OK, not really a news flash, but the data is interesting. Here are some selected quotes from the Economist on line: http://www.economist.com/blogs/babbage/2012/01/physiology-and-politics
"..... According to one famous study, conservatives are not just more god-fearing than liberals (as Americans call left-leaning folk). They are more fearful in general, making them more receptive to threatening aspects of the environment. Hence, the argument goes, their penchant for tougher policing, harsher sentencing, stronger armed forces and other Republican shibboleths.
However, this observation does not by itself explain liberals' preoccupation with progressive policies which often aim to make people's lives more pleasant, as opposed to less unpleasant. Michael Dodd, of the University of Nebraska, wondered whether this is because they are drawn more strongly than conservatives are to the bright side of life. As he and his colleagues report in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, this does in fact appear to be the case...."
The article goes on to discuss the methodology which involved a series of studies of how mixed groups of people react to various types of stimuli.
Tuesday, February 7, 2012
Friday, February 3, 2012
Government isn't a business.
It seems to me many Republicans have this delusion that Government can be run the same way you run a business.
In business the single goal is to make money. All other considerations give way to that goal. So the successful business people are the most ruthless about laying off employees, or paying employee's as little as they can get away with. They see no responsibility to their employees, or their customers, beyond what they must do to make the business successful. The survival of the business trumps all other considerations. To a large degree business rewards selfish behavior.
Mitt Romney and Herman Cain have both been successful in the business world and their campaign promises demonstrate they believe the same techniques that brought them business success will allow them to turn Government into a more successful enterprise. Their "business" Republican mantra is cutting taxes, cutting regulation and reducing the size of government.
The problem is government is not a business. It doesn't have a single easy to grasp goal like making money. In the United States survival of the government doesn't trump the welfare of the people. Government has responsibility for all their citizens, a simple fact Republicans often seem to have a difficult time grasping.
When "business" Republicans have been in control of the Republican party they have crippled the country. The two biggest economic collapses in the last 100 years both followed spells of "business" Republicans controlling the Government. Business Republicans controlled the party in the 1920's - it was the only time in the last 100 years we had two business men as President back to back - Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover. They had Republican majorities in the House and Senate. When they took over the country the had balanced budgets and a healthy economy. They ran the country like a business and by the time the people ushered them out of office in 1933 unemployment was at 25%, millions of houses had been foreclosed upon and we were staggering along in the Great Depression.
The "business" Republicans lost influence for decades after that. The next three Republican Presidents were Ike, a career military man, Reagan an actor (and ironically the head of a labor union), and George H.W. Bush, who had lots of business experience but also lots of Government experience and never embraced the "business" Republican mantra. Then came the next real "business" Republican President, George W. Bush. We are probably all old enough to remember Mr. Bush promising to cut taxes, cut regulations and cut government.
George W. came into office in 2001 with a balanced budget, a pretty healthy economy, like minded Republican majorities in the House and Senate and ran the country like a CEO. By the time he left office world financial markets were frozen, we were bailing out Wall Street and unemployment and the deficit were skyrocketing.
We the voters need to tell Republicans the country is not a business and we can't afford to let them run it like one.
In business the single goal is to make money. All other considerations give way to that goal. So the successful business people are the most ruthless about laying off employees, or paying employee's as little as they can get away with. They see no responsibility to their employees, or their customers, beyond what they must do to make the business successful. The survival of the business trumps all other considerations. To a large degree business rewards selfish behavior.
Mitt Romney and Herman Cain have both been successful in the business world and their campaign promises demonstrate they believe the same techniques that brought them business success will allow them to turn Government into a more successful enterprise. Their "business" Republican mantra is cutting taxes, cutting regulation and reducing the size of government.
The problem is government is not a business. It doesn't have a single easy to grasp goal like making money. In the United States survival of the government doesn't trump the welfare of the people. Government has responsibility for all their citizens, a simple fact Republicans often seem to have a difficult time grasping.
When "business" Republicans have been in control of the Republican party they have crippled the country. The two biggest economic collapses in the last 100 years both followed spells of "business" Republicans controlling the Government. Business Republicans controlled the party in the 1920's - it was the only time in the last 100 years we had two business men as President back to back - Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover. They had Republican majorities in the House and Senate. When they took over the country the had balanced budgets and a healthy economy. They ran the country like a business and by the time the people ushered them out of office in 1933 unemployment was at 25%, millions of houses had been foreclosed upon and we were staggering along in the Great Depression.
The "business" Republicans lost influence for decades after that. The next three Republican Presidents were Ike, a career military man, Reagan an actor (and ironically the head of a labor union), and George H.W. Bush, who had lots of business experience but also lots of Government experience and never embraced the "business" Republican mantra. Then came the next real "business" Republican President, George W. Bush. We are probably all old enough to remember Mr. Bush promising to cut taxes, cut regulations and cut government.
George W. came into office in 2001 with a balanced budget, a pretty healthy economy, like minded Republican majorities in the House and Senate and ran the country like a CEO. By the time he left office world financial markets were frozen, we were bailing out Wall Street and unemployment and the deficit were skyrocketing.
We the voters need to tell Republicans the country is not a business and we can't afford to let them run it like one.
Wednesday, February 1, 2012
Some facts about elections in the US
Factoid - Corporations that spend the most money on lobbying make more money than Corporations that don't lobby. The study- a research service created a stock index based on the amount corporations spend on lobbying. Since 1998 companies that spend the most on lobbying, as a percentage of their total revenues, outperformed other companies. The "lobby" index outperformed the S&P 500 by 11% a year since 2002. In one specific example that the researchers looked at in 2004 the lobbying produced a $224 payoff for every dollar spent in lobbying. Source: Article in Economist, Oct.1.2011, p.82
Factoid - Voters subliminally exposed to a flag are more likely to vote Republican. A study found in the US that subliminal exposure to a flag made people more likely to vote Republican. The study involved 3 sets of questions about political preference, each person filled out a form asking a series of questions on 3 different occasions over the course of a couple months before and after the 2008 election. The first two asked for preferences before the election. Some of the forms had a small American flag decorating it, others were undecorated. There was a statisically significant greater preference for McCain and Republicans over Obama and the Democrats in the answers on the form with the flag on it. The questionaire after the election revealed that people who saw the flag on a questionaire were slightly over 10% less likely to have voted for Obama. The result was then confirmed by another study in the spring of 2010, which again found exposure to an image of the flag changed responses to favor Republicans. An earlier study in Israel had also found showing the national flag impacted voters perceptions of a particular political issue. Source - Economist, Aug 6, 2011. p70.
Factoid - Voters subliminally exposed to a flag are more likely to vote Republican. A study found in the US that subliminal exposure to a flag made people more likely to vote Republican. The study involved 3 sets of questions about political preference, each person filled out a form asking a series of questions on 3 different occasions over the course of a couple months before and after the 2008 election. The first two asked for preferences before the election. Some of the forms had a small American flag decorating it, others were undecorated. There was a statisically significant greater preference for McCain and Republicans over Obama and the Democrats in the answers on the form with the flag on it. The questionaire after the election revealed that people who saw the flag on a questionaire were slightly over 10% less likely to have voted for Obama. The result was then confirmed by another study in the spring of 2010, which again found exposure to an image of the flag changed responses to favor Republicans. An earlier study in Israel had also found showing the national flag impacted voters perceptions of a particular political issue. Source - Economist, Aug 6, 2011. p70.
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
What if - we voted for Federal programs on our tax return?
All my life Washington has been spending enormous amounts of time and money fighting over which programs get funded by the Government. Hundreds of programs live on in the Federal budget because Washington is to busy to pay attention to it, or, more likely, happy to take money from special interests who support a low profile program that is so low profile protecting the program won't come back to bite them in the butt.
An example - I just learned there are lots of little tiny airports around the country that get hundreds of millions of dollars in Federal subsidies - based on a program from decades ago to mitigate the impact of airline deregulation. That program was supposed to expire after 10 years, but special interests and local politicians seeking to bring home some bacon to get reelected have kept it going for decades.
.
What if on our Federal income tax filing we got to check on which programs we support or don't support.
Some core programs would have to be exempt, like defense.
But taxpayers could choose to allocate a percentage of their taxes among programs that give away government funds to individuals or businesses. School lunch programs, subsidies for farmers, or oil companies or airports.
Whatever percentage of taxpayers support the program determines the amount of money they get. Below a certain threshhold, say 10% of voters, the program is eliminated.
So programs could plan you wouldn't have every program listed every year, maybe every 8 years. And to keep the tax form short there would be ways you could vote for whole catagories of programs.
An example - I just learned there are lots of little tiny airports around the country that get hundreds of millions of dollars in Federal subsidies - based on a program from decades ago to mitigate the impact of airline deregulation. That program was supposed to expire after 10 years, but special interests and local politicians seeking to bring home some bacon to get reelected have kept it going for decades.
.
What if on our Federal income tax filing we got to check on which programs we support or don't support.
Some core programs would have to be exempt, like defense.
But taxpayers could choose to allocate a percentage of their taxes among programs that give away government funds to individuals or businesses. School lunch programs, subsidies for farmers, or oil companies or airports.
Whatever percentage of taxpayers support the program determines the amount of money they get. Below a certain threshhold, say 10% of voters, the program is eliminated.
So programs could plan you wouldn't have every program listed every year, maybe every 8 years. And to keep the tax form short there would be ways you could vote for whole catagories of programs.
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
A Grand Bargain for California
The deadlock that has existed in the California legislature for a generation reflects a lack of clear vision on the part of both Democrats and Republicans. Republicans, who in general regard government as out of control, have successfully pushed anti-tax polices to "starve the beast", most notably the 2/3 vote requirements imposed first by Proposition 13 and later by other propositions. Their policies have managed to cripple many public services without impacting the real major problem with government, the lack of public control over public salaries and pensions.
Democrats, on the other hand, have castigated Republicans for destroying public services, but been unwilling to address the problem of public employee compensation practices.
We cannot solve the problems in California without getting rid of the 2/3 vote requirements in Proposition 13 and other anti-tax adoptions, but we also cannot go on allowing average public sector compensation to greatly exceed average private sector compensation.
We need someone to step forward and develop a grand bargain for California that does some things like:
1. Repeals all 2/3 vote requirements, and precludes future adoptions imposing any higher vote requirement than the percentage of votes that approve the adoption.
2. Links public sector total compensation to average private sector total compensation, but with mean, median and mode tests that flatten the overall salary range. Public sector managers should not be using comparison to private sector salaries to drive their salaries up into the hundreds of thousands of dollars.
3. Requires all public programs to be tested for effectiveness every 5 years and reauthorized every 10 years.
Democrats, on the other hand, have castigated Republicans for destroying public services, but been unwilling to address the problem of public employee compensation practices.
We cannot solve the problems in California without getting rid of the 2/3 vote requirements in Proposition 13 and other anti-tax adoptions, but we also cannot go on allowing average public sector compensation to greatly exceed average private sector compensation.
We need someone to step forward and develop a grand bargain for California that does some things like:
1. Repeals all 2/3 vote requirements, and precludes future adoptions imposing any higher vote requirement than the percentage of votes that approve the adoption.
2. Links public sector total compensation to average private sector total compensation, but with mean, median and mode tests that flatten the overall salary range. Public sector managers should not be using comparison to private sector salaries to drive their salaries up into the hundreds of thousands of dollars.
3. Requires all public programs to be tested for effectiveness every 5 years and reauthorized every 10 years.
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
Americas most dangerous
When the Gallup Poll asks Americans which presents the greatest danger to America, big government, big business or big labor, somewhere around 60% of Americans choose big government, 20% chose big business.
My first reaction was what planet are these people living on? What is the evidence that big government is dangerous? Wall Street just blew up the whole world economy, leaving millions of American's out of work, with lost retirement benefits and foreclosed houses. The last time we had a similar economic catastrophe it was also Wall Streets doing (the great depression). Its hard to blame big government for either of these events since those arch enemies of big goverment, Republicans, were in control of government both times for the decade leading up to the collapse (although Republicans are very creative is weaseling out of responsibility). Although certainly government contributed due to the tentacles big business has that can manipulate government to their ends.
After the last economic blow up Social Security and Medicare are all many people have to make it through their older years. What's big business done for them lately?
The sobering reality is that what people believe isn't based in reality. The same marketing expertise that convinces people to pay $5 for a tube of tooth paste that is no better than the $3 generic alternative, has been used by supporters of the big business viewpoint to sell voters a fictional reality.
(Poll results reported on NPR/(Marketplace, 12/14/11)
My first reaction was what planet are these people living on? What is the evidence that big government is dangerous? Wall Street just blew up the whole world economy, leaving millions of American's out of work, with lost retirement benefits and foreclosed houses. The last time we had a similar economic catastrophe it was also Wall Streets doing (the great depression). Its hard to blame big government for either of these events since those arch enemies of big goverment, Republicans, were in control of government both times for the decade leading up to the collapse (although Republicans are very creative is weaseling out of responsibility). Although certainly government contributed due to the tentacles big business has that can manipulate government to their ends.
After the last economic blow up Social Security and Medicare are all many people have to make it through their older years. What's big business done for them lately?
The sobering reality is that what people believe isn't based in reality. The same marketing expertise that convinces people to pay $5 for a tube of tooth paste that is no better than the $3 generic alternative, has been used by supporters of the big business viewpoint to sell voters a fictional reality.
(Poll results reported on NPR/(Marketplace, 12/14/11)
Sunday, January 22, 2012
Things Republicans could do to make me take them seriously - Public / Private partnerships
In a democracy laws are often compromises that are less about finding the best solutions than they are about giving everyone something to make them happy. So we end up with laws that don't work for anyone except the special interests who know how to work them. One common compromise has been to make government programs "public private" partnerships. Generally that means private folks put up some money and take home any profits the entity produces, while public entities absorb the losses.
Public private partnerships are almost always a disaster for taxpayers.
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac grew out of a pragmatic desire to allow more people to own homes. But some in Congress who were representing the interests of Financial institutions used their influence to give Financial institutions a cut of the action. The public private hybrid managed to have the worst characteristics of both and the best characteristics of neither.
Higher Education and Health Care are two other areas Congress has melded an amalgam of government functions with profit motivated private business. For the last three decades costs for both have risen much faster than inflation, as our systems are subject to few of the controls of the marketplace.
History seems to have demonstrated that if we think some problem needs to be addressed by a Government program, it should be government only program, Public/private partnerships are a bad idea for everyone but the investors who will be milking the taxpayers.
Public private partnerships are almost always a disaster for taxpayers.
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac grew out of a pragmatic desire to allow more people to own homes. But some in Congress who were representing the interests of Financial institutions used their influence to give Financial institutions a cut of the action. The public private hybrid managed to have the worst characteristics of both and the best characteristics of neither.
Higher Education and Health Care are two other areas Congress has melded an amalgam of government functions with profit motivated private business. For the last three decades costs for both have risen much faster than inflation, as our systems are subject to few of the controls of the marketplace.
History seems to have demonstrated that if we think some problem needs to be addressed by a Government program, it should be government only program, Public/private partnerships are a bad idea for everyone but the investors who will be milking the taxpayers.
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