Put On Your Game Face for Job Creation

People want the availability of jobs; politicians talk about creating jobs. I just wonder if people and politicians know how to create a job. I seriously doubt most do or we would not find ourselves in our current situation of high unemployment and low job growth. Kind of big picture, would you not agree?

I have created jobs. I have not created many, less than a handful, but more than I can say most people have. Therefore, I can speak from experience.

Let start by defining ‘job’. Webster defines job as “work undertaken…done for private profit.” In other words, a person exchanges their service for some form of compensation. Compensation is typically monetary, but it does not have to be. Maybe one receives on-the-job training (aka education) via an unpaid internship. Theoretically, there are unlimited possibilities in structuring such a deal assuming no regulatory oversight (a post for another day).

The person that seeks to undertake work must be qualified to complete the work, especially so if they want monetary compensation. Additionally, the person needs to solve more problems than they create, which is extremely important and often ignored. I have found most people never bother to think about the problems they may create because they are so focused on themselves (& their paycheck). However, to solve problems requires skill and knowledge gained from an education.

Let's not confuse schooling with education. Have you ever wonder why young adults should have a four year college degree (which saddles parents and the young adult with years of debt) to have the best chance to secure a job that helps cover the costs to provide for oneself? It's because we are doing a lousy job in K-12. We are short changing our youth and jeopardizing our future standard of living.

To quote the Apollo 13 astronauts, “Houston, we have a problem.” I think the problem we face as a nation is just as dire. Similar to the Apollo 13 mission, we can solve our problem, but it requires us collectively acknowledging we have a problem, which is kind of hard when the blind lead the blind.

Republicans love to say education is a state and local issue, yet states (even those led by Republicans in ** cough ** Florida and Texas) continue to gut school funding. Local districts respond by cutting back hours (leads to a host of problems), cutting out PE (and we wonder why children are overweight – duh!) and art. What is not being cut is football. That sounds great, let’s export football! I guess the Republicans want us to home school; now that is local (works for some, but not a best use of our overall resources).

Democrats are not much better. Democrats support the unions first; unions are designed to support their members and the children are not members. Clearly, both parties have forgotten about our children and more importantly, our future.

Sony has a five minute thought provoking and entertaining video on YouTube, which can be found here. Even though it is two years old, it points out how technology and information is changing our world.

After watching the video, one may wonder whether our children are receiving the necessary skill sets with which to solve problems (and have the opportunity to have a decent paying job, which would cover the taxes to support our governmental commitments) in the 21^st century.

I doubt most children are being taught software coding skills, basic personal financial planning/management, etc... How about a second or third language? Even if a 1/8^th of the children in China and India receive such an education, it is more than all our children combined. In some parts of China, the children go to school on Saturday in addition to Monday through Friday. These countries are hungry and they are competitive. This alone should point out why our jobs are going overseas.

Those living in Asia can solve other peoples’ problems at a lower cost, have been and will continue to do so. In case no one told you, your job is not safe.

Instead of improving our football game, we need to improve our education game if we want to stay on top. I have my game face on. How about you?

Corrine Brown Outraged, I'm Outraged

Ms. Brown was recently quoted saying, "I am simply outraged by Florida Governor Scott's decision to reject $2.5 billion in federal funding for high speed rail…”

I am simply outraged, too! I am not outraged with Governor Scott's decision; I am outraged with Ms. Brown’s priorities.

As I pointed out in my October 5, 2009 post entitled, How Does SunRail Benefit The People?, Ms. Brown should focus her time and efforts on:

1. Early Childhood, Elementary and Secondary Education;
2. Healthy Families and Communities; and
3. Higher Education, Lifelong Learning, and Competitiveness.

I believe her efforts in those areas would help bring greater long-term benefit to her constituents, which the majority live in poverty.

As I pointed out in my April 23, 2010 post entitled, Saving Lives vs. Rail Transportation, Ms. Brown has invested 10,000 plus hours on transportation matters. Arguably, with Governor Scott's decision some of those hours have been wasted at the expense of children that will grow up in poverty and will probably stay in poverty the rest of their lives because they fail to receive the necessary skill sets to survive in the 21^st century.

I will say again, I am OUTRAGED! I am outraged with Ms Brown's priorities.

Sacred Cows Stand in Our Way; A Call To Action

Earlier this week our President released his budget for FY 2012 that begins October 1, 2011, which brought forth both praise and condemnation. Regardless, the budgetary process tells us a lot about ourselves (the voters), our elected official, and our electoral process.

Our FY11 budget states that we foremost want to provide for the elderly and the poor in the form of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid followed by protecting our borders and arguably those of our closest allies. However, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Defense and other mandatory expenditures consume more than 80% of our budget. To put in another perspective, these social and military obligations (aka sacred cows) more than exceed all tax receipts with which to fund the budget.

Therefore, if we want a balanced budget without touching these programs and/or raising taxes we most stop allocating approximately $1,000,000,000,000 (that is $1 trillion not the $60 billion everyone is making such a big deal about that the House wants to cut) to the non-mandatory programs in the following departments:

1. Health and Human Services,
2. Transportation,
3. Veteran Affairs,
4. State,
5. HUD,
6. Education,
7. Homeland Security,
8. Energy,
9. Agriculture,
10. Justice,
11. NASA,
12. Labor,
13. Treasury,
14. Interior,
15. EPA,
16. National Science Foundation,
17. Corps of Engineers,
18. Small Business Administration and
19. Other agencies.

Furthermore, if we want to start paying down the debt after cutting all these other programs we will need to raise taxes and/or reduce spending on these sacred cows.

Additionally, the outlays for Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid exceed the tax receipts specific to these programs by approximately $625,000,000,000 or approximately $2,000 per person for 2011 (therefore, a four person household is theoretically responsible for paying an additional $8,000 or $667 per month just for these programs before contributing to roads, education, housing, etc........................I bet you, that after deductions you paid Uncle Sam not much more than that in 2010 Federal taxes). This data point alone should tells us that our elected officials have very little financial common sense and that we are not much better off if we keep electing them.

I think we should cut out the non-sense and swallow the bitter pill, while it is still small, that nothing is sacred. I thought the deficit task force produced a great road-map; as anecdotal evidence, the recommendations arguably displeased both parties. However, our elected officials are doing what they do best; they have pretty much ignored the plan to protect their backers/supporters at the expense of the rest of the nation, kind of like what I found locally.

You and I may not agree where the budget cuts should occur, but hopefully you agree that cuts must be made. Regrettably, I believe taxes will need to be raised, too; I do not know any other way to pay down our debt (which amounts to approximately $50,000 per person or $200,000 per a four person household probably residing in a home at less than that value) absent monetizing it (which would probably wipe out the value in our savings via inflation).

I encourage you to call your representative in Washington; I believe it is in your best interest because if they are not hearing from you then they are hearing from lobbyists funded by special interests. You may find your representative's contact information here. Please call today. You may not reach anyone, but your representative does track the calls received.

I called my representative, Corrine Brown. It took less than a minute from looking up the number via the link above to providing the above mentioned information to the individual receiving calls.

Ms. Brown's staff person was polite, but the individual's hasty exit to end the call tells me that Ms. Brown does not care about our budget crisis. More specifically, the staff person could have responded to my concern by stating the actions Ms. Brown is taking to reign in our spending. Absent this dialog, I am left to believe Ms. Brown's interests lie elsewhere - please read the my other posts if you are a first time reader.

Given Ms. Brown's staff person's response, I decided to call Ander Crenshaw's (FL-4) office, which also took less than a minute. His staff person seemed more interested in hearing me out, but also seemed just as clueless. However, I believe the individual would pass along my concerns, which is much more than I can say about Ms. Brown's office.

If you do not want to call, you could copy pertinent parts of this post or even the URL for this post and paste it in an email to your representative. Your representative's email can be found here.

If you do not want to do that, how about you share the information with your friends and family? I figure if enough people know, then our elected officials will eventually receive word.

Political Rhetoric

Little over three weeks ago a crazed gunman shot US Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords (AZ-8) in the head. Some early reports speculated that the shooting was politically motivated, which led others to comment, one being Corrine Brown. Ms. Brown stated, “certainly, one of the greatest components of American democracy is to be able to resolve conflict through compromise and dialogue, not senseless violence.”

I agree with Ms. Brown in principle.

While we might debate to the degree, if any, whether the shooting was politically motivated or not, but I believe Ms. Brown's statement is apropos. I think the current state of our 'political rhetoric' needs improvement as evidenced by the increasing polarization that has occurred in Congress between the two political parties over the past two decades.

I think Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s maxim “don’t raise your voice, improve your argument”, which he attributed to his mother, points to the difficulty. Improving one's argument requires a lot of work. It requires active listening, knowledge of facts with which to support one's position and the skill to know how to position one's counter arguments. It is not easy, which I think helps explain:

1. Why people resort to using aggressive language, behavior and or force to achieve one's desires and
2. Why politicians revert to negative ads.

The use of rhetoric is not new; it is one of the original seven liberal arts (the others are grammar, logic, arithmetic, astronomy, music and geometry). I think if we were to embrace the true concept of rhetoric, we would accomplish more because we would be actively engaged in solving problem(s) and not trying for one-upmanship.