The Lawyers Are Screaming

So Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D-NY) must be doing something right. 'Puter received the following missive from the New York State Bar Association president this afternoon. Please read it for yourself:

Dear ['Puter], Esq.:

I am writing to urge that you take immediate action. Contact your State legislators and other State policymakers on fast-moving -- and very disturbing -- legislation in Albany.

This is my brief report to you on activity in Albany and on proposals to change the civil justice system under the inappropriate heading of "Medicaid Redesign."

In January, the Governor created the Medicaid Redesign Team ("MRT") to make proposals that would reduce the cost of the State's Medicaid program. The MRT members represent the most prominent and influential interest groups in the healthcare industry, including hospitals, nursing homes, and healthcare workers. Significantly, the MRT included no representatives of the legal profession or anyone else whose primary concern is representing victims of doctors' malpractice.

In mid-February, the MRT released information regarding a large number of proposals being considered to cut billions of dollars from the State's budget. The MRT's goal was to review the list and submit a final, shorter list of proposals to the Governor in March. One of those proposals – Proposal Number 131 (also referred to as the "Medical Malpractice Proposal") – would cap awards for non-economic damages to victims of medical malpractice and create a Neurologically Impaired Infant Fund. (A copy of the proposal may be viewed by clicking on the link above.)

When I learned of this proposal, I immediately met with the State’s Deputy Secretary for Health. I expressed concern over the substance of the Medical Malpractice Proposal. The civil justice system is fundamentally different from the state's Medicaid system. Accordingly, I strongly objected to the fact that “medical malpractice” was a topic of discussion within the MRT's process, because the MRT included no representatives of the legal profession or the court system, and few if any advocates representing consumer rights and patient safety.
Further, I convened an emergency session of the State Bar's Executive Committee, which voted unanimously to oppose the proposal. With the assistance of our Committee on the Tort System, the Executive Committee submitted to the MRT a Memorandum in Opposition to the Med Mal Proposal.

We continued to argue against the proposal. However, rather than engage in serious debate, the MRT accelerated its process by submitting its recommendations to the Governor on February 23, several days in advance of its March 1 deadline. Alarmingly, Proposal Number 131 was submitted by the MRT to the Governor, who announced that he will include it in budget legislation to be considered by the State Legislature.

Proposals to modify New York's civil justice system should not be hijacked by hospitals and other healthcare interests promoting an agenda driven by their own self-dealing, rather than the public interest. I believe that such a process, which excludes legitimate "stakeholders" from the negotiating table, results in bad public policy and represents damaging, special-interest activity that lowers citizens' respect for and trust in the government. Proposals to radically re-shape our justice system should not be pushed through in the healthcare budget but independently debated by way of freestanding legislation.

Please ACT NOW to oppose the Medical Malpractice Proposal, which will be part of legislation to enact the State's budget by April 1.

Go to the State Bar's Legislative Action Center and send a message on this important topic to your State legislators, the Governor, and other State policymakers.

Best regards,

Stephen P. Younger

President, New York State Bar Association
Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler LLP

Decoding the message for all you lay folk out there, any time a proposal "cap awards for non-economic damages to victims of medical malpractice", it necessarily caps the amount an attorney will receive under a contingent fee. Let 'Puter explain.

In a contingent fee arrangement, a client pays no fee whatsoever unless there is a collected judgment or settlement on the client's claim. The client in most jurisdictions does have to come out of pocket for the litigation costs (exams, depositions, copying, etc.). Usually, contingent fees range between 25% and 40% of the client's ultimate recovery. Not too shabby, in a field where many if not most cases settle well prior to trial.

In many cases, the single largest portion of a medical malpractice award is the non-economic damages portion. Non economic damages include such things as pain and suffering, mental anguish and loss of consortium (can't make sweet love to your special someone). Sometimes, punitive damages are limited.

So, despite the NYSBA's claim that its positions is really for the children --er, the stricken -- it's really all about preserving medical malpractice attorneys' gravy train. Tell a sad story, get paid. Never mind that the client would be full compensated for his economic injuries under the proposal, and would still receive non-economic damages up to the cap. Never mind that doctors' malpractice insurance rates would plummet, perhaps enticing more qualified physicians back to New York. Lawyers are screaming because the days of huge payouts based solely on sympathy would be over. And without a huge payout, there's no huge contingency fee.

Cui bono, indeed.

Processing!

Big Hollywood has a nice bit up about the Mandarin’s favorite movie: Forbidden Planet, and what it teaches about Progressivism.

Thought we would post this before Mandy did.

Quantitative Dis-Easing

The Czar walked into the second floor men’s room at the Castle this morning and found ‘Puter sitting on the cold tile floor, in his underwear, staring at the floor drain while clutching a roll of Brawny paper towels in one hand, and a mostly empty brown jug of spiced rum and home-made Dr. Pepper in the other. For those of you who know ‘Puter, this is known as “Waiting for the big one.” Anyhow, the Czar asked “What vexes thee?”

“Did you see the price of gas in California, which you will no doubt write about complete with a photograph conveniently in the right corner? ‘Puter is forced to conclude you were right about quantitative easing.”

Yep. Which you can read about here, as well as here, over here, and even over here.

Gas prices are shooting up. And you were warned about this, too: back in late 2010, before any of the explosive, violent protests in the Mideast occured.

How on earth did the industry know that riots in Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya would drive prices up? Well, they didn’t know anything of the sort. What they knew, and what was largely denied by our government, was that quantitative easing would kick in sometime in 2011, and last until at least 2012. Anyone with any sense about money should have known this would occur, on schedule, to the amount it has.

All the turmoil in Northern Africa does not really affect our gas prices, because the United States buys no oil from Tunisia or Egypt or Libya. The price of gas has been going up because the boneheads in our government decided to print up billions of dollars in extra currency and dump it into circulation. The theory sounds like something from an Our Gang save-Mickey’s-farm plot: if we print up a ton of money and throw it...somewhere...Americans will suddenly have a lot more money, which they will start spending on things like vacations and dining in restaurants, and this will kick the economy in high gear and companies will start hiring again, and then we will never worry about that money ever again.

Of course, in real life, this is like trying to fix a leak in a boat by drilling a bigger hole in the hull to drain the water.

Indeed the execution was classic Obama: they put the money into the federal bond market, which encouraged bond holders to cash in and convert money to stocks. This flared up the Dow Jones Industrial Average (which is an inexperienced way to measure the real economy) in late 2010 and everyone in the White House declared the recession was over. Then, unemployment remained high because the spike in stock prices was caused only by an influx of cash, not real capital. No one started hiring. So things stayed a little bleak.

Our president, predictably, undid his own strategy by telling Americans to skip vacations and going out for dinner. The increase in spending failed to occur, meaning that the value of the dollar dropped. See, the President’s economics eggheads skipped the class day to attend a pro-union folk song rally, missing the part where the professor explained how inflation weakens the dollar. If you increase the amount of dollars without increasing the value of products and services, prices go up to compensate.

This is easy to understand if, unlike them, you have a clue how investing works. If the value of a company is worth $45 million, and they have a million shares of stock for sale, the share price is $45 a share. Simple, right? If the price of the share goes up to meet demand, the value of the company goes up; if people start selling shares, the price goes down—the value of the company starts going down.

Likewise, if the price of the stock is $45 a share, and the company suddenly announces they are selling an additional 100,000 shares of stock, what happens? The value of the stock drops, because $45,000,000 divided by 1,100,000 shares of stock equals $40.91. You just lost almost four bucks per share. This is what inflation does to the dollar.

By flooding the bond market with billions of extra dollars, the value of the dollar drops. This is inflation, even if you call it “quantitative easing.”

It takes a few months for the ripple effect to occur. And since this started a few months ago, economists who did their homework began warning that we would see an increase in prices right...about...now. And because the stock market got the extra cash first, the first things that start getting hit with inflation will be your futures markets: oil and food, most notably.

Why your gasoline prices are going up.You can guess where you are seeing the prices surge fastest.

Here is why this drags the entire economy, and why whatever little bit of good the Obama administration sought to claim out of quantitative easing will now go up in smoke: as the price of gas increases, the cost to ship products has just gone up. Why?

Whether you ship good by plane, rail, ship, or truck, these guys need fuel—not green jobs—to power the equipment. Oil prices go up, so fuel prices go up. Fuel prices go up, and the cost to ship this stuff goes up. As a result, those costs are not magically absorbed by rich, corporate fatcat bankers: they are passed right onto you in the form of higher prices.

Some products can withstand this better: we can delay some shipments or reroute stock supplies accordingly for a while. But not with perishable food items: this drives up food prices even higher, faster.

And when companies cannot afford to ship products, they ramp down production. This means people get laid off. Unemployment increases. Some folks simply quit: many truck drivers are independent contractors, and are responsible to buy their own gasoline. This cost is factored into their contract costs: if they have to pay for higher gas prices, they encounter one of two situations: they have a fixed price, and so have to eat the cost out of their profit, or else they have to raise their price per mile, which makes them less competitive against shipping companies. As a result, many drivers simply quit the job and look for work elsewhere. Because they quit, this usually fails to show up on employment statistics.

Let us review: the Fed elects to go for quantitative easing. This increases inflation, prices, and unemployment. Done.

The President, of course, is focusing like a laser on the economy. So that should fix everything.

Bipolar Shifting

Now hold on a minute. I thought there was evidence that when the poles switch, the field is "disorganized" or non-existent for some period of time.

Not to take issue with your overall point, but rather to ask you to note that if they do, the field might go away for some time in the process. Purely in the interests of SCIENCE!!!

vty,

nzc

The magnetic field of the earth fluctuates on an almost constant level; in fact, good orienteering folk know to check their compass reference from time to time just to ensure they are still lined up right.

But to be clear, there is a popular confusion. There is the issue of geomagnetic reversal—the swap between North and South, which appears to have happened a few times not only in Earth’s history, but once or twice (perhaps) in our species’ history. The process seems to take far longer than the news media is reporting. We don’t know, because this predates even Volgi, but the evidence points to such a switch taking a very long time to happen. We may be witnessing it right now, at its slow pace. But the fact we are still here (even the birds and gophers and duckies and horsies, too, ‘Puter) pretty much validates the widespread conclusion that it is not fatal to life on earth. Inconvenient perhaps, but not fatal.

Should this happen, the magnetic lines might take a while to re-establish themselves in a permanent way, but they do not outright disappear. Compasses will go screwy for a while, and the Czar, for one, will take delight in watching flocks of Canada geese migrate eastward into Boston until they figure out something was odd, but these fluctuations should soon stabilize into predictable lines of declination.

On the other hand, there is a pseudo-theory called Cataclysmic Pole Shift running around. This has nothing to do with the natural movement of the North Magnetic Pole, but is tied to end-of-days new agers, who say that history “shows” that poles have dramatically flipped in the past, and mass extinctions have occurred. The science on this, one has to say, is really weak. The basis began in a legitimate 19th Century attempt to explain the different orientations of magnetic lines in rocks in different locations back before we understood that plate tectonics can move continents around, et cetera. This was the last time real science touched the topic until it was rediscovered by non-scientists and whackjobs in the 1970s and 1980s. They looked at the old theory, ignored current research, saw that mass extinctions occur on earth and linked it all up. Unfortunately, it is this carryover nonsense that is being conflated with the real, natural, and normal NMP wandering we are seeing.

Now, just so our wise readers understand, the Czar does not believe NZC is confusing the two theories. Actually, NZC is referencing a very real physical effect: when you reorient magnetic poles, the lines of force reorient themselves in often hard-to-predict ways until everything sort of stabilizes. But if we subtract the idea that pole shift on the earth happens catastrophically, the instability becomes considerably less worrisome. Cheer up, everybody! With 2012 around the corner, a lot of people are worried it will be the end of everything they know.

That could be true, if they are Democrats.

BG writes in:

Most Dread and Awful (or is it Awesome?) Czar—

I grotesquely enjoyed Dr. J's missive about Wisconsin doctors handing out "too-sick-to-work" excuses like Halloween candy to teachers who were not too sick to stand outside in the cold screaming their idiot heads off. They gleefully throw all medical ethics into the dumpster in order to support a political cause.

Then this morning I saw on the news that the state of Colorado is considering enacting limits on the amount of THC an automobile driver may have in his blood. Perhaps it's because sometimes people who've been smoking medical marijuana get into fatal motor vehicle accidents.

And then I put those two items together and asked myself, "How many doctors gleefully throw all medical ethics into the dumpster to support the political cause of outright legalization of marijuana? How many doctors knowingly write medical marijuana prescriptions for perfectly healthy people?"

I would have thought "none" until this week.

It is a good question. And the Czar has no idea and would welcome thoughts. The Czar’s suspicion is that the percentage of doctors who would ditch ethics for a political point is incredibly small. Possibly, even smaller than the percentage of civilians who would ditch their ethics for a political point—the Czar would put that number as high as 20 percent. At least based on voting records.

That a few doctors would do this is inevitable, just as we recently learned that a serial killer who gets off on killing infants could find work in an abortion clinic a perfect gig. The Czar might think that non-medical doctors are more prone to do this in research: there seems to be a growing collection of confirmation biased studies about how wonderful marijuana is for all sorts of daily functions. Of course, they are refuted on scientific grounds almost immediately, but you get the idea.

The Czar would also like to apologize to BG for the lack of a reply on this topic; somehow, your email got buried in a directory we hardly check. We have no idea how it got there, but hope you didn’t think we were ignoring your note!

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Wisconsin Democrat Not Sure How Bill Becomes Law

Wisconsin State Assemblyman Peter Barca, Democrat, is quoted by CBS News (without any sense of irony or correction) as saying that state Republicans “trampled on democracy though throughout the day and really throughout this past week.”

What happened was the duly elected state assemblymen, representing what they perceive to be the public will, presented a bill to push back the public sector unions. The bill was debated, refined, and alternate proposals were reviewed, discussed, and ultimately rejected. The final bill language was reviewed, and voted upon. A clear majority vote passed the bill. From here, it will move to the state Senate, who will repeat the process. In the likely event the bill is passed by a clear majority, the final language will move to the Governor (unless the Senate modified its language substantially, in which case the Assembly may ask to review it). The Governor may then sign the bill into law, or he may veto it.

This is how Assemblyman Barca defines an undemocratic process. In his apparent world view, a group that represents only 15 percent of the voting population decides how much taxpayers should simply give them, and this becomes law without any say so. Any objections are handled by angry intimidation, harrassment, and screaming.

The Czar does not wish to live in Rep. Barca’s world. It sounds perfectly horrible, doesn’t it?

Curiously, Mr. Barca is right about one thing—and the Democrats would be wise to remember it. He sayeth unto us: “We're going to keep up the battle, and if he does win this battle I think don't think he'll win the war.”

The part he’s right about, that the Left should remember, is that this is not the end of the world. Republicans lost big in 2006 and 2008, and rather than resorting to sabotaging the process or assaulting people or simply running to Illinois to avoid responsibility, they re-organized and won even bigger in 2010. The Left should do the same.

If they can. Odds are they won’t. But not because democracy got trampled, but because it works.

Where Do They Get This Stuff?

Oh brother.

Okay, for those of you wondering, no: the earth’s magnetic field is not going to shut off, ending life on earth as it is bathed in violent solar radiation.

This nonsense is starting to go around the internet. We are aware that the magnetic poles of the earth wander quite a bit from year to year, and evidence shows at more than once in the past they have even dramatically changed position.

But this does not mean the core of the earth, which generates our magnetic field, will stop spinning instantly.

Unless you want us to make it stop. That we can do.

Cuomo, the Bishop, & Ed Peters

Those of you who follow our occasional excurses into the farther reams of Catholic inside baseball probably enjoyed ’Puter’s cri de coeur against canon lawyer Ed Peters’ complaint that New York governor Andrew Cuomo is admitted to Communion by his bishop despite public sins that are ordinarily black-letter disqualifying.

’Puter’s argument is that Cuomo’s living with a woman is a private arrangement and therefore any pastoral action the bishop would take should also be private. Further, that shacking up isn’t as bad arguing for abortion (though he’d surely cede the point that it is possible for something to be morally illicit that isn’t as bad as some other illicitness). Last, that if Cuomo had argued for abortion, ’Puter would be on him like graft on a Chicago alderman. And, finally that Peters’ alleged call for a public condemnation of Cuomo is way, way outta line (And one kind of gets the sense that ’Puter’s worried it’ll cause a shandeh for de goyim that the Church would come out and condemn shack-uppery qua shack-uppery which would be totally retrograde these days).

Fair enough.

However, as written in to the Volgi by a lay Catholic operative, it should be noted that Peters was not out issuing press releases. He, an expert on canon law, was asked a question in an interview.


His gist is not that Cuomo, quietly cohabiting in obscure, private anonymity, is in need of public condemnation. Indeed, it’s not with Cuomo at all. It’s with his bishop who is violating canon law (canon 915 of the 1983 Code of Canon Law) by admitting Cuomo to the Eucharist when he’s in a state of serious, public sin, thus spreading confusion and “scandal” (i.e., violating moral norms in a way that can lead others astray). Canon 915 does not pertain to the communicant but to the minister of communion who is forbidden to give communion to people who are known to be publicly sinning gravely by the Church’s standards.

If one reads what Peters said, he makes the points that:

• Governor Cuomo attended a bishop’s Mass at the cathedral accompanied by his cohabitee, Sandra Lee, (and his daughters) and sat in the front row. Contra ’Puter, I’d argue that if this isn’t flaunting the relationship, it’s certainly not an argument that Gov. Cuomo is keeping his arrangments private—or even discreet.
  
• It is the case that ‘public concubinage’ is expressly prohibited by canon law. The definition is openly living in a sexual relationship with a person to whom one is not married. Whether this would pertain to Joe Shlobotnik and his lovely slam piece Verna who don’t don’t advertise their unmarriedness and whose marital status most people aren’t aware of, is a different discussion. They’re “living in sin,” but they’re not necessarily giving public scandal. Cuomo and his famous-in-her-own-right inamorata are well-known to be divorced and well-known to be cohabiting. They live on ’Puter’s dime in the governor’s mansion and sit in the front row of the cathedral and have the bishop wish them well. Public, yes? And according to the Catechism (§2390), grave and "excludes one from sacramental communion."
  
• ’Puter errs in saying that Cuomo hasn’t advocated for abortion rights publically. As Peters notes, in the governor’s campaign book Andrew Cuomo: The New NY Plan of Action, Cuomo not only defends abortion rights (and lobbies for the passage of “The Reproductive Rights Act”) but promotes gay marriage. While these are legitimate political positions held by millions of people of good faith, it remains the case, as ’Puter is wont to note to his Catholic-college buddies, that the Catholic Church has deemed these (and a few others) gravely sinful to advocate. By this advocacy alone, Governor Cuomo has potentially removed himself from communion with the Church, though as Peters says, one would have to investigate this carefully in a canon-legal context.
  
• Despite that and this—not some call for the bishop to condemn Cuomo—is the crux of Peters’ complaint, that bishop admits Cuomo to communion when he’s actually forbidden to under canon law.

’Puter’s right that the bishop has a private pastoral duty. But, whatever the bishop’s private measures, all indications are he can’t licitly give Cuomo communion under canon 915.

In conclusion, ’Puter’s right to the extent that the issue of pastoral care is up to a bishop and should generally be private. However, ’Puter errs in saying that Cuomo’s conduct does not rise to the level which would bar him from communion, simply in points of fact (first, “public concubinage” giving scandal—including to his children; second, as neither his nor his lover’s previous marriages were annulled, adultery, which ’Puter will remember used to be called a “mortal sin;” and last, of course, the political advocacy of what are still called grave sins).

Pace ’Puter and the good ladies of The View, Peters is simply not “wrong. Really wrong. Damagingly wrong.” He’s right on the plain meaning of the canon in question. And, while it may be bad P.R. for an institution to publicly condemn what have become nigh-universal mores, it doesn’t make other members of the institution wrong for pointing out the institution’s violating its own rules.

Which, in this case, bar the minister of Communion from giving communion to those “who obstinately persist in manifest grave sin.” (915) It’s pretty well established that the Governor’s sin is manifest, and canonically they’re grave. ’Puter can (and probably will) argue that it depends on what the definition of “obstinately persist” is and whether it obstinately persists.

But, whatever Ed Peters, the Volgi, Ghettoputer, or any of us think of the rightness or wrongness of Gov. Cuomo’s living arrangements, they appear to violate the norms of his church. His bishop therefore seems to be required to enforce those norms, which means his ministers of the Eucharist are canonically enjoined from presenting the sacrament to him out of concern for his immortal soul. It’s not like Cuomo would be thrown out of the cathedral onto the sidewalk, it’s not like the bishop is required thunder fire and brimstone at him, it’s not that Cuomo has to be admonished publicly; it’s just that if he goes up to the front of the church (which he shouldn’t do, as ’Puter notes), he can’t licitly be given the sacrament. The bishop (or the priest or extraordinary [lay] minister under the bishop’s jurisdiction) can do this with complete discretion.

Those four Gormogon readers who have made it this far can decide for themselves whether Peters’ pointing this out is a huge, damaging scandal (in the modern sense of the world) for the Church, and even if so, if Peters is wrong to do so.

Interested readers may find the Diocese of Albany’s response here, and Peters’ response to the response here.

Ideological Warfare*

Public sector unions generally, and the Wisconsin teachers' union specifically, have lost the first battle in the emerging war over taxpayer funded salaries and benefits. Despite the unions' misplaced yet fervent belief, the public was not swayed to their side when teachers abandoned their classrooms, shut down schools, behaved loutishly and used children as props in their anti-fiscal responsibility campaign.

To their credit, unions realized that blaming unemployed and underemployed taxpayers for questioning their gold-plated pension and health benefits, toward which teachers contribute close to nothing, wasn't working. Maybe the moment of realization came when President Obama decided cramming gay marriage down America's throat would be more popular than continuing to support the unions' brazen defense of the indefensible.

The unions are now shifting strategies, and a couple of memes are starting to emerge.

1. Unions now claim this fight is not about the cost of benefits and salaries, but about a nebulous "ideology." As in "Governor Scott Walker is trying to force his right-wing anti-middle class worker ideology on poor, progressive Wisconsin." Left unsaid is the unions' "we are entitled to bankrupt the state to preserve our unrealistic benefits, and we are willing to use violence to achieve that end" ideology, which belief is exactly what has caused states to totter on the edge of insolvency and default.

The unions' new argument seems to be that questioning prevailing ideology is somehow beyond the pale. At least when the prevailing ideology is one with which the unions agree.

If we are going to have a discussion about ideology, then let's have that discussion. At stake here is nothing less than the philosophical underpinnings of American government and its social contract.

One one side are the unions. The unions believe that it is the job of the government to confiscate and redistribute wealth to their members, regardless of the consequence to society at large. Sure, they hide their beliefs well, dressing it up in "it's for the children" and "we're champions of the working man" rhetoric. But in the end, that's were unions stand. Pay up, shut up and damn the consequences.

On the other side are those who believe government employees are necessary, and should be compensated fairly. They further believe that as recipients of taxpayer monies, the unions have obligations as well. Primary among these obligations is not to bankrupt the state. The failure to meet this basic obligation is part of what contributed to Governor Walker's election in Wisconsin.

Is 'Puter's claim that unions are bankrupting the state too strong? 'Puter thinks not. State workers have received nearly unlimited taxpayer largesse for years. In return, state workers have no real obligations. Perhaps it is more apt to say state workers have no real consequences should they fail to meet their obligations. State workers cannot be fired, except for the most egregious behavior. State workers' pay increases every year, regardless of individual or department performance. State workers have benefit packages that are extraordinary by private sector standards. State workers with seniority are fired last, regardless of merit. Those taspayers that fund state workers, for the most part, have no such similar insulation from the consequnces of their (in)actions. We can debate why this is the state of facts, but it is indisputable that it is the state of facts.**

Unions either mistake, or flagrantly misrepresent, the concerns of their opponents. Union oppponents do not begrudge public sector union workers their jobs. What they object to is the preferential treatment of state workers at the expense of taxpayers. They believe, correctly, that in this down economy, union insistence on unrealistic work rules, pay and benefits is nothing less than theft from the taxpayer. Union workers are saying to their neighbors, we know times are tough, but screw you, pay up, or we'll confiscate your house and/or jail you.

Let 'Puter state this plainly. In the end, public sector union contracts are fiananced through an involuntary transfer of money from the taxpayer to the union and its members, which involuntary transfer is made under threat of force. This description is not too strong. If 'Puter objects to his local teachers' union's contract and benefits, he still must pay his taxes that fund the objectionable benefits. If 'Puter does not pay his taxes, the school district sells his house. If 'Puter refuses to leave his home after sale, the sheriff comes and removes 'Puter at gunpoint.

Unions will claim that this is a gross simplification, an overstatement, an incitement, a lie, or some combination of all of the above. It is not. It is a statement of fact. One that every union member would do well to be reminded of.

Union members should ask themselves this question. Do you believe your benefits are fair to both you and to the taxpayer such that you would be willing to sell your neighbor's home or put him in jail to fund them?

'Puter believes that it is also the duty of the taxpayer to ask and to answer the reciprocal question. Do you believe your tax burden is such that you are willing to short a hard working union member his benefits to lower your payment a few dollars?

For too long, the unions have refused to consider their question, and we are left with a situation where the taxpayer responds in the affirmative to his question.

2. Public sector unions are conveniently ignoring the sharp distinction between private sector unions and public sector unions.

For a good example of this, see Ms. Randi Weingarten's, president of the United Federation of Teachers, performance this morning on Morning Joe. Ms. Weingarten is attempting to lump all unions together, and for good reason. Public sector unions will not win this struggle without assitance from their private sector brethren. However, private sector unions are fundamentally different.

As 'Puter has noted before, private sector unions cannot ask so much from their employers such that the employer becomes unprofitable. Private companies must attract investors and customers, investors and customers who have the ability to take their money elsewhere should the employer become unattractive for any reason. In the case of capital and customer flight, businesses go bankrupt. Private sector unions know this, and usually bargain accordingly. Notable exceptions include the United Auto Workers union who, with management assistance, set the conditions for General Motors and Chrysler to fail.

Public sector unions are under no such constraint. Public sector unions cut their deals, raise their benefits and then present the taxpayer with a fait accompli. Pay the taxes necessary to support our generous packages or lose your house. Taxpayers cannot take their capital elsewhere.

The essential distinction is that there is a market based check on private sector unions, while there is no such check on public sector unions. Public sector unions can hold the government and the taxpayers hostage with impunity. If the taxpayers refuse to meet public sector unions' demands, those unions either slow down or shut down essential government functions. Then, the unions run commercials blaming the union-caused harm caused on evil conservative politicians or anti-public union groups.

"They want grandma to die cold and alone! They want your child to get a substandard education! They're further impoverishing the poor! Who will staff your hospitals?!? Criminals will run rampant without more police! Houses and businesses will burn to the ground without more firefighters!"

It is blackmail, plain and simple.

Public sector unions are not the same as private sector unions. Do not permit the unions and their media enablers to spin you.

Thanks for bearing with 'Puter through this long-winded, poorly drafted rant. 'Puter is hopeful that America has finally awakened to the damage wrought by public sector unions. 'Puter is further hopeful that we will be able to readjust the relationship between public sector workers and the taxpayer to be more fair.

Again, 'Puter does not believe that public sector workers should be treated unfairly. 'Puter does not believe that public scetor workers are unworthy of reasonable protections from unjust personal and political vendettas. 'Puter does not believe that public sector workers should be subject to mismanagement and mistreatment at the had of incompetent or malevolent management.

'Puter understands that change can be terrifying, particularly where it involves one's job, particularly during a recession, and particularly as one approaches retirement. These fears are understandable and reasonable. However, public employee fear of change is not a rational basis to avoid addressing the problem before us.

'Puter believes now is the time to reexamine the relationship between the taxpayers, their government and public sector unions. The rules we have right now are not working. We need new rules that are fair to all, even to the unions that have gamed the system for their members' benefit all these years.

*'Puter uses "unions" in this post as shorthand for "public sector unions." Where 'Puter wishes to identify private sector unions, he will do so specifically.

** 'Puter understands that some readers may hail from states that do not have exceedingly generous public employee benefit packages. Before 'Puter gets too much hate mail from union supporters, please take a look at the retirement benefits a Tier 4 (the least generous tier) New York teacher gets:

a. Retire at 55 after 30 years of service.
b. Receive a guaranteed pension for life equal to 60% of the average of the teacher's highest three years of pay.
c. For each year worked after 30 years of service, receive a 1.25% kicker up to a maximum multiplier of 70%.
d. No state income tax payable on pension benefits, a sweetener worth 6.85% per year.
e. Health care benefits equal to or better than current teachers, who can choose plans for which they pay anywhere from 0%-15% of the cost of the coverage. Retirement health coverage can, however, be changed in contract negotiations, but to the best of 'Puter's knowledge, this has never occurred.
f. Receive Social Security benefits.
g. Medicare and Medicaid eligible.
f. Receive payments from any voluntary, pre-tax contributions made to the teacher's 403(b) plan over the cours of his career.

'Puter figures, assuming the teacher retires making about $90,000 per year, and assuming no contributions to a 403(b), the teacher will receive about $79,000 per year in pension and social security benefits, factoring in the value of the tax exemption. And, at 55, they can change careers and work for at least another ten or so years while collecting their pension.

D—n f—g right it is.

As Congress begins to take up the Obama administration's defense budget, one item not even under discussion needs to be considered. Events of the past 18 months have made clear that it's time to rethink the fate of the F-22 Raptor. The presumptions that led the Senate to cancel funding for this fighter have been turned upside down, as new threats have emerged and old ones have become clearer.

Emphasis Added

A few distant friends on Facebook were referencing the Catholic teachings regarding "social justice" with regards to unions.  It started with a pointer to this piece by the Archbishop of Milwaukee:

Most Reverend Jerome E. Listecki, archbishop of Milwaukee and president of the Wisconsin Catholic Conference, has issued the following statement regarding the rights of workers and the value of unions.

February 16, 2011

The Church is well aware that difficult economic times call for hard choices and financial responsibility to further the common good.  Our own dioceses and parishes have not been immune to the effects of the current economic difficulties.  But hard times do not nullify the moral obligation each of us has to respect the legitimate rights of workers.  As Pope Benedict wrote in his 2009 encyclical, Caritas in veritate:

Governments, for reasons of economic utility, often limit the freedom or the negotiating capacity of labor unions.  Hence traditional networks of solidarity have more and more obstacles to overcome.  The repeated calls issued within the Church's social doctrine, beginning with Rerum Novarum [60], for the promotion of workers' associations that can defend their rights must therefore be honored today even more than in the past, as a prompt and far-sighted response to the urgent need for new forms of cooperation at the international level, as well as the local level. [#25]

It does not follow from this that every claim made by workers or their representatives is valid.  Every union, like every other economic actor, is called to work for the common good, to make sacrifices when required, and to adjust to new economic realities.

However, it is equally a mistake to marginalize or dismiss unions as impediments to economic growth.  As Pope John Paul II wrote in 1981, “[a] union remains a constructive factor of social order and solidarity, and it is impossible to ignore it.”  (Laborem exercens #20, emphasis in original)

It is especially in times of crisis that “new forms of cooperation” and open communication become essential.  We request that lawmakers carefully consider the implications of this proposal and evaluate it in terms of its impact on the common good.  We also appeal to everyone –lawmakers, citizens, workers, and labor unions – to move beyond divisive words and actions and work together, so that Wisconsin can recover in a humane way from the current fiscal crisis.

The emphasis I added myself.  Keep in mind the following statistics from the Bureau of Labor Statistics:  6.9% of private sector workers are union and 36.2% of government (largely state and local) workers are union.  The total unionized population is down by 50% since 1983.  Unions of the past were a valuable piece of the economic evolution of this country and served a purpose - but when a super-minority is potentially damaging the economy aided by rogue politicians, I wouldn't say that they (any of them) are "working for the common good."   While in no means am I speaking for the Pope or trying to discern what he meant by "promotion of workers' associations that can defend their rights must therefore be honored today even more than in the past"  but it is my opinion that the phrase is targeting other countries more so than the U.S.  And referencing the statement of the Blessed Pope John Paul II from 30 years ago is hard when we clearly have "new economic realities" that weren't the case in 1981.

The UN Knows How To Fix Everything

Well, bully for the United Nations. Upon learning that the Qaḏḏāfī (the Czar is beyond trying to transliterate his name) government was mowing down its civilians, they sat right down and wrote an angry letter to the editor. They will truly be surprised when nothing happens as a result of that.

But why not? After all, Libya is a member of the UN Human Rights Council. You can’t be seated on that august board without a firm committment and understanding of basic human rights! Right?

So all this talk about mowing down civilians, and calling in air strikes on assembled crowds, and so forth must all be a misunderstanding concocted by Western media. Because a great leader like Qaḏḏāfī certainly would not do such a thing. Yeah, we might let him talk for a couple hours to the General Assembly about baseball and funny stories his uncle Bud told him—and oh yeah, Israel killed JFK—but a guy like that is just so...UN.

Of course, you realize this is all sarcasm. Well, most of it is. The UN did, in fact, write a stern press release saying that, as a body designed to prevent exactly this sort of horror among its members, even to the point of military action, they feel this is somewhat wrong.

The UN has absolutely no value anymore. It has become a foul-smelling swamp of corruption and left-wing, anti-American hypocrisy. You know that odor that flies up out of your drains when you realize your plumbing is in serious trouble? That is the United Nations experience.

Let us be clear: while the Obama administration is predictably lost as to what to say or do, the reality is that the United States of America should keep Libya at arm’s length. The people of Libya need to decide without our help how to shape their own destinies. We certainly have a vested interest in who ultimately takes over, but for right now any meddling on our part is guaranteed to make things worse. We are fooling ourselves if we think the Libyans want our help at this stage; they probably are not thinking about us at all, actually.

So this is where the United Nations is supposed to come in. Generations ago, they would have organized a flotilla of personnel, supplies, and troops to help with the evacuations. On land, on sea: the multi-national forces would protect the people as they fled. Meanwhile, they would use the combined political pressure of the other members to shut down all financial and economic advantages that Qaḏḏāfī might have left.

Today, they write a knock-it-off letter. Maybe later, when that inevitably fails, they will draft up a resolution that they are annoyed. Possibly, they will threaten to come back with unspecified penalties. Or maybe not. After all, it isn’t your dad’s UN, anymore.

It’s like the head of a street gang getting a letter from the local high school Latin club to lay off the loud music. Except this Latin club has plans to run the entire world.

Catholic Foolishness

Today's New York Times breathlessly reports that:

Edward N. Peters, a professor at Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit, who last year was named by Pope Benedict XVI as a consultant to the Vatican court, the Apostolic Signatura, called the governor’s living situation “public concubinage” in his blog on Jan. 4, and said in a recent interview that Mr. Cuomo, who is Roman Catholic, must refrain from taking communion under canon law.

Dr. Peters goes on to state his opinion that the Holy Mother Church should deny Gov. Cuomo Holy Communion, should he seek it. Please note a couple of things. First, this position is Dr. Peter's opinion, not the formal position of the Church.

'Puter thinks Dr. Peters is wrong. Really wrong. Damagingly wrong. While 'Puter believes fervently that the Church should vigorously defend its teachings, and insist that adherents do their best to comply, 'Puter can't defend publicly calling for the denial of Holy Communion to Gov. Cuomo.

'Puter does not deny that Gov. Cuomo is shacked up with a hottie to whom he is not married. This runs afoul of numerous Church teachings, not the least of which is "Thou shalt not commit adultery."

That said, 'Puter does not think Gov. Cuomo's sinful behavior merits a public statement that the Church will deny the governor Communion. Gov. Cuomo's behavior is (mostly) private. He is not calling for married New Yorkers to ditch their spouses and start banging the neighborhood tramp. He is not publicly condemning the sacrament of marriage. He is sinning, mostly privately, and that is between Gov. Cuomo, his confessor and God.

Shacking up is not the same as public advocacy in support of abortion. In that instance, liberal, nominally Catholic luminaries such as Rep. Nancy Pelosi and recently deceased Sen. Ted Kennedy actively call Catholics to ignore Church teaching, and support the destruction of innocent human life. Pro-abortion Catholics (an oxymoron, in 'Puter's estimation) advocate to lead others into sin, and their actions promote murder.

Gov. Cuomo is pro-abortion. However, nothing he has done in his public life as governor to this point has amounted to public advocacy for abortion. He has been, to the best of 'Puter's knowledge, silent on the issue since his election, likely because stanching the fiscal hemorrhaging is occupying most of his time. When Gov. Cuomo starts advocating for increasing abortion funding or some such, get back to 'Puter.

All that said, 'Puter does think according to Catholic doctrine that Gov. Cuomo is in a state of continuing sin and should of his own volition not present himself for Communion until such time as he has been absolved of his sins through the sacrament of Reconciliation.

In 'Puter's estimation, this is not a public fight the Church should seek. As the governor has not made it a public issue, deal with it privately. Save the public condemnation for the big issues.

Background on public-sector unions

There’s a very good set of articles on the front page of the City Journal website. Check ’em out.

Happy To Oblige

'Puter thinks that the United States Marine Corps scout-snipers should take up Moammar Gadhafi on his declared wish to "die a martyr" in his country.

'Puter is fairly certain that a Marine scout-sniper team anywhere within a full mile of Mr. Gadhafi's location could cause the "die" part of the equation to occur. Martyrdom assumes one is dying for a righteous cause and self-aggrandizement and self-enrichment don't count.

As an aside, does anyone else notice the uncanny resemblance between Mr. Gadhafi, pictured right, and the Sand People from Star Wars? Or Jack Nicholson after a particularly rough night.

Dr. J. on Doctor's Notes

Dread & Awful Czar,

If a picture is worth a thousand words, than this video link is worth a short story.

We have been seeing in the news that there are doctors taking the streets in Madison (home of the University of Wisconsin Medical Center, not a bad institution if you're sick), writing medical excuse notes for protesters. But, to see Mr. Jenkins do a 'man on the street' report, albeit somewhat clumsily is pretty telling.

First and foremost, the teachers raising Cain about contributing to their pension, YES PENSION and having to contribute to their health insurance is pretty small minded. Indeed, they are acting unprofessionally given that they beg to be taken seriously as the professionals that they love to remind us that they are. Keep in mind that these professionals have a trade union whose most famous leader, Albert Shanker once said, "When school children start paying union dues, that's when I'll start representing the interests of the school children." Classy.

But, the fact that University doctors, who are typically considered the best and brightest (regionally, at least), are out in the street writing excuse notes is not only pathetic, it is both unprofessional and fraudulent. Dr. J. Is asked every once in a while to fill out excuse notes, disability paper work, etc… Given that someone else is on the hook for the time I give, or the disability I rate, I fill it properly so as not to steal from the person on the other end, while ensuring that my patient has the time he needs to adequately recover.

The highlight of this reel, however is when the doctor and teacher/union thug/protester are reluctant to answer questions because it is like he is 'barging in on a private doctor visit' IN THE MIDDLE OF THE STREET IN A CROUD OF THOUSANDS.'

It's doctors like this that give The Doctor a bad rap.

Best,
Dr. J.

Well, it ain’t just you. Other doctors are irate over this. In fact, unabashedly liberal doctors are irate. At least one is. And for pretty much these same reasons. The difference between Dr. J’s screed and the one in The Atlantic is that the latter positively identified four of the doctors, and is so shocked by who was doing it that he says the ultimate loser in the Unions v. Walker issue will be professional medical ethics.

The Czar also hears through his okhrana that the University of Wisconsin realizes the enormously bad publicity this is bringing their prestigious Medical Center, and is moving fast to punish or penalize. We will see what occurs.

Gov. Walkers Obeys the Gormogons (Naturally)

Back in July, 2009, the Czar lectured on how to eliminate unions. Basically, it consisted of four steps:

1. Encourage investment in new industry that has not been unionized. All right, Wisconsin (led by Gov. Scott Walker) has done this by advertising heavily in Illinois, which has tons of new industries looking to lower costs. Check.


2. Make it illegal to require membership in a union. Part of the disputed Wisconsin legislation does exactly this, but by a very clever means: end collective bargaining, and make payment of union dues optional. Gov. Walker is betting that union members would rather use their union dues to pay for healthcare and retirement, rather than see their dues go...somewhere. Big check.


3. Eliminate union benefits in exchange for union pay. Another check! Part of the Governor’s proposal requires union members to pay for their own benefits; in return, they avoid furlough and layoffs, but keep their union pay. The Czar would go stronger, and offer non-union employees higher pay than union employees, but this is a definite first step in that direction.


4. Be a good employer. Well, now, we did mention that Gov. Walker is looking to prevent layoffs and furloughs, right? And that he hopes to compensate employees better by making union dues optional? Hey, close enough for us.

Remember that you, like Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin, read it here first.

'Puter Points The Cannon At You, Libs

'Puter has several liberal friends who have spent the last couple of weeks berating 'Puter for the House Republicans' proposed cuts to, among other things, Planned Parenthood and LIHEAP. 'Puter's friends are outraged -- outraged! -- that 'Puter could be for such cuts. So 'Puter coyly cocks his head and asks them what specific programs totaling $60 billion they propose cutting, in lieu of their favorites.

After sputtering about defense and Iraq and it's all BUSHITLERCHENEYBURTON'S FAWLT!1!!!1 President Obama is in this mess, because he's really swell if you'd just give him a chance, they have no answer.

Wait. 'Puter takes that back. Their answer is to raise taxes on the rich.

In the immortal words of John Fogerty, "and when you ask them how much should we give, they only answer more, more more!" Just so long as it's yours, and not theirs, they're giving away.

Spending Per Pupil

Volgi alerts all of us to an assessment of how US education spending compares to other countries’ spending per student, and where our performance falls. And falls is a generous word.

If this doesn’t destroy every teacher’s union argument about money, nothing will.

They Might Have Known Better

Common sense requires a balance.

The Mandarin and the Czar were speaking this morning about the disturbing story of four American missionaries executed by Somali pirates during a counterattack by the Navy. We are, naturally, angered by the story and would love nothing more than to see the inhumans responsible gaffed through the neck. Two are dead, and the Navy apprehended more than a dozen more.

The Czar agrees with comments that the United States, once, took no guff from pirates and was the first country in history officially to say enough to piracy. Because, for one thing, both of us detest the idea of living a life of fear and hiding out in hopes that danger cannot find you. Danger, as you know, is very good at finding people who hide from it.

Yet, at the same time, we wonder about the sanity of sailing a very impressive and well-furnished yacht through such dangerous waters. The Gormogons presently lack a blue water navy (it has been some time since we have had an update from our project manager there), but we do know some very serious ocean-going folk. One of them said, as far back as 1999, that the whole area of the Indian Ocean and even major portions of the South Pacific are simply No Go areas, unless you have a team of well-armed and well-trained crew on board.

Indeed, he added, he personally knew boat owners who would not travel into warm waters without stopping, handing each passenger and crew a weapon, and spending time learning to load, air, fire, and recover weapons. He himself would not sail out of the North Atlantic because piracy of this sort is so rampant. And again, that was a dozen years ago. But these victims, truth be told, probably were not the gun-toting crowd, and may have bet that God would protect them from their own naiveté.

So while some folks are calling for a return to Jeffersonian diplomacy (Pow! “Anybody else want to negotiate?”), there must be recognition that ill-armed but handsomely attractive target slow-moving watercraft is pretty damn stupid to sail through pirate-infested waters. The amount of ocean these guys cover is almost continent-sized. And the Navy, opinions to the contrary, is not a police force to show up and protect you when needed. You sail at your own risk.

Hey Buddy, This Ain't A Library

You know what television commercial annoys the Czar a little bit? The State Farm commercial, in which a woman buys a newspaper. The proprietor jumps up and says “Excuse me—your change.” Cut to the Non-Threatening Hispanic Male standing in front of the magazine racks with a couple of periodicals in his hand. “It’s nice to know you can trust people,” he says, as he walks away without paying.

The End of the Beginning?*

Gormogon Operative JS sent a coded message to 'Puter utilizing as a cipher the number of purely gratuitious shots of Teri Hatcher's rack on Desperate Housewives. JS writes:

Have you chimed in yet about Unions and Wisconsin? I would've thought you'd be all over that. It seems like the typical union claptrap- take away anything from a union (especially something that isn't there in the private workforce) and the world ends. I like how the news reports the numbers as if they're a spontaneous thing instead of all the union bosses calling their people up to go protest (instead of work- must be nice).

Welllllp! Have a nice weekend. Watch out for the grappa.

'Puter has been meaning to write in on the Wisconsin meltdown, but due to acute grappa poisoning has been unable. Until now. Thanks to JS' tiemly reminder, and to this scaremongering and patently false Paul Krugman column, 'Puter has decided to break his silence.

Here are 'Puter's basic thoughts on the Wisconsin public sector unions' hissy fit.

1. 'Puter starts from the basic assumption, as reiterated in this space time and time again, that public sector unions are contrary to the interests of the people in that the unions are antithetical to an efficient and responsive service providing government.

2. The Wisconsin public sector unions made a massive mistake in not simply agreeing to the increased contributions to their exceedingly generous pension and health benefits in the first instance. In failing to do so, and in upping the ante by walking off the job (thereby alienating many parents of schoolchildren), the unions gave Gov. Scott Walker the opening to propose massively restructuring the relationship between government and union. Fools.

3. President Obama erred in tying his political future to a losing issue. Mr. Obama's political arm, Organizing for America, went all in on the unions in this tussle. As did the DNC. As did every has-been liberal hanger-on everywhere. 'Puter sees the odds that the unions succeed at less than 3:1. When your best argument is "Shut up and pay up. It's for the children.", you're losing.

4. If 'Puter were in charge of the Wisconsin Senate, he would introduce a separate bill enacting all of the proposed reforms to the Wisconsin collective bargaining laws, separate and apart from any budget bill. There are 19 Republicans in the Senate, out of 33 senators total. A quorum on a budget bill is 20 senators. A quorum for any other business is 17 senators. 'Puter would hold a vote, stating that as the Democrats have abandoned their responsibilities, Republicans are going to take up everything that they legally can until the Democrats return or are replaced.

5. In a similar vein, 'Puter yelled at the television this weekend every time a Democrat apologist said that Gov. Walker and the Republicans were taking away the right of public workers to collectively bargain. Let's be very clear hear. There is no independent right to collectively bargain for public employees, save for state laws and a federal executive order. The laws that granted that right can be changed to take away that right, so long as due process is afforded. There is no allegation that legislators proposing a law, debating it in public, then voting on it does not comport with due process. Just because something disproportionately benefits you at the expense of others (a) does not make that thing a right and (b) does not prevent that thing from being banned.

Many of 'Puter's thoughts have been said more succinctly and more eloquently elsewhere. Feel free to find those places on your own. 'Puter's not going to drive other bloggers' traffic.

Now, to Mr. Krugman. Today's column is a target rich environment, chock full of unsupported liberal dogma. Where to begin?

1. If you start a column with an utter non sequitur of a slap at the evil trio of Beck, Limbaugh and Santorum (seriously, Paul?), you lose whatever credibility you may otherwise have with 'Puter. So there's two paragraphs of a fifteen page tantrum shot.

2. Mr. Krugman rehabilitates his credibility slightly when he admits (1) there is a real budget crisis in Wisconsin and (2) states that shared sacrifice is required. Mr. Krugman then stretches the truth to its breaking point in claiming that the unions are willing going along with the shared sacrifice he recommends. Mr. Krugman fails to note that no concessions were offered by the unions until it became clear that their illegal strike and hippie be/sit-in at the state capitol were not working.

3. While true that Gov. Walker has pushed through tax cuts for businesses, those tax cuts are intended to benefit the unemployed. Additionally, those tax cuts' "cost" ('Puter uses scare quotes because leaving money in taxpayers' pockets is not a cost, it is simply not stealing more from them) is approximately $120 million out of a $3.6 billion overall budget shortfall. At best for Mr. Krugman, that's three percent on a two year budget.

4. Mr. Krugman proceeds to describe the horrific destruction of public sector workers' "rights" to collective bargain. First, as noted above, there is no right absent legislation to bargain collectively. Second, all public sector workers would retain the right to bargain collectively their wages; only work rules, pensions and other benefits are off the table. Third, public safety workers (e.g., policemen, firemen) retain full collective bargain rights. O tempora! O mores!

5. Despite Mr. Krugman's unsupported claim to the contrary, there is ample credible evidence that public workers are in fact paid significantly in excess of private sector workers. Even the public employees working for the Bureau of Labor statistics disagree with Mr. Krugman.

6. Mr. Krugman next resorts to the tired liberal talking point that unions press for the political interests of their members, offsetting the advantage of Daddy Warbucks and the Military Industrial complex, who, together with their legions of leather-shod lobbyists are bent on oiling the machinery with the blood of the proletariat. How about this deal, Mr. Krugman? If you are so certain that public sector unions represent the political will of their constiuent members, how about making membership in the unions optional? 'Puter didn't think so. And that's the difference between corporate lobbyists and union lobbyists. Those that fund corporations (shareholders) do so through a voluntary transaction (purchase of shares). Those that fund unions (members) do so through an involuntary transaction (closed shop rules, coupled with paycheck deductions). Apples. Oranges. Whatever.

7. Here's a final thought question, in response to Mr. Krugman's entreaty that we should all wish for an organization that represents the worker in the giant class war that is American quasi-capitalism. In what specific ways, other than forcibly taking more money from taxpayers to fund unsustainable union perquisites, have unions benefitted American workers in the last thirty years? How about the last fifty? It seems to 'Puter that all the low hanging fruit (40 hour work week, 8 hour work day, unlocked fire exits, child labor laws, workplace safety laws) have all been harvested. Unions, like uncritical leftist though, is a vesitgal remnant of a once great American idea. And that, sir, is why you are wrong.

There. Now 'Puter feels better. Back to the grappa.

* Bonus points to the first correspondent who correctly identifies the source of 'Puter's quote above. No fair Googling. And 'Puter will know, because GorT's hobby is to monitor each keystroke you make.

Skool is Kool....

In a follow up to the Czar’s recent post on home schooling your Mandarin would like to add to that neither home schooling or institutionalized schooling are the ultimate answer to educating our children. In reality it is a combination of both that provides the greatest benefit to children.

The institutional schools provide the comprehensive curriculum, support services for those who require them for social, physical, or learning disabilities, and an environment where children can learn to interact with their peers. But with all the resources available to them, the institutional schools cannot and should not be the only place where our children are educated.

Parents need to take an active role in their children’s education. While there are many fine educators out there, you are ultimately depending on a government entity to deliver a quality product. Too many parents feel that they shouldn’t have to do the educators job especially after what they pay in property taxes.

But the truth of the matter is that learning doesn’t just take place in the six hours that the children are in school. There is only so much time that an educator, no matter how skilled or well intentioned can spend on any one topic. If you want your children to succeed, then you have to invest the time to go over their homework, drill them with flash cards, and discuss with them what they have read and what is the meaning of what they just read.

Many people today have been conditioned to rely on others for everything. Now your Mandarin doesn’t expect you to go out and grow your own grains, fruits, and vegetables, raise and slaughter your own livestock, or construct an orbital super weapon (which happens to actually be your Mandarin’s job). But just as one goes to the super market to purchase the raw ingredients for dinner, once you get your groceries home you are the one that turns them into a meal.

Wisconsin: Long-Term Consequences

Paul A. Rahe over at Ricochet has a fantastic analysis of the Wisconsin situation, including step-by-step proofs for the following two claims:

1. The Gov. Scott Walker can only continue to look better the longer this goes on.

2. Ultimately, this could cost Barack Obama re-election.

The last claim seems stretched, but Rahe explains that this will almost certainly play out with the Wisconsin Senate swinging Republican as a result of a recall election (remember, they need only one more GOP Senator, and one Dem. Senator in particular is painfully vulnerable to a recall election). Emboldened, this will fuel the fire in Indiana, Michigan, and Ohio, all of whom are already gearing up for a Wisconsin-like rejection of public sector unions. If these states swing any more GOP, the 2012 presidential election is headed for a GOP win.

Intriguing walk-through, and Rahe provides much more detail than this for such a scenario, of course. And not so much a speculative prediction as it is a dire warning that President Obama should have disassociated himself of the Wisconsin battle immediately, rather than take the side of the public labor unions. His off-the-cuff comment will have long-term consequences and not in his favor.

Home Schooling Costs and Benefits: Who's Right?

DEAR CZAR, OH HOW I CARE FOR YOU,

What do you think of the proposed legislation that Illinois home-schooled students be registered with the state?

Prima facie, it looks reasonable. I know that, in other states, they must meet certain curricula and have things approved by a teacher employed by the state. What are the home schooling people protesting? What do you think of the law? Is home schooling on the rise in Illinois?

I hope you're pro-homeschooling. Otherwise, we can no longer be friends. Also, you'll have to give back all those cups of sugar you borrowed.

God Bless,

JS, Operative Extraordinaire

Before anything else is answered, the Czar must divulge that the wonderful Царица is herself a school teacher and union member. Bear this in mind.

The Czar is not opposed to home schooling, and hears from many people who do it. In the Царица’s experience, though, she finds that many home schooled kids suffer in two areas when she has personally assessed them. The first gap is educational: she can quickly identify what the intention of the parents was by a basic gap analysis.

Kids home schooled because the local schools are too weak in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) have through-the-roof scores in those areas but are often weak in language arts, history and social sciences

Those home-schooled because of political reasons (my kids need to get out of those liberal messes) are great at reading, social studies and history, but often weak in math and language arts.

Those educated for religious reasons* are great in language arts, reading, and history, but typically weak in science and math. Very rarely does she encounter a home-schooled kid who excels in all these areas. And by weak, she means weak.

The second gap is social. Home-schooled kids who go on to high school or even college are quite often sullen, moody, and easily victimized. They have few social networks, wind up suspiciously ill more often, and rub the other kids the wrong way. Those with developmental issues stand out right away—things that would be diagnosed and even referred are regarded as “Timmy’s special traits,” rather than “Wow, my kid is a brat?” Few programs are in place to help home-schooled kids with dyslexia, spectrum disorders, or cognitive disabilities.

The Czar expects that Mrs. Ghettoputer and Mrs. Mandarin, also involved in education, see similar gaps. A lot of home schoolers are reading this and penning letters to say our wives are all union sell-outs, and so on, but read the next paragraph word-for-word, please.

The Царица is all in favor of home schooling, but says the vast majority of parents are ill-prepared to deal with (a) all aspects of all educational components—the parents stress the subject they themselves are good at, but downplay the weaker fundamentals, (b) are seldom self-honest about handling kids who are failing, and (c) even worse often fail to address highly successful home-schooled students who excel past their parents’s abilities to keep up. She admits many public schools are also equally ill-prepared for these things, but in fact most are able to assess and address the needs correctly. Failures in the system are rare and even predictable by the politics in the district. In other words, you’re never surprised by which schools fail to help the student in question. The same issues at the same schools keep popping back up.

Now, the irritation about registering home schoolers is a simple one, with a simple origin: parents happy with public school education in their area tend not to home school. So when there is a perception that “the very morons who screwed it up are demanding the right to invade our home and assess my kid’s education&,#148; the idea of registering is opposable. Screw you, statist bastards: clean up your own damned mess before you come into my house to say Timmy is lacking in some areas.

The flip side of the argument is exactly what you predict: some states require set guidelines, because they know about the trend for “gappy” instruction. Yeah, Mrs. Schluck, your kid is doing algebra by age 11; but when we asked Timmy what a simile was, he nervously pointed to the cat.

Regrettably, the Царица will tell you there is no shortage of resources exist to help parents home school their kids. Even ones tailored for Illinois. There are set legal requirements in Illinois for what must be covered, and how much each subject shall be stressed (though you are welcome to exceeed them). The problem is your last question: is it on the rise? That is one of the fundamental reasons for registration, say the proponents. We really have no idea. And most states have some sort of means to track whether kids are home schooled, to what extent, and which ones will attend schools—simply because there is a fiscal responsibility to know the student population for next year.

But who is really behind the proposition and opposition? In our analysis:

The real proponent here is not the teacher unions** (who frankly couldn’t care less about a few thousands kids, since they would not add up enough to require adding additional due-paying teachers), but apparently members of Illinois’ State Board of Education, who were originated and supported the bill, but have now dropped the suggestion due to the unpopular backlash it received.

The real opponent behind that backlash is the ICHE and similar home-schooling bodies who are terrified that greater state interest and assessments will reveal what a crappy job many home schooling parents are doing. Remember, if enough parents are exposed for doing substandard work, the state will take action and perhaps restrict home schooling considerably. The less you know the better.

Now, here are our questions: (1) If home schooling parents are forced to register their students, how does this benefit the State? (2) Conversely, what is a failure to register these kids costing Illinois residents? (3) If the bill had been passed, what exactly would the state do next? Specifically, what happens after they register? One of the prime reasons the SBE dropped their support of this bill was because they, apparently, could not answer those questions, either.

So the Czar speaks verily: a state has a vested interest in knowing which children are being home schooled for two reasons: (1) to determine how many are going to enter or leave state-funded public schools (for budgeting), and (2) to identify which kids are not attending schools or home schools and are therefore not being educated at all—remember that state law makes the state the educator of last resort. The state should know which kids are basically playing hooky all day.

Past that, the state needs to establish a clear rationale and plan of action for anything past that. If the concern is that some home schooling parents are not meeting minimum state requirements (and rightly or no, the law allows the state to set those minimums) and the state assumes responsiblity to fill in those deficiencies, then this must be clearly articulated beyond a mere registration process.

In other words, you want to register home schoolers to verify they are being schooled at home? Fine. But do not scare the parents that the state can take some unspecified action later as a result.

* On a personal note, some parents home school for religious reasons based on the teaching of evolution. These parents are terrified that the schools will teach them about the evils of evolution and natural selection. These parents are welcome to teach their kids at home about Creation, but to omit a legitimate lesson plan around evolution is morally reprehensible. Evolution is a fact easily proved by thousands of simple examples, and threatens only those whose own religious faith is cartoonishly weak. If your own faith in God is disproved by something so obviously true, then your faith was not strong enough from the outset. Fortunately, this point does not seem to be the primary driver behind home schooling, but for those couple hundred who are so motivated, your kids will be ill-prepared for surviving in a technological economy. If you cannot accept the basic science behind evolution, you might as well not even teach them math. See how far they get.

** The bill’s author is a bona fide educator who taught in non-union, private (Catholic) schools.

Wisconsin Says Enough!

Look at the size of the crowd in Madison.

Here is the great news: this is the pro-Walker crowd, counter-protesting the union thugs who have swamped the state building.

Think this crowd is bigger? Looks like. And sure hope so.

Meanwhile, at least two districts in Wisconsin have started the paperwork to recall their failed Democratic senators.

But What Does Your Wisconsin Resident Think?

The worst part of this account is that nothing in it really surprises the Czar. Basically, this report confirms your suspicion that the protestors in Madison are hired thugs intent on causing real problems.

The tea party plans to rally in support of Governor Walker. I don't know what kind of numbers they can amass, but frankly, I doubt they can come close to busloads of union thugs being shipped in from all over the country. Last night one Senator told me they had been told to clear the Capitol because the new groups coming in overnight are filled with with people "who aren't afraid to be arrested" and the Administration could not guarantee the safety of the legislators and their staffs. In our Capitol.

On Thursday, legislators were advised to return to their offices and lock their doors. Mobs roamed the halls, banging on the glass of the doors, pounding on the walls. No one could move in the halls or enter or leave the building. The glass of the Supreme Court's entrance was broken. Legislators were genuinely afraid. Our elected representatives were afraid. In our Capitol.

A young female reporter trying to get into the Senate chamber struggled to get through the crowd. She arrived disheveled and upset because she had been roughed up as she tried to get through "Bitch-slapped" the mob told her. A senior senator was spat on. A senator and his female staffer struggled to get into the capitol. He was worried about his staffer because the crowd was grabbing at her and pushing her. University Police were two arms lengths away and did nothing. They, of course, are union.

Protesters spent the night on the floor of the Capitol. A friend of mine said the entire place smelled when she walked in on Friday morning. There was garbage everywhere. This is one of the most beautiful Capitol buildings in the country. The mob had no respect for the place, for what happens there, or for the citizens whose freedoms it represents.

But it shows that for all the eggshell treading that the major media outlets are doing, the fact is that there is nothing democratic about the events going on in Madison. This is about organized intimidation, and because this is the 21st Century, it isn’t working:

On the other hand, one of the freshmen (Republican) members of the assembly tells me that the leggies are united and have bonded in a way that would never have been possible in other circumstances. On Thursday night, behind locked doors she said, they wept, held hands, and prayed, vowing unity. Another Senator says she thinks the tide has turned. Another (Repub) answered in response to my question; "This is kinda fun!"

The Governor stands firm. I understand that there are strategies in place for next steps which will shake up the stalemate....I have known him for at least 15 years, but he is different now. He is a man who has met his time and his place, and he seems to know it.

Mailbag!

Operative GD writes in from somewhere that favors a lot of IT service processes regarding this post:

Sadly, you have managed to touch on one of the few subjects I actually know a bit about.  Root cause analysis.  See, to do proper root cause analysis, you must first define your problem.  

Or totally make one up - 'Puter likes doing this just to mess with the Czar.

Typically, a problem is defined as a subject which has a defect and some optional modifiers.  In this case, I would define our problem as "The government (subject) will shutdown (the defect)."  We could throw in all sorts of optional modifiers about when and how this shutdown will occur, but in this case they won't really aid in our analysis, so I skipped them.  Next, we ask a simple question.  

Strap yourselves in we've got some engineering going on here.

Why did that subject have a defect?  When we get the answer, we ask why again, continuing until we reach the root cause or causes that are actionable.  This is a very simple technique for very simple problems, which this is, and does not replace more effective root cause analysis techniques for complex issues.  Using this simple process, we end up with a simple text tree that looks like this:

The government will shutdown.

Why  ---->  Because the 111th congress failed to pass a new budget as constitutionally mandated.  (while I agree with your GORTness that this is the proximate cause, it may not be the root cause... continue)

      Why not  ---->  Because they were afraid.

                 Why  ---->  Because after passing Obamacare and all their other pet projects, they were pretty certain that the electorate was going to run them out on a rail if they tried any more of that crap.

                          Why  ---->  Because the electorate was finally paying attention

                                   Why  ---->  Because... well, republicans and tea party people and Sarah Palin!

And there you have it!  The true root cause of the government shutdown is the tea party movement and Sarah Palin.  No need to thank me.

Keep on Gormogonin'

Well played, sir.  I like it.  Clearly the Bush TeaPalin McHilterburton is the root cause of the pending government shutdown (see how I did that - just advanced it to pending....sweet).

Now We Know The Truth

Two seemingly unrelated events reveal much about the state of the union. The real state of the union, that is, and not the light rail and unicorn fart speech President Obama gave exactly one hundred years ago, back before Egypt.

The first event is his proposed budget. Even if all you read is us (and that works well, by the way), you already know that his plan to cut spending is to increase spending. Although the President continues to promote the idea that his budget reduces overall spending, anyone with the ability to compare two numbers and conclude which one is larger can see the proposed budget increases spending terribly.

Republicans have begun to cut his budget down. By now, you have heard that the House is eliminating all funding for ObamaCare that is within their power to do so—even the salaries of the new positions created by the bill have now become volunteer jobs. Over the last four weeks, the GOP has found a way to cut over $100 billion from the budget; unfortunately, over the last four weeks, we have added more than that to our debt and deficit.

The second event, of course, is the farce that passes for responsible government in Wisconsin. The media is painting Governor Walker as an autocrat—single-handedly making ridiculous proposals that his pawns in the legislature rubber stamp into law. Jesse Jackson—a reliable indicator of which side has the weaker argument—is already on scene and on camera, explaining that working man has been shut out of the process.

Curiously, as far as the Czar can discern, the vast majority of Americans (in Wisconsin and in the other 49 states) are rejecting this. They understand that Wisconsin’s government unions have been given a nearly free ride for decades, and the ride must end. The people of Wisconsin sent this governor there by popular election; they selected their Assembly and Senate accordingly as well: and one of the enunciated goals was to save the State of Wisconsin by fixing exactly these abuses of funding.

Thus, while thousands of protestors flood Madison, millions of Wisconsin residents are outraged by the Democrats. These people are not being fooled by media reports: they know full well that the bill to crush collective bargaining is inevitable, necessary, and ultimately a good thing for the state. Other states are planning to follow the same lead.

And why is there a lack of surprise? According to the latest stats, only 6.9 percent of private sector employees are union members; only 40 percent of public sector employees are union members. As a result, the remaining 93.1 percent and 60 percent of workers are fed up with the minority percentiles ruining the country financially. The majority now speaks.

As a result, no matter what your views are on the issue, this is a done deal. Americans are more than ever prepared to see these ill-advised expenditures be stopped or shut down. Americans of all persuasion—especially the largely fictitious independent moderate centrists—acknowledge that the country is headed for an epic disaster of our own making.

And while liberals cut and paste comment after comment in the echo chamber blogs, deep down they have to recognize it, too. The Salad Days of spending are over. For the first time in almost 100 years, the government worker is as nervous for his economic future as his increasingly estranged private sector neighbor.

Some folks say it is too late: the ship has taken on too much water to bail now. The GOP, as well-intentioned as they say the are, cannot bear to cut their pet projects any more than the Democrats...the few who truly intend to cut spending can never cut enough. Maybe this is true.

And this is where the two events we mention above reveal a horrible truth: while the GOP might not be sincere about cutting spending, we know for certain the Democrats have no intention whatsoever to cut spending. Even when sent an obscenely clear message in late 2010, the Democrats won’t (or more likely can’t) stop pretending their theories are anything short of a failure; even in order to save the country, they fantasize differently.

These facts have now been exposed. Plan accordingly.