Tucson Budget Crisis

Year end musings on the sad budgetary state of affairs of Tucson, Arizona, USA.

Tucson had an election and I pray the council will succeed in the difficult task ahead. Some guidelines for solving the budget cutting problem should be in place before the task is attempted. Prioritizing objectives must be done.

In this analysis the special place of the responsibilities of cities must be considered first.
The city of Tucson is responsible for providing essential services. As a definition of essential must be made, I say that the following services are essential.

I. Essential

Law enforcement
Fire protection
Water and sanitation
Garbage collection
Prosecution/incarceration/courts/public defender
Records and Elections
Related Administrative

Other services are ongoing but are not essential in the short term. These must be cut back what percent?

II. Secondary (not in order of importance)

City manager
Real estate
Zoning
Rio Nuevo
Community services
MLK revitalization(no longer low income)
Housing Management
Community development
*Audit Housing Assistance
Convention Center
Director/administration
Event development
Event services
Finance
General Services
Information technology
Neighborhood resources
Parks (explore alternate way to keep open, caretaker system)
Procurement
Transportation

To continue this categorization, the following must be cut heavily or discontinued.

III. Non-Essential (not in order of importance)

Intergovernmental relations: elected officials
Development Services skeleton crew for the downturn
Budgetary Requirements environmental services
General Services architectural and Engineering
Fleet services could be cut overall by having fewer vehicles online
Internal service fund
Is golf a net economic boost for Tucson? How much does golf generate?
Human Resources
Urban Planning and Design
Non Departmental: mishmash of causes needs weeding out
Debt Service


Cutting the budgets of the secondary and non essential services is necessary. The essential services could use an administrative reorganization and review of expenses in order to shave off a percent of their budgets. They should be given further goals to meet.

Debt service is huge and the debts should be restructured to meet existing economic conditions, in order to prevent a default. I would rather pay police and fire protection than pay debt service, if the choice has to be made. If the pundits say Tucson will ruin its credit, perhaps this is a blessing in disguise, since about ¼ of the budget goes to debt service. The city cannot afford this debt load and certainly does not need more debt in any form. Look at it this way: if you count the debt for water systems, the debt service rises to $140,788,980, which is about 29% of total stated expenditures. I wish it were impossible for elected officials to create debt that lasts beyond their term. With so much of the expenditures tied up in debt service, flexibility appears to be limited to employee pay cuts and departmental expenditures in the form of cuts in services to residents.

What a plan! Raise taxes and continue the level of debt service no matter what happens to essential services? Not a good plan. Tell them to take a hike after you have cut these departments and downsized the budget, if that is still needed. We do not neglect the weak in order to pay debt service. We do not lay off Police and Fire to pay debt service.

Difficult decisions are ahead. May you all succeed in this task.

Dorothy Prater Niemi
December 2009

POLICY CHANGE TO STIMULATE ECONOMY

Federal and local entitlement programs: A long term approach

In a few years, years, the Federal budget will be all entitlements. They are now borrowing in order to fund operations and defense. Arizona is in similar shape. 2/3 of the federal budget is mandated and sunsets are nonexistent. Borrowing is rampant tying up revenue streams for years. The whole country is so tied up in debt, discretionary income is ????

Some new policies are needed:

Entitlements should be limited to X% of the total income, not income plus borrowing.
All new entitlements through legislation or initiative should have a sunset clause and an escape clause in case of a budget deficit. Flexibility is needed in budgeting.

To cut the growth of entitlements, slow population growth through tax incentives. Government subsidy of poor should not escalate with each mouth added, thus paying the poor to breed. The more well off also are breeding in record numbers, using the tax deduction to help finance it. The public schools also must accept unlimited numbers of children from any given source, which favors those with large families, while the others pay. A religious objection to population control is personal, but those who want large families should pay for it.

Suggested changes in policy:

After 1 child per person, no welfare payment raises for further children. This does not apply to food stamps, however.

After 1 child per person, no further deductions for income tax will be given by the state or federal governments and an overage must be paid for on a per capita basis.

After one child per person, any person having more than one child must pay a stipend per overage to the local school public district or arrange for private schooling subject to curriculum set by the state/federal and passage of state/federal tests.

Tax refunds to the childless.

These changes in policies would result in a slowing of population growth, which would slow the growth of other governmental costs. This would raise taxes for some, but it is those who are using the services.

Further policy changes linked:

Illegal immigration needs to be discouraged. Border security will succeed only when the economic climate does not favor hiring illegal aliens, who will work under the radar for less than the minimum wage. Perhaps the minimum wage needs to be revisited, but if population growth slows, fewer workers can demand higher wages, but only in the absence of illegal immigrant competition. Immigration policies in general need to be amended to force other countries to manage their population growth instead of relying on the USA as a population outlet.

Getting business owners out of the health insurance business and allowing them to pay what they can to workers would open opportunity. If a large business owner pays so little that their workers must apply for assistance, then possibly a stipend should be required of them, as a percentage of total profit. Reasonable compensation to the owners would be monitored in these cases.

Awareness that free enterprise will carry on under the blanket despite governments effort to control what people are paid and what these people have to buy with the money they earn. Enough already. Local trading economies will arise as will trading economies like smuggling, all of which operate without taxation or regulation. Filtering money through an administrative hierarchy in order to pay for health care makes me want to move towards cash payments that skip these people who are charging us to pay themselves to distribute this money for us. Reality check.

I still don’t get how AIG securities insurance failure milked the US government of $180,000,000,000. Did some of this $ that went to foreign banks make its way to Dubai? Prosecutors need to trail this milking and pinpoint the chain of command. What interesting news that would be. Is it true firearms permits are now more available in New York?

Like who instigated? Who set the stage? Pipeline information? Cleanup crew as recipient of riches?

We need new policy.

Suggested policy changes:

Outlaw securities, derivatives and hedging anywhere but under legalized gambling. The economy is not a toy and people depend on it.

Review economic needs within the USA before looking to export. Sell to each other and Canada and Mexico.

Free business owners from mandatory health insurance requirements

Do not force the purchase of insurance on the populace.

Link employee wages to their welfare needs to employer profits and required support payments to the state, with exemptions for subsistence business.

Ease zoning laws that discourage localized small businesses.

Ease up on taxes, regulation, licenses, fees, for all business except for public health/environmental concerns.

Fewer inspectors rather than fewer law enforcement personnel, when the government has budget shortfalls.


Policy can dictate change in oblique ways. The insistence that growth can be infinite is indicative of a lack of population curbs and the inability of production of food in the infinite is bound to coincide in a population crash, starvation of the species in the classic ecological boom and bust cycle defined by physical resources. Must we act so much like animals that we must do this to ourselves?

Opinion Bias at the Arizona Daily Star

Due to a recent problem with the Arizona Daily Star, I have taken an interest in opinion page policy analysis. Since I also subscribe to The Arizona Republic, I compared the two papers.

The first major difference between them is the amount of information about an author that the Star requires.

Star

Name
Address
Daytime phone
Occupation
Political affiliation
Issue affiliation
Candidate affiliation Campaign affiliation
150 word length

Republic

Name
Address
Phone
200 word length


The second major difference is that in the Star, submissions become the property of the Star. The Republic publishes the work in several formats and makes no claim of ownership. If an author’s work is printed in the Star, then that author has ‘sold’ it for nothing. Does this mean the author can no longer sell the piece?

The third major difference is that in the Star, submissions may be “edited for clarity and length” while the Republic makes no mention of that possibility. Who is doing this at the Star?

Having always admired the Arizona Republic as the better paper, I believe that the Star opinion page guidelines set the stage for ongoing opinion page bias on the part of the Star.

Health Insurance or Health Care?

The discussion is still about insurance, not health care. Is it the government’s purvey to provide health insurance or provide that government care for the infirm and ill? Traditionally, government did provide for the poor out of humanitarian reasons or out of the need to prevent revolution from the ground up. The funds came from the king and the wealthy. Religious institutions also provided assistance to the poor out of a necessity to prove they practiced what they preached but probably out of a natural human need to care for others.

I am heartened by the Republicans finally coming up with some ideas to reform health care delivery systems. I am disappointed in the Democrats for embracing mandatory insurance as the way to provide better health care for our citizens.

Requiring business to buy health insurance for employees keeps the price jacked up and the whole scheme going. The idea of mandatory insurance for all citizens will also jack the price up. Government price controls are resisted as the public option, which would limit what could be paid for a given medical service, forcing health care providers to rein in costs or services to patients or forcing them to take a pay cut. The debt overload is staggering uphill, so it is suggested commercial debt relief to medical care providers. Exorbitant commercial prices during the boom left medical businesses swamped in building debt in the form of high rents or payments.

These bills our fearless leaders are coming up with contain the idea of mandatory insurance. Our elected leaders deem it necessary to force the people to pay for insurance instead of health care. They also think that insurance companies are better at handling our money than we are.

If this mandatory insurance idea is foisted upon us, I suggest the following be implemented along with mandatory insurance payments:

All health care providers must accept all insurance. No hoity toity, no exclusive treatment salons that do not take Medicare, no ‘private’ clinics that take ‘exclusive’ insurance. If a rich person hires a private doctor for cash payments, that is private enterprise.

All health care providers must accept all insurance because all citizens are required by law to buy insurance. We lose our right to choose, health care providers lose the right to choose who they treat. This means all hospitals, doctors, clinics etc. who accept any insurance have to accept all insurance.

Price fixing between health care providers and insurance companies should be a thing of the past in that prices for procedures will be dictated by the government that requires us to buy insurance. We should not be charged more than what the insurance pays, since so many people with insurance are bankrupted by health care costs. When insurance is mandated, the health care people will earn less since price controls will be instituted.

For the health insurance people, you cannot demand we buy what you are selling without us having some ideas how we want our money managed. Insurance companies must accept controls on pay, number of employees, standards for judging claims, premium price controls and intense oversight. No more golf holidays, spa visits and celebrations of plenty while using premium money to party and gamble.

The domino effect is present here. The strongarm tactic of forcing people to buy insurance creates other hassles. Some of our legislators evidently believe it is easy to force people to buy insurance but in the interests of fairness, the insurance industry and the health care industry will also lose volition. Sure, the insurance companies will have millions more bank accounts to tap into but is it worth the change in our socio-economic structure?

Not one to criticize without offering a solution, here are a few ideas:

The mandatory insurance idea is not free market. Insurance should only be an option, not the only way to achieve affordable health care. Capitalism allows for a variety of approaches, never mandating that one way is the only way. Affordable health care is the real goal, not propping up exorbitant salaries in the insurance and health care arena. As I wrote before, why not use stimulus money to establish low cost clinics in the neighborhoods and to fund nurses in the public schools? Remember, providing health care is the goal.

Wajiristan Earthquake

Wajiristan earthquake
Portent of future displeasure
2012 AD/BC observable
Synchronous cycles days coincide
Endings and beginnings

Some try to protect a way of life
From change an impossible task
Cannot freeze time
We have no volition in that
Then come the choices

If your heritage is omitted
All are not known
But all are respected
As a choice
Those contributed and succeeded in survival

Tasmanian, Austrailian, Basque, Celt, Jew, Armenian, Pygmies, Persian,
Saami, Tamil, Olmec, Han, Mongols, Shinto, Sikkhs, Hindi, Egypt, Maya, Nazcan, Greece, Buddha, Rome, Teotihuacan
Christ and Mohammed
May we all celebrate and respect heritage

Let no man slay
For the reason of difference
Shame for humans to kill humans
When the relentless environment
Could not as their descendents live today.

As time and environment is in flux
So must be these systems
Time is frozen in memory only
Our lives are not so isolated
As when these belief systems began

Blame time if you are disappointed
Blame not the innocent
Blame the mists of time when chadars
Protected desert women from sun and disease
And males walked with women for safety

Relativism versus moral certainty
Basic right and wrong are known to all
Just excusing those different from the definition
To some all means only those resembling themselves
Is a severely rigid viewpoint

Competition for resources
Disguised as religious persecution
Ethnic hatred and competitive fear
This must be resolved
With land and resources already scarce.

Dorothy Prater Niemi 2009

Tucson City Council Race

Are the hotel/motel receipts in town down? Should the city of Tucson be borrowing $15,000,000 to tear down the front of the convention center and rebuild it, all before the February opening of the gem show? As Ms. Trasoff indicates, this would provide few jobs. The jobs created would be short term, but the debt she embraces is for the long term, with the rest of us paying for those few quick jobs. Taxpayers will pay for years and years, plus high interest rates siphoned off to the moneylenders. Ms. Trasoff would have us pay and pay while she moves on.

And what about hotel receipts in town? Should the city be funding anything that competes with already struggling businesses? Should the city be going into debt to compete with local businesses?

This is a cynical attempt to gain momentary control over $15,000,000. The construction lobby would have secured one more short term job that will be paid for by the rest of us for a long time. All this without any discernable benefit to the public and the possibility that the convention center will be torn up just in time for the gem show. . Get a restraining order against any destruction of the convention center.

VOTERS! Please vote these people out.

Campaign Statements Mean Nothing

Since our president has reneged on a campaign declaration against forcing citizens to buy insurance, it is necessary to oppose his position. Forcing citizens to buy anything would raise the price, since the supply is controlled by profit takers while the citizenry is mandated to buy. This sounds like slavery to me. You say we will have an array of choices, but none of these choices is a refusal to buy anything to save the money. If this ‘reform’ goes through, we lose our freedom of choice to buy or not to buy. We can merely choose among an array provided by the insurance companies and the government, because we all know that our politicians and insurance agents know much more about how we should spend our money. We have to spend our money on insurance, whether or not we want to. We are not allowed to save this money and use it for medical costs negotiated at a fair market value.

The free market will not function without freedom of choice on the part of the consumer.

Of course, I have not heard that all health care businesses must honor all these mandatory insurance ‘choices’ we will be so graciously allowed to pay for. Since we are posited to lose our freedom to chose whether to buy insurance or not, the health care businesses should not be allowed to turn away customers, no matter what insurance they have. These health care businesses should be forced to take whatever every insurance pays without charging the patient further costs. If our freedom to bring the medical profession to a fair market value is at an end, then their freedom to pick and choose among patients and insurance plans should be at an end.

Mandatory insurance of any kind is a cash cow for those controlling the insurance companies. The money they siphon off could be better spent on actual healthcare instead of for enriching executives and investors and politicians. What is going on here? These insurance parasites do not deserve the cover of legislation making it mandatory for us to buy what ever makes them the most profit.

Invasive Species

Invasive Species in North and South America

Pestilence comes to mind first the scourge that hit the new world as we in our history phrase it. The Amerind population decimated by European diseases reduced almost wiped out in successive waves of disease originating at European contact points and spreading out way ahead of any physical meetings. Once the Amerinds caught the diseases, dying spread throughout the trade routes, making it easy for the Europeans to move in to a new territory. So European diseases were invasive species in North and South America, dating from at least 1492 onward. Mayan legend has it that death comes from the East, from across the ocean, which might indicate earlier contacts and bouts of disease originating in Africa.

These epidemics were followed by the introduction of European food plants and animals, hitchhikers like wharf rats, roaches and mosquitos, pets like cane toads, lionfish, English sparrows and starlings, working animals like donkeys and horses, food animals, the list goes on and on. Earlier introduction of invasive species through Chinese contact around 1420 and possibly earlier had brought Asian chickens and ducks, the Cherokee rose and a human intestinal parasite. Invasive grasses include Bermuda grass, pampas grass, fountain grass, rice, barley, wheat and rye, some food crops, some not. The mulberry, chinaberry, eucalyptus and tamarack all came in from Asia and the South Pacific.

Economic practices of humans included clear cut logging, burning, plowing, overgrazing, poisoning and dumping waste, all of which favored the new invasive species, much like the European diseases had prepared the way for European victory in the new world.

So now we worry about buffelgrass? The drought brings change in all species of the desert. The drought plus human destruction of habitat is devastating to the Sonoran Desert. Buffelgrass is used as fodder in Sonora and has been here at least 80 years.

The drought has changed the buffelgrass population. That which I observe appears to be damaged by the drought where continuing drying of the soil will kill it, seeing that the Sonoran Desert is on the edge of the possible range for this grass. So far this year I have seen little replication activity in the plants. These buffelgrass plants near I-10/Valencia are either dormant or dead as of 25 August 09.

The drought will do for free what all this controversy over spraying poison will do at a cost to taxpayers. I would like a cost rundown on this spraying project from all the cooperating entities, just to see how much money is being wasted on this poisoning. How many people could be funded to manually remove the grass, if it is that important to some people? Is spraying really what we want to do here? The Agent Orange personal devastation that many recruits suffered in the aftermath of Vietnam has never left my mind.

How soon some of you forget and accept the assurances of those selling the product.

Health Care Cost Containment

Institutions have lost flexibility, the ability to adapt to changing conditions. The loss of flexibility comes from rules, laws, policies, taxes and regulation. The purposes of these phenomena vary, but range from addressing public health issues to increasing revenue to policing moral failings expressed in destructive business tactics.

The issues of human fragility, a lack of moral attentiveness, or a combative competitive urge towards anarchy has been dealt with by the creation of governments. A government is created at a point in time from then forward must use the system to meet new situations. The familiar situation will be the most easily solvable and the new variant situations will demand creativity and flexibility in order to survive the new conditions. Maintaining moral values must be imperative as the system morphs enough to meet changing conditions.

As a moral imperative to be honest and trustworthy apparently will not define the current moral atmosphere that if it is not defined as illegal then it is all right to proceed, no matter what earlier moral codes would have prohibited such action on the basis of good or evil. This malfunction of the economic system is a demonstration of a lack of adaptation to changing conditions and a failure of moral predictability. An economic system that is posited on the rule of law, growth and cheap resources worked well in the conditions of Manifest Destiny but may not function so well under population and resource buildout conditions.

The basic tenets of free enterprise were developed under frontier expansionism but were soon diluted by regulations within communities. Free enterprise is exactly that: an individual will have freedom to open a business using their property for that business, barring some public health concerns. Commercial areas are now long distances from the clients, must maintain huge parking lots and must pay exorbitant rent, pay higher taxes and buy insurance for employees. The small entrepreneur working out of a home is priced out of the market due to the money siphon to government assisted by big business. The recent economic downturn has closed down businesses, the city and county are raising taxes and the unemployment level is climbing. The system is so tied up in revenue enhancement, gigantic loan payments, fees and high taxes, all flexibility is lost.

The subprime scandal is an example of maladaptive behavior that some would view as criminal, as that self serving cynicism appeared to rule human behavior, rather than a well considered morality aimed at the good of society. Some confuse free enterprise with a free for all attitude resulting in personal gain without consideration of the peripheral damage. Free enterprise must have rules like chess in order to function. Eliminating competition through buying politicians to install high government fees and taxes on small businesses is not free enterprise. Competing should be based on quality service and quality goods, not manipulating the environment so no others exist. The current economic environment is regulated into sluggishness and rising unemployment, amid the crisis of confidence created by the subprime scandal.

The fewer choices people have, the less free enterprise functions. Government ordered expenditures from the earnings of citizens in the form of mandatory insurance results in price fixing and high prices plus an unwelcome power grab on the part of those anointed to sell this mandatory insurance that can be cancelled with no refund for you. Forcing citizens to buy insurance will tie up more money into the hands of a few.

So what kind of system do we here have? Private profit and subsidized losses for the financials immersed in the subprime morass? That did not please many citizens, whose losses were ignored as the ‘investments’ went under with the money long gone. The bailouts were disliked and resented at the grassroots as the scandal continued in bonus payments promised through the implementation of a business model that was aimed at selling specific debt derivatives to unwary investors, a goal that had nothing to do with the public good, only a short term profit for a few. And now taxpayer money subsidizes these people as they collect high salaries and ‘bonuses’ earned by bankrupting the company. Of course more regulation became reality as a result of this lack of social responsibility. So we have a system that takes from the taxpayer to give to the financials and insurance companies while also forcing the citizenry to buy services from insurance companies, entrusting them to make payments to our health care providers. We subsidize private sector insurance middlemen as required by law.

Using private enterprise to enforce public policy is contrary to the system of free enterprise. The government should not mandate that the citizenry buy from private enterprise or government. If private enterprise needs more clients, the services they are selling should be competitive, not mandated by the government. Free enterprise begins with the consumer and discretionary income and free choice to buy or not to buy. Free enterprise depends on the consumer having freedom of choice to patronize any given business. If discretionary income is so allotted to mandatory programs, fees and taxes, free enterprise suffers.

So are we a free enterprise society or not? The current health insurance debate seems to leave personal choice out of the picture. Bureaucrats and insurance executives have created a system that requires an ever larger percent of the income in order to function, a trend that is obviously unsustainable. Healthcare costs need to be lowered, tort reform accomplished, and voluntary individual insurance must be instituted in order to give the free enterprise system room to function. Competition among insurance companies for business from a captive audience is not to be confused with competition for individual patronage by a legitimate business serving the needs of the people. Let the healthcare providers compete for the peoples’ business by lowering prices. Allow the money to pay for healthcare to remain in the hands of the people and let the insurance companies and government compete for this business. The costs of health insurance and health care will be more affordable because competition and flexibility will be reinstituted into the system.

Trinity of Power

Health Care

Health Care Delivery and Payment System Reform

Much is being said but I am not certain those with the highest volume are speaking for their constituencies or for the donor interests possibly aiming at short term profits for themselves at the expense of the actual constituency. If this proves to be the case, then a reevaluation of qualifications is in order.

Individual choice is glibly paid homage to by saying these are the allowed possibilities and you have your freedom to choose by choosing among these. This is not freedom. True freedom would allow for all the choices the individual could imagine or research for the spending of hard earned cash. Being told to buy something created by others for their own profit and using their definition of greater good for all is not freedom.

Money is earned and taxes are paid and insurance is another mandated tax? Or should that insurance money be in the hands of the earner for discretionary spending in healthcare? Discretionary money is the key to competition. Competition eliminated by mandatory insurance and subsequent price fixing has resulted in high prices for the services and huge administrative costs while rates rise and rise, like ticks. Who benefits?

The series of siphons on this insurance money is supporting an edifice of personnel who want to keep their control over the insurance premium money. These people are hiring lobbyists and donating to campaigns. How about health care paid for in cash by people on a discretionary basis? That means cash and competition, which lowers prices. The issue is availability of health care, which I translate as the cost of health care. If the cost for routine care is low, people can afford health care. Sell insurance at a high deductable for catastrophes and if somebody does not buy it and needs specialization, they are referred to social services. Catastrophic insurance should be freely chosen and of low cost.

Tort reform is another need. How about individuals carrying their own insurance against malpractice on a discretionary basis per procedure? Individuals would then only pay for the actual instance involving them, rather than subsidizing high insurance rates. Doctors would be relieved of the burden of malpractice insurance, since the patient would have personal insurance. We should have the right to choose discretionary spending on health care at a reasonable price over mandatory insurance programs with ever rising costs.

Stimulus money could be used to establish clinics in neighborhoods, which would employ people and provide health care at a reasonable cost. Don’t forget that health care is not synonymous with health insurance. We need affordable health care.

Kindle

Musings on the Kindle


Wonderful feature is the instant download of emergency book supplies and the readable format. I can read faster on the Kindle and find it light and easy to handle.

A download containing charts and graphs had good text quality but the figures were unreadable. This book is formatted for print media. An alternative would be to autoformat the charts into a larger font size. Formatting for Kindle would contain the chart or graph on one frame along with the caption, in a readable font size.

Learning from experience formatting for the Kindle, I came up with the following formula to produce a readable product:

For e-mail or Kindle format

Set line spacing at 1.5

Under Format:
Paragraph Paragraph spacing set at Before=12 or 6, check sample
Set line spacing at 1.5
General Alignment Left, Outline level Body Text

This will produce a readable copy for Kindle, with 1.5 line spacing and more than that between unindented paragraphs

Ask For an FBI/CIA Investigation

A criminal investigation into the ascendency of certain brokerage/bank institutions is merited by the emerging knowledge that the housing economic bubble was based on wholesale fraud made possible by well intentioned individuals who thought the poor should have a chance at home ownership.

If somebody cannot pay for a debt incurred then that individual should not be loaned money. Seems logical but the optimal outcome for this housing loan activity was only to be able to market the debt at an instant profit for the broker, not to ensure eventual repayment of the loan. Nobody gave a shit if the loans were repaid. These kinds of loans were then bundled together and sold as AAA rated ‘securities’ to investors looking for safe investments. Two more frauds added to the original appraisal fraud, liars at the loan company, loans with inconsistent payments, inflated housing prices, a triumvirate of developer, broker and lender all cooperating to drive housing prices up and sell more housing by enabling incompetent buyers. Who cashed out?

Yet the USA taxpayer is bailing out all these people who perpetuated and made money on this fraud. Why not just give the towns and states and retirement funds and private accounts their principals back? This would stimulate the economy by aiding distressed states. Stop the AIG, CITI etc. payouts. Let them sue for the money. Did they think the insurance on the debt they bought should bail them out of a bad investment? Or was the insurance on the CDOs (collateralized debt obligations) known to pay off due to the poor quality of the mortgages all this was based on? You and me been had. Why would the SEC allow mortgage derivatives they did not understand?

It’s time for an investigation and indictments in the private and public sector…..this public/private partnership did not benefit the taxpayers, who worry about medical costs while these frauds receive billions and more.

Why are all these contracts and ‘securities’ legally binding when it was all based on fraud? Who made the decision to cover this free enterprise bilking by going through the lenders and brokers doing the bilking? The people being bilked, the bilkees should have first shot at the bailout money, not the moneylenders. Let these institutions built up too big to fail on fraudulent schemes based on subprime loans go under. Work with the investors and forget propping up these people who caused the problem. This will get actual money in circulation instead of tying it up. Local lenders who also service the loans can loan to locals to buy homes. No more mortgage derivatives. Mortgage derivatives are like an exported disease and bailout money proves that it isn’t free enterprise either. Let’s separate the housing/loan market from the debt export scene. The purpose of housing is housing, not to be used as a gambling chip.

Free enterprise when profitable but socialized when taking bailout money. Private profit and bailout for losses. Good odds for somebody while the rest of us pay and pay and pay. This horseshit began under President Bush and is happily continuing under President Obama.

MANDATORY INSURANCE RIPOFF!

The rush to insurance during this healthcare summit seems to make many presumptions, such as that price fixing is good for one industry but not good for another. I am sure that the lobbyists are leading the charge to mandatory insurance for individuals and businesses, letting Congress take control of providing customers for these private businesses through mandates that take civil rights away from the taxpayers.

Being forced to buy anything is not freedom. Price fixing with a guaranteed ever increasing percent of income in perpetuity for insurance companies will not bring health care costs down. Allowing government and insurance companies an automatic draw on paychecks will not bring health care costs down. Freedom of choice and cash in hand will bring health care costs down.

Oh, but the debt load on the medical profession is huge and there is all that malpractice insurance to pay for and these payments must continue….Perhaps more structured bankrupt medical debtors this time, instead of just auto manufacturers. Where is the debt load? Who are the creditors? Should foreign companies be able to own our insurance pools?

Establish low cost clinics in neighborhoods for routine medical visits covered or not by insurance. Reasonable, available low cost health care, payment in cash or card or insurance, but always at a low cost, payment now or jump through social services hoops.

Facilities for these clinics exist in many cities in the form of unused commercial space, empty government buildings, repossessed homes and unused school space.

Insurance companies are tying up huge sums and then using these sums to get tax money to pay off their gambling losses. Now they want to mandate the continuance of this forced obligation so they can take even more money out of the system. Let government, and private enterprise offer non-mandatory insurance choices and allow the individual to seek out low cost heath care on the open market. Use stimulus money to establish the clinics and man them. Give the people the right to buy or not to buy.

Figure it out! A small clinic operating 24 hours a day would see a patient every half hour average @ $10 a visit, $4800 would be generated or $9,600 @ $20 a visit. Enough money to pay a small staff and what a boon to the neighborhood it would be.

Give the people a real chance to choose healthcare, not a series of predesigned choices that enrich others. This is far more important than more roads.

Womens Rights and Mandatory Insurance

Mr. President: I am pleased that you are an advocate of civil rights, including those of women. My mother was born before suffrage for women in the USA and I came to adulthood amid prejudice against women. I learned along the way to make my own choices, sometimes at odds with male dominated society. Forced choices do not freedom make.

In regards to insurance, I remember disliking Ms. Clinton because she would mandate I buy something, anything, but in this case it was insurance. As a free market advocate, the price fixing brought in by mandatory insurance is dangerous for the economy. As a parallel, possibly it would be decided that all must buy a car, with the prices set by the industry and the government. Let the assessments begin.

Government insurance? Go for it!
Private insurance? Let’s have it!
Mandatory insurance? Cancel it! Let the prices of health care fall to the housing levels. Use stimulus money to establish low cost clinics in neighborhoods.

A post boom-time pullback in expenditures per item. All sectors are influenced by the assumed derivative debt, not just housing. Propping up outlandish medical charges and huge outlays for malpractice insurance by mandating insurance while not allowing the direct pay preference is allowing a few to control huge sums of cash. Direct pay at a low cost in local conditions would free up all the cash held by insurance firms into the economy. Let the free market work.

Crop Failure

Arizona State University Commencement

Dear President Obama:

I attended the ASU graduation of my son in law with the greatest pleasure in your speech to the graduates. Thank you.

The economic worries here have created much discussion at local political clubs. I have written my ideas on health care insurance reform, hereupon forwarding them to you from the great state of Arizona…

Healthcare reform can attract votes and free up capital

Healthcare insurance reform is happening. The political parties must assist in the creation of a new system of ideas. The way to achieve influence will be through the possession of new ideas and new solutions to current problems in the healthcare system. The nation must have some ideas that depart from the practices of the past that are proven business failures.

Bipartisan discussions are necessary. Respecting others opinions within the party is necessary. Ideally, individuals who prevent voices from being heard should be relegated to observer status while others discuss these critical issues. Since this is not an ideal world, politicians must have some good health care insurance reform ideas that will garner attention and votes in order to assist in the reform process. From a financial standpoint, considerable capital could be freed up to circulate in the economy, jobs would be created and the employed would have control of their insurance funds in the form of cash if all this required insurance money were turned over to the private sector.

Call for position papers on health care insurance reform. This is not the only idea out there. Campaign contributors cannot control this reform process. Proponents of some reform ideas predicate insurance. Choice of offered plans is not freedom of choice.

An analysis of the present healthcare insurance system reveals some basic facts:

Insurance concerns collect huge sums of cash from the populace
Insurance concerns pay out some of the cash for medical expenses
Insurance concerns invest large sums of cash
Some insurance concerns have required bailout cash from the Feds
The Feds offer medical insurance now

Malpractice insurance is expensive
Insurance takes a discount from stated medical rates
Insurance can pay less or more for a given procedure than is charged the cash customer
Fraud and inflation of costs have been problems in the present system
Mandatory insurance takes several forms: health, automotive, home…
Mandatory health insurance: offered through the employers who must pay for it or pay for a portion of it
Mandatory automotive liability insurance: passed by legislature
Mandatory car and home insurance at the insistence of lienholders
Insurance companies and medical personnel have agreed to slow down rising costs

Now back to ways to attract votes.

Business leaders may be glad to dislodge health insurance requirements from the workplace. Forcing businesses to provide health insurance is tying up huge sums of cash that could be circulating in the economy. Let me say that individual choice is the most sustainable way to have an insurance program. Business votes.

So say that business is relieved of the responsibility of providing health insurance providing the payment that had gone to the insurance company now goes into the worker’s pay as a raise. The worker will have the power to decide to buy insurance or to patronize low cost walk in clinics situated in neighborhoods. The government offers a low cost insurance for claims exceeding x amount, which would leave the patron with a substantial deductable to meet, but the low cost clinic format allows for affordable health care. Private insurance could operate just as now, except that employers will not be obligated to provide customers for them. Private insurers could compete in rates and coverage, just as now. Clinics could compete for customers as well.

The business benefit of this plan is that wages and salaries once again become a predictable expense instead of expenditures at the mercy of insurance companies who now promise to slow down the pace of cost increases. The establishment of low cost walk in clinics has already begun in many neighborhoods. This idea could be expanded to private enterprise and public health clinics through the government. People could purchase health care when needed or would rely on private insurance plans or opt for the low cost, high deductable health care program through the government. There would be choice on the part of individuals and businesses, which should drive the costs down in both insurance and health care.

The costs of malpractice insurance has become self defeating in that the cycle of inflation in health care costs is bolstered by these huge lawsuits. Perhaps legislation can be passed that enables patients to sign legal waivers or limits in lieu of paying exorbitant malpractice insurance rates. Some element of trust should remain between doctor and patient. Once again, the patient is not permitted to decide whether or not to buy malpractice insurance. Patients are forced to pay for it as expressed in the high service rates charged.

This is leading up to the idea of “personal insurance”. Individuals should be able to buy
insurance on themselves (and dependents) that covers various scenarios like accidents, malpractice, cancer and any other insurance they deem necessary. Patients insure themselves or not, as they choose. Doctors are free of insurance demands. Healthcare and insurance costs go down. People regain the right to choose. Government and private enterprise offer affordable routine health care.

Entering indigent care would be like bankruptcy and individuals who claim indigent status will be the subject of social services investigation and payment plans will be developed if warranted. The expense of indigent care will always be there and must be absorbed, just as it now. A forward looking taskforce to avoid increases in indigents must be developed. Claiming indigent status in order to claim free health care is not to be a frivolous step easily taken.

As far as automotive insurance goes, the legislature in Arizona requires it of all motorists. I suggest that free choice be such that an individual can buy or not buy insurance on themselves and dependents to cover accidents, repairs, theft and so on. Auto loans and lienholder agreements on insurance are private enterprise.

The problem with insurance today is the huge sums the insurance institutions are controlling. Abuses of the system include various schemes aimed at ‘investing’ premium money, loses of investor money, high paid executives, bailouts and the taxpayers paying to reimburse the insurance companies for the premium money lost gambling. Mandatory insurance equals loss of control of your own money. Pooling money is a good idea but not if the holding company only has to keep less than 10% of it on hand, while gambling the rest away.

Return the money spent on insurance to the people to invest in what healthcare they need on a cash basis or to purchase healthcare insurance. The money now controlled by insurance companies would be reduced. The consumer would have more disposable income to circulate. Businesses would be free of paperwork and obligation except for industrial insurance.

Business opportunities in the form of low cost health clinics would prosper. A labor pool exists from laid off healthcare workers, job freezes in the healthcare field, plus new graduates who cannot get a job. Private insurance would have opportunities to form money pools addressing the high deductable cost of government insurance. Private insurers could open their own clinics.

Private enterprise would prosper under this plan.

Crucial elements in time order:

Use stimulus money to refurbish vacant buildings into low cost health clinics located every x number of population near transit lines. This action would have several needed results, the establishment of more clinics plus short term construction jobs and long term health care jobs plus utilization of vacant properties. Clinics must be in place, either government or private enterprise, before the rest of the plan is implemented.

Develop guidelines for personal insurance in various categories. Rescind mandatory insurance and watch the market adjust to the new conditions of more circulating capital and more freedom of choice in business and for the individual. The clinics accept business and the people get affordable health care.

Attracting votes with policy change is an old ploy but this reform idea would attract votes from businesses struggling under an insurance load, the worker who wants more money in his pocket, the voter who wants freedom to choose on insurance, unemployed healthcare workers, people who do not have insurance and civic leaders who favor clinics. This could be a popular idea. Did I say the populist word?

Healthcare Insurance Reform

Healthcare insurance reform can attract votes and free up capital

Healthcare insurance reform is happening. Republicans must assist in the creation of a new system of ideas. The way to achieve influence will be through the possession of new ideas and new solutions to current problems in the healthcare system. Republicans must have some ideas that depart from the practices of the past that are proven business failures.

Bipartisan discussions are necessary. Respecting others opinions within the party is necessary. Ideally, individuals who prevent voices from being heard should be relegated to observer status while others discuss these critical issues. Since this is not an ideal world, Republicans must have some good health care insurance reform ideas that will garner attention and votes in order to assist in the reform process. From a financial standpoint, considerable capital could be freed up to circulate in the economy, jobs would be created and the employed would have control of their insurance funds in the form of cash.

Call for position papers on health care insurance reform. This is not the only idea out there. Campaign contributors cannot control this reform process.

An analysis of the present healthcare insurance system reveals some basic facts:

Insurance concerns collect huge sums of cash from the populace
Insurance concerns pay out some of the cash for medical expenses
Insurance concerns invest large sums of cash
Some insurance concerns have required bailout cash from the Feds
The Feds offer medical insurance now

Malpractice insurance is expensive
Insurance takes a discount from stated medical rates
Insurance can pay less for a given procedure than is charged the cash customer
Fraud and inflation of costs have been problems in the present system
Mandatory insurance takes several forms: health, automotive, home…
Mandatory health insurance: offered through the employers who must pay for it or pay for a portion of it
Mandatory automotive liability insurance: passed by legislature
Mandatory car and home insurance at the insistence of lienholders
Insurance companies and medical personnel have agreed to slow down rising costs

Now back to ways to attract votes.

Business leaders may be glad to dislodge health insurance requirements from the workplace. Forcing businesses to provide health insurance is tying up huge sums of cash that could be circulating in the economy. Let me say that individual choice is the most sustainable way to have an insurance program. Business votes.

So say that business is relieved of the responsibility of providing health insurance providing the payment that had gone to the insurance company now goes into the worker’s pay as a raise. The worker will have the power to decide to buy insurance or to patronize low cost walk in clinics situated in neighborhoods. The government offers a low cost insurance for claims exceeding x amount, which would leave the patron with a substantial deductable to meet, but the low cost clinic format allows for affordable health care. Private insurance could operate just as now, except that employers will not be obligated to provide customers for them. Private insurers could compete in rates and coverage, just as now. Clinics could compete for customers as well.

The business benefit of this plan is that wages and salaries once again become a predictable expense instead of expenditures at the mercy of insurance companies who now promise to slow down the pace of cost increases. The establishment of low cost walk in clinics has already begun in many neighborhoods. This idea could be expanded to private enterprise and public health clinics through the government. People could purchase health care when needed or would rely on private insurance plans or opt for the low cost, high deductable health care program through the government. There would be choice on the part of individuals and businesses, which should drive the costs down in both insurance and health care.

The costs of malpractice insurance has become self defeating in that the cycle of inflation in health care costs is bolstered by these huge lawsuits. Perhaps legislation can be passed that enables patients to sign legal waivers or limits in lieu of paying exorbitant malpractice insurance rates. Some element of trust should remain between doctor and patient. Once again, the patient is not permitted to decide whether or not to buy malpractice insurance. Patients are forced to pay for it as expressed in the high service rates charged.

This is leading up to the idea of “personal insurance”. Individuals should be able to buy
insurance on themselves (and dependents) that covers various scenarios like accidents, malpractice, cancer and any other insurance they deem necessary. Patients insure themselves or not, as they choose. Doctors are free of insurance demands. Healthcare and insurance costs go down. People regain the right to choose. Government and private enterprise offer affordable routine health care.

Entering indigent care would be like bankruptcy and individuals who claim indigent status will be the subject of social services investigation and payment plans will be developed if warranted. The expense of indigent care will always be there and must be absorbed, just as it now. A forward looking taskforce to avoid increases in indigents must be developed. Claiming indigent status in order to claim free health care is not to be a frivolous step easily taken.

As far as automotive insurance goes, the legislature in Arizona requires it of all motorists. I suggest that free choice be such that an individual can buy or not buy insurance on themselves and dependents to cover accidents, repairs, theft and so on. Auto loans and lienholder agreements on insurance are private enterprise.

The problem with insurance today is the huge sums the insurance institutions are controlling. Abuses of the system include various schemes aimed at ‘investing’ premium money, loses of investor money, high paid executives, bailouts and the taxpayers paying to reimburse the insurance companies for the premium money lost gambling. Mandatory insurance equals loss of control of your own money. Pooling money is a good idea but not if the holding company only has to keep less than 10% of it on hand, while gambling the rest away.

Return the money spent on insurance to the people to invest in what healthcare they need on a cash basis or to purchase healthcare insurance. The money now controlled by insurance companies would be reduced. The consumer would have more disposable income to circulate. Businesses would be free of paperwork and obligation except for industrial insurance.

Business opportunities in the form of low cost health clinics would prosper. A labor pool exists from laid off healthcare workers, job freezes in the healthcare field, plus new graduates who cannot get a job. Private insurance would have opportunities to form money pools addressing the high deductable cost of government insurance. Private insurers could open their own clinics.

Private enterprise would prosper under this plan.

Crucial elements in time order:

Use stimulus money to refurbish vacant buildings into low cost health clinics located every x number of population. This action would have several needed results, the establishment of more clinics plus short term construction jobs and long term health care jobs plus utilization of vacant properties. Clinics must be in place, either government or private enterprise, before the rest of the plan is implemented.

Develop guidelines for personal insurance in various categories. Rescind mandatory insurance and watch the market adjust to the new conditions of more circulating capital and more freedom of choice in business and for the individual. The clinics accept business and the people get affordable health care.

Attracting votes with policy change is an old ploy but this reform idea would attract votes from businesses struggling under an insurance load, the worker who wants more money in his pocket, the voter who wants freedom to choose on insurance, unemployed healthcare workers, people who do not have insurance and civic leaders who favor clinics. This could be a popular idea. Did I say the populist word?

Budget Crisis

Ideas to Solve the Budget Crisis

Solution sets for solving the budget crisis now include generalities like cutting programs, layoffs, and tax increases, which are aimed at preventing money being spent or at gaining more money.

I like the approach of spending less money but not the idea of layoffs. The only solution set for this dilemma is that of cutting the amounts of all these salaries and wages and benefits that are paid by the taxpayers. Given the economic slowdown, demanding more taxes from the people creates a hardship in meeting these new demands for the same or less services. Boomtime pay cannot continue during economic slowdowns. The need for what these people do continues but are they up to do the job for less money? Must the government entities go bankrupt in order to dodge union intransigence?

This is a moral issue. Do these people want us to scrape up more for them so they can continue as they are now? What about the idea that if everyone takes a pay cut, maybe not so many will be fired? These people are paid from taxes. It is not right to take money from one to give to another for no increase in productivity. They are actually promising less productivity instead of more.

There simply is not the money there was during the boom. Sin dinero ahora. Bloated salaries and benefits crowd the budget. We’re being taxed to pay consultants, directors and other bureaucrats. We’re being taxed to build more and more roads when public transportation is the need and would also provide cleaner air and local long term jobs instead of boom construction. We are taxed to provide benefits for government workers when privatizing benefits would relieve the state of insurance responsibilities and would probably result in lower costs for consumers because of competition among insurers or clinics.

People do not want to pay more taxes. Cut the pay of the workers paid by the government, ease off on layoffs whenever possible and use attrition instead for cutbacks in personnel. Keeping money in the hands of more people will result in a more predictable, broad based spending pattern and less unrest among the unemployed and also provides beneficial cuts in unemployment payments and welfare demands. Recent statistics on CNBC might begin a trend to lower prices for consumer goods. Maintaining the standard of living would then be possible after pay cuts if a devaluation trend in USA prices is established. * Debt renegotiation continues in the form of foreclosures, defaults and other failures.

Cutbacks can be made in agencies and programs using a checklist that is doubtless incomplete. Every agency and program and every employee should be subject to cost scrutiny according to this checklist.




Agency and Program cost analysis

Administration: cost amount and as percent of total expenditure
Consultant costs
Employee costs in amount and as compared to program costs as a %
Pay grade analysis as to distribution
Program and agency goals and objectives
Progress achieving those goals and objectives
Union contract demands and renegotiation Etc.

Individual employee charges
Pay grade
Travel
Relocation
Mileage
Cars
Insurance: amount and percent of total costs
Phones
Memberships
Per Diem Ect.
Duties

This same analysis would apply to all the schools, including higher education.
The public schools could be given the responsibility for paying for busing out of the existing budget. This is a positive thing in that this would force the school districts to reconsider busing in an attempt to cut costs. Busing could be mostly eliminated in favor of small schools in neighborhoods, which would cut exorbitant transportation costs now subsidized by the state. Analyze the budgets to obtain amounts spent on busing: insurance, fuel, replacement units, maintenance, and personnel. Give this cost back to the districts. How much would that save?

Several questions must be answered in order to determine the level of cuts in pay that could best assist the budgeting process. These are generalities which would generate base data. What % of the budget is pay and what % is benefits? How much could be saved at ascending percentages of pay cuts?

Another problem is the existence of various budgetary entitlements, some of which are scheduled to infinitely increase. The legislature must work together to devise some way to handle non critical entitlements during times of a budget deficit. The schools budgets needs a complete overhaul and a refocus on the learner instead of the bureaucrats raking in top salaries and benefits at taxpayer expense while test scores remain mediocre at best.

Tax money is precious and should not be wasted. Tax money is also finite.

*Prices as a % of income, whatever the unit of measure is used. Stabilized petro prices are to our benefit, it appears.

MANDATORY INSURANCE

Ripoffs and Civil Unrest

I see on the news today that insurance executives have received hairy threats as a result of the publicity surrounding bonuses to them while people invested in their company have lost money.

It appears that civil disobedience stems from lost expectations, cash, opportunities, or from excessive debt and penalties. Pretending that debt is a product will not make it so, but Bernanke and Geithner cannot see another option other than propping up debt derivatives. Just who is benefitting by the continuation of the sale of debt derivatives? Are they or their families in a position of power that influences policy decision making, rather like the Madoff family and the SEC? Debt derivatives produce nothing but brokers fees and insurance obligations. What were the terms of the insurance obligations? 100% of expected profit from the derivative investment? The principal invested in the derivative? What?

Credit card schemes with excessive penalties, automatic interest rate hikes based on other accounts, the punitive attitude taken by these lenders and their predisposition to extend credit to undocumented borrowers has created a mountain of debt. Much of that kind of debt is an obligation plus penalties that are unearned income for lenders and unplanned debt for borrowers on the credit card scene. Bailing out the credit card firms is ridiculous but can turn fraudulent if the bailout funds include unearned lender income projections based on extending credit to anyone. Payday lenders and credit card companies are in the same category, preying on the foolish and desperate in many instances.

Attacks by the ripped off on the wealthy who benefitted by the scam will easily gather steam. Announcement of hearing and indictments would take the edge off, but I can’t help but wonder if returning the principal to the investors might be cheaper than bailing out all these unregulated funds and insurance obligations, particularly foreign entities.

Globalization has turned into a massive fraud perpetuated on the USA taxpayers by domestic and foreign banks and insurance firms who invested in derivative garbage based on fraudulent contracts all the way from the inflated appraisals and undocumented borrowers, the creation of derivatives with unresearched ratings and lax regulation when present at all. Why are USA taxpayers stuck with this tab? Insurance schemes overseas bankrupted a company holding assets obtained through mandatory insurance and retirement accounts in the USA, drained these assets and then demanded more from the US government. Their demands were met at our expense.

I think that insurance is a racket. Legislators have foisted mandatory insurance off on the people and now these insurance firms are using the pool money to gamble and pay themselves huge salaries. They have gambled away retirement funds, IRA accounts and any other money they could get their hands on, even to the point of bankrupting the company and funneling our tax money overseas.

Were members of AIG really brokering these derivatives to banks and then insuring these same derivatives through AIG, receiving a handsome brokers fee in the process? Are the retirement accounts of House and Senate members held by AIG?

Whatever it is, this financial scam and the incredible debt load has created unemployment and anger on the streets of this nation. Were the boomtime profits and the high compensation of irresponsible developers and executives worth the social cost? Are the members of the boards who approved the excessive contract amounts for executives receiving sweetheart loans from the very same companies they represented? How many political figures received cheap loans from these companies? Who sat on the boards of Fannie and Freddie and others when ‘bonus’ schemes were approved? How much were these people paid to rubberstamp any wild scheme the executives deemed a good investment?

And above all, why not review the figures and see if returning the principal might be cheaper than bailing out all these wild schemes? People are angry because their money has been stolen and gambled away, not just the boomlet money but also the principal in many cases.

Civil unrest is not good for the nation.

Pirates of the Economic World

Design for Stimulus Packages

ENERGY, EDUCATION, HEALTH CARE

Design for Stimulus Packages

A definition of proposed projects should include a classification of such projects into categories:

Long term stimulus of the economy
Short term stimulus of the economy
Self sustaining stimulus of the economy

Economy should be defined as local, general or group specific when designing projects.

The categories to be discussed are: energy, healthcare, education

Energy

The major focus of the stimulus package should ideally be a self sustaining stimulus of the economy, with short term preparatory activities aimed at energy self sufficiency in the form of limiting use of petroleum products in favor of renewable sources of energy varying on regional levels.

A long term or self sustaining stimulus will be an activity that employs people, retains a monetary benefit long after the initial infusion of cash, continues to employ people in a maintenance/replacement capacity, returns energy production to a local level, and over time provides cheaper, cleaner energy, freeing up cash for other expenditures.

Example: In the SE and SW USA, solar water heaters, solar electric collectors, solar home heaters are feasible as an alternative or augmentation to the all encompassing power grid.

Retrofitting existing homes, schools and commercial properties with solar power items is a business that would employ many. The ultimate value in this is that the utilization of alternative power sources would replace expensive generated electricity with a cheaper, local alternative while providing jobs doing retrofit, new unit construction, maintenance and other associated employment. The monetary value is that the users of the units will have lower electricity costs, the power plants will tie up less of the free cash in the economy and will pollute less. The value in localized energy sources is that some electricity will still be available even if the grid fails.

This same scenario will apply to regional wind utilization, clean coal technology retrofits, nuclear energy, railroad expansion and other unnamed possibilities. These kinds of regional implementation programs should lower energy costs over the long term and will create sustainable businesses and more free cash circulating in the economy.

Electrical production will be as issue as more electric cars come on line. Local solutions to energy production benefit the individual monetarily and for security concerns, local control over some energy needs is desirable (ie: solar generated electricity during the day is better than no electricity at all if the local power grid failed) Create a failsafe for our population. Draining USA cash to pay for petroleum overseas is something that must be lessened. The object is to free up cash to spend elsewhere and lessen critical dependencies on distant power sources.

I reiterate two rules for a successful stimulus device: the ultimate goal will be the lowering of energy costs in order to free up cash to spend elsewhere. Another laudable goal is the localization of energy technology.

The era of limitless cash is over.

Focus on a short term employment solution should be avoided unless civil unrest forces make work projects. Make work projects that contribute nothing or very limited stimulus of the economy should be avoided as dead ends.

An example of a make work project would be building a new road. The local landowners off the new road might benefit financially but the economic stimulus will not be large or long term, particularly when the ultimate goal is another suburb complete with a few service jobs. This creates a strain on the existing infrastructure that must be paid by taxpayers, and now has resulted in widespread fraud, foreclosures and unsold homes. Construction stimulus is short term and cannot be maintained in a finite environment with finite water resources, as in the SW.

A multimillion dollar drainage job in an arid region populated by few people is a good example of a short term limited stimulus that results in no sustainable financial advantage. These kinds of projects should be avoided.

It should be noted that infinite expansion in a finite space is ultimately impossible. We as a species must begin sustainable economic activities in lieu of continuing to locate new cheap resources and exploiting those to our economic advantage. Innovation can be tied to resource availability, which is becoming limited on Earth. Perhaps extraterrestrial sources can be developed.

Thus several things are definitely over: easy cash and credit, cheap resources, cheap land and sparse human populations.

We must adapt to the new conditions.

Health Care

Population growth and immigration has created a need for a more affordable health care system. Note I wrote health care, not health insurance.

The establishment of localized clinics serving Medicare, Medicaid, private insurance and low cost fees for the uninsured must be a priority. Private insurance should be available to all on a regulated fee schedule and should not be mandatory in any form. Employers should not have to provide health insurance for the workers, with the exception of Industrial membership for on the job injuries. It is necessary to take health care benefits out of the workplace and place the money for it in the hands of the private consumer as discretionary funds.

Localized, low cost clinics must be established. These clinics would provide routine illness care, physicals, screening, pregnancy monitoring, well baby checkups etc. and referrals for advanced treatment. Subsidizing this direct health care would provide health care at a reasonable cost and employ people in a sustainable occupation that could become financially self sustaining over time. This approach would be more cost effective than propping up bankrupt insurance companies. We cannot afford the drain on the economy and the huge amount of ready cash these companies absorb.

Key points:

Abolish mandatory insurance for individuals and employers.
Individuals get a raise instead of benefits
Individuals can purchase private insurance if desired
Establish low cost subsidized clinics
Medicare, Medicaid, private insurance and low cost fees qualify at clinics
Clinics would provide sustainable employment
More discretionary cash would circulate in the economy.


Education

Population growth has created a numbers crisis in public education as well as an over saturated job market. We are producing more people than we have employment for in our economy. The economic emphasis on growth comes from historical precedent, the manifest destiny idea to settle the frontier. Growth as an economic solution is outmoded if sustainability issues are taken into account.

As of now, we are still growing the population even though the territory remains the same size, which leaves less per individual than there once was. We also have the unemployment problem. School enrollment can be predicted to rise during economic turmoil, but the question is whether the schools can meet the challenge of economic competition and possible lower wages after graduation.

The traditional liberal arts education derived from state adopted curriculums can be used as a blueprint for teaching basic linguistic and mathematical skills. Mastery learning in reading and mathematics makes sense in a basic education. The learner should develop as much versatility as possible in order to adapt to the sometimes rapidly changing needs of the job market. After a basic education, proficiency in computer based activities should be encouraged.

A charter school or private school that takes public funds should be required to use the state curriculum and the students required to pass state tests.

As far as the schools as a vehicle for an economic stimulus can go without rhetoric about preparing students, the actual physical environment of thee schools should be revealed. In Arizona, charter schools are not required to have the same building standards as the public schools, which raises building costs. I believe that public schools are too large and are too far from the homes of the students. The Gates Foundation is successfully experimenting with smaller schools in New York.

Transportation costs are too high for busing to be a good way to spend the limited funds.
The internet allows for advanced learning with the assistance of an on site teacher, which would allow for the establishment of small, local high schools in the neighborhoods where the students live. Schools should be within walking distance of the students, should foster a sense of community and have good quality equipment and teachers.

Cutting out the transportation costs and mitigating the high mandated costs for school facilities would free up funding for classroom activities instead of buses, insurance, maintenance and other busing costs.

High school sports should be accessible to all students at central locations on public transportation lines, which would eliminate the perceived need for giant high schools for the purposes of champion sports teams. I would favor taking sports out of the schools and putting it under the aegis of the county or city with the eligibility requirements through the schools intact.

At the moment, funding busing through existing public transportation would be cheaper than maintaining a duplication of services through the schools.

The economic stimulus for the schools should be limited to classroom use, not propping up archaic or irresponsible busing of students, not administrative use and certainly not for administrative cars and junketing. The students need new computer equipment and other related equipment, internet hookups for small schools located in commercial buildings, books and teaching materials and lower class sizes. Employ more teachers and aides for one on one working with students.

Key points:

Ease restrictions on public school structures.
Encourage more charter schools
Subsidize the purchase of new computer equipment and teacher training
Use distance learning to augment high school curriculum
Begin phasing out busing
Establish small, local schools K-12
As a long term remedy for excessive population growth, disallow more than two child credits per income tax return, instead of unlimited deductions.

In higher education, the proliferation of specialties requires a broad based curriculum sensitive to the needs of businesses and graduate schools. The community college model is a good one if programs are kept up to date. Subsidizing community college students is a good investment, both as university preparation and job preparation. Stimulate the economy by entering the unemployed in school and keep high school graduates out of the unemployed workforce by keeping them in school.

And of course, subsidize the university students through grants and loans. The universities must cull their own programs and cease the excesses in construction in order to help solve economic problems. We have extensive buildings. Now let’s fill them up with students and invest in the nation’s future. Grant money to the universities and the community colleges to subsidize jobs for graduate students and student aides. Make scholarships available to students and educate!

Bailout Cash

Outlaw the purchasing of mortgage bundles or derivatives with tarp or stimulus money. Troubled Assets Relief Program can be defined as the review and altering of home loan contracts made under false pretenses, false appraisals, or without documentation of the borrower’s ability to repay the loan.

The relief should be in the form of giving back the principle lost in these mortgage derivative scams. Give it back to the original investors, the pension funds, the cities and states, etc. Giving back the principle would let people have their own money to invest where they want and to use what bank they want. Cancel the bailout funds squandered on paying off bad mortgage derivative debt and return the money to the people who invested in these fraudulent ‘securities’.

The property values will continue to fall to 40% of boom value. That was the runup amount from a slow growing housing market created by the requirement that a responsible borrower will have a cash down payment in order to get a loan. Make too many of anything and the price will drop after market saturation.

Forget the idea that a first time borrower has to buy a new home in order to get the tax credit. If somebody cannot afford to buy any home without a tax credit, possibly they should not be buying until they have a down payment. Forcing people to buy new homes to get the credit is focusing gain once again on the developer rather than on a savings for the home buyer. The market is glutted with new and used homes. We don’t need developers driving up the price because the tax credit is restricted to new housing. Rule by developer is over and the mortgage derivatives scam should be over.

Regional banks can handle local mortgage lending. These reworked and new loans should be serviced locally and the ownership of the loans should remain with the institution that originated them. Close out Fannie and Freddie. They are perpetuating the practice of dealing in mortgage ‘securities’ and derivatives, which is creating havoc in the investment world and shaking faith in these institutions. Perhaps the old bad banks should be closed out in favor of regional banks.

Spending TARP or stimulus money on more mortgage derivatives is pouring money down a rat hole. Give the principal back to the people, not the high rollers who caused the problem.

Another problem rearing its head is credit card debt derivative ‘securities’. The credit card people run up the value of their debt by merely adding interest, fees, penalties on the original charged amount. These people are pretending that these kinds of payday loan type charges are real value and then asking for bailout money to pay for them because of the money they cannot lose because they are too big to fail. The value was never there. No TARP or stimulus money to bailout credit card debt.

The moneylenders are walking the halls of government with their hands out and taxpayer money should not go to support their addiction to mortgage and debt derivatives. Don’t pour tax money into a failed business model. Where are the indictments?

Transparent Bailout Money

Where will this bailout money come from? Who has enough US dollars to loan money to us? Are we going to print money? Isn’t debt limited to the amount of money in existence? Isn’t value limited to what someone is willing to pay for something?

In a recession, you don’t get to set value and demand taxpayer payments for the difference between what people are willing to pay and what you say the widget is worth. Get out of town. Somebody lost their ass and everybody is making sure it’s not theirs lost too. You might have risked money on an investment recommended by the licensed, respected ones who finally found a way to make it big by gulling people. Are contracts written based on fraud invalid? If so, this mortgage derivative scam could be summarily cancelled and let the civil courts go after the money and the criminal courts go after the fraud. I suspect that the total sold far exceeds the amount in existence, so who will not get the delivery they paid for? That is what is under discussion now, after the moguls who engineered and profited from the boondoggle collected, redefining the old fashioned word ‘bonus’ in the process, collecting a nice cushion against hard times in the form of cold cash, not the promises on paper. They give tapeworm a bad name while the unemployment lines lengthen.

So where is this money coming from? Debt enslavement is a bit out of fashion, as so longterm servitude is not one of our intentions. Spill this information now and maybe we can finally see ourselves as some in other nations see us, according to our Viejo Treasury secretary promising what change? I am glad he is sure of all those national viewpoints, since oversight in that treasury department has been lacking but perhaps the new President will take responsibility. I just hope that propping up a failed business model does not further an ego already quite large while charging it all to the taxpayers. Mortgage derivatives are a failure. Propping up mortgage derivatives is a failure.

Any government entity taking federal funds should not give bonuses, only pay. Particularly if this entity is paying for such unearned money with tax money solicited as too important to fail, then no ‘bonuses’ should be rewarded for this failure of free enterprise. Any bonuses awarded while balance sheets headed for the red should be returned to investors. Perpetrator incomes should perhaps dip to the level of the present income of the poorest investor in the schemes.

But I stray from the topic of where the bailout money and the TARP money is coming from? Are we incurring foreign debt? If so, then to whom? For how long? What variables are being overlooked when predicting payment schedules? What variables were taken into account?

Transparency can be defined many ways. I want to know where this money is coming from, not just where it is going.

OUTLAW MORTGAGE DERIVATIVES

How to fix the mortgage crisis



Recriminations are ineffective when looking for solutions. Remembering and being watchful are warranted when forging forward though this morass of insolvent debtors.

Too big to fail comes to mind as a warning call that too few are controlling too much, to the detriment of many. These huge ‘lending institutions’ should be disbanded in favor of regional banks. The business model of selling mortgage derivatives and living off the commissions is a failure because it produces nothing.

Mortgage securities bundled and sold make the process of lending into a commodity.

Solve the foreclosure crisis by identifying all the foreclosures in any given area X, assign foreclosures to regional banks located in area X, subsidize new loans to qualified buyers or forclosees for the properties, and the regional banks holding the new mortgages will also manage the collections for these mortgages. Close the books for a percentage return on the subsidy, shared with the bank until the subsidy is paid.

Of course, the powers that be will fiercely defend mortgage derivatives as a logical outgrowth of the old mortgage business that made money by collecting interest on loans made and collected locally. The mortgage business evolved to make land more valuable and to enable citizens to buy land. The mortgage business provides for a need in our society, and should not become a pawn in an easy money policy that enables profit taking and debt spawning for nothing produced.

My suggestion is that mortgage derivatives be outlawed and any instrument using them be declared invalid due to the outlandish methods used to assemble these bundles. Arrests are imminent and I see these bundles are illegal, beginning with the original properties sold to unqualified buyers, inflated appraisals based on a developer-lender-appraiser monopolies, bundled securities given unresearched bogus high ratings by more appraisers, insiders at the SEC turning their heads, fund managers on the lam and no doubt more illegal possibilities.

If foreign governments are holding these bogus derivatives, they bought an illegal ‘product’. Using the generation of mortgages as a commodity is a failed business model that should be outlawed. We need to take care of our own people and handle this real estate overproduction and overpricing in our communities. Work with regional banks, regional foreclosures and regional management of mortgages. Allow the real estate prices to drop until people can afford to buy.

Forget bailing out these huge lenders. Clean the temple of the moneylenders and allow a new regional based banking system to resurface. Too big to fail might really mean too big to succeed.