Category: Uncategorized

Youth (16-24 years old) unemployment is a big problem in most of the world today, as it is in the US and also in the state of California. This is a societal problem for all of us as unemployed youth are more likely to get into trouble, more likely to get trapped in the in the vortex of accelerating drug abuse, and more likely to break the law and thus be incarcerated. However, it is also a tragedy for these young unemployed individuals, now being referred to as “the lost generation”, because once they fall on the wrong side of the employment curve (unemployed for up to years at a time), it can take 20 years for their earnings to catch up and thus affect their life-long earnings.

Obviously this is a multi-factorial problem with no simple solution. However when it comes to some obvious solutions, why are the Democrats seemingly trying to make it more difficult for these unfortunate individuals to get themselves off the mat and into the fight? One of the main Democratic missteps resulting in the aggravation and prolongation of this problem is their backing of a higher and increasing minimum wage. Nothing hurts these young potential job seekers more than a higher minimum wage.

Why would a business owner hire someone with no experience, while being forced to pay that individual as if he/she had some work experience?  A sandwich shop owner, quoted in the Chicago Tribune, when asked about youth unemployment, said, “often they lack the ‘fundamental stuff’ – arriving on time, ironing their shirts, communicating well, and taking direction” . . . “We are going to end up with a whole group of people in their 40’s and 50’s who can’t function.” Business owners cannot afford to teach these basics workplace skills at an increasing minimum wage.

As studies of this problem have shown, the poorer youths of this “lost generation” seem to be affected the most, so while the Democrats try to sell themselves as the protectors of the less fortunate, they are, in fact, harming the poorer less fortunate, the most!

Parenthetically, many, many years ago when I was in high school, I had a job every summer. During my first two ventures into the job market, I was paid less than $1.00 per hour! Now obviously my wages at that time cannot compare to wages today (inflation, etc.), but I was lucky to be able to “get into the market” and learn some work related skills, mainly because I was “cheap labor”. This was good for the employer and better for me.

Unfortunately the youth of today are not so lucky.

As I am writing this, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin has just put forth President Trump’s first edition of his new tax plan. In response I have seen a snapshot of Chuck Schumer standing at a podium with his mouth open (as usual), and his arms outstretched like the Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio de Janeiro, but I have not yet heard the caterwauling from the usual cast of Democratic characters. ( I now really like the word, “caterwauling” because I can now spell it and it oftentimes perfectly describes the Democratic whining.)

Here in California I think that I can predict the lyrics of the song that the California “Queens-ton Trio” (Pelosi, Feinstein, & Waters) will sing:

“This new plan will make the rich richer. ”

The middle class will be the losers.”

“This plan will make the poor poorer!”

However, when one looks at the itemized deductions that will disappear it seems pretty apparent that the higher earners will be the big losers. They obviously pay more state income tax because they earn more, and this deduction . . . abracadabra . . . gone. The more affluent also pay higher property taxes since they own more expensive houses. The previously deductible property tax deduction . . . abracadabra . . . gone.

The portion of middle class that does not itemize will benefit, because, in essence, if they do not itemize, it means that they do not have any significant deductions, and thus they have little in the way of deductions to lose. That portion of the middle class that itemizes could potentially be losers as they will lose their property tax deduction and their state income tax deduction. However in some instances this potential loss may be balanced out by the end of the alternate minimum tax.

On the other hand, the poor that pay taxes will be the most significant benefactors in this new plan. The standard deduction for families and for individuals will be doubled and this obviously benefits those who do not itemize and thus encompasses most of the poor.

Now here is the hooker for the Democrats. As only about 30% of households use itemized deductions, the present benefit from these deductions are concentrated in the high income-high taxed states. The states that will potentially be the biggest losers are those states with the highest state income taxes, such as New York, New Jersey, and of course California.

These are all Democratic states.

So the Democrats have a choice to make. Will they go along with a plan that will benefit the poor and middle class the most, or will they revert to partisan politics in order to benefit their “nanny states”?  If past actions are any indicator, I would bet that the Democrats will come out in force against this plan, as they always seem to choose the option that hurts the poor!

On 4/26/17 two stories appeared simultaneously on the newspaper’s front page.

The first story talked about Sergio Juarez, an unemployed 50 year old father of three who was now living with his family at a Motel 6, because both he and his wife had lost their jobs years before. On the night before taxes were due Mr. Juarez found a cashier’s check for $676 that Yesenia Ortiz-Del Valle had lost about an hour or so before, as she was scrambling to try to get her tax returns in on time. Mr. Juarez then went out after dark, found Mrs. Del Valle, and returned her lost cashier’s check to her. He then turned down her reward offer that he  could have used “to put gas in his car”.

“I don’t think that what I did was anything special. It was the right thing to do.”

Now contrast that to the other front page story about judge William Orrick of the U.S.District Court in San Francisco temporarily blocking President Trump’s effort to make San Francisco and Santa Clara County obey federal law. Yes, this is the same William Orrick who had been a bundler for Obama’s 2008 campaign to the tune of $200,000, and then also apparently personally contributed $30,000 to the Democratic Party.

After the 2008 election William Orrick was then subsequently appointed by President Obama to the District Court. Notice that I did not say, “quid-pro-quo” about William Orrick’s appointment to the District Court by President Obama after he had been an important financial player in Obama’s 2008 election. Notice also that I did not suggest a “quid-pro-quo” in his prejudicial decision against President Trump, a Republican, keeping in mind that Judge Orrick was appointed by a democratic president.

Notice, however, the contrast between the men in the two stories. In the first story about Mr. Juarez, it is apparent that we are dealing with an honest man. He did what he thought was the right thing to do, and would not accept a reward for his actions . . . in other words he refused any “quid-pro-quo”.

He said that what he did was not anything special . . . and to that I say, “compared to who?” His actions certainly seem special when compared to the actions of a certain judge on the District Court in San Francisco!

Who is the honorable man?

 

I am actually pretty surprised that it has been about 2 weeks since Rep. Adam Schiff (D, Ca.) has appeared before the cameras. For a while this member of Pelosi’s Posse had his mug on the news almost every night with his condescending comments about potential, but as of yet unproven, contacts between the Trump campaign and Russia. Does the absence of his smug face on TV indicate that Trump is now passing the Schiff’s Sniff test?

When President Trump recently congratulated President Erdogan after the election in Turkey, I thought for sure that Schiff would be back on TV . . . caterwauling, as it is rumored that Rep. Schiff receives significant donations from the Armenian lobby, and we all know Armenia and Turkey are not exactly the best-of-buds. Complicating this situation, Armenia is the Russian proxy in the disagreement with Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh.

Perhaps there should be an investigation of the relationship between Schiff and Armenia and Russia to see if it passes the “Sniff test”! I doubt, however, that Schiff would ever recuse himself as this would damage his standing in the Posse!

His response to such an allegation might be, “What the schiff!”

BTW- As this blog also hopes to improve your general knowledge, I hope that    some of you will look up “Nagorno-Karabakh”!

In Dec.,2016, the liberal Washington Post had an editorial, “A Fight on His Hands” in which the author basically opined that that Trump and “the deniers” we’re basically imbeciles when it came to “the reality of human-induced climate change”. At the time this piece reminded me of an argument between two second graders that I recently had witnessed. Here, one of the 8 year-old’s position was basically, “Oh yeah, but you’re stupid!”

The fact of the matter is that it is difficult, if not impossible, to have an intelligent discussion on anything when one side consistently says, “Oh yeah, but you’re stupid!”, and, yes, this applies in spades with arguing “adults”.

I am just an ordinary guy and freely admit that I am not an authority on “global warming”. However, one of my friends who has researched this topic quite extensively feels that ‘man made global warming’ is . . . (because this is basically a family oriented venue) . . . malarkey. I have not studied this topic in any detail, although I became suspicious of some skullduggery when the ‘Oh Yeah, But You’re Stupid’ crowd found it necessary to change the name from “global warming” to “climate change”. Why does one change the name of his team unless something is basically wrong or offensive with the old name?

Imagine . . . We were ‘the Cubs’, but now in the 6th inning, we are changing our name to ‘the Swans’!

Anyway back in December, I e-mailed the author of the Washington Post editorial and I also submitted a letter-to-the-editor to our local liberal paper. My position basically was – if liberals are so sure that they are right, why not have a real debate on this issue.  The debate could be televised, and the phrase, “Oh yeah, but you’re stupid” would be outlawed! The ratings would be spectacular especially if this occurred in prime time, and once and for all, we ordinary folk could decide who and what to believe.

Of course my letter was not printed. The Washington Post writer never responded, but I imagine that he probably thought to himself, “Oh yeah, but he’s stupid”.

This topic recently resurfaced when the Wall Street Journal on April 21, 2017 published an editorial piece in which the author, Steven Koonin (a theoretical physicist)  wrote,”[t]he public is largely unaware of the intense debates within climate science.” He also suggested that we “put the consensus to a test, and improve public understanding through an open, adversarial process”. To me it certainly sounds like Steven Koonin, the director of the Center for Urban Science and Progress at NYU, is proposing a debate.

So far I haven’t heard the rebuttal from the left, “Oh yeah, but he’s stupid”! . . . perhaps because Steven Koonin served as undersecretary of energy for science during President Obama’s first term.

 

Another week and another protest against free speech on campuses. According to the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, there has been more than 300 attempts since 2000 to disinvite campus speakers. Now if these speakers with whom the left disagrees actually make it on campus, their protests are apt to turn violent – “free speech” be damned. This has occurred at U.C. Berkeley, Middlebury College, Auburn, and potentially again at Berkeley next week.

Yes, U.C.Berkeley, the champion of free speech in the 1960s is now against allowing the free speech of those that do not agree with their political views . . . the 1st Amendment be damned!

These young “students” think that their view is the only acceptable view, and then feel that it is okay to act like anarchists – doing just about anything to keep dissenting speakers from speaking on their campuses. Who are they modeling their bullying behavior after? Are there “adults” that are setting an example for this “my way or the highway” (in California it would be “my way or the freeway”) behavior? Who is teaching them that the Bill of Rights be damned?

For the answer, perhaps we need to look no further than to the California legislature, specifically Sen. Richard Lara (D-Bell Gardens) and Rep. Lorena Gonzalez (D-San Diego). These shining examples are now proposing bullying legislation crafted to punish businesses that are bidding to work on the border wall. Not only would this punish companies and individuals, but it would require California pension funds to divest from companies that work on the wall.

Some legal scholars are asking, “Would this ‘Resist the Wall Act’ be legal?” Would it violate the Commerce Clause and/or the Equal Protection Clause in the U.S. Constitution? Would it violate the Supremacy Clause which makes the Constitution the law of the land?

Are Lara and Gonzalez “leading” by example . . . in effect saying,”The Constitution be damned”?

 

Google has apparently bought 1200 acres of land upon which they will eventually build a data center. This piece of property is just a few miles south of Tesla’s 3200 acres where it is building its 10 million square feet battery factory. At this point you are probably saying, “Good for California, as these big companies will bring many, many new jobs and a much needed new business tax base into the Golden State”.

“Whoa there, big fella!”

Google has bought this large parcel of land, not in California, but just east of Reno, Nevada, in the 107,000 acre Tahoe Reno Industrial Center, which is home to over 100 companies. These companies range from A (Aqua Metals Inc.) to Z ( Zulily Inc.) and include American Red Cross, eBay Commerce,  PPG (Pittsburgh Paints), and a Wal-Mart Distribution Center.

Why Nevada, and why not California? After all Reno is in the middle of nowhere, and is basically desert. The answer is actually quite simple: Nevada is business friendly whereas California is not. Nevada has a favorable tax structure, a legal system that works in favor of business, as well as business friendly laws. In terms of being ‘Entrepreneur Friendly’, Nevada ranks 3^rd (behind only North Dakota and Texas) whereas California ranks a dismal 49th, only ahead of New Jersey and Washington D.C.

If you need more reasons why businesses love Nevada, look on a Nevada Business website where it touts one of the main reasons why companies should come to Nevada . . . “We’re close to California!”

So if you are young and want to improve your prospects for the future –

“Go east, young man, go east!”

A simple short quiz to start off with today.

You don’t need a college degree to get these right – in fact, any of you ordinary folk will probably do better.

Please answer ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to the following four simple questions:

1. If someone eats pizza once, will he/she likely eat it again?

2. Is pizza high in calories?

3. Does ‘meat-lover’s’ pizza have more calories than a ‘veggie’ pizza’?

4. If one overindulges in high caloric foods, might he/she gain weight?

Now if you answered ‘no’ to any of these questions, be careful as someone may nominate you to serve in the California Legislature. If you answered ‘yes’ to all of these questions, then you might wonder why the FDA feels that it is necessary that pizza places with 20 or more locations across the U.S. must put a myriad of caloric information not only on each menu, but also on each advertisement or flyer that lists a phone number. Some group, who thinks it knows better than us ordinary folk, obviously feels that Americans in general need help and guidance when ordering a pizza.

If I like sausage on my pizza, am I going to switch to pepperoni because there is one less calorie per slice in a large, thin-crust pizza? If I am a vegetarian, am I going to exclude onions or mushrooms because each adds 2 additional calories per slice? Call me, ‘crazy’, but my answer to each of the last two questions is not only, ‘No’, but also ‘WTF, are you kidding me’!

At this point one might ask which group could have thought up this nonsense. This over 100-page FDA rule is required by the Affordable Care Act . . . You know the “you’ll have to pass it to see what’s in it” law that was passed solely and entirely by Democrats. But it even gets worse, as this mumbo-jumbo also covers movie theaters, grocery stores, and breweries!  The Food Marketing Institute, a supermarket trade association, says that compliance will cost at least $1 billion.

Who do you think is going to pay for this?

If you guessed, ‘us ordinary folk’, you would be right!

FYI- this law is due to go into effect, after multiple delays, on May 5th of this year. So my advice to all ordinary folk, “if you are planning to go out for a brew and a pizza before taking in a movie, do it before May 5^th”!

ISIS or Cuba/No.Korea ?

As I was reading an excerpt from a newspaper, I was having some difficulty trying to decide if the philosophy of ISIS is in fact much different from that of the leaders in some communist countries. I have extracted four quotes from this newspaper editorial, and I am hoping that some readers may be able to aid me in separating their tenets. Are the following ISIS inspired or is this from a communist newspaper?

1. “We all have problematic claims, the origins of which were ingrained in us by our discriminatory and biased society.”

To me this sounds more like ISIS in essence telling the readers that the views with which we were brought up, are indeed mistaken, but that they were the victims because their society was indoctrinating them.

2. “It is vital that we encourage people to correct and learn from their mistakes rather than berate them for a lack of education they could not control.”

Now to me almost sounds like something from a communist manifesto explaining to the people that the government will not hold the uneducated masses responsible for their misconstrued views because they were the unwitting victims of a biased education system.

3. “This being said, if people are given the resources to learn and either continue to speak hate speech, or refuse to adapt their beliefs, then hostility may be warranted.”

This one was really tough for me. Was this the communist regime of Cuba warning their citizens that speaking out against the government might result in jail for an indefinite period of time, or was this ISIS warning Christians that their failure to convert to Islam could result in torture and death?

4. “It is important to note that our preference for education over beration regards students who may not have been given a chance to learn.”

This appears to apply to both ISIS and communist regimes . . . meaning that we will give you one chance to learn the right way, but if you do not learn, then you will be punished – as we know best.

While obviously I only took excerpts from this editorial, what you have here conveys the true message of the piece.

Okay, time to decide. Was this from a newspaper in a communist regime (Cuba/No. Korea) or was this ISIS inspired?

If you said, “communist regime” . . . wrong!

If you said, “ISIS inspired” . . .   also wrong!

Actually, these quotes are from the Wellesley News, a student newspaper at Wellesley College, a private women’s liberal arts college west of Boston, in Wellesley Ma. While many “institutions of higher learning” are producing snowflakes, in Wellesley there is a blizzard!

Elmer Vasko

Mention “Elmer Vasko” in 1961 in Chicago, and nobody would have a clue as to whom you were referring, but mention “Moose Vasko”, and everyone would know. Like most men nicknamed “Moose”, Elmer was big, but different from most men called “Moose”, as he could skate, and in fact he could skate quite well. Moose Vasko played defense on the 1961 Stanley Cup Champion Chicago Blackhawks.  He wasn’t a high scorer like Bobby Hull or Stan Mikita or an exceptionally smooth skater like Pierre Pilote or Todd Sloan. However, he was a very important piece of this championship team for he (along with Reggie Fleming) was the “enforcer”.

For those unfamiliar with hockey, the job of the enforcer in hockey is to respond to dirty or violent play by the opposition (Wikipedia). Moose would protect his teammates, maintain order, and retaliate, especially if the bullies on the other team took cheap shots against his smaller teammates. While Bobby Hull (5’10, 195lbs) could take care of himself, undersized Stan Mikita (5’9″, 169lbs) and slender Todd Sloan (5’10”, 152 lbs) knew that Moose (6’2″, 200lbs) had their back. Hockey is a very rough sport, and, the smaller guys on any team
would take quite an unrelenting beating unless their own feared and respected enforcer had their back. The presence of an enforcer on a hockey team in essence was telling the other team, “Be careful because your actions will have consequences”. Everyone on the other teams knew that if they crossed the line against the smaller Blackhawk players that Moose would kick their ass. In fact he did his job quite well – well enough that the Blackhawks won the Stanley Cup in 1961.
Well now one might say, “Interesting, but actually who cares about Elmer Vasko, aka Moose, and the 1961 Blackhawks other than some near-senile old Chicago hockey fans”? Actually an interesting analogy can be drawn between the 1961 Chicago Blackhawks and today’s world situation. Just as hockey is a very rough game, our world is a very rough place. If an opportunity arises, the bullies on the hockey rink will go out of their way to pick on and then beat up on the little guys, just as the world’s “bullies” abuse those who cannot fight back. Just as the bad guys can become more and more emboldened on the ice, the bad guys on the world stage become more emboldened when they realize that they can act without fear of retaliation.
Russia, Assad, North Korea, and ISIS are the “bullies” of the world. For the past 8 years they have been able to act with impunity as they learned that no one could, or would, stand up to them. Russia took Crimea without any consequence. Assad gassed his own people in 2012, and there was no enforcement of a “red line”. For years, North Korea marched on with its nuclear program, as it knew that no one would attempt to stop them. ISIS was a “JV team”, yet it took land and slaughtered innocents as the good guys in the world just stood by.
There was no enforcer, and you don’t win the Stanley Cup without an enforcer!

Finally after years of kowtowing to all the world’s bullies, we finally have an enforcer, who in essence is saying, “Be very careful because your actions will have consequences. If you gas innocent women and children, we might fire off cruise missiles into your airfield. If you kill an American Special Forces soldier in Afghanistan, we might drop a MOAB to destroy your underground caves.”

Maybe now that our team has an enforcer, we can win the Stanley Cup.