Ode to Billie Joe

During the tumult of 1967 over an unpopular war and other issues plus the public despair over the assassination of several political figures, Bobbie Gentry released a recording of Ode to Billy Joe. It won the Grammy for best song of the year probably, in part, because it was a cross over hit, played on both country and soul stations. And while I make no claim to be a music critic I find the song unexceptional and Ms. Gentry herself seems ready to fall over from the weight of her eye makeup. But I also find the lyrics running through my head like a haunting.

Today we are living through massive technological changes, Muslim terror and political violence. The Jeffersonian basis for America, a strong middle class, is vaporizing as I write. In 1967, a simple song reminded us that we are all just folks consumed with the joys, tasks and tragedies of everyday life. One song didn’t turn the tide, but it helped.

For many their song is prayer. To be humble before God reminds us who we are. Another great awakening can be part of the strategy to save America’s soul. Must watching the news maintain itself as a masochistic ritual? Will some people around here consider me a white supremacist or worse for having God in my life?

Copyright 2017, Mark L. Bennett 

Setting the Record Straight

I recently read a review of a new book on government housing policy, Richard Rothstein’s “The Color of Law”.  The reviewer’s summary relates: “…how public housing at times replaced… racially integrated… neighborhoods spawned in the private market. In other words, private housing markets were creating integration before government planners got in the way. Poor black neighborhoods characterized by significant degrees of property ownership were cleared for public housing, in which private ownership was by definition absent.” This book also documents the segregationist policies of the New Deal which continued the racist policies of FDR’s Democrat predecessor Woodrow Wilson. It does seem a bit strange that historians call regression “progressive”.

Every time I pass Rancho Seco, I feel sad. Not because of any love for nuclear energy, but for the wasted resources from which we all suffer. Environmental activists forced the plant’s abandonment, but why was it built in the first place? Isn’t this area rich in untapped clean and safe hydropower? Hasn’t the same environmental agenda prevented the prior development of our hydropower? What is the consequence of these seemingly choate policies? Is it odd that I prefer to read about the Dark Ages rather than having to relive them?

Recently, at our local Staples, I was offered a free plastic bag. So it seems OK that the more affluent, more likely-to-be making-discretionary-purchases don’t have to pay the ocean pollution tariff that the less fortunate struggling to buy a week’s food pay.  As every day goes by I achieve further understanding of what Liberals call logic. Part of what makes all of this possible is the dumbing down of America. While the most apparent of this gruesome trend is Common Core, it’s manifesting itself throughout our culture.  A nearby example is the dumbing down of the Nevada State Museum from a world class Native American exhibit to an educational Disneyland for grade schoolers.

But the dumbing down agenda strikes me daily whenever I write anything. Constantly I type a word that Microsoft Word tells me isn’t a word or is a misspelling of a word. After looking it up in a dictionary I discover that I was right about the word and its spelling. Why is Microsoft trying to limit our ability to express ourselves? Certainly Bill Gates’ continuing support of the globalist agenda can’t be unrelated.

Copyright 2017, Mark L. Bennett

Don’t Be Naïve

Someone posted a story on Facebook about the enormous fees for insurance, security, etc that many universities are now charging conservative speakers due the all too often violent response from the far left. They angrily commented how this was an abridgment of free speech.  I agree and find it despicable. But the same thing was done to anti Viet Nam War speakers and demonstrators in the 1960’s. Those in power attempt to inhibit opposition from others and nullify a perceived potential threat.  I suspect, sadly, that this represents part of human nature and has probably occurred since Adam and Eve left the Garden of Eden.

I have said repeatedly on this blog and on Facebook that I find many of those commenting naïve or dangerously naïve.  Someone once remarked that they were insulted when I called them ignorant. If I had wanted to insult someone I would said so in bolder terms, but I was simply making an honest comment about their apparent ignorance on the discussed subject.  Probably some people see me as partisan while others see me as insightful. Whatever the final verdict, that decision doesn’t rest with me.

Sloppy speech seems more common today. Perhaps it’s because we write so much more now given our instant communications technologies. I’ve even heard Obama confuse middle income and middle class. Income is the money you make; class is how you spend it. Someone would be considered middle class because they collect art, read a lot of books and may have a bachelor’s or master’s degree; qualities separate from their income or net worth. Naiveté is fed by imprecise, sloppy speech.

Postscript: I have posted twice about the potential benefits to Amador County becoming involved with the proposed Sacramento Multi Modal Terminal adjacent to Amtrak.  Happily, the responsible local parties are now plugged into that process. But did I advocate this because I am a bleeding heart green liberal living in fear of global warming, or because I am a staunch conservative trying to increase ridership/reduce subsidies and build a social welfare system that helps people help themselves rather than encourages dependency? Or did I do this because I am a concerned, participatory citizen with specialized expertise? Sometimes I feel like I belong to the most obscure corner of political opinion: the Common Sense Party.

Copyright 2017, Mark L. Bennett

Amador Gets Stiffed Temporarily?

On 2/17/17 I posted Amador Gets Stiffed https://markbennett1.blogspot.com/2017/02/amador-gets-stiffed.html regarding the possible multi modal terminal adjacent to Sacramento Valley Station/Amtrak that would connect with Amador Transit, buses from five or so other counties surrounding Sacramento, Greyhound and others. This present lack of inter-connectability caused Amador County to spend $68K for a study to seek remedies and prompted my writing of Amador Gets Stiffed. That article was caustic, based upon my disgust with the missed opportunity of the terminal’s inclusion into the then generous Obama stimulus for the station renovation. I attributed this to the attitudes and desires of those involved based upon my participation when a planner in Sacramento.

An opportunity for an update arose on 6/14/17 when I attended the Riverfront Renaissance Community Event as an alternate for Amador Transit. One Sacramento planner remembered me from my prior involvements. I spoke with him, other planners, news reporters and politicians. Former Sacramento mayor Heather Fargo told me that Greyhound was purposely so located to be on city property because the city can terminate their lease and force a move. I was also assured that all buses would be available in a future intermodal facility to be built north of the Sac Valley Depot in the Railyards development. This was also new, since I knew that plan well having designed its transit system

And while I don’t doubt the sincerity of those I spoke with, the Railyards Specific Plan is an adopted, but unfunded, plan. When this will happen, and in what final form, is unknown. So presently, the best approach appears to be remaining vigilant. Therefore, I began the official process of making sure Amador County was considered in the facility’s planning. At the TAC it was decided that SSTAC (Social Services Transportation Advisory Council), of which I am a member, should formally ask the ACTC (Amador County Transportation Commission). On 8/3/17 they were asked to: “… (to) appoint a Sacramento Multimodal Facility Planning Representative to facilitate inclusion in future intermodal plans along with our neighboring counties…This endeavor would require the Amador County Transportation Commissioners’ approval of staff time to assert Amador County’s desire to be part of this proposed facility, to maintain contact with the project planners and stakeholders, to provide commenting when necessary and time to carry out any other tasks relating to representation.”

During the ensuing discussion Commissioner (and County Supervisor) Brian Oneto wisely asked if this would cost us anything. This is important consideration, and I answered that I didn’t know. I also stated that using the terminal would shorten the present route’s mileage thereby reducing operating costs along with likely increased farebox revenue. It would also avoid the far more costly route extension to Greyhound suggested in the recent Inter City consultant study.

The commission passed a draft resolution for approval at their next meeting which stated: “…to appoint Ms. Platt as a representative to attend, at her discretion, Sacramento Multimodal Facility Planning meetings and for the ACTC Executive Director to appoint April Miller from Amador Transit or other designee at this discretion to serve as alternate.” While this is certainly a step in the right direction, there are many unanswered questions. What are, if anything, the other counties and carriers doing to assert their interest? What is the status of this project within Sacramento politics? Since there doesn’t appear to be a functioning stake holder’s group, who will instigate this?
 

Copyright 2017, Mark L. Bennett

 

 

Pensions and the County Budget

At the July 10^th Upcountry Community Council meeting, Chuck Iley, Amador County’s CAO/Chief Administrative Officer, gave an excellent presentation about our county budget. It is now difficult to budget for our county worker’s pension contributions, because whatever cash CalPERS demands, the county must surrender. I asked about the informal discussions from a few years ago, about leaving CalPERS and possibly joining with Calaveras County in an independent pension fund. He responded by saying that it’s impossible now because we would have to donate about $50 million to their unfunded liability.

We can debate endlessly about CalPERS' good and bad deals, but the simple fact remains that they are just too big. Unless the law of large numbers is magically repealed, they can never do better than the market as a whole. Although leaving CalPERS is now impossible, it was even a difficult decision back then. The rate of return could be much higher. But with overhead costs rising the actual bottom line could be unpredictable.

I was a pension board trustee for about eight years for a government agency that had left CalPERS. I watched Federal encroachment increase and regulatory expenditures expand. While the Constitutionality seemed questionable, the power grab wasn’t. One of those new regulations was for accounting and actuarial assumptions. While absolutely nothing changed with the assets or internals of a pension fund, the publicly announced calculation of unfunded liabilities soared. Some could argue that this was better disclosure, while others assert that it was an unnecessary pressing of the panic button. But the intent, or pre-programmed outcome, worked to serve its purpose.

Was more Federal control of state and local pensions now shown to be necessary? Would this reduce local control as the freezing of independence from CalPERS just indicated? Would further regulation govern possible investment choices and therefore affect capital flows? Certainly a transition to Federal control is the next step toward global control. Is this what is really going on? Is Amador County being colonized, or did we get the royal screw just by coincidence?

Copyright 2017, Mark L. Bennett

Where Has My Country Gone?

That phrase became common along with the rise of the Tea Parties. It was misinterpreted as racist, sexist and often aligned with issues as this headline illustrates: “Outrage over gay group banned from St. Patrick's parade.” Social issues are often emotionally consuming. And some, such as transgender bathrooms, are threatening. But ultimately, economic issues rule. Disappearing factories and the shrinking middle class turned the election to Trump. Related issues such as the rise in opiate addiction fill headiness, but the connections that breed hopelessness run deeper.

My January 2017 posting “Economic Collapse?” detailed the internal deterioration of our economy. Part of that was our diminishing labor force which foreshadows an uncertain future. As of 2012, 8% of our farmers were under 35 years old with the average farmer at 58 years old. A leading economic commentator recently stated: “The big infrastructure problem in the U.S. is not in physical capital, it’s in human capital.”  Foreign-born students earned 40 percent of U.S. doctoral degrees in science and engineering in 2003.

Part of this is what former Muslim Isik Abla called educational jihad. “…wealthy fanatical Muslims are sending jihadist students to America and other Western countries to infiltrate the world’s top universities as part of their group’s ultimate objective to Islam-ise the West…Harvard, Princeton and Yale…(to put Jihadists) in high places (of) power to dictate what needs to happen…to Islam-ise the Western world.” Hassan Abbasi, former advisor to Ahmadinejad who now runs security policy for Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps, boasted that there are over two million Iranians in the US with over 7,000 having PhD’s. These are leading a clandestine army of potential martyrs in the US. We don’t need nuclear weapons. We plan to use subversive means to destabilize the US from within. While Abbasi’s statements are part plan and part his wishful thinking, they don’t mask the fact that 25% of our doctors are foreign born. (We debate and establish plans to pay for health care, increasing demand while irresponsibly ignoring the supply of health care providers.) 

Immigrants have enriched American society and created the diverse mix we enjoy daily as normal. Aside from the no borders globalists everyone wants a sensible immigration policy. One could cynically say that poaching the talent of other nations is in our national interest. But there is a difference between adding to American life, and filling a void our insolence has created. Why have the upcoming generations not prepared themselves for our unfolding future? Is it because they were led into their degree programs by faculty whose goal was not our future but their ideological desires? As their graduates were to assume professional positions, their goal was not improvement, but disruption. They were trained to be agents of social change while encumbered with debt slavery.

“(He) surrounded himself with official publications, and works of history and economics. He made no effort to inform himself directly of the views and conditions of the masses. The notion of canvassing an electorate on their doorstep was anathema to him: “unscientific”.  He never visited a factory or set foot on a farm. He had no interest in the way wealth was created. He was never to be seen in the working class quarters of any town in which he resided. His entire life was spent among members of his own sub-class, the bourgeois intelligentsia, which he saw as a uniquely privileged priesthood, endowed with a special gnosis and chosen by History for a decisive role.” Does this sound like the swamp creatures of Sacramento and Washington that know what’s best for us? Or some outspoken local folks?

The above quote is a description of Vladimir Lenin from page 52 of Paul Johnson’s book “Modern Times”. I noted the Leninism prevalent today in my March 2016 posting “What is Leninism?” Dogma has replaced reality for too many of the people currently in charge.  Assuming that Trump sends them packing, I wonder what they will do. They know how to regulate and to over-regulate into oblivion, but can they create? Is the American spirit, that turned a frontier into the most free and powerful nation in the world, dead? Our Amador General Plan, and many others like it, are documents of fear and defeatism.

PS: Despite my extensive research I could not find the answer to perhaps the most salient question. Did Vladimir Lenin bring his own bags to the grocery store?

PPS: I don’t mean to be alarmist. I’m sure that the Gender Studies graduates will do a fine job welding the Keystone Pipeline.

Copyright 2017, Mark L. Bennett

Dead Harvest

Some Facebook friends posted this video link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ax5A3r_z4KA&feature=share

Everyone should view this exposition of the poverty, abandoned investment and threat to our food supply caused by environmental extremism.  The moral and legal balance of equities concept is drown by lawsuits and legislative maneuvers seemingly more numerous that the delta smelt they claim to protect.

My first thoughts were of mass starvation during Stalin’s land collectivization in the Ukraine. But then I realized that this was also another manifestation of our ahistorical times and the distorted reasoning it creates. Constructing both flood control and irrigation channels gave the ancient Mesopotamians the desire for an activist government. This six thousand year old tradition has been carried through Roman aqueducts to our present Western Civilization.

In a pointless prior Facebook discussion, it was asserted than government-funded roads for projects such as Newman Ridge were socialist and that certain individuals were phony conservatives. But collective public works goes back at least 10,000 years in the archaeological record. Long before the money economy during the hunting or farming off seasons, whole communities of people would build their roads, houses of worship and other facilities. When one dismisses our shared history and makes policy decisions based only in their rationalizing minds, anything can come out. Vladimir Lenin had that quality.

Concepts like gender fluidity can grow only in an isolated consciousness that feeds only upon itself.  That style of awareness can also justify the hardships of the Central Valley for their idiosyncratic ideal of justice. But as difficult as it is for the victims to endure, or others of us just to watch, I am hearted and optimistic. With decisions as daft as this - and many others, including dam maintenance - too many people can’t be fooled for too much longer. The time is ripe for a populist leader to emerge and overthrow California’s ancien régime.

Copyright 2017, Mark L. Bennett

Coastal City Flotsam Invades the Mokelumne

This Tuesday’s Board of Supervisors meeting included: “Assembly Bill 975: Discussion and possible action relative to the subject legislation as it relates to wild and scenic rivers.” I made the following statement:

“I urge this body to oppose both the present efforts to designate part of the Mokelumne River as Wild & Scenic and the proposed legislation in Sacramento to extend the Wild & Scenic definition. While there is much I could say, I will limit myself to two points.

Most of the discussion about the Mokelumne definition has been framed as an isolated discussion. But if you add up all the wild and scenic rivers, land trusts, conservation easements, carbon capture forests and other schemes and place them on map, America now looks like the land tenure system of aristocratic medieval Europe. I find this very ironic since, if you look around this room, probably everyone here is descended from people who voted with their feet to leave that behind. Much of the founding population of our nation were people who lost their grazing rights under the Enclosure Acts and understood the relationship between land ownership and freedom. I would add to that affordable land ownership. The American Dream should not die on our watch.

I also find these designations to be arrogant and selfish. By what right do we have to imprison the decisions of future generations? The only thing being preserved here is privilege.”

Amador Gets Stiffed

Interconnectability is a key ingredient in successful public transportation. Obviously, it gets people where they want to go. But it also increases ridership system wide. For example, someone from Jackson going to Sacramento first takes a bus from Jackson to the Sutter Hill Transit Center to depart for Sacramento. This incremental increase in ridership adds revenue and reduces subsidy. Our service to Sacramento connects to Sacramento’s light rail and buses, Amtrak and Capital Corridor trains and Yolo Bus to the airport. While the transfers necessary to reach the airport seem like a big hassle, they also are a bargain compared to long term parking fees at the airport. Since this attracts riders in addition to the regular riders, it’s something to encourage. Calaveras County is now connecting in Stockton to the Ace Express train over the Altamonte Pass to San Jose. This new service is being closely watched.

Amadorians have asked about service to Placerville and other locations, but especially to Greyhound in Sacramento. The powers that be in Sacramento didn’t want the Greyhound passenger-types mingling with the environmental generation commuters from Auburn. The lower income folks are now stranded up on Richards Blvd. Their Green Line light rail service ends at 7:30 pm along with some spotty bus service that ends at 9 pm. These connections to Amador Transit are cumbersome at best. For all these reasons, $68,000 of our transit and road funds are now going to a sadly, so but essential, consultant study.

This would not have been necessary if the Sacramento Valley/Amtrak Station project, a rushed through Obama stimulus project, had achieved its potential. Amador is one of about six counties that operate bus service into downtown Sacramento. They all follow different routes with inconvenient transferring, often on streets where watching the drunks stagger is the primary amusement. What if they all connected at the Sac Valley Station? Passengers would have a safe, indoor place to wait with restroom and food facilities. There could have been convenient one transfer access, often at nominal fares, to dozens of cities and other locations around Sacramento. But this didn’t happen.

I was on the station stakeholder’s committee and advocated the best I could, constrained by my position of representing Sacramento Regional Transit. My contributions to the pedestrian track access design were well received. But the committee had its own attitudes. While there were many black members, which wouldn’t have occurred a half century ago, it was OK for everyone there to make fun of the Sikh cabdrivers (does anything ever really change?). Casino buses serving primarily the Chinese community parked nearby. They weren’t welcome, either.

Further complicating the bus access situation is the lack of spaces for Sacramento buses. Many possible patrons were lost because of the excessive walking required between the commuter trains and the bus to their final destination. Next to the Sac Valley Station sits the federal courthouse. The esteemed judges did not want public buses stopping there. This was appealed and won, but Regional Transit’s leadership style was keep the peace and don’t ruffle feathers, so nothing changed. Personally, I would have written both Barbara Boxer and Diane Feinstein. I can just imagine Feinstein’s conversation chewing out those judges. And while those feasible additional bus stops would help, they wouldn’t compensate for the lost potential of this project. Nevertheless, the station renovation serves the desires of its favored constituents “…as a civic gathering point with offices, retail areas, a cafe and possibly even a rooftop cocktail lounge.”

Amador County, along with much of rural Northern California and also Sacramento urban area residents, are now stiffed for a half century or more. Where were the Greens? Many were tagging allegedly endangered frogs in some dangerously unrestored meadow in the high Sierra. Those in Central Sacramento were lobbying for bike lanes on congested streets. The Greens are often the first to lobby for transit subsidy, and seemingly the last to understand how to use those funds wisely.

Copyright 2017, Mark L. Bennett  

People Get Ready

I’ve chosen this title from Curtis Mayfield’s 1965 gospel style hit song because we need to get ready for an attack on what I consider the soul of our beloved Amador County. The already painfully apparent and still ongoing storm damage to our roads is a perverted blessing for those wanting to raise the sales tax. I have discussed how this is the Caltrans corruption tax at length in my Ledger article “Roads, Buses and Bikes”. Anyone can probably read on the internet the bipartisan reports from the State Auditor and the Legislature Analyst’s Office along with Caltrans' testimony before the state legislature to verify my conclusions. Based upon my involvement with local transit the increased sales tax people are working behind the scenes. Sometime this year and most likely as the spring budget deliberations begin, a road show of manipulative public meetings may begin. Will the present Board of Supervisors and the Amador County Transportation Commission vote to support a “self help” tax? Will a public vote turn into class warfare between the more affluent (and recently arrived), and those of us who simply can’t afford it?

The compromise and/or sell out study for the Wild & Scenic designation for part of the Mokelumne River will probably be finished during the tenure of the present BOS.  Will selfishness rule the day and prevent future generations from freely making their necessary decisions about local resources?  Or are those behind these two schemes waiting until they can try to unseat Brian Oneto in two years? Could we have a rubber stamp board that could lock us into higher taxes and diminished resource freedom for decades to come?

Another straightjacket, although of a possible shorter duration, is Amador County rejoining insidious ICLEI (Local Governments for Sustainability). Our prior BOS cancelled our membership. But I would be shocked if certain forces in and around our county weren’t plotting to reinstate our membership in and assumed agreement with ICLEI. This would mean subservience to their restrictive globalist land use designs.

“People Get Ready, There’s A Train A Coming.” But this one is going in the opposite direction of Curtis Mayfield’s train.

Copyright 2017, Mark L. Bennett

Who are David Nicholson and Steven Frisch?

Many of us local politically-minded folks have been engaged in Facebook wars. Two leading antagonists are David Nicholson and Steven Frisch. Nicholson is truly amazing. As much as I strain my brain, I still find it difficult to conceive of how an adult, whom I presume Nicholson to be, can exist and be totally naïve about how the world really works. Whenever this is pointed out to him, he ignores reality. He endorses illegal immigration, but refuses to acknowledge that many illegal immigrants work under slave labor like conditions because they have no civil rights. He minimizes Islamic terror and presents Muslims as some innocent minority hounded by racists and white nationalists. However, Muslims are not a race and many are Caucasian. He discards any information from a source he disagrees with, and calls everything else fake news. He considers our president to be a fascist without any proof. He denies Muslim immigration jihad. He posts opinion pieces from left wing sources as gospel truth, and sets himself up as the ultimate arbiter of truth by rejecting far too many other sources. He seems intelligent, but evidently uses his intelligence to rationalize away reality. For that reason alone, he is dangerous.

Our latest row was about the recent attack on a Quebec City mosque from an article by Pamela Geller. Ms. Geller is an accomplished author and journalist currently living under death threats for defending the civilized world from Islamic terror. When news of this attack came out, the establishment press blamed two known white nationalists without any factual basis. This was then discredited and a Muslim bystander was then blamed. It appeared to Geller and others that the attack was motivated by a dispute within Muslim ranks, a very obvious conclusion given 1400 years of Muslim history. But it did turn out to be a crazy, white nationalist. Situations like this are commonplace in the confusion when a story breaks. We all have seen media print retractions a day or so later, and we all accept this since reporters are human. However, Nicholson claims godlike abilities to discern truth, discounts everything Pamela Geller posts, and considers her a bigot without any substantiation except his own prejudices. This is a childlike view of the world, and another of his many instances of immaturity.

Often his posts read like riddles, I have to reread them several times in an attempt to understand them. I am still flummoxed by his calling Milo Yiannopoulos a misogynist for giving a talk about Muslim misogyny. When I disagree, he has frequently called me a racist. Never mind that Muslims aren’t a race, whatever his few cherished news sources tell him is truth. Nicholson constantly expects perfect people and pure situations. While I personally find it hard to forgive Putin for his many sins, the real world says a deal (and oil related) to destroy radical Islam is a good deal. We worked with Stalin to destroy the evil of Nazism. That’s the real world of imperfection and choice.

David Nicholson and Steven Frisch both share the technique of answering a question with a question and of changing subjects. And both have accused me of having perceptual or behavioral disorders. Frisch is the president of the Sierra Business Council. Although located in Truckee, they meddle in the affairs of Amador and other counties. This group believes in the total fraud of human-induced global warming and the restrictions that entails. They partner with several land trusts that remove land from most productive uses and invariably increase costs/prices for the rest of us. And they partner with ICLEI (Local Governments for Sustainability) that “… help cities to initiate, implement and monitor programs on promoting community well-being in the areas of health, sanitation, security, peace and happiness.”  This statement makes it rather explicit that they can define what happiness is and monitor us to see if we comply with their definition. They work with the European Commission, part of the European Union super state whose popularity is shown daily by the mass revolts of its constituents. And while the Europeans have many concerns, the most prevalent is the loss of their freedom to determine their destiny and maintain their culture amidst the multicultural onslaught of immigration jihad.

ICLEI promotes “Sustainable City-Region Cooperation” which “builds the conditions necessary to advance sustainability on the local, regional and subnational level.” This means that us Amadorians cannot use our resources nor have a vision of our future that isn’t subservient to someone else’s proscriptive ideology. ICLEI is structured to get around elected governments. It is rule by “the experts” living elsewhere. Better get ready for a career changing bed linen for the visiting Bay Area elite.

ICLEI is a repudiation of the Renaissance, the 18th century age of Enlightment and the founding documents of the United States. I would no more support ICLEI that I would the Nazi or Communist parties.  So if you encounter Steven Frisch or David Nicholson on Facebook be prepared to goosestep to their concocted environmentalist and globalist new world order or be severely rebuked.

Copyright 2017, Mark L. Bennett

Men are Men, Women are Women

The English that first settled New England were primarily farmers. When they saw that the Native American women were the farmers, they figured their men as wusses.  But as they encroached upon their territory, they were in for a rude surprise. We all know of families where the men handle the finances, and others where the women do. Certainly the women’s movement of the last half century and the suffragettes before them has been an event of equality and dignity.

But we live in a time that preaches diversity, yet enforces a barbaric code of gender identity. Mere children are undergoing sexual reassignment procedures because they feel like the other sex. Childhood is often a confusing time of learning and exploring. Some girls are tom boys. Some boys play with doll clothes and may become fashion designers. What has happened that we don’t hang loose anymore or accept realities that don’t threaten anybody?

Our abundance is based upon a specialization of labor that requires extensive training and has extended adolescence. This has increased the fertile period for confusion since one elects or is forced into an adult role at a much later age. Coupled with this has been the sexualization of childhood and internet access to materials once only found in dank shops in seedy neighborhoods. So the span in which one searches for secure identity has expanded to probably 20 years, in many cases.

For many, computer gaming has replaced group activities often at local churches and outdoor activities which ground one and teach awareness of real dangers. It’s also the perfect baby sitter and frees up time for texting. As I’ve said before, we are witnessing a new social synthesis and we are in the first innings. Certainly the destructive and unnecessary violence surrounding the anti-Trump demonstrations maybe a harbinger of what’s to come.

Copyright © 2017, Mark L. Bennett

Funding for Roads, Buses and Bikes

Recently the Ledger Dispatch published my Guest Editorial “Roads, Buses and Bikes”:

http://www.ledger.news/news/opinion/guest-editorial-roads-buses-and-bikes/article_d18c6792-d44f-11e6-a91c-bf54e09d49c0.html

Following that publication a bicycle enthusiast responded with:

http://www.ledger.news/news/editorials/guest-editorial---bike-riding-in-the-central-motherlode/article_31a15848-de8e-11e6-840d-afa16f2ef81a.html

I answered him with:

http://www.ledger.news/news/letters_to_editor/letter-to-the-editor-response-to-bike-riding-in-the/article_ec17bab2-e408-11e6-9761-8b617007cca0.html

Economic Collapse?

“…the leftists in important economic positions would do what they could to collapse the system in 2017 or 2018…because the American leftists are willing and ready to launch their own violent revolution while we are financially down.” http://canadafreepress.com/article/democrats-prepare-for-violent-revolution

This is probably true for many on the left, but certainly every middle-of-the-roader who Trump rubbed the wrong way and voted for Clinton isn’t about to encourage civil disorder.  But how would they behave in harder times? When I look around Amador County and consider political opponents, many of whom I’ve known for years, I find the thought of violence and intentional disruption of ongoing institutions incomprehensible. But what I do see is a chasm in cognition. When I have stated that the Wild & Scenic designation for parts of the Mokelumne River is selfish, I am met by disbelief.  While they are free to disagree, my concern is that they seem unable to understand my point of view. To my face at a public meeting, I was called insane because I didn’t accept the human induced global warming scam. On Facebook I have been called deluded and worse, because I couldn’t swallow as truth some established doctrine. And most likely the inventive yellow journalism of Eric Winslow and the rumors spread by others contributed to the result of our last supervisorial election.  So how will people across the nation respond to an economic collapse?

Trump was elected to get the economy going. The stock market has soared. Better trade deals, needed infrastructure spending and regulatory sanity all sound workable, but what is the economic backdrop given eight years of Obama’s magic aided by some policies of his predecessors? What capital resources does our now debtor nation have left? The benchmark Barclays U.S. Aggregate Bond Index is now 60% government debt. Last March Standard & Poor’s noted that corporate bond ratings are the lowest in almost 15 years. As of April, only two US corporations - Microsoft and Johnson & Johnson - had AAA ratings.

Household wealth has taken the same turn. The rate of home ownership, as of 2015, was the same as 50 years ago. Last year’s first time home buyers were the lowest since 1987. The number of homeowners under 35 years of age is at the lowest ever recorded.  Among middle income earners, the percent of income devoted to basic expenses has risen from 54% in the early 1970’s to 75% in the early 1990’s even before the Obamacare confiscation. Much of this was caused by environmental land use policies inducing housing scarcity. 

The same no-growth policies, often implemented via just a lawsuit threat, affect our industry. We import cement because our demand exceeds domestic production. Will infrastructure spending become a subsidy to Mexico? As of 2015, only one waste to energy plant has been built since the 1990’s despite growth in population and consumption while some people dare to complain about landfills. The twin sister of the environmental boondoggle, over regulation, has caused the number of community banks to skink by 1,524 between 2010 and 2015. This is our capital leaving our communities and being invested by those with interests often opposed to ours. Adding to middle class shrinkage are new rules preventing options trading in self directed retirement accounts. The overall cost per employee of Federal regulation, according to the National Association of Manufacturers, is $19,564; but for smaller manufacturers the cost per employee soars to $34,671.

The number of IPO’s, initial public offerings of stock to finance new businesses, has fallen 75% since 2002. Independent new car dealers have declined by 30% since 1987. Small businesses create seven out of ten new jobs.  Those under 500 employees created 63% of net new jobs from 1992 to 2013. The number of self-employed has declined to 10% in 2014 from 12.2% in 1994. Without scrappy new competitors the big have gotten bigger. US stock exchanges as of 2012 listed 56% fewer companies than they did in the exuberant year of 1997.  A study by a leading bank of 1,700 public companies found that almost 2/3 had increased their market share.  Yet their capital spending has fallen from over a thirty year average of almost 120% of internal funds (profits + raised capital) to a current 80%.The average age of equipment is the greatest it’s been since 1964. Not surprisingly productivity, the real basis for higher wages, has steadied at less than 1% since 2010.

A parallel and probably not unrelated trend has been the political tangents of our schools along with the deskilling of our labor force. Apple’s Tim Cook stated that they manufacture in China because of the skilled labor there. Republic Airways has reduced their flight schedule due to a pilot shortage. A survey by the National Federation of Independent Business reports a 20% increase in skilled worker shortage complaints since 2010. The manufacturing workers that have declined by 1.4 million since 2007 have been replaced by 1.4 million bartenders and restaurant workers. These low wage and often dead end jobs take an economic and emotional toll. Why bother, when 34 states and the District of Columbia pay more to not work and get welfare? The median welfare package equals $28,500 for the 50 states. Every 1.65 private sector worker pays for 1 person receiving some type of welfare assistance.  If you add in the government workers which includes those administering these programs the ratio drops to 1.25 private sector workers. Both sides of this equation–the overtaxed worker and the person not seeing opportunity beyond the dole–have reasons to be cynical. This fuels the recipe for social explosion.

Sufficient kindling abounds as we have seen with mall bawls, Black Lives Matter events, anti-Trump extravaganzas, children raised in fatherless homes or brought into the world only to increase one’s welfare check. Add in increasing drug addiction, and our best and brightest getting college degrees in fields like gender studies and the possibilities for collapse increase. While some will argue that a gender studies degree adds to understanding, the employment possibilities are primarily limited to teaching and perhaps human resources departments. In both these possibilities they are consuming wealth but not creating it. While these same people often preach diversity dozens of small colleges are going under and our religious institutions are under attack. This is the real diversity that we cherish because it sustains us, not the faux diversity of skin color or some other derisive tactic.

The aggregate statistics emanating from Washington paper over the deteriorating fundamentals. How much news coverage does the ongoing danger of our trade deficit receive? Or the Chinese banking crisis? Do the Europeans have time to consider this while running away from Muslim rape gangs or protecting their houses of worship from attack? Or is all this irrelevant since a few key strokes could create a derivatives trading cataclysm and bring down the banking system?

No one, be they globalists against Trump or any other possible villain, needs to engineer an economic collapse. All they have to do is push it over.  And while I don’t know what will happen, nor am I making any predictions, I can’t forget the words of Rudiger Dornbusch regarding economic behavior: “The crisis takes a much longer time coming than you think, and then it happens much faster than you would have thought.”

Happy New Year!                                                

Copyright 2017, Mark L. Bennett