Post No. 186: Why We’re So Anxious in America, Debate the Role of Government, and Ministers Suggest God’s Pissed

© 2012, the Institute for Applied Common Sense

There are two things we do religiously, neither of which has anything to do with religion.

First, we watch Turner Classic Movies daily. By doing so, particularly those out of the 1920s through the 1950s, we re-visit many societal issues. (And you thought we were simply entertaining ourselves.)

Second, we read two books simultaneously. One is invariably a school textbook, circa 1960s or 1970s, and the other is a book which students were forced to read, and which might be termed classics from other eras, such as Don Quixote, Death of a Salesman, Wuthering Heights, Bulfinch’s Mythology, etc.

By engaging in these exercises, we’ve come to appreciate the meaning of the phrase, “The more things change, the more things stay the same.”

The textbook we've been reading here recently is Technology in Western Civilization. What we’ve taken away from our re-reading of this book is that the most powerful forces in society affecting individuals are forces over which individual citizens have the least control. Individuals respond to movements and do the best they can to survive.

The movie which caught our attention featured Barbara Stanwyck as a mail order bride. (Imagine that!) In The Purchase Price (1932), Stanwyck is on the run from her mobster boyfriend. She heads to North Dakota during the Depression to marry a struggling farmer. Months later, she visits a neighbor’s home to lend a helping hand, only to find the woman on the floor with a new born baby. Stanwyck takes charge of the situation.

The next couple of minutes dazzled us. Our former big city girl unleashes an arsenal of survival skills, and sets about wrapping up the delivery, cooking, sewing, milking, repairing, hammering, and doing anything necessary, followed by trekking home in a blinding snowstorm.

And then it hit us - why we’re so anxious, debate the role of government, and ministers daily suggest that we’ve pissed God off.

Except for our families, and perhaps fellow parishioners, we’re pretty much out here all alone. We don’t mean to suggest that government should do anything for its citizens other than defend our borders, and provide police, and maybe fire services. However, after reading Technology, we have a better appreciation of how government stepped in to assist people, long before the New Deal, after throngs left (by choice?), their rural, agrarian roots for major industrial cities during the 19th and 20th centuries.

Few of us can do the things that Barbara did. Instead, we “want to be like Mike.” We’ve reached a point where most of us are totally dependent on cash revenue from some source to pay others to do things for us. Also, we’re generally not that talented in basic survival skills (like sucking rattlesnake venom out of a wound), although we might be great computer people, electricians, ad execs, doctors, or truck drivers.

We all get compensated with cash for our services. According to Technology, currency was one of the great inventions of humankind. But it came with a price.

What we came to realize by the end of the movie is that we are far less capable, at least as individuals, of helping one another because we are not sure whether we can help ourselves. We’ve become dependent on employers, customers, clients, or worse yet, the government. Very few voluntarily chose the route of the 47%.

King Kong ain’t got nothin' on insecurity.

A half-way decent job in a manufacturing plant, enabling one to take care of one’s self and one’s family (and develop a little self-esteem along the way), was a big deal at one time. And then they shipped trinket making to cheaper real estate, and warned us [via Toffler’s Future Shock (1970), and The Third Wave (1980)] that we were transitioning to a service economy. But the provision of services and the assembly of information don’t amount to much if no one is willing to pay for those services.

As a wise man once said, “Something only has as much value as someone is willing to pay.” And connecting what one has to offer with someone willing to pay became far more difficult in the global economic expansion.

There’s little question that we are anxious, and even some are angry. And that debate about the extent government should be involved in our lives is a legitimate one, because there aren’t any other obvious options. And while it is true that families aren’t as large, connected, and based in the same field as they used to be, it’s not God doing it to us because he’s pissed off.

We’re doing it to ourselves. And only we individual citizens have the solutions.

And that’s only common sense.

Post No. 166: What the Ku Klux Klan Has to Say about Our Dependence on Foreign Oil

© 2011, the Institute for Applied Common Sense

Earlier this week, a Saudi prince called for lower oil prices. Some of you might be surprised at what his statement revealed about how the Middle East views us, but we’ll get to that in a minute.

There are two stories upon which we often reflect in thinking about “group dynamics,” one involving relatively large groups and the other about small groups.

The first involves black folks. During the early 1970s, the top R&B/urban music station in Atlanta had a very popular black DJ, who used a large number of recorded exchanges between fictional characters to send messages to his listeners.

The one which struck us most forcefully was the purported conversation between 2 Ku Klux Klan members saying that to accomplish their goals, they need not waste their time, energy and bullets, since they could simply “place their guns on the shelves; because those _____ are going to kill themselves.” The DJ was trying to get his fans to appreciate the damage to the black community brought on by, what sociologists and urban specialists refer to as, “black on black crime.”

The second story reveals how in some instances, members of a group may have good intentions and the same ultimate goal, but disagree about how to go about achieving that goal. A well-educated, sharp, upper middle class couple we know had a child who suffered from a congenital condition which caused the child to self-inflict injury.

When the child was young, the parents disagreed about the course of treatment to address the condition. The disagreements continued over the years as the child grew older, and the child’s self-destructive behavior became more intense.

Once the child approached puberty, and grew stronger physically, the parents could no longer handle the child themselves, and were forced to have the child restrained initially, and ultimately confined to an institution. Shortly thereafter, the parents divorced (significantly because of the disagreements regarding the treatment), and the child no longer had the benefit, if any there were, of a parental support team to battle his unfortunate condition.

To this day, the parents argue about the “correct” approach to treatment.

Getting back to the Saudi prince, whose grandfather was the founding king of modern day Saudi Arabia, Al-Waleed bin Talal said Sunday that he prefers that oil prices decline so that western industrialized nations do not accelerate efforts to become energy independent. According to an article on CNN.com:

"’We don't want the West to go and find alternatives, because, clearly, the higher the price of oil goes, the more they have incentives to go and find alternatives,’ said Talal, who is listed by Forbes as the 26th richest man in the world.”

Actually, it seems like a smart approach on the part of OPEC, if you're in the catbird seat.

We don’t know about you, but that a foreign nation or some other entity has us by the balls, and does not mince words while clearly expressing it to the world, should be disturbing to us all. What’s more interesting is the paucity of outrage on our part that someone would characterize our internal “group dynamics” in such a manner.

The reason that we really can’t complain is because it is the "truth," (which unfortunately, despite the claims of many Baby Boomers, shall not "set us free" from this addiction).

We have no one to blame but our collective selves.

And yet like the couple with the child, we argue and debate the manner in which we should “wean” ourselves off of foreign oil. And while debate is always good, at some point there has to be resolution, followed by action.

Imagine a team of doctors treating a heroin addicted patient, debating the treatment approach and trying their various, conflicting approaches as the rehab facility administration changes from time to time, while the patient continues to use heroin for 40 years.

Is the current state of affairs a function of our governance model? Payments by Big Oil to our politicians? The American consumer’s love affair with driving and the individual freedom which goes along with driving one’s own vehicle? Is there a class issue associated with urban mass transit?

We don’t know. We doubt that anyone really knows. But we do know that we can’t keep delaying finding solutions to problems while engaged in doctrinal debates for very much longer.

It will be the death of us, by more forces than just oil.

Perhaps the Common Sense and Compassion Party formed this year by one of regular followers, the Independent Cuss, has the “right idea.” According to their Party Platform:

“We believe that neither should one kill the goose which lays the golden eggs out of spite (the ideological left), nor should one kill his neighbor and feed him to the goose as an artificial growth hormone for increased egg production (the ideological right).

Where does it all end?

Post No. 147: This Above All: To Thine Own Self Be True

We recently read an article about how President Obama became so unpopular in the short time since his election.

The Senior Fellow of the Institute, Laughingman, operates a couple of blogs. One focuses on marketing and advertising issues. We issued this challenge to his readers:

“What would ad professionals do to assist the President to improve his image / approval rating just before mid-term elections, considering he really can not do much about the economy?”

One of the participants responded with the following, which we decided to share.

© 2010, the Institute for Applied Common Sense

Simply put, President Obama has been poorly served by his political advisers. Some heads should roll, including that belonging to his Chief of Staff.

When newly elected President Clinton presented his first spending proposals, his economic advisers told him they were unaffordable, and that Wall Street would not put up with them.

This led to Clinton's famous lament, "Are you telling me that the future of my presidency is in the hands of a bunch of bond traders?"

Rahm Emmanuel's advice on the original melt down in Detroit is reported in Steve Rattner's book as, "[Muck] the UAW."

Considering the history of the Clinton administration's conflicts with Republicans in Congress, this was a strange and veracity-challenged approach to begin with. Considering that President Obama had represented himself as an individual capable of building bi-partisan coalitions with the opposition, his selection of Emmanuel boggles the mind.

From the beginning of the Clinton administration to the end of the Bush era, the share of national income trousered by the top 1% of earners increased from 9% to 28%.

To prevent a self-inflicted melt down of our banks, we are
lending the banks our money at less than 1%, and allowing them to lend it back to us at up to 15%, when they feel the urge to lend to us, if at all.

Housing prices, the engine behind the last recovery, are down by 30%, and are likely to fall even further while wages continue to fall, as corporations take advantage of a 9.5% unemployment rate, and a 16%+ underemployment rate.

In the mean time, CEO compensation for the 50% of companies which have dismissed the most workers has increased by better than 40%.

With two months left until the next election, and the President's approval numbers sinking faster than the Titanic (and about to explode a la Hindenburg), what is the best strategy to reverse the impending?

Simply let Obama be Obama.

And thus the title of this piece, which reflects the ultimate in personal responsibility.

A couple of years ago, the majority of voters elected a newcomer with some undefined, intangible quality which led them to say, “He’s our guy.”

It is his responsibility to lead using that same intangible which got him elected.

There is no way to change the opinions, however flaky and factless, of Rush Limbaugh's audience, or Glenn Beck’s parishioners. In this polarized society, the only path to Democrat survival is to get the Democrat faithful up off their asses and into voting booths.

Trying to defuse all of the disinformation floating around out there just
plays into the hands of the opposition, and the nation will be the loser in the long term.

On the announcement of the (equally ridiculed by Wall Street) $5/day wage,
Henry Ford explained he was trying to build a mass market product. "If my workers can't buy them, who will?"

That is not exactly the attitude "[Muck] the UAW" conveys.

Expanding Medicare and Medicaid to ensure that our citizens are protected
from health-borne economic disaster is not an extravagance - it is arguably part of the “unalienable right…” to the “pursuit of happiness.”

Last year, Humana, one of the nation’s largest health care providers, dismissed 700 health care professionals and replaced them with newly-hired accountants....

Can you spell "gaming the system?"

Our economy will continue to suffer until we find a way to rebuild consumer confidence which translates into buying power, which represents 70% of our GDP, and that’s not going to take place prior to the elections.

Giving members of Congress (the only class of criminals native to the
United States of America) something to be proud of may be beyond the powers of any president, but giving the voters a choice they can be proud of is part and
parcel of the president's Bully Pulpit.

At least that’s what I would do.

But in the next election, I’d rather be working for the Republicans. At least I would have a better chance of getting paid....

Post 84a: Article of Interest re Surprising Auto Sales in a Distant Land

Despite the problems faced by automobile manufacturers world-wide, there's one location where cars are selling like hotcakes. Guess where:

By the way, if that surprises you, although clearlyunrelated, do you recall this article which we posted in August of last year?

Post 82: Some Thoughts on the State of Technology in America

© 2009, the Institute of Applied Common Sense

Previously, in Post No. 79a, we posted an article discussing where we really are at this point in time, in connection with electric car technology. The Free Press article, which we referenced, also mentioned that the auto industry will need the long term cooperation and assistance of government to pull this off.

While we focused, in that post, on the debate between the competing “private enterprise/let the free market determine,” and the “government intervention/ regulation” factions, we later realized that we had failed to focus on the technology factor.

That realization came about when one of our readers, Robert, perfectly framed the issue, and brought some common sense back into the discussion about the state of technology related to batteries used in electric vehicles. We decided to generate this post to highlight the importance of his comment.

Simply put, Robert indicated that the technology is simply not there. Yet. (We invite you to examine it in its entirety toward the end of the comments to Post No. 79a.)

(Tangentially, Robert’s comment (along with its tone) so impressed The Logistician, who has an engineering and science background, that he suggested that we extend an invitation to him to join us here at the Institute for Applied Common Sense.)

We've often wondered, why it is that some "elements" in our society are always complaining about the failure of our nation (whether it be an attack on our educational system or private industry) to come up with technological advances in various areas, when they feel that we need them, or that it suits their purposes?

By "elements," we mean the non-scientific, non-engineer, non-inventor, political science and English majors, and the lawyers who run for elected office. For the most part, the members of these elements have not invented one single thing in their lives (with the possible exception of babies), and yet they have the gumption to preach about technological failures or miscalculations on the part of others.

Michael Crichton, shortly before his death last year, spoke of how we had, in this country, come to politicize science, to such an extent that it hurts our ability to have a realistic conversation about our technological needs and goals.

In a discussion, with a very well-respected scientist and leader in his field of research late last year, we asked this question: Why are we, the “general public,” not privy to scientific views and conclusions viewed as “givens” by the academic, engineering, and scientific communities, which significantly affect our lives and the quality thereof?

The Professor suggested one basic reason: the fear of being “Saganized,” or not being taken seriously because of one’s popular appeal, once the discussion enters the popular arena. (The term was coined in connection with Carl Sagan, who popularized science.)

We submit that there is a second: the fear of attack, from those factions (usually religious, financial, or political in nature) outside of their respective scientific communities, who have agendas unrelated to the advancement of science.

The conversation, at the national level in particular, has become perverted, and, as with many things in life, perversion of the analysis on the front end leads to perversion of the purported solutions on the back end.

If you have 300 cats in your large home or building, and you let them essentially do what they want to do on a daily basis, you can't exactly complain when, at the end of the day, your structure is not in the “condition” in which you would like.

Similarly, when a nation of 300 million lets its adult citizens pursue whatever educational and vocational interests they desire, and industry to pursue whatever legal goals it desires, we can not later legitimately complain about the state of our nation.

We're not saying that we necessarily need to change our current governance model, if it's what the majority of the citizens want. We're just saying that a responsible nation recognizes the consequences of its freedoms (aka actions), acknowledges them, and then figures out how to minimize the negative costs associated with the exercise of those freedoms.

Disingenuously blaming others does not advance that goal, or the long term interests of the nation, in dealing with scientific and technological issues (or any other issues for that matter).

© 2009, the Institute of Applied Common Sense

Post No. 81: Rear View Mirror: Post - Super Bowl Edition (or How Quickly We Forget)

© 2009, the Institute for Applied Common Sense

We are once again delighted to have a contribution by The Laughingman.

In the summer of 1971, then President Richard M. Nixon introduced the American public to mandatory wage and price controls, pursuant to the Economic Stabilization Act of 1970, setting off a wave of unintended consequences.

(For those of you under the age of 45, we have provided you with some nifty links enabling you to further explore this seemingly ancient history.)

President Nixon's action was largely the result of the cost of America's longest war... and its first defeat.

Both Nixon and his predecessor, Lyndon Baines Johnson, had correctly assumed that support for the conflict would totally evaporate should the American people get any idea of what it was actually costing. Consequently, both men played their economic cost cards very close to their vests.

Wage and price controls had two immediate impacts on both corporations and labor.

For corporations, any reduction in the price of a product to address declining economic circumstances was viewed as suicidal because of the possibility of the corporation becoming locked into that lower price into perpetuity.

For labor, compensation negotiations shifted from current pay to future benefits, effectively moving what the workers earned from pay to future promises of health care and retirement income.

Both groups had one thing in common - neither trusted the federal government.

As both struggled with this new reality, the government went chasing niche interests in hopes of building support for an increasingly unpopular war. Detroit was given a couple of years to make mandatory seat belt/ignition interlocks standard equipment on every car sold in the United States by the 1974 model year.

Our news papers became awash in "coupons" to be submitted to the retailer, or sent directly to the factory to obtain a temporary price reduction on just about anything. As soon as P&G discovered that more than 40% of these coupons were never redeemed, it began to change its strategy, from strength of wholesale sales based on pricing and advertising superiority, to coupons, thus shifting pricing and advertising largely to retailers.

Welcome to the game, Wal-Mart.

Unions came up with ideas like "job banks" to insure that if their workers could not share in economic upturns, at least they would not lose their income when the market turned down.

President Nixon, with new problems of his own, finally pulled American combat troops out of Viet Nam on March 29, 1973, but the cost of the war remained a lingering problem, even as that only class of criminals native to the United States, Congress, debated how the "peace dividend" could best be spent to their individual benefit.

It was a short debate.

The Yom Kippur War only lasted from October 6 to October 26, 1973 (some have advanced it lasted until December 23, 1973), but the Arab Oil Embargo lasted from October, 1973 to March, 1974... temporarily quadrupling the cost of oil.

On January 2, 1974, President Nixon signed the "Emergency Highway Energy Conservation Act" into law, basically denying federal highway funds to any state not immediately enacting a 55 mph speed limit.

The United States became the laughing stock of the world-wide automotive community.

The idea was to cut U.S. oil consumption by at least 2.2%. Interestingly, U.S. oil conservation never exceeded 1%... and by most independent analysis never got above .5%... nevertheless, the law remained on the books until 1995.

The laughter only got louder as the American consumer simply refused to buy an automobile equipped with technology that made it impossible to start unless everybody (and every heavy package) in the car was wearing a properly connected seat belt.

Not only did American corporations and labor no longer trust the government, it appeared that the government no longer trusted them.

Not surprisingly, light vehicle sales tanked. 1975 looked as if it would be lucky to reach half of 1973's volume.

On August 8, 1974, during the acoustic segment of a Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young concert in Newark, New Jersey, Richard Nixon resigned the presidency.

Six months later, during half-time at Super Bowl IX, Joe Garagiola suggested that the solution to all our economic ills could be solved fairly simply: "Get a car. Get a check."

Five years later, round about January, and on its way to 70 something consecutive monthly sales records, Tom Messner and Barry Vetere produced a $100,000 television commercial for Saab with a visual of empty car haulers driving down various roads.

The voice over ran something along the lines of, "Last year, Saab sold every single car they imported to America...even the 36 neon green ones with the orange interiors, and the rubber floor mats. So, if you want to buy a Saab this year, you might want to hurry."

This was clearly out of step with what had become standard automotive sales procedure, but according to Bob Sinclair...CEO of Saab NA at the time; "If you build cars that people want to buy, and price them accordingly, you don't have to bribe them to buy them."

Now that we’ve gotten beyond the hoopla of this year’s Super Bowl, and the depressing atmosphere at the recent North American International Auto Show, I would sure feel a whole lot better about the future or our automobile industry, if President Obama could find the time to have lunch with Bob, before we begin production of the new Pelosi.

© 2009, the Institute for Applied Common Sense

Post No. 79a: Article of Interest - Where are we in Terms of Electric Car Technology?

For the past couple of weeks, we have engaged in a conversation about whether the private sector or government should perform certain functions in society. We entertained all points of view, and even presented some arguments by Nobel Economics Laureate Milton Friedman, highlighting the different positions.

The following article appeared in the January 18, 2009 electronic edition of the Free Press. The article, entitled “Detroit 3 Say They’ll Need Help to Go Electric,” was written by Justin Hyde of the publication’s Washington staff. We’d like to hear from both free market advocates and government interventionists as to the factors which led to this situation, and what we might do going forward to accelerate the technological advance. Obviously just throwing money at the issue, no matter what the source, will not advance the technology overnight. Those of you with engineering or science backgrounds need not comment; this one is for the “policy” makers.

“When Tennessee Sen. Bob Corker strolled into the Ford Motor Co. display last week at the Detroit auto show, Mark Fields had his pitch for electric vehicles ready.

“The Ford vice president steered Corker toward a display showing the underside of a Focus converted to all-electric power, and pressed a case that Ford and other automakers couldn’t make such models happen alone.

“’We are really going to need to partner with the government and the electric companies,’ Fields said. ‘The infrastructure is key. If you’re going from one state to another, where are you going to plug in, what are you going to charge for it?’

“It’s the kind of conversation that Detroit’s executives will have plenty of practice with in the coming years…." [Read More.]