Magic Valley Mormon

Tax Money Going to Fund Not Radio, But NPR Executives

2011-01-12T07:40:00.001-07:00

Defenders of NPR have noted the Washington main organization -- local stations are the jewels of the public radio crown -- receives only $2.4 million annually in federal grants. That's a small amount as these things go, so why doesn't NPR cover that sum with private donations and voluntarily end the taxpayer-funding contretemps?

Now it turns out the NPR president was paid $562,000 last year, and the year before that, NPR paid $2.4 million to its top two executives. So much of the federal tax money, derived by borrowing and handing the bill to our children, isn't funding newscasts or opera -- it's going into the pockets of NPR executives. Americans whose median income is about $50,000 are being taxed so that executives can live in luxury. This was offensive when AIG was the beneficiary, and it's offensive with NPR the beneficiary.

Don't Blame the Caucus For Non Voters

2010-11-11T13:31:00.003-07:00

According to the Census Bureau, there are 22,914 people in Eagle Mountain. Of those, 12,053 are adults. Of those adults, 8,179 are registered to vote, which makes for a slightly respectible 67.9%. However, in the recent election only 2,991 of registered Eagle Mountain residents actually voted. That breaks out to a 36.6% registerd voter turnout, but in reality only 24.8% of adults in Eagle Mountain bothered to vote. Which is pretty average for Utah, and for Utah County.

Utah's generally paltry voter turnout is a cause for concern. Many point to our caucus system for the low numbers. But I don't buy it. What's being missed is that there are non-caucus related issues on the ballot. Issues which directly affect every person living in a community.

As I wrote about earlier, Eagle Mountain voted on a bond to build an aquatic center. It was a hotly contested issue which caused turnout to town hall meetings and city council meetings over the last at least two years. It directly affects everyone living in the city limits, and hits the pocket book of every single property owner. It is completely outside of the caucus system, and is direct democracy in action. If the caucus haters are correct, it would bring voters to the polling location in droves.

Not only did the issue not bring out more voters, three hundred fewer people voted in the bond election than voted for the other caucus tainted offices.

Alpine School Board Elections

2010-10-28T13:38:00.001-06:00

A few members of the Alpine School Board are up for reelection, including my representative, Donna Barnes. I will not be voting for Mrs. Barnes, and am deeply disappointed in the entire board. I feel they have grown to epitomize the "we know better than you, now sit down" attitude elected officials often adopt.

One experience I have had with them highlights this point. Recently a new elementary school was built in Eagle Mountain a little over a mile from my home. Prior to its construction my children attended a school which is literally across the street from our neighborhood. The kids walked to school together every day in big groups. Many parents volunteered in large part because it was so close. So when the new lines were drawn up and my neighborhood was being sent to the school over a mile away many of us protested. Parents attended meetings for months, came up with a viable alternative and presented our plan to the Board and its committee.

Eventually it came down to a final presentation at a Board meeting. Our group came in large numbers and had an impressive presentation complete with statistics and even traffic studies. It was one of the most impressive displays of grassroots involvement I've ever seen. Perhaps most impressive was that the presentation was based on sound argumentation and was devoid of needless anger or emotion. Which is an important point because of what happened next. Our position was far too commonsensical to be adopted, and we were voted down almost unanimously. One member even abstained from voting because it was just too hard of a decision.

That night I went home and penned an email which I sent to every member of the Board. Again, it was not a "Crazy Parent Being Senselessly Angry" email. Quite the contrary. But I did express my frustration at feeling like the decision was made months previous and all the work my neighbors had done to lobby their representatives on the School Board was pointless, that all of the information that had been gathered had been too easily dismissed. I received an email response from the Board president, who I assume was speaking for the Board as a whole, since it was the only response I got. And it was akin to being a kid who's parent tells them "because I said so, now go away." It in no way addressed anything from the presentation or from my email. I wanted some insight as to the decision making process, as nothing that was said at the Board meeting did so. Instead, I was told that if I was less emotional I would agree with the Board, that the decision makers are all professionals who have done this many times and if I weren't so blinded by emotion I would see it their way.

In effect, after a presentation full of data and checkable facts, I requested more detail as to what specifically overrode those arguments. And I was told I was much too emotional for that. Huh? Now I feel like the Board gave us a collective pat on the head and sent us on our way. What's ironic is that in their fear (I assume that's the explanation for their behavior) of dealing with angry parents, they have created angry parents.

This is not how elected officials should behave. Therefore, they should no longer be elected officials.

Eagle Mountain Aquatic Center Bond

2010-10-26T12:54:00.004-06:00

Next week Eagle Mountain City will have a $7 million bond on the ballot to build an aquatic center. The center will have a lap pool, a lazy river, concessions, party room and more. It will cost a $200k home an additional $70 a year in property tax. Commercial property of the same value will pay an additional $125.

The center has been a few years in the making, and has actually been pared down from a larger multipurpose recreation facility. Proponents argue that because we have so many children, our city needs a rec center like this one. They say it will attract business to the community as these unnamed business leaders won't take us seriously unless we have additional amenities to offer. What they don't explain is how higher business taxes will be enticing as well.

I am not in favor of this bond for a few reasons. One is the previously mentioned increase of business taxes. Another is the increase is personal taxes. Particularly at a time when housing values are falling yet our property tax bills are not. I will be voting no if for no other reason than that watching my neighbors struggle with job losses, decreasing pay and hours, and some even losing their homes trumps my desire for a cool lazy river to take the kids to in the summertime.

But another reason has lately reinforced my opinion that this bond is a bad idea. Eagle Mounatin is in the Alpine School district. Alpine passed a $300 million bond in 2006 which built and remodeled schools all over the district, including $65 million for a new high school and $32 million for a middle school, both of which Eagle Mountain students now attend. The $300 million has been spent, and the district is planning on putting another bond on the ballot next year. Included in the district's future spending plans are more schools in Eagle Mountain, specifically our own High School and Middle School. So I ask, when our city has $90 million worth of new schools to build (and this doesn't count additional elementary schools), is it wise to be throwing money at an outdoor pool? For me, this was the final nail in the coffin for the aquatic center. How on earth can anyone rationalize spending millions of dollars on a lazy river and lap pools when we have literally a hundred million dollars to spend in the next 18 months? I for one cannot.

Pure Genius in Print

2010-07-31T09:07:00.002-06:00

Witty, timely and humorous. This writer has it all:

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/700051712/Take-cue-from-Hollywood.html

Congress Set To Make History Again, And Again In A Bad Way

2010-07-11T15:36:00.003-06:00

Last year President Obama tried to push through his brand of health care reform before Congress recessed in August. The rush backfired and proved to be the straw that broke the camel's back for an already angry citizenry. Americans turned out in droves to congressional town hall meetings that August to express their displeasure. As Peggy Noonan writes in the Wall Street Journal, members of Congress were caught flat footed by the response and were revealed for the unprincipled, elitist and uninformed blow-hards they have always been.

But perhaps more amazing is the fact that they passed their reforms anyway. It took them a while, and it looked dead on more than one occasion, even costing them "Teddy Kennedy's Senate Seat". But they did it. And they did it despite almost 60% of the country opposed to it.

As elected representatives, voting against what your constituency clearly wants is not the best strategy for reelection. And now its time to pay the piper. Democrats are likely to lose a significant number of seats this fall, perhaps even losing control of the House.

And what is the Democratic response to clear voter disapproval of their policies?

Ram through as much of their crap policies as they possibly can before they're forced out.

there have been signs in recent weeks that party leaders are planning an ambitious, lame-duck session to muscle through bills in December they don't want to defend before November. Retiring or defeated members of Congress would then be able to vote for sweeping legislation without any fear of voter retaliation. "I've got lots of things I want to do" in a lame duck, Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D., W. Va.) told reporters in mid June.

This is truly despicable. And blatantly so. They started recess early this year because they don't want to face their constituents with more bad laws just before the election. But they clearly plan to pass every bad law in their play book when actually facing the voters isn't possible. What a horrible, political, tyrannical, disgusting thing to do.

Of Hitler & Hubris

2010-06-28T18:22:00.004-06:00

Over the years I've heard an argument stated over and over again that's meant to silence debate. The argument is that Nazis were conservatives - that they are examples of the far right. I've always dismissed this argument for the grenade lobbing it is, but the last few months I've been reading a history book called "For the Survival of Democracy" by Alonzo Hamby. Written in 2004, the book looks at the leaders who were swept aside and those that replaced them in the aftermath of the worldwide economic collapse of the early 1930s. Hamby discusses the leadership in Germany, Great Britain and the United States and the social context that each leadership group was working in.

As he writes of the Nazi party's rise, Hamby has this to say about their first real party platform:

The contest would be primarily a test of Nazi staying power. The party presented for the first time a comprehensive economic recovery program. It called for extensive state control of the economy, national self-sufficiency (autarky), the abandonment of the gold standard, new means of credit based upon the productive power of the nation, the nationalization of the banking system, and the development of a home market in which German agriculture and industry, protected from foreign competition, would produce goods to be consumed by workers paid fair wages. it proposed returning hundreds of thousands of urban workers to small farms on reclaimed marshland. The state would control prices and manage industrial expansion, favoring it in areas that needed enlargement, prohibiting it in those that already were overbuilt. A special income tax would finance a fund for creating employment. Farmers would receive discounted credit. A generous social insurance and old-age pension system would be maintained. All young men - no exceptions for "the educated or the propertied: - would be enrolled in compulsory labor battalions at once serving the state and dignifying manual labor.

On what planet does that platform resemble conservatism?

One example I've often heard is that in the run up to gaining power the Nazis often violently clashed with Communists. But in learning more about the context of those clashes, it's become clear that they were based more on a struggle for power than they were over opposing ideologies. The Nazis staged most of those riots for the express purpose of weakening the fledgling German democracy. It was about power, and power alone. Hitler would have sent out his brownshirts after any rival political party, regardless of ideology.

So while I've always dismissed the Nazi charge as nonsense, it's been interesting to study history and learn that not only is the charge nonsense, it's also factually inaccurate.

Representative Carl Wimmer's Abortion Bill

2010-03-05T10:13:00.002-07:00

Here's the text of the original bill, and here's some Tribune reporting.

There is much about this bill to debate. Debates which could have brought about very interesting discussions and perhaps even greater understanding. However, instead of that happening, we were bombarded with FUD arguments like sending women to prison for falling down the stairs, or slipping on ice. Take this quote from Common Dreams.org:

Statistics suggest that 15 to 20 per cent of recognized pregnancies end in miscarriage. "This creates a law that makes any pregnant woman who has a miscarriage potentially criminally liable for murder," said Missy Bird, director of Planned Parenthood Action Fund of Utah, part of the national organization that champions abortion rights.

For crying out loud, this is just stupid. It's nothing but scare tactics, and it's an insult to the intelligence of Utahans.

And that's what makes me the most angry. Instead of having a healthy and potentially mind opening discussion, I'm forced to read these lame articles filled with stupid arguments on my friends' facebook pages. These kinds of FUD arguments sound good in the papers and can be very effective at moving legislation, but they harm regular people and distort our water cooler conversations, not to mention feed the anti-Utah undercurrent present in our state.

So please, can we just talk like normal people once in a while?

SB 150 - Holding Back Your 1st Grader

2010-02-13T08:17:00.003-07:00

Senator Karen Morgan introduced SB 150 - Reading Requirements for Student Advancement. It "requires that students in first, second, and third grades read at or above grade level prior to advancing to the next grade, with certain exceptions."

The focus of SB150 is to force students, parents, and teachers to ensure students can read at their class level. The goal is not to hold them back a grade, it's to threaten it so that everyone involved takes reading more seriously. Which may sound great in theory, but I think there are a number of possible unintended consequences to this policy.

The fiscal note says that if students are kept back that would add another child to the system for another year, thereby increasing costs. Sen. Morgan said that 20% of students leaving third grade don't read at grade level. If even half of those are held back, that increases our student population by 10%. In a state where we already have a student overpopulation problem, with its attending cost issues and class size problems, this policy doesn't seem like a good idea.

I would much rather see our efforts going toward lowering class sizes in grades 1-3 because that has shown to have the greatest effect on student achievement. With smaller class sizes, students in those grades would not only increase their reading ability but would show improvement across the board.

Should Cities Fund Rec Centers?

2010-02-10T17:56:00.002-07:00

I live in Eagle Mountain, which has about 20,000 residents. Last year around this time city officials started circulating a plan to build a rec center. The closest center to Eagle Mountain is in Lehi, about a 20 minute drive away. Having our own center has been a strong desire of many residents, and many elected officials, for some time. However, when the city's plan to finance one was made known last year, there was strong opposition based on economic issues. So strong, in fact, that the city put all plans on hold. I'm sure that it being an election year had nothing to do with that decision.

I attended some of last year's meetings regarding the proposed rec center. It was stated that no private enterprise would build a facility like those that cities build. The closest thing we would have would be a Gold's Gym type workout center. But anything with swimming facilities and climbing walls and senior citizen areas etc. would never be built without public funding. There is just no money to be made in that area, we were told.

Since then our pro-rec center mayor was reelected and we added a strong proponent of the center to the city council, so it comes as no surprise that the idea is anything but dead. However, what strikes me about this issue is that the economic concerns voiced by the public last year have not really gone away, and even if they had for most people, there will always be some who have economic problems. If it's unjust to impose higher taxes when everyone is feeling threatened by the economy, then isn't it unjust if even one homeowner feels threatened?

So it would seem that raising taxes to pay for a rec center hinges on the question of whether a rec center is necessary for the common good. In this vein, I've heard it compared to city parks. Parks are paid for and maintained by public funds - everyone is taxed for them and they consistently need public funding to remain solvent. No one seems to have any problem with city parks which are clearly recreational facilities, so why would there be opposition to an indoor recreation facility?

While that argument seems logical, I'm not sold. Racquetball courts and family swimming centers would be great. My family would certainly love it. But I remain unconvinced that it is something that falls within an acceptable use of tax revenue.

Did Lies Change Health Care Reform Debate?

2010-01-25T06:07:00.000-07:00

That's the question many are in a rush to answer in the wake of the Democrats losing their 60th seat in the US Senate. It's not that the public doesn't want this reform, the reasoning goes, it's that Republicans lied about reform and those lies are what turned the tide.

In light of this, let's review the history of the health care reform debate, and take a look at the lies it produced.

-There are 46 million uninsured Americans
-Democrats only want a public option, not a single payer. And the public option won't ever lead to a single payer system
-You will get to keep your current insurance if you want it even after the reform is passed
-We have a free market health care system in the US, and that is what is to blame for rising costs
-Preventive care drastically reduces total health care costs
-There are no sweetheart deals with the drug company lobbyists
-It will only cost a trillion dollars
-All the deal making would be shown on C-Span
-There would be no tax on so-called "Cadillac Plans"

Democrats lost the health care reform debate for two reasons: 1) Their ideas don't work 2) They lied about their ideas not working

Was the Supreme Court's Decision a Victory for Free Speech, Or Did It Do Damage?

2010-01-23T13:01:00.003-07:00

I'm not sold either way just yet. Though I lean towards thinking that if the government had less influence over the economy, then business would have less interest in wasting money trying to buy off government.

But here's a few quotes from Fox News that I'd like feedback on:

On Thursday, the Court overruled that earlier case and also part of a 2003 case involving BCRA, finding the earlier anti-distortion rationale to be “unconvincing and insufficient” to justify government censorship of political speech. Instead, the Court noted that ordinary people often need to pool their money into an organization they support, to use those pooled funds to get their message out about the issues they care about when elections are approaching. Rather than drown out the little guy, this option allows groups, be they Citizens United, the National Rifle Association, or the Family Research Council, to be a megaphone for the little guy, informing the voters of what’s at stake.

If this argument holds water, then the Court's decision would be seen as a victory for free speech, no?

Here's another:

Suppose that a company or a union can't take out radio or television ads supporting a candidate. It still has other options: It can produce a critical movie, such as "Hillary: The Movie," or publish a critical book. Authors making the rounds of radio and television shows during their book tours can help provide information that supports one candidate over another.

Indeed, when President Obama's Deputy Solicitor General, Malcolm Stewart, first argued the case "Hillary: The Movie" before the Supreme Court last March, Justice Samuel Alito asked him if the government could prohibit companies from publishing books. Stewart said that was indeed possible. "That's pretty incredible," Alito responded, and then he pointed out that most book publishers are corporations.

"If [the book] has one name, one use of a candidate’s name, it could be covered?” Chief Justice John Roberts then asked. And Stewart replied: “That’s correct.” “It’s a 500-page book, and at the end it says, so vote for X. The government could ban that?” Roberts asked. Again, Stewart said yes.

This makes it sound as though it's just another attempt to get rid of the Glenn Becks and Ann Coulters of the publishing world, who also just so happen to dominate the best seller lists. But perhaps more sinister is the realization that the law gives the government considerable power in determining what is "proper" political speech. And that's not something that either the Left or Right should be approving of.

Move On Tells Us the Magnitude of Scott Brown's Win

2010-01-22T17:00:00.004-07:00

In the aftermath of Scott Brown beating Martha Coakley in the Massachusetts Senate race, pundits, both of the professional and the in-your-parent's-basement type, have been playing tug of war over what the election really means. Reading all these pundits simply shows that hindsight in this case seems to muddy rather than clear the waters. For that reason I went back to the archives and found this breathless email from Moveon.org, sent on January 8th, 11 days before the election, titled,

"Urgent: A Republican in Ted Kennedy's seat?"

Horror of all horrors! They said a Coakley loss would be "devastating", and that "health care could die, and the Republicans could block pretty much anything they want."

In order to avoid such a catastrophic outcome, Moveon invoked "progressive hero" Ted Kennedy's name seven times in the email. They quoted Kennedy's widow Vicki, who said, "My husband fought for healthcare reform for more than 40 years. Martha Coakley shares those critical beliefs."

Clearly Moveon saw this election as a referendum on health care. Clearly they thought that Massachusetts voters wouldn't dream of replacing a progressive health care reform icon with the very vote that could end the momentum of what is the closest the country has been to progressive reform in decades. Clearly, they were wrong.

Peter Breinholt - Christmas Eve Song

2009-12-24T10:28:00.000-07:00

What Will You Give

2009-12-21T11:07:00.000-07:00

Christmas Hymns

2009-12-04T17:16:00.000-07:00

My two favorite Christmas hymns are Silent Night and O Holy Night.

The words to Silent Night were written in Austria in 1816 by a priest named Joseph Mohr. He wrote it as a poem, and took it with him when he was transferred to a village called Oberndorf the next year. On Christmas Eve 1818 he travelled to his friend Franz Gruber’s house in a nearby village and asked him to write a melody for his poem. That night the two of them sang Silent Night with a guitar accompaniment for Midnight Mass. From these humble beginnings came one of the most popular songs of all time.

O Holy Night was written when a French poet named Placide Cappeau was asked by a priest to write a poem for Christmas Mass. Cappeau was on a trip to Paris on December 3, 1847 when he pondered the birth of Jesus as recorded in Luke chapter two. He pictured what it would be like if he had been there the night of the Savior’s birth and through that inspiration came the words to O Holy Night. Though only asked to write a poem, upon arriving in Paris he asked his friend Adolphe Adam to put it to music. As the song gained in popularity over the ensuing years, its author and composer both suffered through persecution and hardship. As with Silent Night, the authors of O Holy Night were of humble origins and hardly knew they had written what would become one of the world’s most beloved hymns.

To me, the stories behind my favorite Christmas carols perfectly represent the spirit of the season. Christmas has become a hugely popular holiday the world over, but it has its beginnings in a humble stable. It was hardly what one would expect of the birth of a King. Perhaps this is why I love Christmas music so much – it helps me to remember the circumstances surrounding the birth of Christ, as well as the life He lived. It is a joyful and exciting event, yet it’s also a sacred and humbling one.

California: "Think of it as a forced, interest-free loan"

2009-11-02T11:30:00.003-07:00

I'm an accountant. As such I've done tax returns in the past as part of my employment, and still do a few here and there each year. One of my biggest pet peeves is people having a large withholding balance at year end when they don't really need one. See, the way taxes work is that each paycheck your employer withholds paying you a certain amount and sends that amount to the federal and state government. The reason for this is so that the government has consistent cash flow throughout the year to pay its bills. At the end of the year and sometime before April 15 you figure out what your tax bill is, and then you subtract what you've already sent to the government. If the number is positive, then you have to pay more to make up the difference. If it's negative, then that means you've overpaid and you get money back. Overpayment means that you have lent the government money all year long, interest free. So even though you're excited to get a big tax return, you've actually lost money on the deal.

Well, the state of California has taken that scenario one step further.

Because California is so inept at budgeting, they've found themselves in serious red ink. They don't have enough cash to pay their bills. Usually when states find themselves in this situation, states like our very own, they either raise taxes or cut spending. But the geniuses out west are doing neither.

California is simply going to withhold 10% more money from its residents. It's not a tax increase, so they'll pay it back when you file your return next year. But between now and next spring Californians are unwillingly going to give their state a huge, $1.7 billion interest free loan.

Sutherland Institute's Prosperity Forum: Utah's Budget

2009-10-29T13:31:00.003-07:00

I attended the Sutherland forum on the state budget this afternoon. The panelists were Representative Rob Bigelow, Salt Lake Chamber president Lane Beattie, Deputy State Superintendent Dr. Martell Menlove, and former Governor Norm Bangerter.

Lane Beattie spoke first, stating that this is "one of the most difficult years in the history of Utah". He said the state had revenues of $5.3 billion in 2007, and has dropped a billion dollars to only $4.3 billion. Budget cuts need to be the "right cuts, right time, in the right place".

He said the state funded for growth in public education, but not in higher education. A situation he thinks is a mistake since higher ed has seen large increase in demand specifically because of the economic downturn. This year the Chamber expects a 12,000 student increase in higher education, and the chamber wants more funding. They advocate reinstating the sales tax on food, indexing the tax on motor fuel, taxing coal, and rescinding other tax cuts and exemptions if even for a short period of time.

Next up was Dr. Martell Menlove, who said officially public education had a 2% budget reduction last year, but because of 15,000 enrollment growth the effective cut amounted to 7 1/2%. Without those cuts 500 additional teachers would have been hired. He proposed that public education received level funding this year.

Finally, Norm Bangerter spoke. He recognized that there are polls showing current support for higher taxes to fund education. He then told the story of when he was governor and had the same situation; polls in favor of higher taxes. So he raised taxes for education, and consequently saw his approval rating drop from 75% to 41% in just two weeks. I spoke with him about this for a few moments after the forum, and he again remarked that there is at times a disconnect with how Utahans answer polls and how they actually vote. I found this interesting coming on the heals of my recent education funding post. Governor Bangerter said he supports reinstating the sales tax on food, but also said, "I don't think we can take a general tax increase."

At the end of the panelist remarks there was a Q&A session. The most interesting part of which was when, on the heels of a questionor being told that every department should expect a lower budget, someone asked if government has a moral responsibility to needy or disabled citizens. Representative Bigelow answered that yes there is a responsibility, but the state only has a certain amount of money, and the budget must be balanced. This led to Dee Rowland, who I recognized from her time as a panelist for Sutherland's SB81 forum, to say that she saw the need for higher revenue (read: higher taxes) and thinks that Utahans would support this as well. She then asked what she and others could do to help the Legislature drum up support for raising taxes. Representative Bigelow's response was interesting. He said that he often hears people say they would be willing to pay more taxes to fund X program. The problem is that the support is not broad based. Everyone has certain things they would like to fund, but it's really an issue of balance, and balancing the needs of different groups. These budgeting issues are really about shifting the impact from one group to another. As for convincing the public to support higher taxes, Rep Bigelow didn't seem too optimistic. He said the public generally drives itself and that even the media with all its influence can't really drive it. At this point Governor Bangerter interjected and said that the polls may say there's support for higher taxes, but that he doesn't believe it was true.

Also of note is that after the forum was over, the lady who asked the question about government's moral responsibility to provide for people spoke with Gov Bangerter about that topic. Part of his response was that often those who talk about wanting the government to provide assistance don't provide that assistance themselves, despite being very well off. He said we currently have a president who made a million dollars last year and gave about 1% of it to charity.

Utah's Medicaid Doesn't Check for Fraud. On Unrelated Note, Medicare Losing $90 Billion A Year to Fraud

2009-10-28T14:25:00.006-07:00

I recently discovered that our state Medicaid program is incredibly inept at catching fraud. Why is this important, you ask? Because 60 Minutes just did a piece about how Medicare is being defrauded out of $90 billion a year because they too are inept at catching it.

But yeah, a single payer system would be totally cool.

Watch CBS News Videos Online

Jeffrey R Holland - Safety for the Soul

2009-10-25T13:42:00.002-07:00

Heather Graham Starring as Public Option - She Should Be Running By Herself

2009-10-21T21:39:00.000-06:00

Because that's what the public option is all about.

More Absurd Lies in Health Care Discussion

2009-10-21T11:37:00.003-06:00

I recently wrote about an interview NPR conducted with the author of a new book which shows that Lyndon Johnson lied to the American public in order to get Medicare passed. In the words of the author,

"One of the things he did was suppress the costs...if the true cost of Medicare had been known, if Johnson hadn't basically hidden them, the program would never have passed."

I tied this propensity for lying to the various lies and misrepresentations coming from Congress and the White House in the ongoing health care reform debate. This of course was dismissed as "full of logical absurdities".

In light of that discussion I was interested to read this editorial reprimanding the White House for using legislative tricks, in other words lying, to suppress the true cost of the latest health care reform bill being bandied about. It seems that in order to get under their self-imposed cost threshold, Congress has simply moved $247 billion in costs to a different bill which wouldn't go into effect for a year. It's the very definition of a shell game. This one designed to trick deficit conscious people into supporting this reform bill.

Utah's Medicaid Has Major Issues

2009-10-16T17:23:00.003-06:00

In August Utah's Legislative Auditor General released the findings of its audit of the state's Medicaid program. What it found was a program which spends $1.7 billion a year, but has almost no oversight of where it's going.

Reading through the 100 page report, I was struck by the systemic failure exhibited by Medicaid. There is an appalling lack of oversight in basically every area the auditors looked at. From prior authorizations, to provider screening and enrollment, to fraud recovery, and internal policing - it all failed miserably. Each of these areas are critical points in keeping costs down and avoiding fraud and waste, yet the guidelines are either non-existent or so lazily enforced as to be worth less than the paper they're printed on.

For clarification, Medicaid is health insurance for low income people administered by the state of Utah, but funded with both state and federal money. Utah kicks in about $500 million of the total $1.7 billion spent.

There were a couple of things in the audit that stuck out at me. First is that 95% of that $1.7 billion is not reviewed for fraud at all. Organizationally, Medicaid is set up to ignore whether those payments to dentists, doctors, and hospitals are legit or not. There could be double billing, useless tests or exams, or out and out fraud, an no one will ever find out. Which in itself is concerning, but then it's coupled with the fact that Medicaid doesn't review its providers (the doctors, dentists, and hospitals) either. Anyone who wants to be a part of the Medicaid program is accepted, even if they have a history of fraud. So we accept any possible fraudster out there, and then we don't monitor their billings at all. Sounds like a recipe for disaster to me.

And disaster might be what we're getting. The auditors cite a national study which says that on average the low end of fraudulent cases is 3% of total billings. The auditors stress this is a conservative estimate. Well, Utah Medicaid finds and gets money back on about 1.7% of its total spending. But even that low number is misleading because most of that returned money comes not through our efforts, but because private insurance companies find out that Medicaid had paid for a service that was actually the private company's responsibility, and instead of pocketing the savings they fix the problem and pay for it themselves. So Medicaid on its own actually only finds and recovers a fraction of 1% of fraud. Again, this speaks to the total lack of oversight and due diligence by the program.

The most glaring deficiency in the audit is that, again because of poor guidelines and organization, Medicaid itself is never audited. There are no independent internal audits being conducted to ensure everything is on the up and up. So not only does Medicaid not audit providers or look for fraud, but no one is auditing Medicaid either.

The reason all of this is important really comes into focus through a specific, real life example written of in the audit. A provider bills medicaid for $370,000. Medicaid has to determine if the services were actually necessary before they pay for them, so they request medical history documentation. The requested documents never come, so Medicaid doesn't pay. The provider starts an appeal process so they can get their money, but even then they file the appeal late and still don't send the medical documents. Finally, they drop the appeal and go straight to the Medicaid director. Up to this point everything has been handled ok, despite the persistent lateness of the provider. Even going to the director is somewhat supported by written guidelines. At this point the director should have gotten the medical documents, reviewed them, and then made a decision. Instead, he unilaterally gave the provider $370,000 without even reviewing the case. Only after the auditors found this example two years later did Medicaid finally get the appropriate documentation. Medicaid's director's reason for handing over $370,000 without even reviewing the case? He said sometimes that's necessary in order to "maintain relationships with providers."

I can imagine the stress this audit must have created for everyone in the Medicaid office. As a controller of a large company, I get audited every year, and it's a stressful time. I have to justify every decision I've made over the course of the year, and provide documentation as part of the justification. If you're organized and prepared, audits can be relatively simple. If not, they can be a major source of heartburn.

This report is possibly the worst conceivable outcome of the audit. The only way it could have been worse is if the auditors caught Medicaid management stealing funds. The audit shows medicaid fits the stereotype of an inefficient, poorly managed, wasteful government program.

This Is Gonna Be The Easiest Money I've Ever Made!

2009-10-15T04:11:00.000-06:00

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Another Call For Reducing Class Sizes

2009-10-13T20:56:00.000-06:00

The Deseret News ran another editorial advocating reducing Utah's class sizes. They reiterated the statistics showing Utah as last in per pupil spending, as well as polls showing most Utahans believe class sizes are too large and education spending is too small. Quoting Benjamin Franklin, the News writes,

"The only thing more expensive than education is ignorance."

What the Deseret News seems to have forgotten though is that the state spent over $700 million over a decade for the sole purpose of reducing class sizes, and netted a whole two teachers for the effort.

Two years ago the state conducted an audit of their class size reduction (CSR) program. It was this audit that revealed the two net teacher gain despite hundreds of millions of dollars. I wrote about this audit here, here, and here.

The reason for such a poor return on investment is that the number of children entering school increased by far more than was expected. The problem with the Deseret News's argument about cost is that the child increase is expected to continue - so much so that the state will be fortunate just to keep the unacceptable class sizes we have now, let alone reduce them. In fact, the Utah Taxpayers Association put numbers to the traditional class size goal of 15 students, and found it would cost almost $5 billion to reach it.

Reducing class sizes is a worthy goal, but it's important to understand the reality behind the numbers. Editorial boards like the News would do well to remember the lessons learned from audits like the one conducted just two years ago, and use those lessons to shape their policy proclamations.

Civility in Politics

2009-10-02T14:32:00.000-06:00

I attended the Sutherland Institute's blogger briefing on civility this past Tuesday. Rob Miller and Dave Hansen formed the panel, and a small group of bloggers were present to ask questions. Most of those who attended have written about the event, including Connor, Frank, David, and Trenton (?) from the blog Victory in Progress.

My notes closely resemble theirs; things can tend to the uncivil, this has been going on for a long time in politics, and it's really up to the individual to decide to remain civil. There is some interesting discussion of the value of being nice/civil vs. being direct and honest despite the risk to decorum. My two cents in that discussion is that I think it's possible to be honest and civil at the same time. But even then, you cannot control what others may take offense.

However, there is one point that has been bouncing around my head since the briefing. It's an idea that first came to mind when I read CS Lewis's The Screwtape Letters two years ago. A particular chapter so resonated with me that I wanted to save the idea; so I blogged about it. More accurately, I typed a paragraph from the book which I felt summed up the thesis of the chapter quite well. I reproduce it here:

But flippancy is the best of all. In the first place it is very economical. Only a clever human can make a real Joke about virtue, or indeed about anything else; any of them can be trained to talk as if virtue were funny. Among flippant people the Joke is always assumed to have been made. No one actually makes it; but every serious subject is discussed in a manner which implies that they have already found a ridiculous side to it. If prolonged, the habit of Flippancy builds up around a man the finest armour plating against the Enemy that I know, and it is quite free from the dangers inherent in the other sources of laughter. It is a thousand miles away from joy; it deadens, instead of sharpening, the intellect; and it excites no affection between those who practise it.

How this short paragraph sums up what often passes for dialogue - both in mass media as well as in the blogosphere! It may not be the best way, but I don't mind so much a fervent, even angry exchange of ideas - so long as ideas are exchanged. However, what seems to happen more often than not is what CS Lewis describes as flippancy. People have been "trained to talk as if (fill in the blank) is funny." There's no actual joke being told, it's just assumed to have already been made. The more a person uses this tactic, the more immune they become to anything resembling a dialogue, the more every other opposing viewpoint appears ridiculous to them.

For instance, when then Vice President Al Gore was running for president, a joke arose that to this day continues to dog him. In an interview with CNN before he had even secured the Democratic Party's nomination VP Gore was asked,

Why should Democrats, looking at the Democratic nomination process, support you instead of Bill Bradley? What do you have to bring to this that he doesn't necessarily bring to this process?

Al Gore's answer, taken as a whole, was pretty generic. A sort of, 'look at my record, I've pushed for important things before, and I'll do the same as president' type of answer that went on for a couple of paragraphs. But there was one short phrase in his answer that demonstrates the power of flippancy,

I took the initiative in creating the Internet.

We all know how that phrase turned out. A politician describing his view that he had been at the forefront of legislation which allowed the internet to completely change the world we live in somehow got twisted into a decade-long (and counting) running joke. To many, the "Al Gore thinks he invented the internet" is a knee jerk response to anything the former VP says - even if that has nothing to do with current events. It's a slam inserted into any discussion of what Gore is doing or saying. Those that do so have safely armored themselves against actual dialogue.

This is one example of many. The characterization of the TEA parties and Town Hall goers as mobs is another. It is generally how political viewpoints are dismissed, and how political campaigns are waged. Making your opponent an object of ridicule is far easier, and unfortunately more successful, than debating ideas. In my opinion, this is what truly infects our political culture, and what leads to incivility. It is an easy game to get caught up in, and it is up to each individual to see past the flippancy to the real dialogue begging to be held.

2009 Democrats Need to Learn Lessons of 1960s Democrats: Lie

2009-09-29T22:26:00.000-06:00

NPR recently interviewed James Morone, who co-authored a book entitled, "The Heart of Power: Health and Politics in the Oval Office." The interview centered on how President Lyndon Johnson pushed Medicare through Congress until its ultimate passage. Mr. Morone and Renee Montagne, who interviewed him for NPR, both assume great current public support for Medicare, and this assumption is what allows them to reveal a remarkable fact about how Medicare was sold to the public all those years ago. Morone obtained tapes of phone conversations President Johnson had with members of Congress as he guided Medicare through the political process, including one such conversation with noted public health care advocate Ted Kennedy,

"Johnson maneuvered every step of the way, getting this bill through Congress. And one of the things he did - and this is a little dicey in today's climate. One of the things he did was suppress the costs. So this young kid gets elected from Massachusetts, Ted Kennedy, in 1962. And Johnson is explaining to him how you get a health bill through. And what he tells him is don't let them get the cost projected too far out, because it'll scare other people.

Pres. JOHNSON: A health program yesterday runs 300 million, but the fools had to go to projecting it down the road five or six years. And when you project the first year, it runs 900 million. Now I don't know whether I would approve 900 million the second year or not. I might approve 450 or 500. But the first thing Dick Russell comes running in, saying my God, you've got a billion dollar program for next year on health, therefore I'm against any of it now. Do you follow me?

Senator EDWARD KENNEDY (Democrat, Massachusetts): Yes, right.

Mr. MORONE: We believe after looking at the evidence - my co-author and I -that if the true cost of Medicare had been known, if Johnson hadn't basically hidden them, the program would never have passed. America's second-most beloved program would never have happened if we had had genuine cost estimates. "

Now, the title of this post is written somewhat in jest. Democrats don't really need to learn the lessons from their 60's counterparts. They're well on their way to upping the ante.

Putting aside for the moment many of the lies and misrepresentations regarding health care reform we've seen in the last couple of months (from a public option not leading to single payer, or that you'll get to keep your current insurance if you want to, to the President's fact-bending health care speech to Congress), we can focus on and find parallels to President Johnson's cost concealing Medicare push with what President Obama has done with the costs of the proposals we've seen so far.

The original bill making waves in Congress had a Congressional Budget Office price tag of over $1 trillion. Having learned the lessons of Medicare, Democrats couldn't allow that number to be taken seriously, so they went about trying to discredit the CBO's numbers,

Speaker Nancy Pelosi:

"it's always been a source, yes I will say frustration, for many of us in Congress that the CBO will always give you the worst case scenario"

Senator Tom Harkin:

"The way CBO scores some things sometimes doesn't make a whole lot of sense -- I mean, real-life sense,"

Senator Chris Dodd:

"One of the things that's disappointing about CBO -- and frustrating -- is all the work…done on prevention" that the CBO doesn’t factor in"

The President also voiced his "concern" over CBO numbers, saying the CBO doesn't give him credit for all the savings included in the bill which would offset many of the costs. What he neglects to mention is that the CBO did in fact account for those measures, and found they wouldn't save money at all. In fact, they likely will add to the costs. But no matter, these statements from Democratic stalwarts aren't meant to be used in factual debates; rather, their purpose is to cast enough doubt on the CBO numbers so that they can more readily ignore the independent group's cost projections.

Cost projections which could very well be on the low end. By law, CBO projections only go out ten years. So other groups have projected beyond that horizon and found significantly higher costs. Which is not surprising, considering recent studies showing government consistently underestimates the true costs of programs. So consistently, in fact, that it's apparent this underestimation is not done by accident. No, it would seem politicians have all learned President Johnson's lesson very well.

Nephi's Psalm

2009-08-24T09:09:00.003-06:00

Scripture study yesterday got me thinking, so I put some thoughts to paper. Here's what came out:

One of the most important, yet often forgotten, doctrines of the Gospel is found in 2 Nephi 4:15-35. These verses are sometimes called “Nephi’s Psalm”. Nephi’s father Lehi has just passed away, and Nephi is alone as the family’s prophetic leader. Perhaps weighed down by this responsibility, coupled with the passing of his father, Nephi writes of his sadness at not living up to the blessings he has received. He recounts how he and his family have been led through the wilderness to a promised land, choice above all other lands. He has seen angels, been carried away to the tops of mountains, and had many marvelous visions. Yet he still falls prey to temptation. Indeed, in verse 27 he writes,

“And why should I yield to sin, because of my flesh? Yea, why should I give way to temptations, that the evil one have place in my heart to destroy my peace and afflict my soul?”

There are a couple of important lessons to be gleaned from the verses to this point. First, it can be somewhat heartening to know that a person as righteous and close to God as Nephi is can still feel inadequate at times. There is a measure of comfort to be taken from the knowledge that even a prophet can feel overwhelmed by their weaknesses. Additionally, these verses teach us that the closer we get to righteousness, the more our own failings, however small they may be, become apparent to us.

The seminal lesson to be learned, though, is how Nephi deals with these feelings of failure.

He writes,

“And when I desire to rejoice, my heart groaneth because of my sins; nevertheless, I know in whom I have trusted. My God hath been my support.

Yea, I know that God will give liberally to him that asketh. Yea, my God will give me, if I ask not amiss; therefore I will lift up my voice unto thee; yea, I will cry unto thee, my God, the rock of my righteousness. Behold, my voice shall forever ascend up unto thee, my rock and mine everlasting God.”

All of us, every one, can relate to Nephi’s feelings of depression and failure. We strive to do what’s right. We raise families, attend church meetings, fulfill our callings and reach out to those around us. It can seem overwhelming at times. Often, we fail to do what we know we ought. But do not let that recognition of our own weakness allow us to be led by Satan down a path of depression and discouragement. Those moments of failure are some of the most important moments of our lives. They offer us the opportunity to look heavenward, to know in whom we have trusted, and tie us ever closer to our Father in Heaven.

Too often we, like Nephi, have the light of truth shine on our small imperfections and we feel like we’ll never make it, that we’ll never be good enough. But that is not the message of the Gospel! The “good news” is that, through the Atonement, we can triumph over our sins. This is a marvelous promise. In the words of Ammon, “there never were men that had so great reason to rejoice as we.” And why should we rejoice? The Savior taught us why, when he appeared to Joseph Smith in the Kirtland temple and said,

“Behold, your sins are forgiven you; you are clean before me; therefore, lift up your heads and rejoice."

May our voices, like Nephi’s, forever ascend up to Him. For if they do, we will never despair.

How You Can Make Millions of Dollars And Go Bankrupt

2009-08-21T09:01:00.000-06:00

One of the principles of accounting is to match revenue and expenses to the period they are incurred. That becomes problematic when you are working on a long term project like building a house. You might start the house in August but not finish and sell it until February. Under normal circumstances, you would show your profit in February. However, you've been working on it, and incurring costs on it, for the seven months previous. Shouldn't your income statement take that into account?

The percentage of completion accounting method allows you to do so. When you start building that house in August you also start recognizing some of the profit. Assuming you build at a steady pace, you would finish 12.5% of the house per month. Accordingly, you would recognize 12.5% of the projected cost and revenue each month.

But here's the problem. This only works if you are certain to sell the building when it's done, ie. you have a contract in place. Commercial construction works this way, but the housing market only partially so. When you contract with a builder to start a home, you generally have to put in some earnest money. This assures the builder you won't walk away in the middle of construction and leave them with an unsold property. However, and this happened a lot during the recently ended housing boom, the earnest amount can be quite low. So low that it isn't much of a barrier to backing out of the contract.

If the builder was using the percentage of completion method in this case, then not only have they lost the sale, but they've already recognized a portion of the expected profit from that house. Couple that with the rapid decline in housing prices we've just experienced, and you can see how a builder can see profits on one income statement and nothing but red ink on the next.

This is a lesson on reading financial statements. I have talked to troubled business owners who say they were profitable and don't fully understand what happened. They didn't understand what accounting system they were using, and so didn't understand the risks involved.

Cheneyed By A Guy Named Barack Obama

2009-08-20T10:22:00.003-06:00

Those crazy right wing extremists are at it again, calling president Obama a fascist:

From the Huffington Post:

A memo obtained by the Huffington Post confirms that the White House and the pharmaceutical lobby secretly agreed to precisely the sort of wide-ranging deal that both parties have been denying over the past week.

The memo, which according to a knowledgeable health care lobbyist was prepared by a person directly involved in the negotiations, lists exactly what the White House gave up, and what it got in return.

Critics on Capitol Hill and online responded with outrage at the reports that Obama had gone behind their backs and sold the reform movement short. Furthermore, the deal seemed to be a betrayal of several promises made by then-Sen. Obama during the presidential campaign, among them that he would use the power of government to drive down the costs of drugs to Medicare and that negotiations would be conducted in the open.

"A Picnic That Changed The Course of History"

2009-08-19T10:13:00.002-06:00

From the AP:

Twenty years ago Wednesday, members of Hungary's budding opposition organized a picnic at the border with Austria to press for greater political freedom and promote friendship with their Western neighbors.

Once the initial group got through hundreds more East Germans joined them. Still vivid in Bella's mind was the reactions of the Germans, including many young people and families with small children, once they were on the other side.

"They embraced, they kissed, they cried and laughed in their joy. Some sat down right across the border, others had to be stopped by the Austrian guards because they kept running and didn't believe they were in Austria," Bella said. "It was in incredible experience for them."

Hungary, it turns out, has an interesting history.

I Love That 'Regular' People Are Getting Involved...Oh, And Larry O'Donnell Is Still A Shmuck

2009-08-13T15:49:00.004-06:00

This video annoys me for a couple of reasons.

First, for Larry O'Donnell to cluck cluck about having a rational debate without yelling and screaming is incredibly ironic considering his meltdown about Mitt Romney's mormonism. You can watch it here. But really, that's indicative of pretty much everyone who has cluck clucked about the tone and tenor of the folks attending the town hall meetings across the country; it wasn't too long ago they were whining about their own free speech rights while burning US soldiers in effigy.

Second, O'Donnell is oozing fake niceness and understanding here. What a shmuck. He set up this woman and set out to make her look bad. This was not journalism, or debate. This was an orchestrated hit job. It's not often I watch these pundit shows, and this clip reminded me why. In fact, this clip typifies exactly why people like Katy Abram aren't involved in politics. No one's actually interested in solving things. It's all just a sick game to them.

Which brings me to my final point. I struggled watching this clip because I could see right away where it was headed. I wished I could have been in her place, as I'm fairly certain I have already heard and answered every inane question O'Donnell was prepared to ask. And that's the point. Too many people have left to others the task of being informed. Too many people shy away from political conversation. But now, many of these people are waking up, getting involved, going to town hall meetings. They know they don't like what's going on, but they don't know how to articulate it. Because these are their first baby steps into political conversation they've never heard someone like O'Donnell try to argue that Medicare is great so stop complaining about government health care.

This is the reason I enjoy blogging so much. I have come into contact with people all over this country from every political stripe. I have heard arguments for and against just about every issue, and I've had to defend my own positions time and again. I've become known as 'the political one' among my friends and family, and am always ready to join a political conversation wherever it arises. But those occur far too infrequently.

We need more of this. We need more political conversations - at home, at work, with friends and family. With more people sharing and hearing, the real issues will come into focus. People will be less able to be dismissed as a 'mob', less able to be sneered at in contempt like Larry O'Donnell did in this video. Oh, the O'Donnells of the world will still sneer, but if you answer from a place of knowledge and experience, they'll be revealed for the empty windbags they really are.

Health Care Lies That Are Deceiving the Public

2009-08-13T10:40:00.001-06:00

I've read in a few places how the lies being spread in the media and elsewhere about Health Care reform are distorting the public's perception of the issue and making it difficult to have a rational debate. So I've put together a quick list of lies I've come across:

1. There are 46 million uninsured Americans.

See here and here for a serious debunking of this dubious statistic.

2. These plans are only for a "Public Option", not for single payer

President Obama has been quite eloquent in explaining away this myth.

3. You will get to keep your current insurance even if this reform bill is passed

This is one of those sorta, kinda technically true statements. Sure, there's nothing in the bill that I'm aware of that forces you to drop your current insurance plan. But in reality, millions of Americans who get their insurance through their work will find their employers dropping their plans. So it's not really truthful to say you'll get to keep your current plan if you so choose.

4. We need more government involvement because our current free market system is failing.

Hard to say we've got a free market system when government programs Medicare, Medicaid and SCHIP pay for 47% of health care in this country.

5. The reform bill includes measures for preventive care, which will drastically reduce overall health care costs.

Not according to the Congressional Budget Office, which quotes a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine which says,

"Sweeping statements about the cost-saving potential of prevention ... are overreaching. Studies have concluded that preventing illness can in some cases save money but in other cases can add to health care costs. For example, screening costs will exceed the savings from avoided treatment in cases in which only a very small fraction of the population would have become ill in the absence of preventive measures. Preventive measures that do not save money may or may not represent cost-effective care (i.e., good value for the resources expended). Whether any preventive measure saves money or is a reasonable investment despite adding to costs depends entirely on the particular intervention and the specific population in question.

Although some preventive measures do save money, the vast majority reviewed in the health economics literature do not."

6. The initial cost projections are at $1 Trillion over the first ten years, but don't worry, the president assures us it will be paid for and won't add to the deficit.

Hmmmm...where have we heard that before?

"The Most Open Government Ever" Won't Answer A Simple Question

2009-08-12T17:04:00.004-06:00

In response to the very vocal opposition to the health care reform plans being railroaded through Congress, the White House recently asked US citizens to send them any "fishy" (their word) information they may have gotten in emails and the like.

In an interview conducted on Fox News, White House spokesperson Bill Burton was asked what was being done with the email addresses and other information being sent to them per their request. Mr. Burton was extremely evasive, until finally the question was put this way:

"In an environment when you have the Speaker of the House referring to these people as swastika wearing, where you have another democrat calling them Nazis, where you have the president calling complaints about health care "smears" and saying he's going to fight them and then the White House comes out and says "send us the emails", those who are behind the emails may feel a little reluctant to engage in such speech in the future. And that is the complaint, not just cable news has about it, Bill Burton, but the ACLU has come out and said "we've got a serious problem with that."

Here's the entire interview:

This really is an example of when evading a question makes it an even bigger deal than if you had simply answered it. Perhaps the White House strategy is to not justify with a response what they feel are silly questions, but when you're directly asked a question four or five times and you flail around like Mr. Burton did, you're just raising more doubts.

Like Hiring A Personal Trainer Who Is Morbidly Obese

2009-08-06T08:43:00.002-06:00

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c

Home Crisis Investigation

www.thedailyshow.com

Daily Show
Full Episodes

Political Humor

Spinal Tap Performance

We Will Find You, You Health Care Lying Liars

2009-08-05T11:18:00.001-06:00

Dueling Health Care Videos

2009-08-04T08:52:00.005-06:00

The first video shows clips of President Obama and others explaining how a public option is the first step to getting rid of private health care. The second is a quick follow up from the White House's youtube page showing President Obama promising that if you like your current doctor and insurance, his plan won't take that away from you. What it doesn't explain are his past statements as shown in the first video, other than to say they were taken out of context, nor does it explain that while the government technically won't "force" you to use the public option, it is making it so that your employer just won't offer it to you anymore.

UPDATE:

More Context

Jon Stewart Foretells the Future of Health Care

2009-07-28T09:21:00.002-06:00

"If it [health care] is paid for by a surtax on the wealthy -- and I am wealthy -- can I then stop poor people from smoking and eating ice cream. 'Cause I see them on the subway and I want to say 'Hey! Dude. You're costing me money.'"

Jon Stewart

July 24th - Pioneer Day

2009-07-24T12:27:00.000-06:00

Visual Representation of Lies, Damned Lies, and 46 Million Uninsured

2009-07-24T11:14:00.002-06:00

My post about the dishonest uninsured statistic from a couple of months ago got a revealing response. I thought this political cartoon further explains the point:

Richard N. Holzapfel | The Book of Mormon: An Ancient Book with a Modern Message

2009-07-20T08:54:00.004-06:00

From BYU Broadcasting

The Quick Fix That Wasn't

2009-07-18T07:17:00.000-06:00

As someone asked me recently, "if it was sold as a quick fix then why did it not spend all the money up front?" Indeed.

Second Stimulus to First: "You Suck"

2009-07-17T11:08:00.000-06:00

From Phil Levy comes a wonderful take on what the calls for a second stimulus reveals about the first stimulus.

The extent of spending in 2011 and beyond under the initial package can have one of two interpretations. Either this was the excess that spilled over after all sincere attempts at near-term stimulus were exhausted, or there was a serious misallocation of resources in the initial plan.

And this is exactly the logical problem with a second stimulus. If we accept the premise that the Democrats did the best that could be done and exhausted all stimulative spending possibilities for 2009 and 2010 on their first try, then there’s nothing left to be done in a second stimulus. Additional spending would just pour uselessly into the out-years. If there are still good near-term options available to be funded by a second stimulus, that just speaks to the poor design of the initial stimulus package that passed them over in favor of ineffectual spending years later.

Neither of those possibilities argues for opening up the public coffers for hundreds of billions of dollars more.

All those calls for rushing through the stimulus six months ago were based on the argument that the economy was in terrible shape right now and needed this boost in order to rebound. Unfortunately, the great majority of the hundreds of billions of dollars spent was not intended to be spent right now.

So once again we find the economy doing poorly and consequently most are accepting the fact that the first stimulus didn't work in the way it was sold to the public. So once again talk of a stimulus is brewing. If it passes, we will find again that it has little to do with positively effecting the economy right now.

More Fun With Debt

2009-07-17T08:25:00.003-06:00

Those right wing extremists at the Congressional Budget Office are at it again, what with their fear mongering over the national debt:

National Debt Roadtrip

2009-07-16T14:27:00.002-06:00

http://www.youtube.com/user/10000Pennies

Paul Cardall - Grateful

2009-07-15T11:24:00.001-06:00

http://mytricuspidatresia.blogspot.com/

Ladies & Gentlemen, Your Utah Democratic Party

2009-07-09T13:23:00.001-06:00

Sarah Palin announced her resignation as governor of Alaska recently. The specifics of her reasons for resigning are sketchy, though level headed observers intimate it's likely because she tired of the attacks on her family coupled with the time and money lost defending against frivolous lawsuits.

Of course, Utah's left leaning blogosphere punditry was quick to chime in with their commentary. Two of the most read Democratic blogs in the state were also the most...predictible.

"she’s sounds like a whore in church."

"she’ll run for Princess of America"

You stay classy now.

Quote of the Day

2009-06-30T11:51:00.003-06:00

It seems that despite backgrounds hailing from Princeton, Harvard, MIT and Yale, in the end, bloggers are bloggers.

On the issue of tone, I again think I understand Paul's point of view. He likely believes that civility is overrated. He seems to think that in the blogosphere, and perhaps in the public debate more generally, you score points simply by insulting your intellectual adversaries. Sadly, I am afraid he may be right.

As always, Greg Mankiw's posts are timely.

Sunday Will Come

2009-06-29T08:58:00.000-06:00

The Golden Age of Baseball

2009-06-22T16:16:00.000-06:00

ESPN columnist Bill Simmons writes that the golden era of baseball was the five year span of 1988-1992. That just so happens to coincide with my introduction to the sport. The era began with me as a ten year old just beginning to scour and memorize the backs of baseball cards. I finally got old enough to stay up late and watch World Series games. I loved my Oakland A's - Jose Canseco, Mark McGwire, Dave Henderson, Dave Parker, Carney Lansford and Walt Weiss. And of course a pitching staff of perennial 20 game winner Dave Stewart along with Hall of Famer Dennis Eckersley and Bob Welch, who was awarded the 1990 Cy Young by winning an improbable 27 games. Those A's went to three straight World Series from 1988-1990, winning in 1989 against the rival Giants.

But the real treat, and perhaps the moment that truly sucked me in as a baseball fan, was the 1991 World Series. Both the Twins and the Braves had finished in last place the year before, but now they faced off with the winner becoming the first worst to first team in baseball. The Braves had just escaped Barry Bonds's Pittsburgh Pirates in what was an amazing series in its own right. But that was merely the appetizer to the real Series. The Braves had young Tom Glavine, Steve Avery, and John Smoltz. In what was the greatest game I've ever watched, in what many have said was the greatest World Series ever, game seven had Smoltz pitching 9 shutout innings only to be bested by Jack Morris's 10 scoreless. With game seven ending 1-0 in 10 innings, the Series had 3 extra inning games, and 5 one run decisions. The home team won every time, only the second time that had ever happened. Almost every game went down to the wire, and pitching duels were the norm. To this day I prefer a close, well pitched game to a high scoring one.

As this era ended, the steroid induced home run era began. Sadly, two main players from my beloved A's, Jose Canseco and Mark McGwire, were heavily involved in ushering in the steroid era. I never quite regained the same passion for baseball or even baseball card collecting after that. The game had changed. 1991's pitching duel was replaced by 1993's slug fest between the Blue Jays and Phillies. And the home runs never really stopped for another decade and a half. Only now are things beginning to come back to normalcy in the game.

It's nice to hearken back and remember those early 90's years as a golden era for baseball. Unfortunately it was followed by the era of strikes and steroids. As my son approaches an age where we can sit and watch a game together, my hope is that baseball will be able to clean up the game in time to start another golden era.

Blessing of the Priesthood

2009-06-21T05:28:00.000-06:00

We Are All Trickle Down Economists Now

2009-06-17T10:10:00.001-06:00

A few years ago I watched a Denzel Washington movie called Deja Vu. Aside from being a pretty solid movie, it was also set and filmed in New Orleans. Filming actually began before the 2005 hurricanes, but instead of finding another locale to finish shooting, the movie's producers went back to New Orleans as quickly as they could. Here's how Denzel Washington explained it,

“It was important to me that we stuck it out, and returned to New Orleans to continue filming as soon as we could. Three months after the water receded, we were filming in the 9th Ward (the area of the city most devastated by the flooding) and we did that intentionally, to show the people that big projects like ours were not going to abandon them when they needed us the most. Think about a big movie production, the amount of people employed and all the others services that depend on it, from catering to hotels or what have you.

Think about that statement for a moment. In effect, Washington is saying that all that money being spent, and earned, by huge corporate movie studios trickles down to help the local economy. And New Orleans has embraced this strategy. Major movie and television projects have gone from 9 in 2005 to a record of 21 in 2008. Much of this increase can be traced to sizable tax credits the state has given to these production companies. The state believes that by cutting taxes for movie producers they can lure business to Louisiana and New Orleans and through this "all boats will rise". For instance, in an article on the television show K-Ville, which was filmed and set in New Orleans, city officials talked about the economic impact that this show and others were having,

“It takes eight days to film an episode,” she said. “Over that eight days a little more than a million dollars is pumped into the local economy.”

For New Orleans, show business is serious business. Several theatrical films have shot in the city this year, including “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” with Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett. Entertainment projects have generated more than $100 million for the city in 2007.

And it's not just New Orleans attracting business through tax cuts. According to the Wall Street Journal, 40 states have similar tax strategies to lure Hollywood. One of those forty is Utah. All of these states argue for the tax cuts because bringing business to their state will be a big boost to their economy. The strategy is that the economy as a whole will increase by more than what it cost to bring in business.

The inverse is also true. Business, when faced with higher taxes, leaves to find a better deal somewhere else. For instance, facing a large budget deficit, New York floated the idea of canceling their movie tax credit. Alec Baldwin, from the TV show 30 Rock, said,

"I'm telling you right now," Mr. Baldwin declared, "if these tax breaks are not reinstated into the budget, film production in this town is going to collapse, and television is going to collapse and it's all going to go to California."

New York caved and gave the movie industry a new tax deal.

Hope Ya Know, We Had a Hard Time

2009-06-14T21:21:00.000-06:00

Mere Cristianity: Life-Force Philosophy

2009-06-14T07:42:00.000-06:00

In chapter four of Mere Christianity we are told that since the beginning there have been two views of the world,; the Materialist view, and the Religious view. However, in a note at the end of the chapter, CS Lewis explains that there is actually an "In-between view called Life-Force philosophy, or Creative Evolution." The description of this philosophy follows:

People who hold this view say that the small variations by which life on his planet 'evolved' from the lowest forms to Man were not due to chance but to the 'striving' or 'purposiveness' of a Life-Force. When people say this we must ask them whether by Life-Force they mean something with a mind or not. If they do, then 'a mind bringing life into existence and leading it to perfection' is really a God, and their view is thus identical with the Religious. If they do not, then what is the sense in saying that something without a mind 'strives' or has 'purposes'? This seems to me fatal to their view. One reason why many people find Creative Evolution so attractive is that it gives one much of the emotional comfort of believing in God and none of the less pleasant consequences. When you are feeling fit and the sun is shining and you do not want to believe that the whole universe is a mere mechanical dance of atoms, it is nice to be able to think of this great mysterious Force rolling on through the centuries and carrying you on its crest. If, on the other hand, you want to do something rather shabby, the Life-Force, being only a blind force, with no morals and no mind, will never interfere with you like that troublesome God we learned about when we were children. The Life-Force is a sort of tame God. You can switch it on when you want, but it will not bother you. All the thrills of religion and none of the cost. Is the Life-Force the greatest achievement of wishful thinking the world has yet seen?

Reverend Jeremiah Wright is a Right Wing Extremist

2009-06-13T19:50:00.000-06:00

Reverend Wright recently has come under scrutiny for remarks he made to a reporter about the president of the United States being controlled by "them Jews". Referring to President Obama, he told reporter David Squires that,

"them Jews ain't going to let him talk to me. I told my baby daughter that he'll talk to me in five years when he's a lame duck, or in eight years when he's out of office."

These words are eerily similar to those spoken by another Republican extremist recently,

"Obama was created by Jews. Obama does what his Jew owners tell him to do. Jews captured America's money. Jews control the mass media."

Obviously, all Jew haters are right winger extremists who pose a danger to our country. Hopefully the Department of Homeland Security has Reverend Wright on their right wing extremist watch list so they can prevent him from doing serious harm.

Sutherland's Utah Prosperity Forum: Is SB81 Good for Utah Business and Culture?

2009-06-10T19:40:00.003-06:00

I attended Sutherland's forum on SB 81. There were four panelists: Representative Chris Herrod, Senator Luz Robles, Representative Stephen Sandstrom, and Mrs. Dee Rowland of the Catholic Diocese. Each was given time for a presentation/speech, and then it was opened to questions from the attendees. The crowd had a bit of an us/them feel to it, with a strong Latino contingent as well as some outspoken Minutemen, one of whom was kicked out towards the end for being a bit too outspoken.

Senator Herrod spoke first, and, with what was a recurring theme from the pro-SB81 side, began by defending himself against attacks of being racist. His wife is a legal immigrant from the Ukraine, and his business partner is a legal immigrant from Africa. His support for bills like SB81 comes from a strong belief that illegal immigration makes it much harder for legal immigrants to come to America. He thinks it is unfair and immoral that his business partner's wife and family are still waiting in a very dangerous country in Africa because he has chosen to follow the law with their immigration process while millions of illegal immigrants stream into the country. In effect, his argument was that allowing illegal immigration discriminates against legal immigrants.

If the first part of Sen. Herrod's speech dealt with the moral theory behind his stance, the second part dealt with cold hard facts. He had an interesting slide presentation which included graphs showing the country of origin for immigrants in 1970 vs. 2000. In 1970 the mix was very even, with no country supplying significantly more than another. However, by 2000 that had changed substantially, with Mexico now far and away the biggest source of immigration. He said that this scenario lessens the "melting pot" of the US.

Also discussed was the fact that illegal immigration harms the working poor by taking away jobs and depressing wage levels. The representative said that if it were high earners immigrating illegally and competing for jobs with doctors and lawyers, there would be far more people in favor of measures like SB81. Instead, the illegal immigrants are generally poor, and statistically have more children than the average population. This demographic means illegal immigrants are a drain on state services like education.

Next up was Senator Robles. She began by saying this country was founded on immigration. She went on to acknowledge that illegal immigration is a problem, but that it can only be addressed at the federal level. She did, however, point out three main issues in need of fixing:

1) The borders need to be secured
2) There is a demand for labor that these immigrants provide.
3) What to do with the 12 million illegal immigrants already here?

Senator Robles did not expand much on the first point other than to state it was a security issue. The second point was quite interesting because she used it to refute what Representative Herrod had said about illegal immigrant doctors. Basically, the working poor labor is what is demanded, so that is what we are getting. The third point was expounded upon mainly by noting that many of these illegal immigrants are "mixed status" families, which means that while the parents may not be citizens, their children are. Sen. Robles is vehemently opposed to forcing US citizens to leave the country simply because their parents are not citizens.

The third speaker was Representative Stephen Sandstrom. He too found it necessary to defend himself against attacks of being a racist. Because of time constraints he was forced to cut his speech short, but the gist of my notes is that he dwelt on how SB81 simply forces the state of Utah to follow federal law currently on the books. By not following these laws, it creates a disadvantage to companies that do not hire illegal immigrants. For this reason he is in favor of the provision in SB81 which calls for companies with public contracts to use an e-verify system so as not to hire illegal immigrants.

Mrs. Dee Rowland was the final speaker. I unfortunately was quite disappointed in her speech. When not labeling her opponents racists, she was calling them Nazis. And all this after prefacing her remarks with a call for civility and finding common ground. But at least she was quite nice in how she presented it.

Now came the public question portion. There wasn't an awful lot of time at this point, which frustrated many who wanted to ask questions, myself included. I felt that not enough time was spent on the specific provisions of SB81 and what the expected results of the bill would be, as well as why each piece was opposed or supported.

The question I was unable to ask was, one of the provisions of the bill is that local law enforcement would now be investigating the immigration status of the people they came into contact with. What is unclear to me is if they will be investigating everyone, or just people already arrested for other crimes. This seems important to me because for one thing law enforcement already does that with other crimes, and also because it would seem that law abiding illegal immigrants have nothing to fear. It's not as though police are barging into homes looking to deport people; rather, if a crime is committed by an illegal immigrant, law enforcement should be aware of it. Perhaps I misunderstand the provision, and for this reason I had hoped to ask the question.

The discussion also brought to my mind a scenario which I think illustrates the complexity of illegal immigration. At one time I worked in an apartment maintenance crew in Salt Lake City. There were a number of Latinos in the crew; some here legally, and some not. Because I spoke Spanish, we were able to communicate and became good friends. The Latinos in the crew were very hardworking, reliable, and honest. In short, they were perfect employees. On the other hand, I watched as the non-Latinos on the crew came and went as they simply stopped showing up for work or were caught stealing. They were unreliable, dishonest, and difficult to manage. Almost to a man they were the complete opposite of their Latino counterparts.

For this reason I think a crackdown on illegal immigration would be harmful to Utah business and society. Losing men and workers of my friends' caliber would be a great loss.

However, our employer liked them not only because of their innate loyalty, but because of a forced loyalty. They did not speak English and so had few employment options other than what their family or friend connections could supply. Instead of paying them as employees, they were paid as independent contractors. A practice which freed the employer from paying payroll taxes and instead transferred that burden to the worker. A burden which, since the illegal immigrants had faulty paperwork, they didn't ever have to pay because they're not filing taxes with someone else's social security number. Of course, eventually that someone else will be tracked down by the state and federal tax collectors and accused of not declaring all that additional income. Also worthy of noting is that these men were paid $9 an hour and happy to get it. This is not anywhere near a real living wage, and I often wondered if the depressed wage level these workers created contributed to the quality (or lack thereof) of the non-Latino workers.

It is a very complicated issue. I applaud the Sutherland Institute for providing a venue for this discussion, and the panelists for spending time to discuss and defend their views.

CS Lewis, Mere Christianity, & Law of Nature

2009-06-08T20:56:00.003-06:00

So I started reading CS Lewis' Mere Christianity. I have previously read The Screwtape Letters, and I love Lewis' simple profundity. The last paragraph of chapter one in Mere Christianity follows this pattern:

These, then, are the two points I wanted to make. First, that human beings, all over the earth, have this curious idea that they ought to behave in a certain way, and cannot really get rid of it. Secondly, that they do not in fact behave in that way. They know the Law of Nature; they break it. These two facts are the foundation of all clear thinking about ourselves and the universe we live in.

Representative Jason Chaffetz: Report Confirms Failure of Stimulus to "Save or Create" Jobs

2009-06-08T08:31:00.005-06:00

From Rep. Chaffetz's email newsletter:

Dear Cameron,

President Obama's $1.1 trillion stimulus package is not delivering the expected economic benefits, even according to the President's own benchmarks. The President projected that his stimulus package would prevent the unemployment rate from exceeding 8%. Today, the Bureau of Labor Statistics announced that May's unemployment reached 9.4%, and economists project that the rate will go even higher in the next several months.

Not only does the unemployment rate exceed the President's stimulus projection, it also exceeds the unemployment rate that the President projected if Congress had NOT approved the stimulus package. According to the President's own numbers, the unemployment rate would not have exceeded 9% if Congress had rejected the President's stimulus package.

Stimulus proponents may argue that more time is needed for the stimulus package to work. However, the following graph shows that the President was claiming that the impact of the stimulus package would be immediate. Not only is the recovery taking longer than promised, the job losses are higher than projected.

The Democrats' fiscally irresponsible stimulus plan has not delivered the promised benefits and has driven us further into debt, which already exceeds $11 trillion.

Click here for the report and please keep in mind the following:

(1) The only change to the President's graph is the insertion of the actual unemployment rate (in red) for the months since the President's signing of the "stimulus" law.

(2) As the graphic displays, the May 2009 unemployment rate of 9.4 percent is HIGHER than the worst unemployment rate the President predicted WITHOUT passage of the "stimulus" law.

Sincerely,

Jason Chaffetz
Member of Congress

Time For Another Bailout

2009-05-27T12:15:00.002-06:00

From Greg Mankiw:

The Economy is an Addict, & Government Spending is the Crack

2009-05-22T23:11:00.000-06:00

I would like to posit a theory, or perhaps make a prediction. The US will never pay off its national debt. Here's why:

Today's prevailing economic theory is that when the government spends money it grows the economy. Therefore, the government should play a significant role in making everyone more prosperous by spending lots of money. Of course, any money the government gets it must first take out of the economy through taxes. It is that feature of government spending that drives the furor over pork spending, earmarks etc. Why should my money go to fund some other state's lame pork project?

However, what's really interesting about federal spending is that they always spend more than they bring in from taxes. In other words, they run deficits. This of course drives most people even more crazy. But in reality it's done on purpose. That's right, despite all the rhetoric from all the politicians, the federal government spends more than it makes on purpose.

See, deficits mean that the government is getting and spending money it never took from you in the first place. It's basically free money. Free money which the feds use to pump up the economy, making us richer. A win-win scenario for all involved.

The catch is that the money for deficits has to come from somewhere. That somewhere is debt. It's sort of like a business taking out a line of credit with a bank. They use the available money when it's needed, and that extra cash makes it easier to expand and grow the business such that the debt is easily paid if and when it comes due.

But therein lies the problem with our national debt. As noted earlier, tax money is a deduction from the economy. If that tax money is used to pay back creditors instead of being plowed back into our economy, then the economy just got smaller. In this way we have steadily addicted ourselves to federal stimulus. Take away the spending and we'll go through withdrawal (recession). Since federal revenue relies on the strength of the economy, a recession reduces tax revenues, which, unless spending is cut, plunges us right back into deficits. Exacerbating the deficit issue further is the fact that prevailing economic wisdom is to increase government spending during recessions in order to boost the economy. Sort of like giving crack to a recovering addict.

Music & The Spoken Word - Mothers Day

2009-05-11T16:10:00.002-06:00

Broadcast on Sunday, Mother's Day, a transcript from their website

Mother Teresa, known the world over for her great compassion, was once asked what she considered the most significant honor she had ever received. There were many to choose from, including the Nobel Peace Prize. But she surprised her questioner when she replied, “The title of Mother.”1

My Favorite Star Trek Review

2009-05-08T13:49:00.001-06:00

From the Daily Herald. This is the paragraph that makes it so:

It's a thrill just to get another story about James T. Kirk, Spock, Leonard "Bones" McCoy and the rest of the "original series" crew. Picard/Riker/Data, Sisko/Kira/That-Guy-Who-Sleeps-in-a-Bucket, Janeway/Big Chief First Officer/The-Borg-Chick-in-the-Spandex-Bodysuits and Capt. Dude from "Quantum Leap"/The Hot Vulcan/Was-There-Anybody-Else-on-That-Show? all have their strong points, but the classic trio and its array of supporting characters are still the "Trek" gold standard.

Capt. Dude from Quantum Leap. Love it!

Lies, Damned Lies, and 46 Million Uninsured

2009-05-05T10:57:00.003-06:00

From economist Keith Hennessey comes a really interesting breakdown of how many uninsured people there are in the United States, and how many of those people actually need/want insurance. Since the 46 million number appears prominently in the national health care debate, this information is very valuable.

First, nearly a quarter of the 46 million are already covered by Medicaid or SCHIP, and therefore should not be included. Another 20% are not citizens of the US, while a third are either significantly over the poverty level or are young, single, and childless. If you were to take out these groups from the number of uninsured, the new number becomes 10.6 million, or 2% of the population.

2% just doesn't generate much passion though.

Happy Birthday Olivia

2009-04-29T15:05:00.000-06:00

My family welcomed a new addition last week. This makes number four for us, and she is absolutely gorgeous if I do say so myself.

A few thoughts related to her birth:

She was born on Earth Day, which makes me wonder, did we harm or help the planet?

Are arrogant people drawn to medicine or does medicine make people arrogant? Either way, I have yet to meet a humble, likable doctor.

Speaking of doctors, for the second time we were "warned" during pregnancy that our baby had a higher risk of having downs syndrome, and for the second time the doctors were wrong. Which isn't a big deal until you consider the amount of stress that pronouncement puts on a pregnant mother, coupled with the fact that the tests they use to make that prognosis is next to meaningless and only serves as a gateway to a more reliable test which just happens to carry a risk of miscarriage with it. So thanks again, doctors. Next time, how about not having a clueless office worker (not her fault, she's just doing her job) call to schedule a follow up appointment because our baby is high risk for developmental problems, and not have anyone available to explain anything to us?

We delivered at Jordan Valley hospital in Sandy and it was superb. The nurses and staff were great.

There is nothing in this world quite like holding a newborn baby. Their smell, the little noises they make, their eyes as they look up at you. It's incomparable.

Welcome Olivia, thank you for making our lives a little brighter.

Cap and Trade is a Tax - And It's A Great Big One

2009-04-24T20:43:00.000-06:00

The Difference in Core Values Between Israel & Hamas

2009-04-21T08:53:00.002-06:00

Much was made of Israel's military action in the Gaza Strip late last year. A lot of the news centered on the civilian suffering and casualties caused by the engagement.

A new report by the group Human Rights Watch, and discussed here by Richard Cohen, sheds additional light on the topic:

Some residents of Gaza were taken from their homes and shot in the legs or feet. Some were brutally beaten and some were simply murdered, sometimes after hideous torture.

If you are expecting — based on everything that has happened — that the awful Israelis did this, guess again. It was Hamas, the authentic and genuine government of Gaza. Well, no one's perfect.

The information about the shootings is taken from a report issued Monday by Human Rights Watch and available on its Web site. It says that "Hamas security forces or masked gunmen believed to be with Hamas" executed 18 people, most of whom were accused of collaborating with Israel, sparing the expense and bother of a trial.

Others were shot, maimed or beaten, not for allegedly collaborating with the enemy — or, as is invariably the case, having a house or woman that a snitch covets — but for belonging to the opposition political party, Fatah.

No doubt the Human Rights Watch report will be ignored or dismissed in the greater cause of demonizing Israel. This has been the trend of late. No doubt, too, some will excuse Hamas' criminality as the inevitable result of Israeli actions — the Officer Krupke School of Behavior made famous by the singing gang members of "West Side Story."

But as much as some would like to criticize Israel — and I have done so myself — they still have a minimal obligation to acknowledge the difference in core values between it and its enemies.

Human Rights Watch is to be commended. It does not have one standard for Israel and another for Hamas, Hezbollah or the other despotic regimes of the Arab world.

That is more than can be said, though, for critics who vilify Israel, romanticize Hamas and clearly have never had the inexpressible pleasure of living in a place where a chance remark can get your legs riddled with lead. Say what you will, but that place could never be Israel.

Juanes - Mala Gente

2009-04-17T08:07:00.000-06:00

Another Example of the Evil Bush Tax Cuts For The Rich

2009-04-15T21:57:00.003-06:00

I still do a few tax returns on the side, and it interests me to see how the tax code affects different situations.

From an actual federal income tax return filed this year:

A family consisting of a husband, wife, and three children, with an income of $70,000. They own a home, so are able to deduct the interest from the mortgage. They also made sizable contributions to charity. Thanks to Bush's tax cuts, they can claim $3500 in exemptions for each person in the household, for a total of $17500.

After their exemptions and deductions, their tax liability was $2899. Since Bush doubled the child tax credit, they get to claim $1000 per child, which lowers that tax liability dollar for dollar. That means they have zero tax liability. And since the child tax credit is refundable, the family not only pays $0 in income tax, but gets $101 from the government.

Now, they had money withheld from their paycheck throughout the year, but they get all of that back too, making their tax return about $1400. It could have been much higher, but, knowing how their return was likely to turn out, I had them withhold the least possible amount from their checks during the year.

This return is similar to that of the "struggling mother earning minimum wage", and that of the family earning $45k, paying zero income tax and getting paid $2400 by the government. Before the Bush tax cuts, that family would have owed $950.

Alaska Realizing Consequences of Higher Taxes

2009-04-14T14:20:00.000-06:00

Alaska relies heavily on its tourism industry for revenue. A major part of that industry is cruises. In an effort to make the cruise lines "pay their fair share", the state passed a referendum in 2006 which increased taxes on the cruise lines for every passenger they brought to Alaska.

Shockingly, those cruise lines are now reducing the amount of business they do in Alaska.

In February, Royal Caribbean International announced that in 2010 it would redeploy the Serenade of the Seas, one of its three ships operating in Alaskan waters. The cruise line cited the high cost of doing business in the Frontier State.

The following month, Carnival Corp. followed suit, significantly reducing the 2010 capacity of the Alaska market’s two biggest players, Holland America and Princess.

Those moves were the culmination of almost constant industry protests since the Cruise Ship Initiative was enacted.

Binkley said the loss of Royal Caribbean’s Serenade of the Seas would mean 42,000 fewer visitors to Alaska in 2010, which translates to an estimated loss of $55 million in tourist revenue.

"I’ve been concerned for some time as I’ve seen the cruise traffic level off for the last three years," he said. "We’ve lost market share."

An Apostle's Easter Thoughts on Christ

2009-04-14T10:15:00.001-06:00

UTA "Express" Bus Service to Eagle Mountain Sucks

2009-04-13T08:30:00.002-06:00

Eagle Mountain passed a tax increase last fall in order to get an express bus line to Salt Lake City. You can read my previous posts on the topic here. The bus service began this month, and not everyone is pleased with it.

From an email sent to city councilman David Lifferth and posted on his website:

We voted sales tax for UTA to come to our neighborhood. This is now reality. Except for those that ride the bus, it is a nightmare. We have CITY BUSES, not the MCI EXPRESS BUSES.

We therefore cannot sleep – no place to rest your head and the ride is way to bumpy (the entire hour trip) to sleep.. we do not have WiFi service – which is promised on the EXPRESS buses.. and most upsetting of all, we are paying the PREMIUM PRICE of $162.00 per month for trash service, and no express services.

The regular monthly pass for the CITY BUSES is $67.00. Now tell me that is fair, right, and just? I don’t think so. In waiting for the 806 to go home, I have seen two 327 and 347 FAST BUS routes with the MCI buses – both of them pay the $67.00 per month, get our WiFi service – but don’t pay the express price. This is not right.

UTA is advertising and promising EXPRESS to the 806, but we are getting what we are paying for. Will they refund our money to the $67 for the services we are getting? Not likely. And they get city funds, federal funds, and likely state funds. I have sent emails to them on this subject – no responses to date. Perhaps some prodding from the constituents will get them moving to provide the advertised EXPRESS MCI bus with WiFi. Otherwise, the cities of EM and SS need to put pressure on and get us reduced fairs.

I am including the emails that I have sent. Hopefully someone can do something. I do not know who the officials are in SS, so please feel free to forward this to them if you have emails for them.

Thank you

Chris Power

Allen Iverson as Example of Failed Families

2009-04-10T06:20:00.000-06:00

In a column blasting basketball player Allen Iverson, Jason Whitlock makes an interesting observation,

Iverson is a one-man, no-country Army, more than likely the victim of a dysfunctional upbringing that left him incapable of embracing the concepts essential to teamwork, winning and sacrifice for the benefit of others.

We're a nation of Allen Iversons, and the unchecked Wall Street greed that has us on the brink of collapse is nothing more than our chickens coming home to rot.

The assault on, the destruction of and lack of appreciation for the American family has created a nation of independent contractors. We're no longer connected.

Iverson is infamous for a press conference he gave where he derided practice, saying it wasn't a big deal that he missed them. What's the big deal, right? It's only practice. The importance of family often receives the same treatment. It's just tradition. Unnecessary, even. Sometimes it's through simple neglect, other times from intentional assault. Either way, family as the fundamental unit of society is forgotten.

Charlie Rosen on Phenom Lance Stephenson

2009-04-09T18:51:00.000-06:00

From basketball columnist Charlie Rosen:

Here's what's wrong with high school, AAU, college and professional basketball.

Lance Stephenson is a 6-5 senior at Lincoln HS in New York, and one of the best schoolboy players in the country. But he's strictly a one-man show, who always insists on dominating both the ball and every spectator's attention. Mark him down for lots of points and sensational plays, as well as plenty of ill-advised shots and turnovers. Plus, every mistake he makes is somebody else's fault.

Stephenson was featured on the cover of SLAM when he was 14, was the star of an online reality show, and has been celebrated as the epitome of a hip-hop hoopster.

Which is all well and good, except that the kid also happens to be a jerk.

Last fall, Stephenson was arrested on a Class B misdemeanor charge of sexually harassing a 17-year-old girl on the school grounds. Midway through his junior season, he was involved in an in-school altercation with a teammate that drew blood.

The outcome of his arrest has not yet been decided, but Stephenson was suspended from school for five days (and two ball games) for the fight.

OK, youngsters sometimes get into trouble. But consider his behavior late last month during a game in upstate Glens Falls, N.Y., that matched the Big Apple's public school champions (Lincoln) vs. the private school champs (Rice).

Late in the first half, Stephenson executed a power dunk, but instead of letting go of the rim he chose to swing-and-sway to emphasize his accomplishment. This led to one of the refs' tooting him for a technical foul, which under local rules simultaneously counts as a personal foul — Stephenson's third.

Much to Stephenson's displeasure, his coach, Dwayne Morton, quickly — and appropriately — yanked him from the game. Stephenson responded by loudly cursing the coach — something he's done all season-long — and sitting himself on the floor beyond the end of Lincoln's bench. Still cursing.

Morton has put up with his star's antics for two reasons:

# The kid's extremely talented and has helped Lincoln to four straight PSAL championships.
# Like most very successful high school coaches, Morton is undoubtedly yearning to graduate into a college job.

Rice won the game 77-50, with Stephenson — the state's career scoring leader — scoring only 14 points.

According to reports, if Stephenson doesn't choose to pursue a hefty contract overseas — good riddance! — he'll pick Kansas, St. John's or Maryland as his next stop.

But why would any self-respecting college coach want anything to do with Stephenson?

Especially since he'll only be around campus for one season before declaring for the NBA draft.

Just what the NBA needs — another spoiled, self-indulgent, knuckleheaded player who thinks he already belongs in the Hall of Fame.

So what's wrong with the game?

Too many colleges recruit players on the basis of their talent. Ditto for the NBA's draft process. And hardly anybody recruits/drafts on the basis of a player's character.

The truth that so many recruiters/drafters don't get is that talent and character are not always mutually exclusive.

Fire Them?

2009-04-09T15:40:00.000-06:00

From MoveOn.org:

Dear MoveOn member,

Last week the Obama administration took tough, decisive action with the auto industry, forcing the resignation of the CEO of General Motors.

The president knows that we can't trust the same folks who got us into this mess to help lead us out.

It's time to do the same for the banks. And the best way to start is by firing Bank of America CEO Ken Lewis. He's the worst of the worst.

Lewis's poor management helped ruin his company and our economy. Shareholders are calling him "reckless" and citing "disastrous missteps."1 Worse, Lewis accepted $45 billion in taxpayer bailout funds, but instead of using all the money to get the economy going again, he let $3.6 billion go to bonuses for top execs.2

There can't be real reform on Wall Street until the CEOs who brought down the banks we had to bail out are long gone.

Can you sign our petition asking Treasury Secretary Geithner replace the leadership at bailed out banks—starting with Ken Lewis? Clicking here adds your name:

http://pol.moveon.org/lewis//o.pl?id=15895-10140364-eaIMvKx&t=4

The petition says: "We can't trust the same people who got us into this financial mess to help lead us out. Replace the leadership at the bailed-out banks, starting with Bank of America CEO Ken Lewis."

Lewis is the CEO of the biggest bank in the United States.3 If Secretary Geithner forces him to resign, it'll send a strong message to the rest of Wall St.: The era of zero accountability is over and reckless behavior that puts our economy at risk won't be tolerated.

Of all the folks who helped bring about the recession, Lewis is one of the worst:

* Shareholders say he helped drive the company into the ground. Bank of America has lost billions—and 90% of its value—in part because Lewis "hastily arranged the ill-considered acquisition" of Merrill Lynch.4
* Even after the crisis, he hasn't changed his ways. He ensured that high-level staff received bonuses—despite recent announcements that the bank was laying off another 35,000 employees.5
* On top of all this, he's fighting against more rights for workers. Three days after receiving $25 billion in bailout money, Bank of America brought together powerful banking interests to figure out how to defeat the Employee Free Choice Act, a bill that makes it easier for workers to form unions.6

Ken Lewis has got to go. And we need to look closely at the other bailed-out banks that may need new leadership too.

Our friends at Service Employees International Union (the country's fastest-growing union) have been leading this campaign for a few weeks—and they're building momentum quickly. If hundreds of thousands of us act, together, we'll be impossible to ignore. Please sign today!

http://pol.moveon.org/lewis//o.pl?id=15895-10140364-eaIMvKx&t=5

Thanks for all you do.

–Daniel, Patrick S., Eli, Lenore and the rest of the team

Sources:

1. "Investment group calls on BofA to fire Ken Lewis," WCNC, March 5, 2009
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51294&id=15895-10140364-eaIMvKx&t=6

"Union to B of A: Fire Ken Lewis or Risk a Shareholder Revolt," Talking Points Memo, March 5, 2009
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51295&id=15895-10140364-eaIMvKx&t=7

2. "Thain tells investigators BofA's Ken Lewis knew of bonuses," CNN Money, February 20, 2009
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51285&id=15895-10140364-eaIMvKx&t=8

3. "Bank of America CEO Ken Lewis scores another deal," Fortune, September 15, 2008
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51289&id=15895-10140364-eaIMvKx&t=9

4. "Investment group calls on BofA to fire Ken Lewis," WCNC, March 5, 2009
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51294&id=15895-10140364-eaIMvKx&t=10

5. "Ken Lewis, What's Really in Your Company's Best Interest?" SEIU Blog, February 12, 2009
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51290&id=15895-10140364-eaIMvKx&t=11

6. "Bailout Recipients Hosted Call to Defeat Key Labor Bill," Huffington Post, January 27, 2009
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=51292&id=15895-10140364-eaIMvKx&t=12

Iran's Nuclear Program Is Purely Peaceful

2009-04-09T09:25:00.005-06:00

Right? That is what they said.

Perhaps not, after all.

A Chinese national allegedly used U.S. banks to fund the smuggling of banned nuclear materials to Iran, prosecutors say.

The shipments allegedly included 33,000 pounds of aluminum alloy used in missile production, 66,000 pounds of a copper used in missile guidance systems and 53,900 pounds of steel rods used in uranium enrichment

Substance Abuse Group Home Approved in Eagle Mountain

2009-04-08T19:41:00.000-06:00

The city council met Tuesday night, and despite deep reservations, approved the Ark of Eagle Mountain.

Read Councilman David Lifferth's views here.

Faith Based Economics

2009-04-08T10:51:00.000-06:00

From Greg Mankiw

Mormon Scholarship, Apologetics And Evangelical Neglect

2009-04-06T15:29:00.001-06:00

A friend of mine emailed this to me last week and I found it quite fascinating.

Mormon Scholarship, Apologetics And Evangelical Neglect

Publish at Scribd or explore others: Humanities Research

SNL Does Obama

2009-04-06T12:00:00.000-06:00

Cooler Than You

2009-04-03T15:52:00.001-07:00

Chinks in Democratic Party Armor, or Constructive Criticism Leading to Better Leadership?

2009-04-01T16:09:00.003-07:00

I wrote about my flirtation with the Democratic Party, and how the last election was the final nail in the flirtation coffin, here. However, with Obama's "Change" candidacy sweeping into the presidency, and Democrats increasing their hold over Congress, the Democratic Party was supposed to be marching to total domination. Republicans were told elections have consequences, and many long pent-up Democratic Party priorities were thought to have clear sailing in the coming months and years.

It was with that backdrop that I read with interest a recent article in The New Republic titled, Why the Democrats Can't Govern. It highlited areas of concern for President Obama - not from the opposing Republican Party, but from his own supposed party faithful in Congress. In that article, Jonathan Chait argues,

The last Democrat who held the White House, Bill Clinton, saw the core of his domestic agenda come to ruin, his political support collapse, and his failure spawn a massive Republican resurgence that made progressive reform impossible for a decade to come. The Democrat who last held the White House before that, Jimmy Carter, saw the exact same thing happen to him.

At this early date, nobody can know whether or not Barack Obama will escape this fate. But the contours of failure are now clearly visible. In Obama's case, as with his predecessors, the prospective culprit is the same: Democrats in Congress

It's a well written critique, but one that comes on the heals of a supposedly watershed election for the Democratic Party. An election that was all about change, about the public ditching the Republican Party and the political pendulum swinging inevitably in favor of the Democrats.

But apparently there are significant roadblocks to Democratic domination.

It was in the midst of reading and pondering that article on national Democratic Party internal politics that another internal struggle erupted. This time within the local party.

After apparently simmering for some time, the criticisms boiled over into a blog post by Bob Aagard, who expressed his frustration at state party leadership. It attracted a lot of attention in the form of comments and follow up posts, and seems to have inspired others who share the same frustrations to blog about them as well.

Basically, there is frustration at how the party is being led locally. Utah Dems see party gains in other Western states and lament the failure to capitalize here in Utah. This failure is being blamed on party leadership generally and State head Wayne Holland specifically. Rob Miller of the Utah Amicus blog, and the state vice chair, commented and gave a reasoned defense of the Party's activities. Rob's was one of the first blogs I found when I started this almost 3 years ago, and frankly was one of the reasons for my flirtation with his party. But he hasn't fared so well in these series of posts.

I'm left to wonder at the coincidental timing of these two controversies - one local, one national. The major difference is that the national story is about the struggle with success while the local version is dissatisfaction with failure, or at least less success than was desired. But the link in both stories is criticism of one's own party and party leadership. Does it reveal a hefty chink in the Democratic Party's new found armor, or does it show a party faithful not content to allow the failures of the past? I suppose only time will tell.

Group Home Applicant to Sue if Eagle Mountain Doesn't Grant Approval April 7

2009-03-31T10:42:00.002-07:00

As discussed here, Eagle Mountain is considering an application for a group home for substance abuse rehabilitation. The application was tabled at the last city council meeting, and is now scheduled to be reviewed again at the meeting on April 7th. In a Daily Herald news article, Gloria Boberg, executive director of The Ark of Eagle Mountain, threatened to sue the city if the application is not approved on that date.

I find the threat quite distasteful. I understand Ms. Boberg's frustration at the delay, particularly since this is not the first city to put numerous obstacles in the way of one of her homes. However, I think our city council is doing a great job of due diligence to ensure that the home will be everything it says it will be, and that any negative impact on the community will be mitigated.

Threats of legal action ahead of the council meeting do nothing to endear Ms. Boberg and her group home to the community. It simply will ensure that more angry residents will be at the April 7th meeting ready to speak out against the home.

Stunned by Hopium

2009-03-30T12:48:00.002-07:00

John Kass, in the Chicago Tribune:

Obama told Jay Leno he was surprised that those greedy AIG executives who helped lead the country into financial ruin were in line to receive $165 million in bonuses paid for by bailout cash authorized by his administration.

"Stunned, stunned is the word," said Obama.

Stunned?

It turns out that his Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner—who didn't pay all of his federal taxes but was still deemed worthy by Obama of collecting yours—knew all about the AIG bonuses weeks ago.

That was long before Washington Democrats began shrieking in pretend outrage over the bonuses, as if they didn't vote for them, sort of like Chicago aldermen shrieking about corruption from the 5th Floor.

It's like Mayor Richard Daley saying, "Gee, I dunno" when news breaks that his nephews are in another multimillion-dollar government deal. Or that time that Daley gave $100 million in affirmative action contracts to men he knows well, yet was stunned to learn later that they were white guys, not black females.

These days, the Washington Way is looking just like the Chicago Way. Those of us from Illinois can see it, what with City Hall guys pulling White House strings.

Then again, we're not surprised because we don't get the high-grade Hopium out here in the Midwest. The good stuff must be reserved for the Beltway media establishment, since they're the ones feeling tingles running up their legs.

President Now Backing Away From Middle Class Tax Cut Campaign Promise

2009-03-28T13:32:00.000-07:00

In 1993.

Plan To Reduce Charitable Deduction Will Cost Charities $7 Billion

2009-03-28T06:54:00.000-07:00

So argues Martin Feldstein of the Washington Post,

President Obama's proposal to limit the tax deductibility of charitable contributions would effectively transfer more than $7 billion a year from the nation's charitable institutions to the federal government. But the high-income taxpayers affected by the rule change are likely to cut their charitable giving by as much as the increase in their tax bills, which would, ironically, leave their remaining income and personal consumption unchanged.

In effect, the change would be a tax on the charities, reducing their receipts by a dollar for every dollar of extra revenue the government collects. It is hard to imagine a rationale for taxing schools, hospitals, medical research budgets and arts organizations in this way. I suspect that the administration officials who drafted this proposal did not understand that it would have this perverse effect.

How To Get An Entire Industry To Change Its Tune On Taxes

2009-03-27T14:17:00.001-07:00

But the American auto industry, under pressure, has invested heavily in the small-car and hybrid market. So it should probably not be a surprise that auto industry leaders like Alan Mulally of Ford have called for higher gas taxes, an idea Detroit once abhorred.

US automakers got creamed by the media, politicians, and the public last year when gas prices soared to $4 a gallon. Detroit brought it on themselves by not making high mpg vehicles, the saying went. Problem is, besides the fact that mpg had little to do with Detroit's problems, after being "under pressure" to build countless more small, fuel efficient cars, no one is buying them now.

Whereas last summer dealers couldn't keep a Prius on the lot for two days, now they're sitting for an average of 80 days. Not only that, but even though hybrids are always more expensive than their gas powered equivalent, carmakers make zero profit on them.

So why are US automakers pumping them out like crazy? Because the government made them. All that bailout money comes with strings attached. Not to mention the PR motivation brought on by the political grandstanding of last year. So now Detroit is on a quest to be the hybrid capitol of the world, just in time for gas prices to fall under $2 and decimate the artificial stimulus for the consumer to buy them.

Which is where the tax policy lesson comes in.

At the government's urging, Detroit makes tons of expensive cars no one wants to buy. The loss of consumer demand is blamed on low(er) gas prices. Detroit suddenly changes its tune on raising the gas tax.

So after using tax payer money to bail out car companies, we now get to pay higher prices for gasoline...to bail out the car companies.

Class dismissed.

This Is Disturbing

2009-03-27T09:52:00.005-07:00

"Because the American taxpayer now owns 80 percent of AIG, they should have full access to anything and everything they own, including their country club memberships, their recreation facilities, their built-in swimming pools"

So said Jeff Meyer, a passerby to the protests outside of an AIG employee's house.

More light reading:

NY Times on “Jackpot Jimmy”:

The words came haltingly. "You have to understand,” he said, “there are kids involved, there have been death threats. ..." His voice trailed off. It looked as if he was fighting back tears.

"I didn’t have anything to do with those credit problems,” said Mr. Haas, 47. “I told Mr. Liddy” — Edward M. Liddy, the chief executive of A.I.G., the insurance giant — “I would rescind my retention contract.”

Wall Street Journal
NY Times: Dear AIG, I Quit
WSJ
Washington Post

Should Eagle Mountain Allow A Substance Abuse Treatment Home In Its City?

2009-03-25T15:13:00.001-07:00

I went to my city council meeting last week to hear the debate surrounding whether or not to allow a substance abuse group home in Eagle Mountain. The home would be called Ark of Eagle Mountain and would house up to eight people undergoing substance abuse rehabilitation programs in a residential neighborhood of EM. The original application was filed with the city last fall, and this meeting was to hear public comment and put the group home application to a final vote.

The public comment period was filled with neighbors who vehemently oppose the home. There were a few common themes running through their comments, namely:

*The home would devalue property
*EM is not the right place for a home ie. they'd be better off in a city
*Security concerns
*Questions as to motivation - supposedly the homeowners were stuck in an unsellable spec home and this is how they're getting out of it.

After the public comment period ended, the executive director of the home addressed the concerns expressed:

*Residents of the home have chosen rehab - they aren't forced there by drug court etc
*Residents will be professionals - doctors, lawyers, dentists, and some will be war veterans
*There is 24/7 supervision, including cameras, alarms, lockdowns at night
*A similar home they operate in Sandy has never had any security problems - no complaints filed, and the neighbors love them
*It's wrong to fear that the home will bring addicts to EM - they're already here. The only difference is that these addicts have chosen rehabilitation.
*Complaints against this home are just example of NIMBY

Following the Ark's response, the city council members commented, as well as asked questions of the Ark and of the city's legal counsel. None of the council are in favor of allowing the home, but are apparently resigned to the fact that federal law prevents them from disallowing it. Some expressed anger at being in this position, feeling as though the home is being forced on the community by threat of lawsuit.

During this time a representative from the county sheriff's office presented his research that the Ark's home in Sandy has not had any security calls to the home, and a home in EM would not increase our policing costs.

In the end, the council voted to postpone the vote until April 7. They want a landscaping plan submitted, as well as a more thorough report on public safety concerns. The Ark's representatives left visibly irritated at another delay, and after leaving there was a small argument between them and one of the citizens who spoke against the home.

I am actually quite conflicted on this issue. After hearing the public comments, I too thought they sounded like little more than NIMBY. However, when one of the council members remarked that if you polled 100 people none of them would want this home next door to them, I found myself nodding in agreement. However, I feel that the home's operators have answered every question, complied with every request, and, perhaps most significantly, they have a sufficient track record of safety to allay any security concerns the community may have. For these reasons I don't believe the council should stand in the way of the home any longer.

Ark of Sandy
Daily Herald Editorial
Councilman David Lifferth's notes from the meeting
SL Tribune
Daily Herald
Deseret News

Does This Mean Anything?

2009-03-18T08:34:00.002-07:00

Investors Business Daily is touting the following economic information as indicators that the economy is on the upswing. I wonder, is it true?

• A broad rally in stocks, confirmed last Thursday, continuing into this week and led by the beaten-down financials.

• A surprising 22% surge in February housing starts to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 583,000 units.

• A back-to-back jump in retail sales ex autos, in both January and February.

• A return to profitability at several major banks, including Citigroup, Bank of America and JPMorgan.

• A doubling in the obscure but important Baltic Dry Index, a key indicator of global trade flows.

• An upwardly sloping yield curve, which Fed research suggests all but ensures a rebound by year-end.

• A Housing Affordability Index that has hit an all-time high.

• A two-month improvement in wholesale used-car prices, measured by the Manheim Index.

• A rise in Monster's Employment Index in February, suggesting a turn in the job market may be around the corner.

• A 4 1/2-year high in the dollar against other major currencies, on a trade-weighted basis.

• A sharp increase in the money supply, as measured by M2 and M1. Weekly M2 growth has averaged 10.1% year-over-year since the start of 2009, while M1 has grown at a 14.6% rate.

• A two-month rally in the Index of Leading Indicators.

• A growing body of evidence that the "liquidity crunch" is dead. Data show nearly $14 trillion in liquidity on the sidelines of the markets, ready to boost consumer spending, credit growth or further stock market gains.

This list could go on, but you get the general idea: Below the surface of gloom, there are signs of a new vibrancy.

Julieta Venegas - Eres Para Mi

2009-03-16T09:47:00.000-07:00

Why Mormons Build Temples

2009-03-13T11:15:00.000-07:00

Noble Fatherhood

2009-03-13T06:28:00.000-07:00

“Brethren, noble fatherhood gives us a glimpse of the divine attributes of our Father in Heaven. A father should be many things. He should magnify his priesthood and be an example of righteousness. In companionship with his wife, he should be the source of stability and strength for the whole family. He should be the protector and the provider and the champion of the members of his family. Much of his love for his children should flow from his example of love, concern, and fidelity for their mother. By his uncompromising example he should instill character into his children.”

James E. Faust, “Them That Honour Me I Will Honour,” Liahona, July 2001,

Pure Genius in Print

2009-03-12T11:39:00.000-07:00

Here

LDS Humanitarian Efforts

2009-03-12T07:28:00.000-07:00

"The scripture passages "As ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me" (Matthew 25:40) and "Remember in all things the poor and the needy" (D&C 52:40) take on special meaning as we review highlights of humanitarian endeavors.

The things you do for yourself are gone when you are gone, but the things that you do for others remain as your legacy."

The Terresa Carreno Youth Orchestra w/ Gustavo Dudamel

2009-03-11T07:51:00.005-07:00

Another great TED Talk:

The Teresa Carreño Youth Orchestra (Sinfónica Juvenil Teresa Carreño) is the national high school age youth orchestra of El Sistema, Venezuela's groundbreaking, life-changing musical education program.

Here is Jose Antonio Abreu, the founder of El Sistema, speaking about the program, accepting his TED prize, and announcing his wish:

Deron Williams is Better Than Chris Paul

2009-03-10T22:01:00.000-07:00

Here's why, according to Charlie Rosen:

# He's much stronger than CP3 and should therefore be more resistant to serious injuries.

# Because of his size and strength, Williams can post up smaller opponents (like Paul), and can avoid being posted himself (unlike Paul).

# It should be expected that an injury or Father Time will eventually diminish Paul's amazing speed and quickness — and when speed guards lose a step, their effectiveness is greatly reduced.

# Williams is much more versatile, so much so that it's not inconceivable he could make a successful switch to the shooting-guard spot as he ages.

# Williams is a much, much better jump-shooter than CP3.

# Whereas Paul does most of his half-court scoring in conjunction with high screen/rolls, Williams benefits from weak-side screens, staggered screens, and isolations.

# Williams goes left better than Paul.

# In half-court situations, Williams' power makes him a better finisher.

# Paul is a sniper-type defender, while Williams' defense is more fundamental and less chancy.

None of this is meant to suggest that Paul is anything less than the most dangerous speed guard in the league. He's also an incredible passer, and he plays in a system that maximizes his considerable skills.

But, I'll bet your mortgage that Williams will have a better all-around career than Paul.

The LDS Church Statement on Big Love: The Publicity Dilemma

2009-03-10T15:04:00.001-07:00

lds.org:

Like other large faith groups, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints sometimes finds itself on the receiving end of attention from Hollywood or Broadway, television series or books, and the news media. Sometimes depictions of the Church and its people are quite accurate. Sometimes the images are false or play to stereotypes. Occasionally, they are in appallingly bad taste.

As Catholics, Jews and Muslims have known for centuries, such attention is inevitable once an institution or faith group reaches a size or prominence sufficient to attract notice. Yet Latter-day Saints – sometimes known as Mormons - still wonder whether and how they should respond when news or entertainment media insensitively trivialize or misrepresent sacred beliefs or practices.

Church members are about to face that question again. Before the first season of the HBO series Big Love aired more than two years ago, the show’s creators and HBO executives assured the Church that the series wouldn’t be about Mormons. However, Internet references to Big Love indicate that more and more Mormon themes are now being woven into the show and that the characters are often unsympathetic figures who come across as narrow and self-righteous. And according to TV Guide, it now seems the show’s writers are to depict what they understand to be sacred temple ceremonies.

Certainly Church members are offended when their most sacred practices are misrepresented or presented without context or understanding. Last week some Church members began e-mail chains calling for cancellations of subscriptions to AOL, which, like HBO, is owned by Time Warner. Certainly such a boycott by hundreds of thousands of computer-savvy Latter-day Saints could have an economic impact on the company. Individual Latter-day Saints have the right to take such actions if they choose.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as an institution does not call for boycotts. Such a step would simply generate the kind of controversy that the media loves and in the end would increase audiences for the series. As Elder M. Russell Ballard and Elder Robert D. Hales of the Council of the Twelve Apostles have both said recently, when expressing themselves in the public arena, Latter-day Saints should conduct themselves with dignity and thoughtfulness.

Not only is this the model that Jesus Christ taught and demonstrated in his own life, but it also reflects the reality of the strength and maturity of Church members today. As someone recently said, “This isn’t 1830, and there aren’t just six of us anymore.” In other words, with a global membership of thirteen and a half million there is no need to feel defensive when the Church is moving forward so rapidly. The Church’s strength is in its faithful members in 170-plus countries, and there is no evidence that extreme misrepresentations in the media that appeal only to a narrow audience have any long-term negative effect on the Church.

Examples:

* During the Mitt Romney election campaign for the presidency of the United States, commentator Lawrence O’Donnell hurled abuse at the Church in a television moment that became known among many Church members as “the O’Donnell rant.” Today, his statements are remembered only as a testament to intolerance and ignorance. They had no effect on the Church that can be measured.
* When the comedy writers for South Park produced a gross portrayal of Church history, individual Church members no doubt felt uncomfortable. But once again it inflicted no perceptible or lasting damage to a church that is growing by at least a quarter of a million new members every year.
* When an independent film company produced a grossly distorted version of the Mountain Meadows Massacre two years ago, the Church ignored it. Perhaps partly as a result of that refusal to engender the controversy that the producers hoped for, the movie flopped at the box office and lost millions.
* In recent months, some gay activists have barraged the media with accusations about “hateful” attitudes of Latter-day Saints in supporting Proposition 8 in California, which maintained the traditional definition of marriage. They even organized a protest march around the Salt Lake Temple. Again, the Church has refused to be goaded into a Mormons versus gays battle and has simply stated its position in tones that are reasonable and respectful. Meanwhile, missionary work and Church members in California remain as robust and vibrant as ever, and support for the Church has come from many unexpected quarters — including some former critics and other churches.

Now comes another series of Big Love, and despite earlier assurances from HBO it once again blurs the distinctions between The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the show’s fictional non-Mormon characters and their practices. Such things say much more about the insensitivities of writers, producers and TV executives than they say about Latter-day Saints.

If the Church allowed critics and opponents to choose the ground on which its battles are fought, it would risk being distracted from the focus and mission it has pursued successfully for nearly 180 years. Instead, the Church itself will determine its own course as it continues to preach the restored gospel of Jesus Christ throughout the world.

From The Office of Fiscal Responsibility

2009-03-09T08:09:00.001-07:00

Eagle Mountain City Councilman on UTA Express Line to Provo

2009-03-05T17:46:00.000-07:00

A UTA express bus line is coming to Eagle Mountain this Spring. I discussed the line here and here. I had questions concerning the cost and subsidy the bus line required, particularly since the cost to ride the bus remains pretty high.

Well, on my city councilman's website, someone asked when we were going to get an express line to Provo/Orem. Here is his reply:

The biggest factor will be the number of bus riders on the upcoming express bus route to Salt Lake City from Saratoga Springs and Eagle Mountain. If that route has a significant number of dailly riders and that bus route comes close to breaking even financially, then more bus routes will be considered. If those 2 express bus routes are not at or near capacity, then it will take a longer time for additional routes to be considered by UTA.

The second factor is funding. This new bus route was jump started with a $200k federal grant to expand bus services. If there is more transporation grant money avialable, then that would increase the likelyhood of expanded bus routes.

The third factor is the sales tax revenue. Eagle Mountain and Saratoga Springs residents voted to pay a quarter of a percnet more sales tax to subsidize the bus services to our area. If the sales taxes generated from our 2 cities makes up any shortfall that the 2 express bus routes, then we help our chances in getting additional routes.

The 4th is a bit of an unknown. There are efforts available to put all of Utah County into the UTA transportation district. There is legal wrangling about this and I don't know how much support there is county wide to join the transportation district. If we, as a county, join the UTA do join there will be expanded bus routes county-wide and that will also increase our chances of additional bus lines.

The bottom line is that we are in the in a trial/test/pilot/evaluation period to see the success of what we already have. It if works out as a positive thing and capacity and percentage of ridership his high, then we probably get more options. We will have to wait and see.

So after hundreds of thousands of federal dollars, tens of thousands of city tax dollars, plus $160 a month per person to ride the bus, there are concerns that UTA won't break even by driving two buses to Salt Lake City and back five days a week? I don't get it.

Who Owns Utah?

2009-03-04T07:57:00.004-07:00

Take a look at this map:

And then ponder on all those calling western Republicans hypocrites for taking federal money.