Can Someone Help Me Out? What’s A “Doight”?

Still don’t know, but dirty deeds are done doight cheap.  As in “Dirty deeds and they’re done doight cheap.”

Thank You For Our Food

Thanks Nancy. Tom Carper sponsored, and Chris Coons endorsed, a bill that shuffles money around the Agriculture Department to keep our food inspectors fully employed.

Our food will not be uninspected now because of the Republican induced sequester. Politics are one thing. People dying are another. The only protection Americans have between themselves and unscrupulous cut-throat foreign food processors, is the FDA. Eliminating them would the the death of us all. Remember the tainted pet food?

I’m glad our delegation stepped up to protect them… However this gave me pause. Where the money was being shifted from….

The Pryor/Blunt/Coons amendment adds no additional cost to the bill. Instead, it moves one-time funding for school equipment grants and deferred maintenance on buildings and facilities at the U.S. Department of Agriculture…

One time funding for school equipment grants, meaning many schools in Delaware which thought they would soon be on the receiving end of new refrigeration units to safeguard school lunches, must now remain using the old pre- 1930′s models currently in place. It also means when the sequester is done, and funds return, their will be less spent on helping Americans, because it will be shuffled to cover the depreciation currently not charged because of this amendment.

When are we going to stop pussy footing around the real issue, and tax the wealthy at the rate of their hero, Ronald Reagan’s first tax cut level, until we have paid off our deficit? The middle class should not bear the cost of the wealthy’s bad investments. The top 1% should be the first to anti up, and then, only when they have nothing left, should the middle class even be asked to sacrifice…..

America is being spoon fed raw sewage and is then arguing which medicine is better to cover up the symptoms….. Tax the wealthy and all our dreams will come true. America can be healthy again….

“Hi, I’m jea street, And I Approve This Message”

I’m not going to embarrass the pants off Jea Street by pointing him out… If you know him, or of him, you’ll know whom I’m talking about.  If you don’t, he could be anyone, sitting in the audience of your districts Board of Education Meeting…

But, Jea Street just did a very dumb thing.  He fires off a public letter calling for the firing of three Christina School Board members calling them super “obstructionists”…

Really.  Super obstructionists?  Is that like Superman?  Wouldn’t it have been smarter to call them Spider obstructionists?  Like Spiderman?  Or Bat obstructionists?  Like Batman?  or Under obstructionists, “like little olde me,…….. Underdog”.

Look, Jea Street!…. It’s a frog…..   A    F-R-O-G?

This isn’t a “new” or “confused” Jea Street. This is the Jea Street from decades ago hammered Red Clay and who so concerned the Red Clay Board that they had rent-a-cops attend board meetings. This is the Jea street who hammered everyone within earshot about achieving racial equality. This is the Jea Street who never opened his mouth when the shining lights of state and district politics (were any minorities of note involved in this?) went for and obtained Charter, Choice, and Neighborhood Schools. This is the Jea Street I always considered racist and have not seen any change in his position on that. This is the Jea Street who had to be aware of what was happening to Warner and all the kids there in recent years – and said nothing. This is the Jea Street who watched as Red Clay designed and implemented a racially divided district – and said nothing. So, the only conclusion I can draw from this is: What’s in it for Jea Street? — Adam Smith, aka Batman.

Did the councilman really just invite any whack job in Delaware to seek out school board members and deal with them as if they were weapons of mass destruction? Line crossing?  (Translated: show up at your efffin board of education with an AR 15 and whack the m–fu–ers.)  Django  aka  Django.

I used to simply feel sorry for this guy until I saw him act in person worse than he acts with pen in hand at the GABMAAFWF govt School (not education) Choice event at Woodlawn Library a few months ago.  Now I have a tremendous and somewhat fearful distaste for his self serving rants and sanctimonious rage. His is the most dangerous of several common actions of the all too common race pimp class of citizens.  Peter Parker  aka Spiderman.

And to think some thought The Jea Street was the latest dance. It’s the “Hustle” all over again. Clark Kent  aka  Superman.

This is the jea who watched high ranking 100K admins in RC and CSD help keep it quiet for years. some were paid directly by the districts, others had companies with contracts! it is disgusting at every level. What has happened in education in DE is comparable to the robbery the banks and defense contractors have done to the public.  Alfred…. (Butler to Adam Smith.)

(If you don’t now know who jea street is, he is the little guy driving the tank in the video linked above…….)   Now, I don’t know Jea Street or care to really, after the ringing endorsements his actions have resonated,  but since I have a hard time remembering faces, I use cartoons… In this case, Jea Street is  close to “J Street” which as most know, is right beside “K Street” in Washington DC.

This is fitting.  ”J Street” (which I will call him/her for the rest of this highly educational and scientific article) is carrying water for the Lobbyists of Pure-Profit Management of Public Schools (PMS)…..  When “J Street” slips under the influence of PMS he gets wild and loose with facts.  He gets emotional;  PMS will do that to a person…..

This preposterous decision destines the resolution for failure and guarantees continuation of the District’s modus operandi of ongoing discrimination that I have been complaining bout since Novermber 17, 2005…

(Note to Reader:  ”J Street”  has forgotten with his temporary amnesia  the two African American superintendents who PRECEEDED Dr. Williams and were in place during the OCR fiasco…one of whom is Maryland’s current State Superintendent of Education, Lillian Lowery.)  PMS does make you forget important things…..

I believe that this decision was race based in a futile attemp to keep Mr. Evans from continuing to speak up and speak out for African American children as he had effectively done for so many years….

(Note to Reader:  Mr. Evans had run for that position the previous election and had been thumped, repudiated, and badly beaten like a chump if I remember correctly, by a 10 to 1 margin.  Upon hearing that his opponent had resigned, Mr Evans made himself the only person available for that position.  The board felt that someone so rejected by parents of students in that district, could only do harm by being allowed to sit in that position for if he were allowed on as a voting member, it could set up court challenges in the future for everything the board did from that point onward..)  PMS  seems to have made “J Street” forgetful here as well.

In my view the District’s apparent willingness to put $2.3 million in jeopardy is a breach of promise to the effected schools and teachers impacted by this decision.

(Note to Reader:  Across this nation, many districts are opting out of RTTT because it simply costs more to achieve, than the funds one is given.  Of all the districts in this state, Christina first recognized this, and in order not to be forced to spend far more than they get, they are negotiating with the Department of Education for leeway in using the funding in ways that wouldn’t cost the district more to use the money.   Meaning it is actually cheaper, NOT to accept RTTT funding, and therefore NOT implement all the costly purchases required by RTTT,  This frees up money which can be used on things like educating children inside the inner city, something which has been put on hold, since RTTT began.)  This of course cannot be comprehended when one as PMS.

Apparently, “J Street” is being manipulated by “K Street” to intimidate the board of Christina.  ”K Street” feels that refusing to buy products from only certain firms sanctioned by the state as official suppliers, and using that money to actually help children learn, instead of line their pockets, is an outrage.  Unfortunately.  For a rich man to scream… “I’m not wealthy enough!  Buy my ‘effin’ product” turns people off.   But that is no problem for them, as long as their neighbor “j street” will do it for them and …yes… blame it on race, even though those guilty, were all Afro-Americans…..

In case you missed it above…. “J Street” is the guy driving the tank..

News Journal SLAMS Caesar Rodney Institute of Education

Kilroy lambasted the Caesar Rodney attempt to stir up sentiment towards Charter Schools in rural Smyrna Delaware.

The News Journal played along too, here.

The meeting was attended by the following.

• Jim Hoseley, the Caesar Rodney Institute’s director of the Center for Excellence in Education.
• Priest of St. Polycarp Roman Catholic Church.
• A woman in the middle of the room wearing a purple knit hat.
• “Honey Bun”.
• The Rev. Thomas Flowers.
• One woman in the crowd who wondered aloud “where are the black people” as she looked around at a crowd of white faces.
• Mike Matthews, a Red Clay Consolidated special education teacher and union supporter,
• And one man who blurted out,  “Does he also believe in Santa Claus?”

Which would leave 25 others also down there, with the backdrop of the room filled with American flags and images of Jesus….

One would assume, except for Mike Matthews, that all those in attendance were people unfamiliar with education, period. Most of us would probably call them gullible.

Delaware Today magazine was then taken to the woodshed by Mr. Hosely of the Caesar Rodney Institute because it did not include charters with its public school rankings report. Instead, Delaware Today magazine charter schools were ranked in another issue of the magazine that was dedicated to private schools.

(The obvious reason it did so, was because Charter Schools are run like private schools and not, like public schools. Obviously missing the logic that if they were run like Public schools,and funded by the public school system, they might as well be Public Schools. That they are run like a Private School, is the whole point of charter schools…)

Next, the Caesar Rodney spokesperson bashed Markell because his state of the state did not mention vouchers. There are those who “philosophical” believe that there should be more of a “free-market” approach to our schools because this will push students to higher rates of achievement.

Governor Markell’s Delaware’s public schools have been failing minority students at a higher rate than their white peers, Hosley said.

This is where the lady looked around and said,” Where are all the BLACK PEOPLE!

In the past, black people is a group that the Caesar Rodney Institute hasn’t often found strong support among this community — earlier there was insulting criticism of brown-skinned people’s reasoning on there strong support for President Barack Obama.

Unfortunately, there were quite a few things that Mr. Hoseley of the Caesar Rodney Institute, failed to mention….

He failed to mention:

• That charter schools are generally no better — and often are worse — than their traditional counterparts…
• State and local agencies and organizations in Republican districts that grant the charters have been increasingly hesitant to shut down schools, even those that continue to perform abysmally for years on end..
• Only 17 percent of charter schools provided a better education than traditional schools, and 37 percent actually offered children a worse education. Meaning a charter school has only a 1 in 7 chance of being any better than a public school… And a 2 in 7 chance of completely ruining the kids in its care.
• Standards being used by the charter authorizers to judge school performance are terribly weak.
• For the majority of schools, poor first year performance will give way to poor second year performance.

States that are in a hurry to expand charter schools should proceed with caution. The evidence of success is not all that ample.

Advocates of Charter Schools who “philosophically” believe in the “Free market system” cheer when they see a charter school closes… “See, that’s what we are talking about!  Yeah, Baby!  It failed.  Shut ‘er down!  The market system works.  If it succeeded and had done well, it would have prospered. Now that it is closed, it can’t destroy any more children.  The free market system works.  Woo Hoo!!! “…..

When asked, they could provide no answer of what to do with those children who were now,  unable to go to school…..

Thoughts On The Teacher/Corporate Divide

Are you not up to speed on what I’m talking about? Well then, I wasn’t either before a little while ago, but before you go further, if you haven’t read this article in today’s New York Times, you probably should. This is the background on the pros and cons affecting our schooling this upcoming decade…..

The second paragraph is where the hook punctured my lip…. .

“He has written two books on classroom practice and at one point helped train new corps members for Teach for America. For years, he was a proponent of the program, albeit one with the occasional quibble.”

“Then, in 2010, Mr. Rubinstein underwent a sea change. As he grew suspicious of some of the data used to promote charter schools, be became critical of Teach for America and the broader reform movement. (The education scholar Diane Ravitch famously made a similar shift around this time.)”

“Mr. Rubinstein, who knows how to crunch numbers, noticed that, at many charter schools student test scores and graduation rates didn’t always add up to what the schools claimed. He was also alarmed by what he viewed as misguided reforms like an overreliance on crude standardized tests that measure students’ yearly academic “growth” and teacher performance.”

Sound familiar?

The article then goes forward to explain that just as we divided politics into two camps who now don’t talk to each other…. we are doing the exact same to education.

I’m incline to believe it.

So did this researcher…

“Michael Petrilli, a research fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution and a pro-charter education analyst with the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, worries about this lack of exchange. He recently conducted an analysis of Twitter and the tens of thousands of followers of Ms. Rhee, who is pro-charter, and Ms. Ravitch, who is anti-charter, and discovered that only 10 percent overlapped. Just as conservatives gravitate to Fox News and liberals to MSNBC to hear their preconceived notions and biases confirmed, Mr. Petrilli speculates that those in education are now preaching solely to the converted, a phenomenon known in the media world as “narrowcasting.”

“Worse, in Mr. Petrilli’s view, those who follow Ms. Rhee tend to describe themselves in their Twitter profiles as policy makers or otherwise removed from the immediate realities of the classroom, while Ms. Ravitch’s devotees are typically self-identified practitioners: principals and teachers on education’s front lines. Surely these folks should be talking to one another, but in Mr. Petrilli’s experience, they often aren’t.”

And therein we have the core of our problem. Just as we currently have division within our Federal Government where both sides talk only to their own camps, then yell across a chasm at the opposition, we are getting to that same atmosphere in the field of education….

Rhea versus Savitch. Just like a presidential race. In politics the immense amount of loose money keeping the Republican Party alive comes from a very few people. The Democratic Party can only effectively compete because of its massive large numbers of human beings who work the front line. It is very similar now between corporations versus teachers/principals. It was only a matter of time before the contamination of money permeating inside the House and Senate, would spill over into the field of education.

It obviously has… Teachers are being tagged as liberals and being attacked with bad ratings if they work in conservative states, and Charter Schools as well as teacher evaluations, are being killed before birth in states that are far more progressive and unionized…

What if, both had strong possible options that they could bring to the table? What if, the combination of the best of both camps was the one way to lead us to a very good educational system?

It is not that hard to envision. If we developed a common curriculum, let teachers teach those items using their personalities, used corporate investment money to fund the constant upgrading of computer power and access points, and then tracked the results in a fair way free from subjective interpretation, Delaware definitely would improve upon the path we’ve taken.

We need to use the talent of teachers in our race to the top. The obvious thing that is holding us back, is that piece of the arbitrary rating system which appears not to accept that in the field of education, things often happen that are beyond a teacher’s control, like not enough computers to take ones tests at the proper time…

Education is too important to have it go the way of politics… Education IS our national future.

Which is why I still think that over these next two weeks, every teacher needs to fill out the survey being asked by the DOE. This appears their critical moment to make a difference in the outcome. But for it to be believable, it needs to be filled out by every teacher, and then a copy needs to get surreptitiously sent to the DSEA for verification purposes…

After all, when it comes to children, teachers are the experts. They know their kids. And monetary investment is sorely needed. Very much so. The Republican decade of starving our schools to keep taxes low, has left no meat on the bones at all….

We need both. We need input from both… And the next step to progress is very simple…. Fill out the survey, take a screen shot of it, then email that attachment to the DSEA… We need every teacher in every Delaware classroom to follow suit.

If Delaware can show the rest of America that teachers and corporations can work together, that it can be done, then despite the bickering going on elsewhere, here there will be one example or proof positive of how it can be done. There is hope for the entire country.

But right now, just think of your classrooms. Make that step to reach out in a positive way and fill out the DOE survey…… It will only matter if every teacher does it…

“Among The Fields Of Barley….”

Photo Courtesy of www.oldwilmington.net

It is a question of degree.. Who has the more authority within the current moment. A brand new administrator elected by the choice of the people over his predecessor, or…. a plan put in place and carried out by a previous administration.

Bottom line. There are no rules here. Depending on which side you seem to be on… will affect your outlook. The decision is both right and wrong for either side, depending upon which criteria one will use to decide.

Examine the first.

An Administrator is elected. He comes in and takes over his office. One of the planks he ran on was to reverse a certain act of his predecessor. When the people had a choice of electing a person who was for the proposal in question, and one who was against it, they overwhelmingly went for the one who was against it….

Now the second.

An Administrator inherits a problem from his predecessor. He applies considerable effort to get a deal made and moved forward. It goes through all proper channels. It is legalized by a vote on Council. It is the Council and thereby the County’s official policy. A schedule has been drawn up. Funding approved. It is in effect, in the middle of being completed…. Since it was set in stone before the new administrator comes in, he has no right to interfere…..

Can a chief executive overrule a previous Council’s decision? Well. Romney certainly was going to with Obamacare.
Congress had passed it, the Supreme Court had legitimized it, and Romney was going to make it obsolete with the stroke of a pen, based solely on the argument that it was the wish of a mandate of the voters putting him into office.

If it would work for the president, it must also be effective and allowed, under the new New Castle County Chief Executive.

It therefore, is not only legal, but ethical, contrary to the opinion of one certain Danberg who resigned in protest as county attorney on Wednesday.

A leadership role demands that a leader leads. For a leader to have to swallow every poisoned pill his predecessor were to leave him, puts not only him, but his department and the province he oversees…. at risk. That would be harmful to all society, if something was locked in stone by every outgoing administration…. Were that the true will of the people of New Castle County, to have Barley Mill Plaza go forward, then Paul Clark would now be the executive, not Tom Gordan…

Either way the decision goes, someone gets hurt. If the decision is to go forward, then those residents around that area who are the victims of a fabricated traffic study, are doomed to suffer. If the decision is to be stayed, and reworked pending a new traffic study, then those who have invested into the plan, are the ones doomed to suffer.

So someone has to get hurt! The question is …. who?

HERE COMES DA JUDGE!……

Moritorium On Too Much Testing

It is so ironic that the battle for proper educational techniques is heating up just as we in New Castle County Delaware are swearing in someone who once brought stability and control to what was pure chaos.

Tom Gordan as chief executive came into our counties development crises which reminds me rather well of today’s educational crises. There were at least two sides, maybe three, all clamoring for something to be done about development in New Castle County. It was out of control. New buildings were going up, with one lane roads to feed it. Millions of tons of sewage were going to go into the ground on individual properties. The old pipes were not meant for such volume. Every community wanted a traffic light and every obliging state representative got them one… A Kohl’s could be built right against your back deck… There were no such things as abatements.

Tom Gordan said: There will be a moratorium on all new development. We will decide first, how we want to grow, we will put those laws in place, we will educate our inspectors on how to enforce those laws, and once we are ready, we will open development … up again.

It worked wonderfully.

So now, as I hear the corporate side race towards Common Core, and see their hands out asking for money, and see their high pressure sales technique, not unlike those of window salespeople who you invite into your home… Sign now! Sign now! Sign now! I have to think their is a reason they are worried we might have second doubts.

Then I see the side actually responsible for educating children, who says, “we are testing so much I can’t teach, and now, I’m getting fired because I can’t teach but whenever I do get a chance to actually teach, my students blossom”… This group says it is not the people who are driving low results, it is the system….

The question is: which is better for our children? To be honest whenever I hear both sides each speak in a vacuum, I’d have to say both are. There are good ideas on each side. One of the best new resources is a computer program that allows students themselves as well as their parents to see their progress. I’ve been witness to several discussion aimed at a computer screen that echoed the theme, “I turned that thing in!” And sure enough, they did, and usually it was a keypunch error, or a key that was pressed but not hard enough. And likewise, it certainly helps parental planning when the parent can use adult analysis and determine whether the holiday vacation overseas would seriously put their kid’s special projects up to 1/3 of their grade, in jeopardy. Without corporate intervention and tooting their own horn, that resource might have never gotten past a card dropped off by its salesperson at the state DOE office.

Likewise, having teachers set their alarms for 5 am, and finally crash at 11 pm, just to keep up with the normal routine of teaching, is burning them out. No one out there is tougher than I, but, not I, could do well without a “LIFE” to counteract work…. Therefore every teacher who survives their first year, simply does the same the next, and the next, … same tests, same grading card, same calendar, simply so they don’t have to put any thought into what they do…. Since classes are never the same, there are lost opportunities in this process.

The point is, we need a moratorium on this process. There appears to be a lot of money being thrown away for no result. I could be wrong. I could be right. So could you, so could she. The point is, no one knows? What if we spend three years going down the wrong path? It will take another three years to come back and return to where we are right now.

So six years lost if we are wrong. No years lost if we are right but we just don’t know. There is no harm in waiting. Those now getting a decent education,… will. Those who need more teacher attention, without testing, will get that too. Who knows what might happen?

There is risk in everything. Granted, we accept that. However if making a choice on which our national stability and economic viability depends, getting it wrong is catastrophic. In light of that, if we wait 3 years, get our act together, then launch into an integrated, well-oiled attack plan, by the time 6 years had passed and we were just getting back to zero, we would be ahead three years into mining a great national treasure. Our kid’s brains…

The money? Yes, there are monies out there earmarked to be spent on testing. Can’t we agree to put that instead into infrastructural improvement, while we sort out this issue?

I read North Carolina is implementing 177 new tests this school year. Now I don’t know about you, but when I spend all my time testing… the only thing I ever learn is “how to take tests.”….

I would like our children to get more out of school….

One Person’s Personal Mistake Sets Back Delaware Education for One Full Year

The administrative office in the Delaware Department of Education is trying to keep up with all the paperwork it is being fed. It is failing. If the Delaware Department of Education were to receive a grade, it would not be a passing one…..

The state of Delaware administered state “pretested” in math and ELA late Nov & early Dec…. then in a surprise delivery FedEx’d to the schools, they finally received bubble sheets! (Bubble sheets are the answer forms where you fill in the circles for answers A<B<C<D<E..) They arrived Monday this week, two weeks after testing. Students were then given the tests they had previously taken and told to bubble in their responses. These bubble sheets are dated 9/01/2012. Students then bubbled in their Nov 30 responses today. These tests will be part of each teachers component V evaluation.

Obviously the DOE purchaser/controller thought the answers came with the test packets… “I didn’t know they’d charge for the tests and then charge extra for the bubble packs? They never used to before we went with this (use this one only) corporate supplier….”

(Of course they’d be separate! What part of “We Profit Off Of Education” don’t you understand?)

Now pretend you are a student. You actually like learning. You get pulled out of instruction to take a test. Ok, you live with that. Then you get pulled out again, to fill in the answers because you were not given the proper tools the first time. Put yourself back 20,30,40,50 years. How many of you, since obviously the entire test was a joke anyways, would fill in all “A”s” to get it over with?

I would.

So, was this entire thing arranged to force test scores to be low, enabling the DOE to fire anyone who doesn’t support them fully? It actually is a good idea if they thought or it. What a brilliant way to get rid of the DSEA. “Sorry, your scores are a zero. You’re fired….”

I doubt that. But, either way, the signal sent to every student who had to retake the test, was that our schools are incompetent.

Anyone familiar with corporate philosophy readily understands what is happening. In corporate takeovers, you destroy, then you build up. Often, you go bankrupt.

So Jack. some advice: here is what you need to do..

Have every teacher drop a line to the DSEA expressing their frustration and recommendation.

In Dover Downs, a one day meeting with every teacher in the state. Special holiday for kids. Early February at the latest.

“Teachers: We are here because the corporate system is not working. There are good elements that we want to keep. How can we form a union between teachers and corporate sponsors, so everyone is covering the backs of the other? We need this fixed. We need you to do it”.

Let the top ten best responses to the questionnaire each give a 5 minute talk…

Then let the discussion begin and sit back and try to find a broad solution that accomplishes the mission. Which is? To teach kids.

Be prepared to scrap excessive testing. Be prepared to scrap evaluations. From what I hear that is sucking time away from teaching. Be prepared to incarcerate bully students, without parental approval.

Just some ideas.

But if you don’t bring on the teachers in your race to the top, it won’t fly.

“Your Fragrance Fair Reminds Me Of Rare Old Port”- WC Fields

Courtesy of Maersk Lines

To privatize or not privatize Wilmington’s own ocean-going port; that is the question now up for debate. Talks begin next week.

One the port loses money; turning it over saves money the very year it gets dumped.

Two, privatizing the port, will cost union jobs and their pension fund, dearly. There is no way any company will not want to “own” that pension fund.

Three, as a private business, the port must be taxed, earning revenue for the city.

Four, safety, upgrades, competitiveness with other ports, all take back seat to revenues acquired per quarter.

Five, the city will have another major business knocking its doors down asking for new major concessions.

Bottom line, is whether the city wants to sell out those working, taking the financial hit that will cost it, or to pay the extra each year to keep the port running….

In this day and age, it appears selling out the people, carries far greater risk and impacts the area with a greater negative, than simply paying for the shortfalls year after year.

Let’s us remind ourselves what actually “is” privatization….

In privatization schemes to outsource traditional governmental functions, taxpayer dollars are diverted from the building of public assets and institutions to create long-term revenue streams for corporations. Privatization has resulted in the loss of public sector jobs that have been crucial to the growth of the middle class, and instead has created a system that favors lower wage jobs and new profit centers for CEOs and investors.

Here is how privatization works. I buy a field next to your house. I live in a tent. I watch your house while you are away on vacations. You’ve paid off the house, and now, having retired, you live in Florida, and the house taxes are backing up here in Delaware. You sign the deed over to me, so you don’t pay taxes anymore….

I just stole your property. All that money you put into it, was essentially, wasted. Your assets, drop by $500,000. Mine jump $500,000. You could have put the house on the market… That is what most people do… But no. You just gave it away. Thank you, btw.

That is privatization. Giving something free to corporations, a handout, that they only get, because they just happened by at the right moment…. Here you go, bud… have $45 million dollars… Run a business! Welcome to corporate America.

That is privatization. Of course, it is framed these three ways: …. “let me take that off your hands…;” “I could take care of that awful problem for you;”…. ” You, know, I could make that “problem” go away..”.

And in the heat of the moment, that investment that years of hardworking people have put into, gets whisked away…. So of course privatization is going to be sold hard. Who wouldn’t want a free $50 million dollars?

Bottom line, there are some entities in public society that are there for the common good. The public funds them… Take roads for example. If Delaware privatizes 95 into to Wilmington, every commuter pays an extra $2 a day to make the trip. Every commuter pays $2 X 5 X 50 on the average, or $500 a year. At roughly 60,000 commuters a day, $30,000,000 is sucked from all other businesses in New Castle County per year, and given to the new owner of interstate 95…. Primarily to prevent that, was why a long time ago public funding and ownership, was deemed to the better approach. Furthermore, repairs and potholes, suddenly get low priority status; skimming off the top becomes number one…..

The choice of privatization boils down to the following…. Which is better? A choice of higher business activity, or a choice of keeping the wages of those working now?

This can best be seen in Greece. The Greeks farmed one half of this port, the container side, over to a Chinese company. They kept the lucrative part, the cruise ship side, for themselves. What has happened is that business on the Chinese side as doubled. It is becoming one of the busiest ports in the world. The Greek half is languishing. Lacking the money to invest, their side has, by not going forward, fallen backward.

The Chinese have invested in new ideas and new technology. But, being Chinese, one can rightly expect they don’t invest in human capital.

On the Greek side, some worker’s salary and benefits amount to $181,000 a year. Obviously a full work force paid that much would soon force closure of the port. The Chinese pay $23,000…. and have no job security plan. They also do not abide by Greece’s union regulations and safety requirements. Currently they have no trouble filling workers when they need them. (Greece is in the imploding stages)…

And there you have it. One simply has to plug in whether the lease amount and tax revenue from a thriving port on top of the diminished payroll purchasing power of all its ex-employees, is greater or less than…. the diminished tax revenue from a mediocre port, on top of the purchasing power all it’s unionized employees possess…..

It appears that the one best option, is to have Government upgrade the port, meanwhile keeping government ownership, thereby keeping its workers employed and their money flowing through their economy… That option maximizes the most money flowing out of the port, and into the city.

The problem for unions is, that as long as wages are consistently high across the Seaboard, then that is the price of doing business in America’s ports. But let one port hire 7/8th less per worker, then in all other ports to remain competitive, all workers will soon also have to be working at that level. 7/8ths less of economic clout per worker, needs to be quantified in dollars, before knowing the full economic benefit.

There is one more thing. If the business running the port loses money, even one dollar; they can just shut the port down and walk away…. Then there are no winners.

Obama’s Team Gets An A for It’s Handling Of The Economy.

In reality, there’s remarkable consensus among mainstream economists, including those from the left and right, on most major macroeconomic issues.  92 percent of top-ranked economists say the ‘stimulus’ lowered unemployment.

Here are 6 areas that economists agree on….

• The Recovery Act (‘Stimulus’) was a success, part of a historic turnaround.
• The American Jobs Act should be passed at once.
• The economy needs MORE federal spending, not LESS
• Repairing and upgrading our infrastructure is job 1
• Lower tax rates on top incomes make things worse, not better, as in:
• The income gap, which fueled this crisis, is a big drag on growth.

Every Republican who disses the Stimulus Funding is simply dead wrong.   Every Republican who does not even have an idea of what they are talking about…   Job growth went from -800,000 per month under Bush to an average net gain of 160,000. That’s a turnaround of nearly 1 million jobs per month! A historic achievement that gives tangible meaning to change we can believe in. 92% of economists or 100% of those NOT on Romney’s payroll, concur.

Moody’s Analytics estimated the American Jobs Act would create 1.9 million jobs and add 2% to gross domestic product.
The Economic Policy Institute estimated it would create 2.6 million jobs and protect an addition 1.6 million existing jobs.
Macroeconomic Advisers predicted it would create 2.1 million jobs and boost GDP by 1.5 percent.
Goldman Sachs also predicted it would add 1.5% to GDP.

Policy advisers to Presidents Reagan, Bush and Clinton, Nobel prize winners, IMF and World Bank analysts, private forecasters, Goldman Sachs, Forbes…The Consensus is clear: our economy needs MORE Federal spending, not LESS.   The world’s top economists warn austerity policies are pushing the world economy toward disaster.

The American Society of Civil Engineers is calling for a 5 year, $2.2 trillion dollar program to repair, rebuild and update our infrastructure, beginning immediately. That’s $400 billion a year, every $1 billion dollars of which will create 23,000 jobs. That translates into 9.2 million jobs a year.  Romney wants to spend the same amount on our military.  Our military is already larger than the twenty next armies combined….

Tax cuts on top incomes likewise produce no return. A study by the Congressional Research Service reviewed tax, investment and growth data beginning in 1945, the first year for which they’re available.  Their analysis showed tax reductions on top incomes do not increase investment or growth.  In fact, growth has consistently been more robust during periods when top tax rates were higher.
Instead of making the economic pie larger, the CRS found, reductions on top tax rates change how the pie is sliced, concentrating income at the top.  (ie the kavipsian Economic Theory)  Romney’s approach leads us on the road to Greece.

The effect of income inequality on economic growth is negative.  But inequality, especially of the U.S. variety, is bad for growth. The country grew faster in the decades after World War II — when it was also growing together, with all groups seeing increases in income. But those at the bottom were growing the most.  those in the middle, ordinary Americans who work for a living, let alone those at the bottom, are getting a smaller slice of a pie that is smaller than if we had continued growing as we did postwar. The net result is disheartening: Most Americans are worse off today than they were 15 years ago.”   Income inequality in America peaked in 1929 and in 2007 – just before massive economic contractions.  It is about to again and will, if Romney’s 5 Trillion tax cut is allowed to progress unimpeded…..

 

President Obama’s policies are as needed in our time as President Roosevelt’s were in his.  Roosevelt struggled for a time, too.  America didn’t toss him out and send Hoover back to Washington.