impeachment

VOX Impeach Trump?

The VOX piece was pretty fascinating, and based on it I don't think Trump is going anywhere anytime soon.  At least as long as the GOP holds a majority in the House of Representatives.

Now for the question...  Should he be impeached?  At this time and based on what has been proven, I would say no.

If Michael Cohen can prove that Trump knew about the meeting with the Russians before it occurred.  And Trump has been lying to us citizens for 1+ years about the topic, then I think he should be impeached.  Not necessarily because he knew about the meeting, but because he LIED about this very serious topic.

Also, he should be impeached if it is proven that he turned into such a panzy in front of Putin because he is compromised.

Economics and Weather Forecasting

I have never been a fan of Krugman so I do find this one somewhat humorous... :-)

NYT Krugman Forecast On Election Night 2016

FOX Economy Opinion Piece

How Long Can China Keep a Lid On It?

Now I love travelling China because the cities are relatively clean, the taxi drivers are pretty honest, no tipping is expected and the people are great.  However this in part is due to China's incredible"Big Brother" monitoring and intervention.

CNN China Crimes Against Humanity
VOX Me Too in China
DB China Try to Scrub LGBT Content
CBS China's Behavior Monitoring
Honest Shanghai
Guardian China's Great Firewall

I mean if you don't quite fit in, follow the rules or disagree...  They may pick you up and deposit you into a "re-education center" for an extended stay.

All this leads me to wonder how well it is going to work for China to have a thriving middle class while stifling their freedom of Religion, Sexuality, Political Values and Human Expression in General.  As I said, overall I love travelling China, however physical security forces / cameras are everywhere and the internet is almost not functional at times due to the Great Firewall.

Overall I would say that my friends over there are ambivalent about the whole thing.

• They feel their lives are pretty good overall
• They conform to the norms, so no problem
• There is nothing they can do, so focus on making money and enjoying live / family

So if the Chinese government keeps folks fed, housed and safe, it seems to me that their control will be tolerated and even supported indefinitely.  Even against the forces of religion and political correctness. I am not sure if that is a good or bad thing...

One force that may challenge their old boy network is if this "Me Too" movement really does take hold...  I would assume some of the Communist Party power brokers have been aggressive with women before, now are they any women who will be willing to call them out?

A Good Day for Trump

Since I often pick on Trump's character flaws, it is only fair that I report on positive results.

NYT Remains Start Trip Home
CNN Economy is Doing Great
CNN Trump Owed Some Credit
CNN Economy in 4 Charts

Of course I do need to remind folks that our current economic success is largely because we are stealing money from our kids...  It is easy to feel wealthy when one is spending with someone else's credit card.

Big Bosses and Divorce

CNN Money CEOs and Marriage gave me the idea for this post. They say that Big Bosses are more likely to get divorced because they work too much and are highly stressed.


I have a different opinion, since I am a self professed cynic regarding the character of people who strive to attain upper management levels...  I mean I am to the point where I almost cringe whenever an upper Manager starts speaking... :-) I often consider them as more annoying and misleading than Used Car Salesmen and Politicians.


The root cause of my frustration is that I am a big believer of the concept of Servant Leadership. (ie Support in Diagram Below)  My goal at home and work is to develop, support, give guidance, etc to people so that they and the organization can be more effective, engaged and happy.

Where as most of the people I know who have pursued "power positions" are somewhat narcissistic, showy, self centered, egotistical, money centered and like to control things. (ie Directive in Diagram Above)  Pretty much every characteristic that one does not want in a healthy collaborative nurturing marriage.  So I am not surprised at all by a higher number of divorces in that population of people. :-)


Now I usually try to avoid stealing posting Dilbert comics, but this one was in my daily calendar for tomorrow and it was just too perfect to resist.

I Am Willing To Invest in People?

Moose made an interesting comment DEMs Heroes GOPers Villains. He wrote:

"I am more than happy to invest in the citizens of this country through my taxes, because it benefits the entire country. I’m sorry that you can’t see beyond the end of your nose. We are all poorer for the policies of Republicans."

That came in response to my question(s).

"What recommendation do you have for encouraging every citizen to:

• Learn, Improve and Work
• Save and Invest for Their Future
• Make Good Life and Health Choices"

So after reading Moose's response I had the following thoughts:

• What is the return Moose seeks?
• How will he determine if he made a "good" investment?
• If there is no improvement, is it really an investment?
• If a friend or family member asked Moose for thousands of dollars per year, would he give it to them?
• If the friend or family member did not work full time, did not work to improve their situation or made bad / wasteful decisions, would Moose keep writing them checks year after year?
• If the friend or family member has a child and is barely able to stay financially above water, and they get pregnant again... Will Moose increase his yearly "investment"?

Invest:

• to commit (money) in order to earn a financial return
• to make use of for future benefits or advantages
• to involve or engage especially emotionally

Now I am over joyed to have public and charity dollars invested in helping unsuccessful costly citizens become successful responsible citizens. However investment implies some kind of improvement or payback, and it certainly is not just taking money from Peter and giving it to Paul with no expectationss for Paul. That is not an Investment, that is a Gift.

I also asked the following in the previous post comments.

"Do we as a society see unsuccessful people as:

1. needy dependent creatures to be fed and cared for?
2. capable humans who can succeed given the correct tough love incentives and expectations?

I believe in #2, where as often Liberals fight something as logical as work and training requirements."

Thoughts?

DEMs Heroes GOPers Villains?

Laurie wrote the following and I thought it deserved a post of it's own.

"The difference is the DEM's want to do things to improve people's lives. If the far left can get the moderate left to support their agenda halfway, the far left will vote to get half of what they want.

The far right supports very little in terms of policy for improving peoples lives. They just vote no for everything other than tax cuts and very little gets done."

Personally I was shocked by this "WE GOOD, THEY BAD" tribal nonsense from Laurie. Where do these Liberals get the hubris to believe:

• the DEMs are the party of "helping people"
• the GOP's are the party of "hurting people"

Is it too much to ask that people understand that:

• there is more than way to solve a problem
• people from both parties want the best for our country
• people from both parties care about others

The biggest difference from my perspective is that:

• Liberals think of poor people as helpless bunny rabbits who need their food, housing and healthcare provided indefinitely because the Liberals do not think the bunnies are capable of learning, improving, making good choices and becoming self sufficient.
• Conservatives believe that the poor people are humans who need a short term safety net occasionally because the Conservatives think  the humans are capable of learning, working, improving, making good choices and becoming self sufficient.

Thoughts?

Why 2 Senators per State?

Eric does a good job of teaching in MinnPost The House, the Senate and the historical reasons for (un)equal representation

Of course I support the 2 Senators per state rule, so good thing it is pretty well set in stone.

How Far Left will They Go?

NYT There Is a Revolution on the Left. Democrats Are Bracing.
AP Democratic socialism surging in the age of Trump

Just as the Far Right voters keep tugging the GOP to the Right, it appears the Far Left voters are trying to tug the DEMs to the Left. No wonder our politics are becoming so divisive and dysfunctional.

Personally I think is bad news for the DEMs, however I never thought the GOP would be where they are now...  So only time will tell.

Remember those polarization charts, it seems we are not going to come together as a country anytime soon. :-(

Somewhat related Fox News In apparent gaffe, Ocasio-Cortez calls for Democrats to 'flip this seat red'

The Correct Answer

From Jerry

"Thus, I must strongly disagree when you say there are multiple "correct" answers to any given problem. There is always one good solution, a consensus solution, but these days the problem-solving gets eliminated in favor of poisonous partisan posturing. I don't remember a specific example recently, but I remember being struck by the realization that this completely commonsense and simple solution, proposed by a Republican, was instantly decried and dismissed by every Democrat within a mile of a microphone, when only a short time previous the same idea, proposed by a Democrat, was widely hailed."

So we agreed that Jerry would propose a problem and a "correct" answer to see if we all could support it.

"Problem, people are breaking the law and crossing over the Southern border, at other than the legal checkpoints. 

Solution: Put up some sort of wall to prevent them from doing so."

Thoughts?

Where Did the Money Go?

From Sean...  See Left Right for the background.


"Of course. But if we look at the first 30 years of the post-WW2 period, a rising tide really did lift all boats. For the last 40 years, that hasn't been true. In a time of "record low unemployment", wage growth for production and non-supervisory employees adjusted for inflation is negative over the last 12 months. "

As economist Jared Bernstein points out, at the last time we were at a similar place in the business cycle and unemployment rate (1999), labor's share of national income was 3.1% higher than it is today. If labor's share of income was where it was back then, the average worker would have $3,400 more income. Where did that money go? Corporate profits -- which have increased their share by 3.5% over that time.

Policy choices -- as Bernstein points out -- are a significant factor here:

NYT: Bernstein on Wage Stagnation

"More than ever, the dynamics of this old-fashioned power struggle between labor and capital strongly favor corporations, employers and those whose income derives from stock portfolios rather than paychecks.

This is evident in the large, permanent corporate tax cuts versus the small, temporary middle-class cuts that were passed at the end of last year. It’s evident in the recent Supreme Court case that threatens the survival of the one unionized segment of labor — public workers — that still has some real clout.

It’s evident in the increased concentration of companies and their unchecked ability to collude against workers, through anti-poaching and mandatory arbitration agreements that preclude worker-based class actions. And it’s evident in a federal government that refuses to consider improved labor standards like higher minimum wages and updated overtime rules.

Even if workers’ real wages do pick up, their gains may be too short-lived to make a lasting difference. The next recession is lurking out there, and when it hits, whatever gains American workers were able to wring out of the economic expansion will be lost to the long-term weakness of their bargaining clout. Workers’ paychecks reflect workers’ power, and they are both much too weak."

MN Teacher Union Fee Choice

Erin wrote a very interesting piece. MinnPost In wake of Supreme Court ruling on union fees, Minnesota teachers decide whether to opt out or go all in. 

Since I think that Teacher pay, placement and job security should be based on job challenge, performance and capabilities, not age and degrees...  I am always happy when the union loses some of it's power over the educational system.

And the idea that people were required by law to pay dues to a party that did not speak for them seemed ever so wrong. I mean:

• Imagine a young teacher having to pay for their union to keep their pay low so old teachers could make twice as much?
• Or a teacher watching their class size rise because the union fought cost cutting measures or the firing of poor teachers?
• Or an experienced teacher fighting for unlucky kids in a challenged school as many of the other experienced high paid teachers flee for a simpler school / classroom and keeping the same pay? 

By the way, I think Educational Administration positions should also be paid on multiple measures.  Including are their teachers happy and do they feel supported?