Controlling future generations

"More taxes and more birth to death control of everyone. Gotta get those babies before families influence them." -- a reader of this blog (I agree, of course)

Bill aims to improve early-childhood programs
Sunday, September 20, 2009 3:54 AM
By Sam Dillon

THE NEW YORK TIMES



Today's political news
Tucked away in an $87 billion higher-education bill that passed the House last week was a broad new federal initiative aimed not at benefiting college students, but at raising quality in the early-learning and care programs that serve children from birth through age 5.
The initiative, the Early Learning Challenge Fund, would channel $8 billion over eight years to states with plans to improve standards, training and oversight of programs serving infants, toddlers and preschoolers.

The Senate is expected to pass similar legislation this fall. President Barack Obama, who proposed the Challenge Fund during the presidential campaign, is expected sign the legislation in December.

Experts describe the current array of programs serving young children and their families nationwide as a hodgepodge of efforts with little coordination or coherence. Financing comes from a shifting mix of private, local, state and federal money. Programs are run out of storefronts and churches, homes and Head Start centers, public schools and other facilities. Quality is uneven, with some offering stimulating activities, play and instruction but others providing little more than a room and a television.

Oversight varies by state, but most lack any early-childhood structure analogous to the state and local boards of education that govern public schools. A result is that poor children, even many who have access to government-financed early care or learning programs, tend to enter kindergarten less prepared for school than those with wealthier parents.

To qualify for grants, states would have to demonstrate that they have established or improved what the bill calls a "governance structure" for their networks of child-care centers and pre-kindergarten programs. The departments of Education and Health and Human Services would jointly administer the Challenge Fund.

Sharon Lynn Kagan, a professor at Columbia University's Teachers College in New York who has traced the history of U.S. child-care programs back to the early 19th century, wrote a paper last year advocating federal aid to states in building a more coherent and robust early-childhood infrastructure.

"No one bill can solve everything," Kagan said, "but this will move us more than any other piece of legislation toward higher quality in early education, not just more spaces for children."

The Early Learning Challenge Fund would steer $8 billion over eight years to states.

Luck, Knowledge and Schiff

An article on investing in a hampered economy.

Luck, Knowledge and Schiff

By Jim Fedako

In the casino called “the market,” each new year brings another round at the gaming table. Depending on your knowledge of economics, you are either gambling on luck or investing with knowledge. If luck is your guide, you are rolling dice knowing the house will win in the end. If knowledge is your guide, you have at least a chance of coming home a winner.

Consider this standard movie scene:

A mysterious man enters a casino and begins winning at craps. As evening rolls into night, and night toward dawn, our gambler gathers fans as fast as he collects chips. Should he press his luck, but leave before luck ends, he exits the scene a legend of sorts. Should he throw the dice one time too many, a dealer collects his chips while the groupies walk away, leaving him alone with an empty glass and turned-out pockets.

Despite knowledge of probability that proves otherwise, we tend to assume that a gambler on a streak possesses something we desire. Is it luck? Possibly. But it’s likely that we attribute his success to more than just luck: we attribute it to omniscience.

Let us follow the groupies as they leave the craps table and head over to a blackjack game. Here the scene is a little different. Since blackjack is based on more than just luck, players use their own system to gain an advantage over the house. Not all systems lead to success, but unlike craps, a good blackjack player and his system (if hidden) can win in the long run.

An observer will assume that a winner at blackjack understands the essence of the game. Certainly, luck is a component, but a quick mind for mathematical calculations can slightly mitigate randomness and bring home some serious cash. Of course, if his system is too successful too fast, casino management steps in and shows the player the door.

Finally, let us move from the craps table to the poker table across the floor; a table backed by video screens displaying cable news stations. At the table we see players competing in a high stakes tournament. On the screen we see talking heads competing in a similar but different sort of contest – betting their reputations on financial predictions for the coming year. Of course, both groups of competitors will have winners and losers. But is there any difference between those at the table and those on the screen?

Professional poker has changed as its popularity has grown. Players in tournaments are no longer familiar with their opponents. Young bucks enter the sport online and quickly graduate to the tables of Las Vegas tournaments. In this mix of old and new players, a quick review of the winners reveals that luck plays a large role in selecting the champion.

Randomness rules at the poker table. While there is randomness in every sport, it appears to be the overriding factor in poker. In addition, randomness is one of the reasons that the popularity of poker as a spectator sport has recently tailed off. There are no Tiger Woods of poker, and each tournament crowns a new, relatively unknown champion.

Oh, sure, you have to understand the game being played. And you have to be able to calculate odds quickly and accurately. But since your opponents are not folks you face round after round, tournament after tournament, year after year, you no longer need to be able to read the subtle body language – the tells – of your opponents better than they read yours.

Unlike blackjack, poker players can adopt a system and use it to their advantage, without ever being shown the door. And, of course, success at poker requires the ability to calculate both the odds of the next card as well as the likely moves of all opponents. Since the game is based on an understanding of probability and (to an extent) predictable action, it can be considered a stochastic process – a process that is neither pure chance nor pure deterministic action.

There is a concept called the survivor bias. Briefly, the survivor bias says that an analysis of an event or process tends to be biased toward the survivors – or, the winners. We see the folks at the table during the final draw of poker game and assume they employ some strategy that we can also adopt with success. So we end up making errant conclusions, especially when the winners are – in essence – determined largely by random.

We look to the winning table to see how we should react under similar circumstances – we seek guidance from the supposed omniscient. And we fail by doing so.

Now, let us return our attention to the folks on screen. Like poker, financial markets are also stochastic in nature. In order to mitigate inherent randomness, analyst should view markets based on a well-developed epistemology – in this instance, an epistemology based on the science of economics.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb writes of the young bucks of finance: seemingly invincible lads who quickly rise to the top of the investment game – winners one day, losers the next. They play like our mysterious fellow at the craps table above. While they are rolling with luck on their side, everyone wants a piece of their action. Once luck runs dry, the lads are cast aside, vilified and forgotten.

However, there is more to the investment game than just luck. Or, there can be. A wise lad will invest like a poker player, using a system based on a thorough understanding of probability and likely action. Nevertheless, a black swan can ruin the run and send the lad packing.

Of course, the more cards you see, the better your odds at the card table – if you use that knowledge as action knowledge and not just data points of information knowledge. The same holds true for investors; the more action knowledge they have, the greater their chance of success, in spite of lurking black swans.

Consider a panel of financial commentators this time last year debating the likely scenarios for 2008. Predictions are made that span the continuum of possibilities. But one man stands out: Peter Schiff. Schiff alone is predicting a sharp downturn, and his fellow panelists are smirking on the split screen.

Fast forward and Schiff is the clear winner. But we need to ask these important questions: Was Schiff’s accuracy the result of luck? Did random events conspire to support his prediction? Or, was Schiff’s accuracy based on a greater knowledge and understanding of the market and government interventions?

I would say that Schiff noted the black swan on the horizon and acted on that information. He was not (and is not) omniscient, he simply applied his understanding of economics to connect obvious data points. And he yelled “black swan” for all to hear. But most financial commentators – the talking heads – just laughed: There goes Schiff again, connecting dots and finding black swans.

While it is true that most card players have a system, the underlying factor is luck. Financial commentators also have their own system, with most systems relying more on luck than on knowledge. Yes, there was some positive news despite the downturn in late 2007. However, to connect those dots and see a likely upturn is to ignore the more ominous ones in plain view. Yet many folks were willing to bet once again on their last hand, as if a reshuffle never occurs.

Of course, luck does play a role in financial predictions. However, more times than not, luck is mitigated by the fundamentals. And Schiff based his predictions on the fundamentals, and a strong understanding of Austrian economics.

So, Schiff won. When you replay his predictions, you will see that he stated what was likely to occur and why. His reasoning is sound if you accept the Austrian approach. If you tend toward any other school of economic thought, Schiff’s reasoning is spurious at best. The fact that he won should be enough for investors to review his system. But most do not.

Unlike a poker player looking for any advantage, and willing to consider any system that wins the day, financial commentators hold onto systems because their systems are based on politics, not economics.

Was Schiff just lucky? No. Schiff won because he analyzed market data based on a comprehensive understanding of Austrian economics. And, amazingly, the house still allows financial players at the table to use his system – or any similar system.

The "troubling and problematic" activities of Todd Hanks

Troubling and problematic? I'll say. -- Jim

From The Delaware Gazette:

Hanks hears back from Ohio Ethics Commission

Thursday, September 17, 2009

By ANDREW TOBIAS
Staff Writer

Delaware County Commissioner Todd Hanks’ employment for a private engineering firm is theoretically legal, as long as he does not use his influence as a commissioner to benefit the company, according to a newly released legal opinion from the Ohio Ethics Commission.

Hanks has been employed by CEC since shortly after being appointed to the county commissioners board in January. His part-time, $50,000 a year job is to develop professional contacts and refer them to CEC. He is paid a commission based on actual work that is performed as a result of his reference.

Hanks asked the OEC for an opinion a few weeks after he began working for CEC. He said the OEC’s opinion echoed an opinion from the county prosecutor’s office that said the CEC job and his job as a commissioner were compatible. Hanks has also abstainedfrom votes regarding CEC work.

“(The opinion indicates) I’ve been doing everything legal and above board since day one,” he said.
However, Hanks’ actions since taking a job with CEC raises questions, multiple legal sources have told the Gazette.

Hanks in May invited employees from CEC to two development meetings between county officials, Village of Sunbury officials and a Sunbury landowner. At the meeting, county economic development director Gus Comstock said he would guide Sunbury through the process, and said he would see if the county could contribute money to the project. Hanks brought CEC employees to the meeting. He said he was trying to find them business with the landowner.

Neither the Sunbury officials nor the landowner knew Hanks worked for CEC, and a sign-in sheet at the second meeting shows Hanks signed in as a Delaware County commissioner.

The advisory opinion released by the OEC this month states that public officials are “prohibited from approaching other public officials or employees, while engaged in his official duties, to discuss the services that his private employer can provide.”

Ethics law requires elected officials with private jobs to make it clear whom they are representing, particularly in settings where that may be unclear. Hanks must also avoid representing CEC in any manner before any county agency, and avoid taking part in any discussions or votes that would affect CEC in any way, the opinion states. These restrictions apply to deliberations in public meetings as well as in non-public sessions.

Since Hanks asked for the opinion in February, the OEC’s response only addresses his employment in generalities, and not any actions he may have taken subsequently, the opinion states.

Larry Long, the executive director of the County Commissioners Association of Ohio, said it is not uncommon for county commissioners to hold outside employment, especially in more rural counties.

Long said he tells county commissioners to err on the side of caution and to stay away if discussions between public entities even remotely involve their private employers.

“You have to be ultra, ultra careful,” Long said. “Not only with ethics law, but there’s also the issue of perception, which is just as important to the public.”

Geoffrey Mearns, dean of Cleveland State University’s Marshall College of Law, agreed that the court of public opinion may not look kindly upon Hanks’ employment.

Mearns said while it wasn’t possible to determine whether or not Hanks violated ethics law without more information, he called Hanks’ activities at the Sunbury meeting “ troubling and problematic.”

“We should hold our public officials to a higher ethical standard than “Is this conduct illegal?” he said.

A commissioner’s high profile would make it difficult to distinguish when they are representing the county or when they are representing their private entity, particularly at a meeting with county officials, Mearns said.

“It’s not as if you come to one of those meetings and you put on your (consulting) hat,” he said. “County people know that you’re going to be sitting with them in a budget meeting.

A phone message left with a CEC office manager was not returned as of press time.

atobias@delgazette.com

Dilbert and IP

A recent post of mine over on the Blog at Mises.org:

Dilbert and IP
Jim Fedako

Ouch!.

Welcome Frederick Engels Jr.

It is not often that I get the full-blown Marxist comment. But when I do, it is front page news -- certainly not something to be buried in some back page comment string.

Engles was the reluctant German industrialist who funded Marx (a man who held only one job, and a part-time job at that) for years. Without Engels, no Marxist nonsense.

Now we have Engels Jr. commenting on this blog.

According to him:

You really need to watch what limbs you climb out on. I'm a business owner and yes I gain at the expense of the labor of my employees. I provided capital and my own labor. They provide their labor and I reimburse them at a mutually agreeable rate. I benefit by the surplus of value created by their labor.I also participate fully in my Society and I reap the benefits of that Society. The cost is I pay taxes on the surplus of value created by my employees. (profit)

Surplus value. And from a supposed businessman, nonetheless. I mean, you rarely get the businessman propounding the labor theory of value anymore. How quaint. How very Marxist.

So our Engles suffers from self-imposed class guilt. Now he can either be an acting individual (a man) and take matters into his own hands – he can pay his employees more if that relieves his guilt. Or he can seek political means to make everyone else pay for his supposed transgressions.

Like all sheeple, he chooses the collectivist route and works to subject us all to his dastardly ends.

So, Engles Jr., who is your Marx Jr.?

Agreeing with OSBA: say it ain't so

OSBA (Ohio School Boards Association) doesn't believe that property owners should have to pay more taxes in order to guarantee the long-term solvency of the State Teachers Retirement Service. Neither do I.

Look, when times were good and STRS was reaping fantastic returns on their investments, money flowed to retired teachers as STRS expanded and increased retirement benefits. Not a penny went to the taxpayer.

Now that the current financial downturn has hit STRS, teachers and retired teachers have the nerve to ask us for more. Amazing. They never shared their gains with us, but they have no problem pushing their losses back onto our shoulders -- with their hands deeper into our wallets.

Keep in mind that this worldview is the worldview of public education. And it is the worldview that is slowly destroying this nation. It is nothing less than greed -- greed that is fostered by government and the ballot box.

Kristof's Theory of the State

A recent post of mine over on the Blog at Mises.org:

Kristof's Theory of the State
Jim Fedako

Buried deep in this article is Nicholas D. Kristof implicit theory on how the state came into being. According to Kristof, "Until the mid-19th century, firefighting was left mostly to a mishmash of volunteer crews and private fire insurance companies. In New York City, according to accounts in The New York Times in the 1850s and 1860s, firefighting often descended into chaos, with drunkenness and looting."

So we replaced firefighters who loot at the scene with those who loot at the ballot box. And this is an improvement? Hmmm.

Note: I do not challenge the theory that the state came into being when the various looting mobs (or the other forms of muscle) morphed into a looting bureacracy.

Yes, Virginia, there will be death panels

A recent post of mine over on the Blog at Mises.org:

Yes, Virginia, there will be death panels
Jim Fedako

Death panels? Of course there will be death panels when the deal is done. Not in iterations one or two, when legal alternatives exists. But in the end, under total state control, death panels will exist -- they must exist.

A death panel implies an agency that functions as the final arbiter of life and death. Such a panel can only exist where no legal alternatives are available. In the first go-around, some agency (or agencies) will have the power and mission to limit care under certain conditions -- even the state must accept a world of scarcity. However, folks will still have market alternatives. These alternatives will not be free -- they never are. But they will exist, nonetheless.

Of course, once state control is complete, the agency will function as a death panel, or a life panel -- depending on your viewpoint, of course.

The agency will likely have a doublespeak name, something like the People's Health Agency. The agency will be deemed a provider of healthcare, not a denier of the same. So, for some, the agency will not be a death panel. But for many, this agency will limit lifesaving care. It will have to. For these folks, the agency will not provide. And with no alternative available, the agency's decision will be final, and it will be fatal.

The talk of death panels just around the corner is overblown rhetoric. But those very same panels are just over the horizon, on the path sought by many.

My short term fear is not death panels per se. My fear is the collective's fleeting memory of liberty. Just as folks today cannot imagine my state without an income tax (though the tax is only 37 years old), folks tomorrow will soon forget that the market can supply healthcare. And that means I will watch my children move one step closer toward total state control of their healthcare -- their lives. And that scares me.

Note: Today we have a model for a death panel: the FDA. This organization keeps lifesaving drugs from the market -- all in the name of health and safety. The belief that the state will not crack a few eggs to benefit the collective omelet is utter nonsense.

A New Website

Even as the district wasted our tax dollars by purchasing EducateOlentangy.org, another site was coming online. RESPONSIBLE OLENTANGY CITIZENS (or ROC) is up and running. Take a look.

The Final Word on the Obama Speech

According to Wade-O:

At this time, the President’s message has been reviewed and found to have ties to district wide curriculum and will be made available in its entirety to all students on Friday, September 11.

Of course, everything ties to the district's vaunted maps -- including perverse books and magazine articles, you name it.

Oh, and every expenditure is for the kids -- every penny, including each of the 30,000,000 pennies Wade-O lifts from our wallets each year.

It's all good, that which is flowing from the altruistic and selfless staff. Wade-O, the board, administration, and the unionized staff are all about good intentions and the kids.

Trust 'em. They are your government school system.

Asking Them to Calculate: and watching them squirm

A recent post of mine over on the Blog at Mises.org:

Asking Them to Calculate: and watching them squirm
Jim Fedako

It's a lazy September afternoon and your doorbell rings. You open the door to a nervous, yet cocky, smartly dressed man wearing an American flag on his lapel. One look and you realize it's that time of year in Ohio: It's the beginning of the local election cycle.

The beauty of this season is that the candidate at your door is begging for your vote. And because of that, he will attempt to answer any question you pose -- with a smile, nonetheless.

My favorite question for the wanna-be township trustee is this: When the fire chief comes to your meeting with a study purporting to show that the correct number of firefighters per 1000 residents is x, and the current staffing level is y per 1000 residents (with y being necessarily less than x), what are you going to do? [1]

Ask the question and watch him squirm. Of course, you have to keep the wanna-be from spinning off subject, so be prepared to ask follow up questions in order to get to the answer.

But you already knew the answer. You are simply trying to get him to recognize and accept that which is anathema to him: Calculation is impossible for government. [2]

Oh, sure, the wanna-be will insist that, based on his experience, he will ask harder, more probing questions than his opponent. But he will never be able to give you a bottom line to evaluate against.

He cannot calculate. And he now knows it.

Notes:

1. Here is a truism of local politics that you will need to know: Bureaucrats build the strawman proposal that becomes the starting point for all discussions and debates. Anything less than the strawman proposal is a reduction in service, anything greater is a benefit to the taxpayer.

2. The same holds for the candidate looking to be a school board member or county commissioner. Despite what they claim, they cannot calculate and cannot provide a solution to the problem that is government.

Hiding Behind IP

A recent post of mine over on the Blog at Mises.org:

Hiding Behind IP
Jim Fedako

According to data from the Ohio Department of Education, 82% of Ohio public school students attend school districts that showed academic growth (as defined by the state) during the last school year which was significantly (statistically speaking -- defined as one standard error) above expected (or average) growth.

Add in the students who attended districts within one standard error of the mean and the state can claim that 91% of students attended districts achieving at or above expected growth.

Amazing institutions, these government schools.

So you decide to question the results. Tough luck. The state's value added calculation is protected by IP laws. That's right. The state can make an outrageous claim without being challenged. Nice.

Note:

Here is the FAQ that has to calm the concerned -- value added is just like the CPI. Too complicated for the masses, but valid and reliable, nonetheless. Trust them. They are your government, you know.

From the service that assists Ohio with its value added calculation:

The value-added methodology seems complicated. How can people understand the measure?
While the statistical methodology used for value-added analysis is complex, the data produced are valid, reliable and presented in easy-to-read charts and graphs. Understanding this methodology can be compared to understanding the statistics behind the Consumer Price Index (CPI), which measures the change in the cost of living between two periods of time. Few people understand how to calculate the CPI, but many people take advantage of the information and use it to make decisions in their daily lives. If educators understand the information derived from the value-added reports, they can use the information to make sound decisions about improving student achievement.

Talk about indoctrination

From a reader:

"'On September 8 Obama will talk to all public school children. There is a whole program set up. I wonder if he's going to teach them the Obama song those children sang during the campaign. You know the one with the angelic voices singing Obama will save the world.'

One more reason to homeschool."

There is something to enjoy here

I just love it when a union and its own staff union fight over wages. Why? Because these battles prove that the so-called fight for a fair wage has nothing to do with a fair wage. The fight is simply just the means for one legally-protected unionized group to gain an advantage over all others.

Look, the OEA -- the epitome of union hacks -- can't even agree on wages with their own laborers.

Folks, it ain't about the kids. Nor is it about a fair wage or similar nonsense. It's about using the power of the state to justify greed.

From our good friend over at the Education Intelligence Agency:

2) Ohio Education Association Staff Prepare to Strike, South Carolina Staff Warned of Disaster. As I type this, the employees of the Ohio Education Association are less than 10 hours from going out on strike. OEA and its staff unions have had bitter relations in the past, resulting in a strike in 1997, a lawsuit in 2005, and a last-minute settlement in 2006. I'll refrain from making too much of this right now, since last-minute settlements are fairly common in NEA staff labor disputes, but I'll have more tomorrow morning.

Meanwhile, negotiations between the Sou th Carolina Education Association and its staff are souring, with the staff union president asserting SCEA executives told employees "that the South Carolina Education Association is two years from closing its doors." This may be a negotiating tactic, but SCEA is a mess, and the last time an NEA state affiliate was in such bad shape, the national union ceded it to the New York State United Teachers. Unfortunately there is no AFT affiliate in South Carolina.

No NEA state affiliate has ever "closed its doors," and it won't happen in South Carolina as long as there is dues money flowing in from members in New Jersey, Illinois and California to keep the doors open. The thing is watch for is when the have-not affiliates start to outnumber the haves.

Poirot tells it like it is

From a recent edition of the Email Update from the Future of Freedom Foundation:

Monday, August 31, 2009
Paying tribute to coercionists is indeed a sorry way to operate a business. But citizens who will let their own government close the market, sell protectionism to powerful lobby groups, and otherwise abandon its principled role, scarcely deserve a better fate, for they have given no thought and no support to freedom.
— Paul L. Poirot

The Fox in the Hen House

The state just gave the fox the key to the hen house.

This will allow Phillis and the Coalition to dig deep into your wallet. Of course, Wade-O and the Olentangy Teachers Association will be sneaking their hands in too. -- Jim

To: Superintendents, Principals, Treasurers and other interested persons
From: William L. Phillis
Re: E & A Coalition in school finance reform for the long haul

Date: September 1, 2009

The Ohio Coalition for Equity & Adequacy of School Funding is totally committed to the effort to fully implement the evidence-based model of school funding. It is acknowledged that some of the components of the plan should be altered during the implementation process. Also, many issues regarding waivers and the implementation schedule must be addressed thoughtfully by the entire education community. The 28 member Ohio School Funding Advisory Council will play a significant role in aligning the factors with the actual student and district needs, and with funding levels.

Unfortunately, the current state of the economy has thwarted a rapid phase-in of the evidence-based factors. The phase-in period will be long and tedious and will require patience and due diligence on the part of the education community.

Ohio is finally on the road toward a constitutional system of education and school funding. The Ohio Coalition for Equity & Adequacy of School Funding is working diligently with state officials to cause Ohio to fulfill the 158 year old constitutional provision to secure a thorough and efficient system of common public schools.

Observations and Distortions

A recent post of mine over on the Blog at Mises.org:

Observations and Distortions
Jim Fedako

A free market provides for the wants of the consumer by utilizing scarce resources in a manner that becomes more efficient over time. This is always true -- in a free market, that is. But when we observe the market and assume it is free, we tend toward conclusions that are not true. Consider this situation:

Each Friday I observe the garbage trucks working their routes through my neighborhood.[1] Each truck is manned by one employee. These men serve as both driver and loader. A laborious and slow task to be sure. Now, if I assume a free market, I will believe that I am witnessing an efficient utilization of capital (truck) and labor (driver/loader). But is that true?

First off, the refuse company has an exclusive contract to serve residents throughout my township.[2] The company's competition is political based, not market based. So the company is likely not as lean and mean as a free market would demand.

And then there is minimum wage. It could be that the company would hire a separate loader at some salary less than the current and future minimum wages.

Finally, there are the host of laws and regulations that dictate how capital and labor are employed.
So, I observe something every Friday. Is it an efficient utilization of scarce resources? Not a chance.

I try to keep this in mind every time someone talks about failures of the free market. My first question is always: Which market is free?

Notes:
1. Due to township mandated recycling, the refuse company must run three trucks through my neighborhood: one for yard waste; another for recycling; and the final for everything else. We, the residents pay for this "service."
2. Absent the exclusive contract, the refuse company would utilize resources as efficient as possible given the remaining governmental interventions in the market -- minimum wage included. But that employment of capital and labor would still not be efficient when viewed from a free market perspective.

Olentangy School Board: For Feasel and Galloway, it's all in the family

The school board is supposed to represent the taxpayers, yet ...

Both Feasel and Galloway directly benefit from district largess as each has a spouse living on our tax dollars. Conflicted? Certainly. Do you think Feasel and Galloway can really put aside their personal cha-ching and hold the district accountable to those paying the bills? No way.

In November, send Feasel packing and let a fresh board review the nepotism of this board.

note: It appears from the audio, Feasel may have actually voted for her husband's contract. Were the meeting minutes fluffed to discount her error. Listen, read and decide.

According to Wade-O ...

ODE recalculates the area of the district using the latest technology, leading Wade-O to make this inane comment: “As an education system, this is a perfect example of how we must teach our students to use ever changing technology tools to provide more efficient services and more accurate information.”

Yet, despite the inanities, Wade-O and the district continues to purchase the latest technology tool while becoming less efficient and accurate.

This is standard nonsense from the district: Everything is a learning opportunity for you and a reason for us to spend more.


From the district's $1 million per year PR machine (enjoy it, you paid for it):

DISTRICT AREA CALCULATION CHANGED FROM 110 TO 95 SQUARE MILES
Olentangy Local Schools square mileage is changing from 110 to 95, however no change is being made to the district’s borders. The Ohio Department of Education (ODE) now uses Global Positioning System (GPS) technology to calculate the size of each district. When the more accurate calculation was made, the overall size of the Olentangy Local School District changed from 110 to 95 square miles.

“This is a great example of how improvements in technology can create a more accurate picture,” said Superintendent Wade Lucas, Ed.D. “As an education system, this is a perfect example of how we must teach our students to use ever changing technology tools to provide more efficient services and more accurate information.”

While some of Olentangy’s school attendance boundaries changed this school year due to the opening of Freedom Trail Elementary School (FTES) and redistricting decisions made during the 2008-09 school year, the overall district borders did not change. In addition, the number of students the district educates has not changed due to the new calculation. Olentangy Local Schools does continue to see large increases in student enrollment growth and will educate more than 15,000 students this year. All Olentangy publications will soon reflect the more accurate calculation of 95 square miles.

Madison on the world we have given ourselves

And the world we give to our posterity.

The right just loves the regulatory state. They desire nothing less than regulating freedom into the dustbin of our past. -- Jim

(Note: Sure, the left loves the power of the state. But they use it for different designs.)

From our friends over Freedom Watch:

It will be of little avail to the people that the laws are made by men of their own choice if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood, if they be repealed or revised before they are promulgated, or undergo such incessant changes that no man, who knows what the law is today, can guess what it will be like tomorrow.

-- James Madison, Federalist Paper #62

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So, who is a threat to whom?

Is government a threat to the Liberty of its citizens? Or is Liberty a threat to government?

If you answered yes to the former, you agree with this nation's founding principles. If you answered yes to the latter, you are another sheeple bleating the lines of collectivist Prussia.

Reason asks a valid questions:

When Will Your Government Have as Little Privacy As You Do?

In today's Wall Street Journal, Reason magazine's Katherine Mangu-Ward writes, "Newborn babies have their own blogs and grandmothers are on Facebook. We Google potential dates. Privacy is dead. But one kind of information is still cozily locked away, safe from prying eyes: the law. President Obama may have come to Washington promising greater transparency, but progress has been less than impressive. While the feds stumble toward openness, geeks and developers who made oversharing a way of life are bringing their can-do attitude to government transparency. Can't find what you're looking for on Regulation.gov? Try the new, user-friendlier OpenRegs.com. Frustrated by the terrible interface of Obama's Recovery.gov? Check out the easily-searchable Recovery.org. But with the possible exception of the ever-leaky CIA, no aspect of government remains more locked down than the secretive, hierarchical judicial branch...That's right: In 2009, judicial records in the U.S. are essentially unsearchable."

Mangu-Ward: Obama Doesn't Believe Reasonable People Can Disagree

From one collectivist to another

I frequently call out the nonsense emanating from the Marxists over at the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development and their supposed scholarly rag, Educational Leadership. These folks are proud card-carrying collectivists. In fact, EL and Columbia University's Teachers College Record are most visible proponents for having tax dollars fund the socialist indoctrination of this nation's youth.

It's happening, and you are paying for it

You say, "That nonsense is not in our local schools." Simply read the reference to Wade's latest blog posting (below). Folks, it's all here. And it's all being promoted by those who you trust to education your kids.

I don't make this stuff up, I just write about it. -- Jim

Community Messages
From the desk of the superintendent

August 18, 2009

Extracurricular Activities Play an Important Role in Complete School Experience
Posted at 10:34 am

Olentangy Local Schools mission is “to facilitate maximum learning for every student.” To achieve maximum learning, student instruction takes place both in and outside of our classrooms. Extracurricular activities and athletics offer great opportunities for student learning, socialization and personal expression. [Read more…]

Research suggests that participation in extracurricular activities provides extra motivation for students, a closer connection with their school community and often times their academic performance increases as well. In the article “The Extracurricular Advantage” by Douglas B. Reeves, a high school in Woodstock, Illinois saw dramatic increases across all academic areas during the same time that participation in extracurricular activities increased by 400 percent over a five year time span. While the increase in academics is not entirely attributed to the extracurricular participation, the author does suggest that “the positive peer and adult relationships, organization, discipline, expectations and other positive influences associated with extra curricular activities are likely to improve performance” (p87).

Many of our fall athletic teams and marching band groups are already underway. Students may also sign-up for various clubs and activities once school begins on August 26. The Board of Education recently approved a new policy for our home school students making it easier for them to participate in athletics and extracurricular activities.

Olentangy Local Schools offers several extracurricular activities and 27 varsity sports at each of our three high schools and more than 14 unique sports and clubs at our four middle schools. Regardless of your student’s interests, there is an opportunity for him or her to become more involved in their school community while learning valuable lessons and possibly even increasing their academic performance at the same time. That is maximum learning in action.

References
Reeves, D. (2008, September). The extracurricular advantage. Educational Leadership, 66 (1), 86-87.

Commissioner Hanks: I've always been forthright

Forthright? Not a chance Todd. Forthrightness is missing from your character. -- Jim


From the Delaware Gazette:

Commissioner moonlights as consultant
Thursday, August 20, 2009
ANDREW TOBIAS Staff Writer

Since shortly after being appointed to his current position early this year, Delaware County commissioner Todd Hanks has held a second job making referrals for a civil engineering firm that is looking for work in the county.

As part of his private-sector job, Hanks in May invited employees from Civil and Environmental Consultants to meetings between county economic development and Village of Sunbury officials to discuss a re-development project, the Gazette has learned. Hanks insists that his moonlighting has not presented a conflict of interest.

Since January of this year, Hanks has worked part-time for the Pittsburgh-based CEC. According to its Web site, CEC specializes in environmental, civil and site development engineering, ecological water resources and solid waste management. It maintains a branch office within Delaware County in northern Columbus.

Last year, CEC offered Hanks a $50,000-a-year, 24-hour-a-week job as a regional sales representative, according to a Nov. 7, 2008 letter to Hanks from CEC. Hanks’ job, according to the letter, is to develop professional contacts and refer them to CEC; he receives a commission based on the amount of actual work those contacts buy from the firm’s contractors. The job description prohibits Hanks from making references while “on the county clock,” in accordance with ethics laws.

Federal Business Opportunities, a government Web site, lists Hanks as a CEC contractor with specialties in architecture and engineering, contracts and for-profit organizations.

Two closed-door meetings took place the week of May 18 between Hanks, county economic development officials, Village of Sunbury officials and CEC employees, according to public records.

Officials from the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency and the Ohio Department of Development also attended the second meeting, held on May 20.

The meetings were held to discuss a local landowner’s plans to apply for a state grant to re-develop the site of the former Nestle Plant in Sunbury.

At the May 20 meeting, county economic development director Gus Comstock said he would see if the county could contribute revolving loan funds to help the landowner pay for the project, according to Sunbury Village Administrator Dave Martin. Comstock also indicated he would help guide village officials through the grant application process, Martin said.

Landowner Dan Cashman, reached by phone, said he has paid for the first part of the study and did not want or any county money. He did not say what company he hired.

On Wednesday, Hanks said he invited the CEC employees, who had experience with projects similar to the Nestle redevelopment, to the meeting to try and find them business opportunities.

“I was retained by CEC to make introductions,” he said. When asked if he was acting as a CEC employee or a county commissioner at the meetings, he said: “I’m never not a county commissioner.”

Martin said Wednesday that at the time of the May meetings, he did not know Hanks was employed by CEC, and didn’t know he would be bringing CEC employees with him. At the second meeting, Hanks signed in as a representative of Delaware County, and not a CEC employee, according to a sign-in sheet. Martin and Cashman both said they had no prior familiarity with CEC.

At the second meeting, Bill Acton, a senior project manager for CEC, wrote on a sign-in sheet that he was representing Cashman.

Hanks said he has been open with others about his private job, but he didn’t know if he identified himself to the Sunbury officials as a CEC employee. He also said he didn’t remember if revolving loan funds were discussed.

Elected officials are legally allowed to hold outside work, and the practice is not uncommon, Ohio Ethics Commission (OEC) Executive Director David Freel said. However, there are legal restrictions.

Public officials can hold an outside job only if they can recuse themselves if a conflict of interest arises between their public and private work, Freel said.

Ohio ethics law also specifically prohibits public officials from using their influence and relationships with other public officials to financially benefit themselves or the company they work for.

Hanks said he believes the May meetings did not pose a conflict of interest. He said he has abstained from voting on the three occasions that CEC had private work approved by the government entities (the Delaware County Regional Planning Commission, the county commission board) Hanks was a part of.

“I’ve always been forthright, and people know it,” he said.

Hanks took a $14,000 pay cut when the former county auditor was appointed to the county commission board earlier this year. He said he took on a part-time job to make up for the difference in pay, and noted that several previous Delaware County commissioners before him owned businesses on the side. Also, Commissioner Ken O’Brien worked as a teacher for Worthington Christian Schools before taking a leave in June, he said.

“I’m not ashamed of the fact that I have to have a part-time job to make ends meet,” he said.
Contacted Wednesday, Delaware County Prosecutor Dave Yost said he didn’t have enough information about the May meetings to form a legal conclusion.

On Feb. 16, Hanks wrote through a private attorney to the OEC to ask if his work with CEC was legally compatible with his duties as a county commissioner. In the letter, Hanks included “informal opinions” from the prosecutor’s office that said that the two positions were compatible, as long as Hanks was mindful of the restrictions imposed by ethics laws.

The ethics commission has not responded to Hanks’ inquiry yet, but a response is “in the pipeline,” Freel said.

Freel said he couldn’t comment specifically on Hanks, but noted ethics law applies the same to all elected and public officials. However, as an official gains more responsibility, there is a greater potential for conflict, he said.

CEC has no present contracts with the county, but did about $7,500 worth of work for the county’s environmental services division between Aug. 2007 and Aug. 2008, prior to Hanks’ employment with the firm, according to public records. CEC also regularly conducts business with developers within Delaware County, county engineer Chris Bauserman said.

atobias@delgazette.com

Penn and Teller on Modern Economics

Spreading the wealth around is true of both parties. -- Jim (HT: Justin Ptak over at the Blog at Mises.org).

Hoppe on Healthcare

Hoppe hits a home run with today's article on Mises.org:

A Four-Step Healthcare Solution
Hans-Hermann Hoppe

It's true that the US health-care system is a mess, but this demonstrates not market but government failure. To cure the problem requires not different or more government regulations and bureaucracies, as self-serving politicians want us to believe, but the elimination of all existing government controls.

It's time to get serious about health-care reform. Tax credits, vouchers, and privatization will go a long way toward decentralizing the system and removing unnecessary burdens from business. But four additional steps must also be taken:

1. Eliminate all licensing requirements for medical schools, hospitals, pharmacies, and medical doctors and other health-care personnel. Their supply would almost instantly increase, prices would fall, and a greater variety of health-care services would appear on the market.

Competing voluntary accreditation agencies would take the place of compulsory government licensing — if health-care providers believe that such accreditation would enhance their own reputation, and that their consumers care about reputation, and are willing to pay for it.

Because consumers would no longer be duped into believing that there is such a thing as a "national standard" of health care, they would increase their search costs and make more discriminating health-care choices.

2. Eliminate all government restrictions on the production and sale of pharmaceutical products and medical devices. This means no more Food and Drug Administration, which presently hinders innovation and increases costs.

Costs and prices would fall, and a wider variety of better products would reach the market sooner. The market would force consumers to act in accordance with their own — rather than the government's — risk assessment. And competing drug and device manufacturers and sellers, to safeguard against product liability suits as much as to attract customers, would provide increasingly better product descriptions and guarantees.

3. Deregulate the health-insurance industry. Private enterprise can offer insurance against events over whose outcome the insured possesses no control. One cannot insure oneself against suicide or bankruptcy, for example, because it is in one's own hands to bring these events about.

Because a person's health, or lack of it, lies increasingly within his own control, many, if not most health risks, are actually uninsurable. "Insurance" against risks whose likelihood an individual can systematically influence falls within that person's own responsibility.

All insurance, moreover, involves the pooling of individual risks. It implies that insurers pay more to some and less to others. But no one knows in advance, and with certainty, who the "winners" and "losers" will be. "Winners" and "losers" are distributed randomly, and the resulting income redistribution is unsystematic. If "winners" or "losers" could be systematically predicted, "losers" would not want to pool their risk with "winners," but with other "losers," because this would lower their insurance costs. I would not want to pool my personal accident risks with those of professional football players, for instance, but exclusively with those of people in circumstances similar to my own, at lower costs.

Because of legal restrictions on the health insurers' right of refusal — to exclude any individual risk as uninsurable — the present health-insurance system is only partly concerned with insurance. The industry cannot discriminate freely among different groups' risks.

As a result, health insurers cover a multitude of uninsurable risks, alongside, and pooled with, genuine insurance risks. They do not discriminate among various groups of people which pose significantly different insurance risks. The industry thus runs a system of income redistribution — benefiting irresponsible actors and high-risk groups at the expense of responsible individuals and low-risk groups. Accordingly, the industry's prices are high and ballooning.

To deregulate the industry means to restore it to unrestricted freedom of contract: to allow a health insurer to offer any contract whatsoever, to include or exclude any risk, and to discriminate among any groups of individuals. Uninsurable risks would lose coverage, the variety of insurance policies for the remaining coverage would increase, and price differentials would reflect genuine insurance risks. On average, prices would drastically fall. And the reform would restore individual responsibility in health care.

4. Eliminate all subsidies to the sick or unhealthy. Subsidies create more of whatever is being subsidized. Subsidies for the ill and diseased promote carelessness, indigence, and dependency. If we eliminate such subsidies, we would strengthen the will to live healthy lives and to work for a living. In the first instance, that means abolishing Medicare and Medicaid.

Only these four steps, although drastic, will restore a fully free market in medical provision. Until they are adopted, the industry will have serious problems, and so will we, its consumers.

Happy Cost of Government Day!

From Americans for Tax Reform:

Dear friend,

Happy Cost of Government Day! Today, August 12, is Cost of Government Day (COGD), the day of the calendar year when the average American worker has earned enough gross income to pay off his or her share of the spending and regulatory burdens imposed by government on the federal, state, and local levels.

COGD falls 26 days later than last year's date, and it's 23 days later than the previous all-time high of July 20, in 1982. There are numerous reasons for this explosive growth in government spending including TARP, the so-called Stimulus, and the big three auto "bailouts." If Congress and the President had not pushed for TARP, Americans would have celebrated COGD on July 25 rather than on August 12.

As your Congressman and Senators hold their town hall meetings this recess, you should ask them why you needed to spend 224 days working to pay off your share of government. You should also ask them if you've already spent this much time working to pay off government, why would you possibly want to spend additional days working for a government takeover of healthcare?

View the COGD report at http://capwiz.com/atr/utr/1/MTFFLBWULR/HFLMLBWVNF/3780346476 and arm yourselves with the data to ask your representatives the necessary and hard questions about the astonishing growth in government. The report contains a state-by-state breakdown so you can find out how your state ranks by visiting http://capwiz.com/atr/utr/1/MTFFLBWULR/FWHRLBWVNG/3780346476.

Onward,
Grover Norquist

P.S. - Please consider making a donation to Americans for Tax Reform to help us spread the word about Cost of Government Day and the damage done to the American economy by excessive government spending on all levels. A donation of $100, $75, $50, or even just $10 will go along way towards helping us promote the research in this report and protect American jobs and small businesses from an over burdensome government.

Ho-hum: More of the same in Hilliard

Educate Hilliard claims to be "a non-partisan group of residents and business owners in the Hilliard City School District working for the preservation of our excellent schools through sustainable economics." To support their mission, EH has endorsed three candidates (Paul Lambert, Justin Gardner and Don Roberts) who (supposedly) share similar ideals. Yet ...

The three candidates are faces in the crowd. And they will sit comfortably in their board seats (if elected), siding with the administration on every real issue.

Just a quick read through their bios reveals candidates no different from any member of any board in any school district.

You can pour your hearts, sweat and money into these candidates, but the results will be business as usual. Guaranteed.

Student Teacher Ratio: 3 to 1 at the margin

It's true. And you wonder why costs are rising. From our good friend over at Education Intelligence Agency:

1) 60,000 New Students and 20,000 New Teachers: Results from the Census Bureau School Finances Report. Each year the U.S. Census Bureau publishes a comprehensive report on public school revenues and expenditures. Figures for each of the nation's more than 14,000 school districts and local education agencies are available for dissection and digestion. The release of the latest report, Public Education Finances: 2007, was delayed for several months, but it turned out to be well worth the wait.

I will ultimately compile tables consisting of student enrollment, number of full-time equivalent K-12 teachers, per-pupil spending, amount per-pupil spent on employee compensation, and the changes in all those figures over the last five years, for every public school district in America. This, as you might imagine, will take some time, but putting together a state-level table of those statistics was quick work. I have posted the table on the EIA web site.

In the 2006-07 school year 48,441,473 students were taught by 3,142,202 full-time equivalent teachers (the NEA estimate for that year comes to 3,174,354 actual warm bodies). That was an increase of 2.7% and 5%, respectively, from the 2001-02 school year. But if you compare the numbers from the previous year, you get a better sense of where we're headed and why the current teacher layoffs are an inevitable result of years of profligate hiring.

The entire United States public school system enrolled only 60,966 more students in 2006-07, yet it hired 20,564 more teachers. Twenty-six states showed a decline in student enrollment, but only 14 had fewer teachers than the year before.

With more payroll chasing a flattening number of students, it's no surprise to discover that per-pupil spending rose a healthy 5.8% in 2006-07, and the amount spent on employee salaries and benefits increased 5.9%. The nation's public school employee compensation bill came to $382.5 billion.

The United States average for per-pupil spending was $9,666 and 16 states spent more than $10,000 per student. It bears mentioning that while the California Teachers Association spent much of the year complaining the state was ranked 47th in education spending, the Census Bureau figures show California ranked 22nd, at $9,152. That was a 7.8% increase from the previous year.

The district-level numbers are sure to provide more fascinating numbers, but I've already discovered something that leaves me speechless: In 2006-07 it would have been cheaper to take the 4,257 students in the Asbury Park and Hoboken City school districts in New Jersey and enroll them all in Sidwell Friends.

And we welcome socialism

"When we embrace social justice as a pillar of learning in our classrooms, we declare that we're all responsible for improving our world." Laurel Schmidt in ASCD's Educational Leadership.

Remember the 3 R's, the artifacts of education. They have been replaced with indoctrination from those who seek a socialist world -- the workers' utopia.

Schmidt continues: "Learning about all these injustices would be emotionally daunting for kids if it were just an exercise in cataloguing calamities and human indifference. But social justice education encourages students to act. It is based on the notion that we, the people, agree to live by a covenant that defines how we will behave toward one another in a community, whether you define community as a prairie town or the planet. If individuals, town leaders, or federal officials violate the covenant, then we attempt to restore justice through concerted action."

How we behave? Hmmm. By this she means children are to learn that government is the tool to force other to act. To act how?

Schmidt once again: "The best social action projects are like an earthquake. One minute you're comfortably ensconced in your classroom, earnestly working through your curriculum, and the next minute, the ground shifts. Even before the room stops rocking, you sense that you're in new territory, face-to-face with a genuine adventure. The best projects come organically from the work and conversations you have with your students every day.

Sometimes students will burst through the door on red alert and demand that their peers sit up and take notice. Here are a few examples:

• Students organized a boycott of chocolate candy manufacturers at Halloween to register their support for fair trade chocolate."

Ah, yes. Fair trade. But isn't all uncoerced trade fair? (Read Jesus's parable of the Laborers in the Vineyard for the answer.)

You say: "None of this fits into the approved curriculum."

You are wrong. The educationists own the curriculum. And they interpret it as they please.

According to Schmidt: "Here are just a few of the cognitive challenges that students will face when they're immersed in the work of creating a more just society. Students will

• Examine what it means to be a citizen.
• Identify ways people can participate in their government.
• Discuss the importance of political leadership and public service.
• Locate, access, organize, and apply information about an issue of public concern.
• Use spoken, written, and visual forms of communication effectively with a variety of audiences to promote their social justice efforts.
• Use knowledge of government, law, and politics to make decisions about and take action on local, national, and international issues to further the public good.
• Examine and develop others' ethical and moral reasoning."

They are covered. And they get to decide what is moral and ethical. Are you willing to grant them that power? You have already, by the way.

Schmidt's dream: "As educators, we hold the next generation of voters, politicians, and corporate leaders in our hands. Teaching students about interdependence and responsibility through social action is a lesson that can stick."

The unionized employees of government schools will lead this nation into the workers' paradise -- if we let them.

That is their goal. What is yours?

Two Must Reads

A recent post of mine over on the Blog at Mises.org:

Two Must Reads
Jim Fedako

In his book, Capital and Production, Richard von Strigl clearly shows that an advanced economy exists due to two social funds: the subsistence fund and the renewal fund. Neither of which is the product of printing presses.




For those wanting to show that redistribution (i.e. soaking the rich to benefit everyone else) is an impossibility, Bertrand de Jouvenel's book, The Ethics of Redistribution, contains an appendix with a sound refutation. Of course, times and places change. Regardless, to my knowledge, the bulge in the wealth distribution curve is always to the left.

Are We About to Become Children of Revolution?

A recent post of mine over on the Blog at Mises.org:

Are We About to Become Children of Revolution?
Jim Fedako

"In all the general assemblies Marin always demands that the older boys like him shall have more work than the younger ones. There is always a big discussion on this; sometimes it is settled one way, sometimes another. "I can work all day from sun-up to dark," boasts Marin, "and it won't hurt me now. But when I was little, I sprained my wrist from working too hard and it will always be a bad wrist. And our younger ones now are working beyond their strength; I see them with heads and backs aching in the hot sun. Then they come back and drink lots of cold Volga water and get sick with malaria. There should be two standards of work, for the older ones and the younger ones."

But the younger boys always argue against Marin, for they will not admit that he can do any more work than they can."

In Children of Revolution (1925), journalist Anna Louise Strong used her experience observing the John Reed Children's Colony, located on the Volga, to describe the dawning of the Soviet utopia. This quick and easy read details the wonders of socialism through Strong's radical and warped view of Stalin's USSR.

Strong uses the voice of Morosof, the musical shoemaker, to enlighten the reader: "'But I do not see the use of property; I think it is better not to own it. The October Revolution taught us to organize the commune. Even peasants begin now to do this; how much more can homeless children, who have no homes or property to begin with?'"

Freed from the ills of property, the children of John Reed quickly flourished -- or so goes the tale told by Strong.

To read Strong's words, it appears that capitalism is the evil that rots the world. But, wait.

"And now a great piece of luck came to the colony. Two days' journey away the Quakers from America were giving out food to children's homes. And the Quakers had heard of this group of boys which was starting to build a big farm colony of children, and promised to give them food. So Yeremeef went on the boat for a day's journey north, and then took the train for a day's journey west, till he came to the town where the Quakers gave out supplies of food. He brought back with him a whole car-load. Very wonderful food that they had not seen for years. Sugar and cocoa, and lard! There were also a hundred blankets, for starting a big colony. And soap--the first they had seen for many years! For ever since the Hungry Year they had been too poor to buy soap, and had scrubbed their dishes with sand, or ashes from the fire."

At every turn, American dollars and goods saved the colony.

Read the Children of Revolution and wonder: As we slip toward full-blown socialism, where will we turn for food and the equivalent of "good American shoes?" Who will act as our benefactor during the soon-to-come "Hunger Year."

We are allowing government to run and ruin our lives

From the Heartland Institute:

San Francisco Adds Compost Mandate to Recycling Program
Environment & Climate News > September 2009
Environment > Recycling
Environment > States

Email a Friend
Written By: Cheryl K. Chumley
Published In: Environment & Climate News > September 2009
Publication date: 09/01/2009
Publisher: The Heartland Institute

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

San Francisco residents and businesses will be required to separate from their trash all potential compost, in addition to separating all recyclable materials, under a new law passed by the city’s Board of Supervisors.


Fines for Insufficient Composting

Passed by a 9-2 vote, the new law authorizes the city to fine individual citizens up to $100 per violation, and businesses up to $500 per violation, if they don’t properly segregate recyclable or compostable refuse from their trash.

Fines also can be imposed if garbage collectors notice an individual citizen is not submitting at least a cubic yard of refuse for composting each week.

The regulation came at the request of Mayor Gavin Newsom (D) in working toward the city’s stated goal of sending nothing to its landfill by 2020. The city already diverts 72 percent of its waste away from its landfill.

Under the new law, expected to take effect this fall, each home- and business-owner will be required to use three recycling bins: a green one for composting food and yard debris; a blue one for recycling bottles, cans, and paper; and a black one for garbage that cannot be recycled or composted.


Lax Enforcement Promised

A spokesperson for the city’s Environment Department, the agency tasked with overseeing the new law, said it will exercise restraint in issuing fines, reserving them for repeat offenders.

Critics counter that the city has broken similar promises in the past, such as its aggressive enforcement of laws prohibiting visible trash cans, even though proponents gained support for such laws only after pledging to exercise restraint in enforcement.


‘Nanny State at its Worst’

“I find this very amusing,” said Max Schulz, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute. “This is the nanny state at its worst.”

Recycling in general is a futile business that costs more than it’s worth, said Schulz.

“In the corrugated box industry, recycling has been cost-effective,” Schulz explained. “But for aluminum cans, it’s not. This is more about making an eco-statement. And San Francisco can do what it wants, ... but the problem is when other states point to San Francisco and ask, ‘is San Francisco doing something we should be doing?’ That’s really the major issue.”


Market Incentives Ignored

Per Bylund, a summer research fellow with the Ludwig von Mises Institute, notes mandated recycling has been a part of life for years. But while the government touts the program as a success, it can make that claim only because it doesn’t factor in all the costs and burdens borne by residents and business owners, Bylund said.

“This is probably the first step to something worse,” said Bylund of San Francisco’s new law. “There are probably going to be increases in garbage disposal waste costs ... and probably new restrictions on what kind of trash you can throw away.”

A better approach to recycling is to privatize the disposal, recycling, and composting of refuse and allow market prices to provide consumer incentives, Bylund said.

“If people are so crazy about recycling,” Bylund said, “why mandate it?”



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Cheryl K. Chumley (ckchumley@aol.com) is a 2008-09 journalism fellow with The Phillips Foundation.

The real goal of the Federal Government’s more “affordable” health care reform

Socialized healthcare is the goal. -- Jim

The real goal of the Federal Government’s more “affordable” health care reform
Posted by David Kramer on August 3, 2009 06:28 AM

Although in some countries that have Universal Health Care there are a few private insurers to pick up the slack for people who can afford private insurance (in order to actually have excellent health care on demand rather than waiting for government-paid services), this video obviously shows that the ultimate goal of our gunvernment is to impose a Single-Payer/Universal Health Care system on the sheeple.