Society’s Impact on Good Parenting (Correction)

I previousloy duplicated the last post under this heading. Here is the correct one.

I have a fundamental belief that children are the most important asset to the future success of our nation. I further believe that there is a normal distribution of reasoning ability that is a genetic part of the individual and to maximize the probability of success we must allow them to rise to their maximum potential. I read and hear more and more that the jobs or the future depend on three attributes; analytical thinking, creativity and social skills. The first two of these, though they may be able to be enhanced by education, for all intents and purposes cannot be taught. As I discussed in a previous post on education, universities, though they do not create analytical thinkers or creative individuals, do “brand” them. The higher the degree, the greater the probability that they have these thought-after characteristics. With rare exception, individuals without degrees may not be recognized as being analytical or creative. So I am interested in expanding education to certify as many of the talented as possible. The more we get into our mainstream the better for our future.
As I have followed debates on education, I hear much about the importance of good parenting. The debate regarding the impact of parenting is not whether good parenting has an impact or not but is it a 50% or a 95% issue. That being the case the question boils down to how can parenting be improved?
May 5th I watched a special on Democracy Now, a very liberal broadcast, which featured a composite of three different interviews of Dr. Gabor Mata, a Canadian physician who studied and wrote about addiction, autism and attention deficit disorder. Gabor Mata, a Jew, born in Hungary during the Nazi regime and brought up in a home where the family was in work camps and in general, given the Nazi attitude toward Jews, under tremendous stress. As he discusses various studies he also often cites himself as an example of behavior consequential to his early upbringing. (I also find some relevance to my own symptoms though I am sure my formidable years were not nearly as terrible as his.)
He started by pointing out that unlike most mammals, the humans, because of the size of our brain need to enter the world before the brain is fully developed and spend the first two years of our lives continuing the development of the neural connections and whatever else goes on in the brain. During this period, for proper development, it is crucial to be in the presence of a calm loving person. He attributes the bulk of the above ills and their increase to improper development brought about by parents living under more and more stress and thus depriving the child of the environment needed to properly finish the development started in the womb. His conclusion is that whereas these diseases are considered and treated as medical or psychological maladies, they really are societal ills. He cites the increased stress brought on by deteriorating economic conditions requiring mothers in two parent households to work and the revision of the welfare system forcing single mothers to go into the workplace as conditions that remove the loving hand and their ability to comfort.
If there is merit to his argument, (I believe he has hit the nail on the head) what can we as a society do to improve the development of the infants and thereby improve our future society? In the LA area there are “Mother’s Clubs” which provide a setting where mothers from impoverished families can go and spend some time with their children in a calm atmosphere while learning to read and write and basic parenting skills. Though I think, such are very worthy efforts, they reach a very small number of people and don’t get to the root cause. The answer need to come in the form of policies that reduce the stress on families and allow for more parental contact during the time the brain is developing. The zeal with which the Conservatives want to punish “free riders” and thus improve our Nation may back fire. It may result in a society with ever increasing dysfunction which hurts them as much as the people they insist on not helping. To succeed in an ever competitive global economy we must deploy the best talent we can and not allow a significant segment to fail because of improper development. I can’t imagine a two year old being branded a worthless “free rider”, even by the staunchest Libertarian.
It would be interesting to compare the level of addiction, ADD and autism in various countries against the policies they deploy affecting early childhood development. All advanced industrialized nations are in essence Free Market Capitalist Welfare States though they vary with the level of “safely net”. The US has one of the lowest and along with the very low minimum wage and strong advantage of business over labor, makes it both easy and necessary for mothers to work. In countries like Germany and Italy with Christian Democratic governments, it is very difficult to fire a worker and minimum wages are high. High minimum wages make it harder to get childcare there than in the US and the increased job security for the man of the house makes it both difficult and less necessary for the mother to work. I am not suggesting that that is what we want to do but only giving an example of policies that may have a positive effect on early childhood development. In the former Soviet Union where everyone worked and there was extensive government supported child care, I suspect, along with the very high rate of alcohol addiction, there probably is also a high rate of ADD and autism, though they may lag substantially in diagnosing these.

Republicans Ideologically Opposed to Job Creation

I saw a segment on the tube featuring Marco Rubio, a potential Vice Presidential candidate and most likely a Presidential candidate in 2016, elected to Congress from Florida with strong Tea Party support. He was featured at a Ragan Library function escorting Nancy Ragan down the aisle. I suspect the honor of escorting the former First Lady could mean that he may be picking up Ronald Ragan’s mantle. At the podium he talked about government’s proper role and admitted there is one and clearly building infrastructure certainly is a valid government function. He quickly added the caveat however, that funding infrastructure is OK in and of itself but not if the purpose is to create jobs. I am surprised that this was not immediately picked up by the media or at least the progressives.
The statement chrystalizes the conservative position regarding jobs and workers and it confirming the conservative belief that any government attempt to interfere with the workings of a liaises-faire market with the aim of improving the prosperity of the general population is anti-American. An action that is very appropriate by any measure is wrong if the purpose of the action is to improve the conditions of wage earners. The benefit to society should never be a goal but a byproduct of commercial enterprise. Seeing Nancy Ragan on his arm confirms, to my satisfaction anyway, that Rubio is speaking for the Republicans. If this is their ideological position, what happens to the Republican promise made at the last election to put jobs at the top of their list of priorities? They can’t! This explains why all of the Republican focus has been on social issues, nothing to do with jobs and spending cuts, counter to job creation.
So expect a lot of noise and opposition from the right when President Obama unveils his “jobs agenda” whatever it is. The only way he stands a “snowballs chance in hell” of getting anything passed is to come up with initiatives that have another purpose, like improving infrastructure, with job creation as a silent byproduct and totally downplay the job benefit. Also their benefit needs to be so clear that it will be politically impossible to go against it. Otherwise whatever the policy proposed, the cry will be that the initiative, will impact the “job creators” ability to create jobs or that it somehow “punishes “job creators”.
The thing that continues to astound me is how many working people who suffer from this conservative position so vehemently support policies and ideologies that really destroy their chance for prosperity. Talk about “cutting off your nose to spite your face”.

Debt Ain't so Bad

Today one sees many comments in the popular medium comparing government finances to household or corporate finances. I won’t go into a detailed discussion on the differences between household’s, business’s and government’s finances and focus on some similarities between them relating to debt.
The first thing to acknowledge is that there are different kinds of expenditures in each that have similarities. In the household there are expenditures for subsistence, convenience and entertainment. These are current expenses, though necessary or at least desirable, their benefits do not accumulate. There are other expenditures such as dinnerware, furniture, household appliances, education, cars and houses whose benefit is felt over a long period of time. These can be considered investments. Current expenses need to be at least matched by income or the household puts itself at great financial risk. Investments, on the other hand, the benefit of which is realized over a period of time can also be paid for over time. Few households are in a position to pay for the larger of these out of current income or savings. And even fewer of us pay for a house or for that matter a car out of savings and borrow money which we pay back to the lender over time, 20 or 30 years for houses and 2 to 5 years for cars and maybe less for furniture and appliances. People who had mortgages or car loans were not looked down on as reckless or irresponsible. It is the normal way to live in modern times. In fact, being credit worthy was a source of pride.
60% to 70% of our GDP consists of consumption and is facilitated to a great extent by credit. The GDP is an indicator of prosperity in a society, and the lot of wage earners, improves as a society prospers with growing demand creating jobs. Until recently, when loans made by one lender began to be bundled with others and sold and re-bundled and sold, the lender had an interest in ensuring that the borrower had the wherewithal to make payments on the schedule agreed to. With the selling and bundling of mortgages, the lender no longer cared about the borrower’s ability to repay since they made their money from the sale of the loan. Requirements for creditworthiness and collateral were all but eliminated and high pressure salesmen, using what could be argued were underhanded tactics, convinced households to assume debt they had no way of repaying. Furthermore, household incomes have been stagnating while costs were going up so beside the poor loans taken out for investments, they started to use debt to pay for current expenses. Debt got a bad name.
Business debt is somewhat different than household debt. Whereas in a household, in most cases the income lags the labor by about a week or in some instance two, in businesses, particularly manufacturing, payment for an item produced can come in one, two, three or more months after it is purchased and the item may have been in manufacturing for weeks or months where it had been collecting costs. It is a common practice for businesses to borrow money to cover the lag between when they start spending and when they receive payment. These expenses, whether financed with debt or not, are part of the cost of a product or service. This is considered a legitimate reason for borrowing even though it is to cover current expenses. Plant and equipment, on the other hand fall into category of investment. From an accounting standpoint, whereas direct costs, (costs that go directly into a specific product or service), indirect cost, (costs that go into things like rent, maintenance of equipment), administrative costs and R&D reduce the profit, (price-cost=profit), investment (and income taxes) comes out of profit and as in the case of the household are paid for over a long term with debt because most businesses do not have enough cash flow. Businesses borrow money for their investments. The ability for a business to borrow money is an asset and is not a sign of weakness.
When it comes to the government, things become somewhat nonsensical. Whereas in households and businesses, investments are considered and treated differently than current expenses, in government accounting all expenses are considered current. Though a bridge, an aircraft carrier or a hospital will be used for decades, all the money spent is treated as a current cost and not differentiated from other costs. So when criticizing government spending, one should really consider whether the expenses and debt are investments or current expenses, even though the accounting doesn’t. Another difference between the government and households or businesses is its ability to print more money and raise revenues. Households and businesses can theoretically increase income as well but it is easier said than done. Governments can do it with a stroke of the pen.
As with households and businesses, there is a level of debt that is perfectly appropriate and works to the benefit of a society. I think that true “current” costs should be paid from revenues, either increasing or decreasing one or the other as appropriate. Investments should be financed with debt to the extent that money can be borrowed. Currently lenders are lending money to us at ridiculously low rates indicating that from their perspective the loans are reasonable with probability of repayment very high. Unfortunately the extreme Right has taken a position that all government expenditures, except defense, are bad and are trying to inhibit the borrowing of money or raising revenues.
There is another “proper” accumulation of debt that is the same for households, businesses and governments. In a period of temporary crisis, all may find themselves in a situation where the current expenses exceed income and need to borrow anticipating a return to normalcy at some point in the future. Our government has done this several times and there is a sharp peak in spending and debt followed by a rapid decline. During bad times lenders will lend but getting a loan becomes more difficult. In the case of households and businesses, there is a stronger demand for collateral, and their interest rates, along with those of governments are higher. There is an old saying that everyone is willing to lend you money when you don’t need it but very few when you do.
As to running the country like a business, a successful business’s credit is one of its major assets. The notion that it would be restricted by arbitrary limits or ratios would greatly inhibit a business’s ability to weather periods of turmoil or maximize potentials during periods of opportunity. I certainly would not want to run a business so constrained. In this respect government is very similar to business. In times of economic crisis that we are struggling to get behind us, increasing competition brought on by globalization and potential shifts in the balance of power throughout the world, we need to be careful of zealotry arbitrarily restricting our investments and debt. Reckless spending without accountability is bad but the notion that any spending and borrowing is bad and should be severely limited is naïve and can destroy a business as well as a country.

The Debt Ceiling Debate

The total distraction of the last several weeks in Washington makes me think of a time before I retired. Back at the beginning of the century, as the dot.com bubble burst our business was collapsing. We laid-off half of our staff, froze pay for the entire company, cut pay for the senior management, delayed paying bills, and met with the bank almost weekly. It was a very difficult time and we were struggling to stay alive. Everyone was under more stress than usual and on edge. There was a young woman who was accused of not pulling her weight and getting away with it because she was romantically involved with one of the managers. With all that was going on I wanted to stay focused on staying alive and did not want to deal with issues unrelated to survival.

We had been having monthly meeting of the entire staff for some time where I presented the financials and talked about where we are and what we are doing to try to weather the storm. At a meeting during the height of the clamor I broached the subject of the young woman with a metaphor.

Imagine I am driving a bus with you as a passenger and we are traveling down a steep, curvy road on a stormy night. There is an annoying person in the back of the bus and people are yelling for me to do something about them. Now, if the yelling continues I will get progressively more distracted and will need to do something. However, if I were a passenger on this bus, given the circumstances, I would want the driver to absolutely focus on the road and would put up with the annoying passenger until we got down to the bottom of the mountain. The yelling stopped and the issue resolved itself before the bus reached the bottom. We survived.

I think the above analogy may hold true today. Our country, and the world for that matter, is in the throws of recovering from a deep recession with a number of world events slowing the recovery. Third word countries are advancing faster than the western countries potentially changing the balance of power and whenever there is a threat to the balance the world is in a precarious position. With this critical phase we find ourselves in, the right wing decided to raise a ruckus in the form of a balanced budget debate and held the debt-ceiling hostage. Unfortunately, unlike the annoying passenger on my bus, the debt ceiling could run us off the cliff. The issue of the debt ceiling has resolved itself. However we are left with potentially negative consequences and much valuable time, energy and credibility has been lost in the process. The scary thing is that we are not down from the mountain yet.

Uninformed and Misinformed Revisited

Talking points are simple phrases that PR people develop for an organization to forward their agenda. The “communications” specialist study what combination of words will have a desired affect on the chosen audience, massage and polish them and then issue them to the members of the organization. Thus are born phrases like “job killing health care”, Medicare killing proposal”, etc. The idea is to inject them into the conversation whenever possible whether totally appropriate or not. So following an event, all of a sudden one hears the exact same phrase coming out of the mouths of many. Some politicians use talking points sparingly and only if they fit very well into the discussion. Others just throw them around without regard for fact or context.

Today I heard an interview of Eric Cantor (I am only 90% sure it was him since I didn’t hear the introduction but heard him referred to as the Republican Whip) in which he made a couple statements that vividly illustrate the idiotic use of “talking points”. In reference to something Harry Reed voted against, he said that the reason Harry voted against it was because the “people wanted” it. The talking point he was injecting was “the people want” which is something often used by Republicans since the 2010 elections. If you stop and think about it, this is totally ridiculous. To think that any politician would go against something that the “people” want just because they want it is ludicrous. There is no benefit whatsoever to them in doing so. They want to be reelected. Cantor could have accused him of voting against something because he didn’t understand what people want (not hearing or understanding what the people want is a common accusation of Democrats) or that it was ideologically inconsistent or that it would offend his contributors or he thought wrongly that it is not good for the country or that he was ignorant or any number of other reasons, though one may disagree with them, that could make sense. But to say that he voted against or, for that matter, for something, just to go against what the “people wanted”, is plain dumb.

In the same interview Eric also said that he has been a businessman since he was twenty and unlike people who sell labor, businessmen try to create jobs. Here the talking point is “businessmen create jobs”. This also is ludicrous. Had he left out the word “try”, though I would disagree with him, it is a point we could debate. Success in business is making a profit. One can increase profit by cutting costs through improvements in efficiency. (read eliminate jobs) or by eliminating competition (also read eliminate jobs). That is what they “try” to do. There is nothing wrong with this. That is how the system works. Jobs are an unintended byproduct of businesses as a whole trying to maximize their individual profits. There is nothing in any business metric that treats increased number of jobs as a positive. Jobs are coincidental. So when Eric Cantor (or whoever) says businessmen try to create jobs he either doesn’t understand or just sees an opportunity to inject the talking point with impunity.

I think in both instances the truth probably is that he is just spouting “talking points” without really thinking about them because his followers on the extreme right will like the sound of these words and really not even consider their merits and as to the others, he just plain doesn’t care. Unfortunately this is the way many, if not most, on both sides of the isle operate. With ‘talking points’ used as broadly as they are today, it is very difficult to hear an intelligent conversation in the popular media. To make matters worse the talking points are picked up by the media favoring one or the other side to support their cause or by neutral media to increase ratings. As a result we the people really don’t get to hear many legitimate discussions and therefore are misinformed or at best uninformed. However, ultimately, in the case of politicians, the blame is with us. We allow, if not encourage, our politicians to continue this nonsense by reelecting them.

Comments on Adam Smith’s Opinion on Policies Supported by “Merchants and Manufacturers”

Adam Smith (1723-1790) oft cited writer on Free Markets, in the Wealth of Nations (the quotes come from the conclusion of the last chapter of Book I) breaks society into three primary “orders” and discusses their relationship with the prosperity of a society. “…the whole price of the annual produce, naturally divides itself, it has already been observed, into three parts; the rent of land, the wages of labor, and the profit of stock; and constitutes a revenue to three different orders of people;…” To put it more into the context of our time, I would add to the renters of land those that earn their keep through interest and dividends. Investors and traders easily fall into the definition of those earning their keep from profits.

The point Smith makes is that the well being of the first order, those living from rent, rises and falls with the prosperity of the society as a whole. “The interest of the first of those three great orders, it appears from what has just been said, is strictly and inseparably connected with the general interest of the society.” Therefore policies they sponsor to benefit themselves invariably also benefit society.

“The interest of the second order, that of those who live by wages, is as strictly connected with the interest of the society as that of the first.” The wages rise as a society advances and fall as it stagnates, with catastrophic results when it declines. “The order of proprietors may, perhaps, gain more by prosperity of the society, than that of labourers: but there is no order that suffers so cruelly from its decline.” Smith states that because of their condition and education they tend to either not have access to information or the ability to analyze it and “In deliberation, therefore, his voice is little heard and less regarded, except upon some particular occasion, when his clamor is animated, set on, and supported by his employers, not for his, but for their own particular purpose.” Today the “order” may be better educated and informed but still have relatively little clout with only unions arguing for policies that improve their lot.

Smith devotes a larger portion of this discussion to the ‘order” that lives on profits. Whereas the well being of the first two “orders” is directly tied into the success of a society, that is not the case with the third. “But the rate of profit does not, like rent and wages, rise with the prosperity, and fall with the declension, of the society.” (We saw this during this last recession where the income of the wealthy rose by 20%, while a large segment of wage earners lost jobs) “Merchants and master manufacturers are, in this order, therefore, the two classes of people who commonly employ the largest capital, and who by their wealth draw to themselves the greatest share of the public consideration.” “The interest of the dealers, however, in any particular branch of trade or manufacturers, is always in some respect different from, and even opposite to, that of the public.” “As their thoughts, however, are commonly exercised about the interest of their own particular branch of business, than about that of society, their judgment, even when given with great candor (which it has not been upon every occasion), is much more to be depended on with regards to the former of the two objects, than with regard to the latter,” (This was part of my argument discussed in another post, for why businessmen should not be politicians.)

He concludes Book I saying: “The proposal of any new law or regulation of commerce which comes from this order, ought always to be listened to with great precaution, and ought never to be adopted till after having been long and carefully examined, not only with the most scrupulous, but with the most suspicious attention. It comes from an order of men, whose interest is never exactly the same with that of the public, who have generally an interest to deceive and even to oppress the public, and who accordingly have, upon many occasions, both deceived and oppressed it.

This is not a condemnation of free markets but simply a reiteration that the benefit derived by society from market activities is coincidental. The role of a good government is to ensure that all three “orders” are considered, and not yield to the most powerful voice but to hear them all and be suspicious of the voice of the “order” driven by profit. Having heard all the voices set policy and regulate markets to insure that their activities lead to the prosperity of the entire society.

Undoing 80 years of Liberal Policies

Yesterday I heard a comment made by Newt Gingrich that precipitated an “aha moment”. He said something to the effect that this upcoming election was an opportunity for America to undo all the Left’s social policies of the last 80 years. Newt openly and loudly said something that has been talked about in conservative circles for decades. So if indeed that is the Republican, or at least their extreme end’s strategy, then in that context, many of the tactics employed today make sense.

· Holding steadfast to the notion of “no tax increases” forces the government to cut spending and not allowing those cuts to occur in areas like defense and business subsidies, forces cuts of social services.
· The zeal for balancing the budget I believe, is also in reality a move to reduce spending on social services. This is demonstrated by the fact that the Republicans are allowing no revenue increases and are willing to chance a deep recession here and global economic turmoil
· The movement to make impotent or eliminate public service unions, the last bastions of organizations representing labor. (I wonder to what extent the labor disputes initiated by owners of the NFL and NBA teams are influenced by this broad agenda?)
· Eliminating public education by privatizing it under the guise of education reform. I believe that the movement, Students First, initiated by Michelle Rhee, may be more about ideology than education.
· The recent proposal to privatizing Medicare
· Past attempts to privatize Social Security
· Constant attempts to prevent the formation of, undermine or eliminate regulatory agencies focused on protecting the consumer or labor.

The Republican’s intransigence, in this context makes total sense. The cry for job creation is only a ruse to placate the public. Their real aim is to rid the country of as much “socialist” programs now, just in case they cannot win the next election or better yet to destroy Obama’s chances for reelection by whatever means and short term consequences be damned.

The Right tends to be more xenophobic and often speaks of our exceptionalism. Over the last eighty years we have become the strongest economy with the strongest military, have sent a man to the moon, bankrupted the Soviet Union, and developed a standard of living that continues to attract many to our shores. Though not perfect, our government must have done something right over those 80 years. I wonder what we would look like were it not for the “social” programs Newt rails against?