Automation and People and Land

I have been seeing a lot of prognostication lately about how automation is coming and robotics and AI is going to replace a lot of jobs. I even read one article saying that the haves will become a different species. I think a lot of these such articles are missing something important. Economics.

If we automate everyone out of a job, who will buy the products? How do we take advantage of economies of scale, if the scale is a handful of super rich. If owners of companies are so rich, and everyone else is so poor, what becomes of the people? What do you do with massive populations of people who don't or can't work, due to the economic and technological realities around them? Do we get to the point that we start wholesale elimination of large populations? Undoubtedly, some will see this and the answer. Genocide of such magnitude is unprecedented, but that is where the thinking of such articles lead.

I don't think it will come to that. People will not be replaced by machines in total. Sure, many jobs and functions will be. It will be painful, but people are creative. AI is not. It is not self aware. It does what it's programmers set it up to do. Again, most programs do things differently from what the programmers intended, but they do exactly what they are told. But what if our technology does get to that level where almost all jobs are replaced?

I am not sure how this whole thing works itself out, but it will have to. To feed such masses of poor will require a significant portion of the Earth's land for their maintenance. Who will pay for it? To resolve such questions will probably get ugly in some way, and the poor will probably have the bulk of the losers. I see a variety of solutions to such a dilemma , none of which are very palatable. Most of them will be some form or another of expansion of the current welfare state. Another disgusting alternative is the re-institutionalization of slavery, based solely on economic standing. I certainly hope that no governments will reach the point of deciding genocide is a good way to go.

One of the welfare state expansions that we are beginning too see is called basic income. Many nations are beginning to experiment with this concept. This money has to come from taxes and fees. If only the rich are making money, they will be who has to pay for everyone else. Still a no-win situation. The poor get an income, but become dependent on the government. They will lose incentive to work and create and make the world a better place. It sets up continued and increased tension between the rich and the poor which will eventually come to a head. The more the poor are displace by technology, the more the rich will be taxed. At some point, the rich will resist or rebel. That would lead to one of those other nasty scenarios mentioned above.

It doesn't have to be that way. Perhaps, there may be other solutions which might be worthwhile to look into. I remember reading about laws that existed in some small island countries many years ago that each family was required to grow and preserve a certain amount of food for each family member. They were required to spend a specified amount of time working their gardens. Those that could afford it could pay others to work in their garden's for them. If we step forward a couple of centuries and add technology into the mix, perhaps we find that there may be wisdom in some of the underlying principles of self reliance. This is a variation off of the theme of distributist thinking.

The key is making sure each person has access to the means to take care of themselves. This probably means some kind of guaranteed access to some required per person amount of land and water resources. It will require people to learn to work. The government would have to create some kind of equitable way of distributing, and redistributing, and redistributing again, the land and resources. It would have to be fair, and yet still make sure everyone had their required minimum. I suppose having rules for land inheritance which are different from other inheritance might be required. At any rate, there are some uncomfortable changes which would have to be made to our policies.

The interesting thing is, if we did establish such a program to support the poor, it won't prevent those who are so inclined from setting their sights higher, and seeking more than the bare minimum. If they fail, well, what better safety net than self reliance. Those who succeed can have that benefit of having other people or machines to their work to meet the requirements of such a system. It also would still provides enough of an economic structure to ensure trade will exist and therefore the capital required to create our modern wonders will continue.

Yes, it is true, there will still be rich and poor. Many will inherit their wealth. They will still have to be taxed to pay for government. The difference is, the poor will be better taken care of, have a better safety net, and still have opportunity. The taxes would not be as onerous as in the basic income scenario mentioned previously. A land distributism program would certainly not address all the problems that exist and getting people to understand and agree on the specifics will be extremely difficult. But it will be better than either hordes of unworking being paid for by massive taxes on a few rich, or the alternatives of mass slavery or wholesale genocide of those viewed as having no economic value.

Discernment and Discrimination

Discrimination is a much maligned word. People use it most often to describe unfair or hostile treatment of broad groups of innocent people. Whole sections of our federal code address the evils of discrimination. Millions of people have been victims of discrimination when seeking employment, attending school, searching for a home, or even where they shop.

However, discrimination may not be exactly what we think it is. And, it may not be all bad. Think of a related word: Discern. What does it mean? dictionary.com say it means "to distinguish mentally; recognize as distinct or different; discriminate". There it is again. Discriminate. So what does that mean, in a dictionary sense. Again, dictionary.com says it means "to note or observe a difference; distinguish accurately". So, discrimination is when we accurately distinguish the difference between things. That doesn't sound all that bad, so where does the problem lie?

To address this, we will again go back to dictionary.com, but do another entry. It says "to make a distinction in favor of or against a person or thing on the basis of the group, class, or category to which the person or thing belongs rather than according to actual merit; show partiality;". This sounds less nice. The real problem here is the partiality, and ignoring actual merit. Our laws specifically talk about discrimination, but discrimination can be good, as long as actual merit is recognized.

We have laws that say we can't discriminate on the basis of certain group memberships. The list of groups so protected has grown, and will continue to grow. Then we have other laws saying some discrimination in favor of certain group members is required. I couldn't agree more that we should avoid discrimination against a class of people without regard to personal merit. But what about when we discriminate against that personal merit. What if we decide that the specific qualities, traits, and characteristics of a specific individual are completely unacceptable, or at least inferior to some other alternative.

I think we all must do this in some degree or another in many aspects of our life. I see this in hiring whenever I see hiring done. Companies want the best employees that they can afford. Likewise, employees want to work for the best employers. We have to make such judgement calls in many aspects of our lives. There are a few, however, that can become very controversial very quickly.

Take dealing with neighbors for example. If you live in a neighborhood, and someone moves into the neighborhood that changes the nature of this neighborhood. What if it goes from being a place you loved to live to being a place you are looking to move away from. What kind of things might this new neighbor be doing that could make such a change. What if they are dealing drugs in what previously was a very child friendly place. What if they are a hoarder that fills their yard with such massive piles of junk that you begin to have major rodent and insect infestations. What are your avenues of recourse. Do you just move away and abandon your once wonderful neighborhood and take the financial hit that comes with such circumstances.

In some places, there have been local statutes which address these issues. A common phenomenon in real estate is the use of Home Owner Associations which enforce codes, covenants, and restrictions with the ability to file leans against and foreclose on homes for behavioral problems in neighborhoods. Some cities have created neighborhood preservation services which try to regulate these problems.

But what if your neighbor is just a jerk. What do you do then. I guess you are back to moving. What if all the other neighbors feel that same way. Generally speaking they have no recourse. But perhaps they should. Now, it isn't fair to foreclose and take the property of someone just because you don't like them.

But here is a crazy idea. What if the neighbors could get together and if a high enough percentage, like, 80%, decided they wanted some other neighbor to be forced to move, they could do some kind of forced buyout? Of course, they should probably have to pay a premium for the inconvenience, like maybe 15 or 20 percent. The neighbors would have to front the cash for it. There would have to be legal protections and a very specified process to go though, but, then, the neighborhood might be able to protect itself against deterioration, even if the problem was not a health or safety issue.

Now that I have presented such a nice little fix, now lets view what are ways it could go wrong. First, lets just assume that the hated neighbor is hated only because of race or religion. Is it fair they should be kicked out of where they live just because of discrimination? Also, what about those that rent? Should they have a say? Could a landlord be forced out because of bad tenants? Should they be able to? What are the ramifications? Might we end up with completely segregated neighborhoods? Most of our neighborhoods today are quite segregated. Would it be any worse using this system? Invariably, this subject, whatever side you find yourself on, is ripe for abuse. If it were implemented somewhere, there would have to be a lot of safeguards to protect against abuse. However, by not having such a law, we do not get rid of abuse, we just make it less visible. Under such a system, perhaps, the real benefit would be bringing existing abuses and persecutions out in the open.

I am not saying I think this is the ideal system, nor am I saying I favor unmerited discrimination. I do not. I am just saying that the current system is not working. It would be interesting so see a city, or small state, or even a small country institute such a policy for a trial period and what it would result in. It might turn out bad, but it might actually turn out with less unmerited discrimination than we now have.

Self sufficiency, the global economy, and 3D printing.

For a long time, I have had a dream of being self sufficient. I would like to have my own land that is paid for, generate my own electricity, raise my own food, provide my own materials, and pretty much live without having outside expenses. Yeah, I know, that certainly does not seem practical in the current day. Especially when taking into account high technology and our interconnected economies and lives.

But, it gets me thinking about the concept of self sufficiency. Self sufficiency can apply to more than just an individual or family. It can apply to towns, counties, regions, states, and even countries. It certainly applies to our planet. If we can't get it here, we don't get it. That could change one day, but we are a long way from mining asteroids and living on other planets. On smaller scales, though, self sufficiency is largely discouraged in the world.

Historically, that hasn't always been the case. For example, not that long ago, every family who lived in the Kingdom of Tonga was required to grow a garden. They had to grow a certain amount of food to take care of themselves. Even though they still had trade, and bartered things back and forth, the policy was set to make sure that each island was able to take care of itself, which for a bunch of small islands which are prone to be hit by hurricanes, can be important. Still, the storms did come, and could sometimes destroy all their food and wipe out the population of an island, but this policy was a strong factor in avoiding famine and want. It also made sure that people were contributing to society.

Today, areas that are not self sufficient in a regional sense, are more prone to disasters and famines. They might receive help from outside, but if they don't have local resources, recovery and survival are more difficult.  True, we have lots of charity, but isn't the best charity helping others provide for themselves.

I suppose the proponents of the global economy would disagree. They want everyone specialized, and only producing their specialized goods, which are then sold the world over. Technology and the costly manufacturing plants needed for modern cars, computers, and so forth require immense investment and concentration of resources to be viable from a business perspective.

Even more so, globalism has embraced the idea that all people should be active consumers. An example of this is a recent policy from China. They want to bring the peasants into the cities and make them part of the global economy. The idea is they will have jobs and be active consumers. Currently, these people are very poor, but are marginally self sufficient. True, they have no benefit from technology and are without much that most of us in the modern economy consider essentials. On the other hand, they produce most of what they need. Might globalism be more efficient in producing what they need to survive. It might, but it will sacrifice any form of independence they have, and eliminates diversity.

The downsides of globalism exist on both the personal level, such as the loss of independence, and at the global level. If the world needs a certain commodity, and it is made too uniform, either in the place it is produced, or in what is being produced, the risk becomes much higher that it will be disrupted. A classic example is the banana blight of the 1920's. The banana that people sold was called the Big Mike. Commercial growers wanted to sell that one cause it tasted best. Unfortunately, it was a monogenetic crop, and a single fungus wiped out the global production. Fortunately, it was not a staple crop that kept large populations alive. Today, we have massive homogenization in crops, as certain seed companies seek total monopolies of major food crop seed production. Corn, wheat, oats, and to a lesser degree rice and beans are all being subject to this process. At some point, these monogenetic crops will be wiped out by some kind of disease that targets some uniform defect or weakness. Then we will have world wide famines and all the horrors that come with it. Technology is being used to create and strengthen globalism, but while it does make some very wealthy individuals, it doesn't necessarily help the poor.

However, technology might also hold the solution to these problems. It revolves around a different approach to manufacturing. Specifically, what is being called 3D printing. We are still a ways from being able to do this, but if each community had the means of manufacturing anything they can get the raw materials and the plans for, it would change the balance from massive investment into huge centralized facilities to localized production of everything but certain raw materials. Certain raw materials are by their nature scarce, and located in adequate concentrations in only a few places in the world, but the rest, the bulk of the materials could be produced locally. Sure, the designs that are used for those machines are not going to be locally produced, but if I could run down to the local 3D manufacturer and have them print up my new smart phone or kitchen appliance or perhaps even my custom fit name brand running shoes, and pay them for the goods and be on my way, my local economy would benefit. True, the designs and services like the custom fit design used for my running shoes would have to be provided elsewhere, but that is why the internet and 3D printing have to go hand in hand. And it lets product designers reach a much broader market without the manufacturing headaches. It might even help encourage people to consume more intelligently. In being closer to the source, people often appreciate it more.

When this is really available, then the local economy can be highly self sufficient, while still being part of the global economy. Local economies would still have to produce or purchase raw materials, but the overall commodities become much simpler, and with it, much more resilient to economic disruption. Not to mention, wouldn't it simplify life?

Caring for the poor. Teaching them to fish might not be enough.

We have a lot of poor people in this world. But what is meant by poor can mean a lot of different things in different places. I really don't thing anyone would disagree that a single mother in Central America that has only a piece of dirt with no electricity, running water, toilets, or even a roof overhead is poor. One of my neighbors recently went there trying to help the extremely poor, and met this woman. She has about as close to nothing as one can get. She just wanted to have enough food to keep her and her 2 year old son alive for another week. I read many articles about poor people in various parts of the world who just want food. That is truly poor.

There are other kinds of poor. We have an ongoing debate in this country on how to help the poor. Our federal government has dozens of programs to help the poor. We spend unfathomable amounts of dollars trying to address the problem of America's poor. Unfortunately, the more of these programs that get used, the fewer that do all they can to work their way up out of poverty. It doesn't seem to mater how much we give them, it doesn't raise them out of poverty.

I suspect, there are several factors involved here. The first is opportunity and it is a double edged factor. There are many in the extreme poverty that simply do not have opportunity. There are many in fact, even if they knew 'how' to fish, could not feed themselves as they have no access to the fishing waters. Before we start teaching people how to take care of themselves, we need them to have access to the means to take care of themselves. The other side of opportunity applies to those who have the opportunity to life themselves up, but who have a better opportunity to just take the hand outs and not have to work for it. I am not saying the poor in the US don't work. Many of them do, but there are those who do not. Our means testing is very imperfect, and often those who get the most help, don't need it nearly as much as those to don't get the help. I have know quite a few families over the years whose expertise covered which forms and programs to leverage to get a maximum payout from the government.

The second factor is motivation. Those extreme poor in places like Central America, Africa, an so on would do just about anything to improve their situation. They work harder than just about everybody on the planet when they have opportunity. They have motivation. They lack opportunity. They also lack skills and training. If they have the chance, the will get the skills and training. The flip side is that those with robust social programs don't seem to have the motivation to work hard to improve their situation. It isn't that they don't want better. They do. But if they get too successful and trying to improve their situation, they will reach cutoffs for the programs they are using, the their success will ultimately penalize them and leave them worse off than they were before. They are motivated, but motivated to become better at utilizing government and other programs which provide for their needs. They are motivated to avoid too much success.

It is really tragic that this dichotomy exists. We need to find a way to have programs that taper better. That don't penalize those who are finding success. And, we need to find a way to take the resources we dedicate to the problem of poverty, and use it more effectively. Whatever the solution, it should be simple to administer, and difficult to defraud. And most importantly, it should be easily copy-able by those parts of the world where the truly extreme poor and in abundance.

Our future as a country may not be in our hands

Our political future, and, by extension, our economic future may be out of our hands. If the economy improves before election day, I fully expect Obama to win reelection. If he does win, between his socialist/fascist agenda and his corrupt moral policies, this country will no longer be the land of the free or the greatest country on earth, and would soon begin to tear itself apart. If the economy stays stagnant or gets worse, Romney will win but won't do those things to help us recover the greatness we once had, but might be able to keep us from tearing ourselves to shreds. Neither of these scenarios will be determined by us. Our future will be decided by the leaders of Europe as they try to resolve the nasty set of crises they are currently faced with. If they successfully resolve they problems, our economy will continue to recover. If they just manage to postpone or pull out a middling solution that doesn't really fix things but avoids a collapse, our economy will stagnate. If they really screw it up, and it collapses, we will collapse too. In that case, neither of our candidates for President would be able to lead us out of the mess. Even so, our future still is not in our hands.

The Rebirth of Feudalism

Yesterday, I was talking with my dad, and he was complaining about the economy and how the rich and the mega corps keep getting bigger while hurting everybody else. He talked about some statistic (that I have no idea where it comes from) that 60% of the used real estate purchases are now done with cash. It is the rich buying up the world, and making the little guys pay for it. He made the comment that soon the only thing that would be an option for the little guy is a small dive and a dead end job.

I thought about how, if everything is owned by a very small elite group, and there is no social mobility, and that we are basically locked into doing things they way the big guys dictate, that is very similar to what happened at the end of the Roman Empire and at the start of the Dark Ages. In fact, that was the condition that perpetuated the dark ages for so long. What really broke the back (and the repression) of the dark ages was the discovery of the new world. There was frontier where those who wanted an out could go. And what did they do with it. They built America and the United States.

We don't have any more frontier. There is no way to end a new dark ages if it happens, and it seems there are many forces in power that are intent on seeing that it happens. If we don't stop it before it gets too far, the only way to end it is the kind of war that kills 99% or more of the population and destroys all the environment. We could stop it now. They way to do so is to tax wealth instead of income; to break up the monopolies and massive corporations, and prevent the buildup of super powerful political, economic, and social elites; and to give people the freedom and opportunities to do as they please without having to pay the living life tolls that the big corporations have established for us.

Conservative politics - big business capitalism = ?

With all this federal shutdown garbage and now the debt limit crisis and the completely unreasonable and unmoving positions of our elected representatives in our federal government, and in state governments across the country, I have been doing a lot of thinking. I totally agree with the whole fiscal conservatism thing, living beneath our means, paying off the debt, and limiting government... to a point. I completely disagree with subsidies of any kind, apart from the prebate in the FairTax. That should be the primary equalizer our government provides. Oh, and the prebate should be twice as big as in HR 25, and education should be fully taxed, and investment should be taxed on the public exchanges. Well, it should be taxed any time it is required to be registered with any public agency, whether publicly traded or not. I also think we should be transitioning away from Social Security and Medicare and the other social programs.

But, and here is where I part from the traditional cut and slash crowd, I think turning any of this over to big business is a huge mistake. Big companies should be automatically excluded from government contracts and prohibited from buying out smaller companies. Too big to fail is too big to be allowed. We need another round of trust busting, and it should hit any company with revenues over a billion, which means a lot of them. Ok, yeah, some companies by their natures will be bigger than that, only have1 product, and make tons on that 1 product. Great, they need to stick with that 1 product. Companies exist to provide service to the greater good, not for enriching the pockets of investors. I know, sounds really like I am off my rocker. I am all in favor of small business. With this caveat: Businesses of all levels need to be responsible contributors to society and provide solid and fair jobs for their employees. Wages should represent contributions of effort and skill. This whole executive pay garbage where they are making millions and tens of millions, and even sometimes hundreds of millions of dollars, all while paying employees less than subsistence level wages is criminal. And should be treated as such.

Businesses of all level should be highly regulated. Not burdened, but regulated in a way to keep the playing field level and make sure they are being good citizens. I feel that most of our current regulation is either ineffective, or misdirected. Corporations, well, all registered businesses for that matter, should have to regularly report on their activities. Maybe if they cannot show they are being good corporate citizens, then they could be entered into receivership, and possibly dissolved and the liquidated assets distributed to creditors and shareholders. The only question is, how do you keep the regulatory environment from being a bully, and limit interventions to only the truly problem companies?

So, as you can see, conservative politics minus big business capitalism equals ... what? I don't know. Maybe the regulation I dreamed up here as I typed is a bad idea. But, would it be any worse than becoming economic slaves to the Fortune 500?

Social insecurity

An overwhelming majority of our federal budget is spent on what we call social programs. The most famous and far reaching of these programs is Social Security. There are also numerous welfare programs, unemployment insurance, and medicare, medicaid, chip, and even many of our education programs such as the school lunch program that are part of these social programs.

But, what is the purpose of social programs. I think most of us have ideas as to their purpose. Things like "to help the poor" and "to create economic fairness". But perhaps one of the best definitions I have heard I read the other day in an article about what was wrong with privatizing social security. They said that "Investment is about risk; Social Security is about certainty."

With that in mind, lets briefly revisit our overall approach to social programs. Well, we don't have a lot of consistency. We sometimes provide end user services. Often we pay for services provided by the private sector, such as health services. Sometimes, and is Social Security and some forms welfare, we provide cash payments to individuals. Now, social security is supposed to be some form of certainty for those who retire or are disabled, but all that is certain is that those who start poor are guaranteed to stay in their situation under social security, but, at least it is consistent. The real benefit is that those who either were not able to plan for retirement or not able to afford putting money away for retirement have something to provide for them. Similarly, we have unemployment insurance. This is supposedly paid for by employers who are viewed as responsible for the unemployment, but often the benefits received are paid for by the general public.

How about a different approach? What if 20% of what a person earned went into an account that was accessible by that person only. It would be taken out directly from their checks. Ok, sounds like I am back to privatizing social security. Actually, the money in the accounts would not be eligible for investment purposes, apart from the most secure and government backed "investments". Congress would not have any access to the funds in these accounts. In fact, the owners of these accounts would only have access to their accounts by application through some form of social verification system. They would be able to receive payments from those accounts in the event that they became unemployed or retired. The employers would not be left holding the bag. The government and indirectly the people would not be left holding the bag, and everyone would have some security. If someone has worked 15 years, they would have 3 years worth of their average yearly wage available to them.

Implementing such a program would have to be a phase in, but could be done over 10 or 15 years with special carryover programs for current social security recipients.

There are other things that could improve the situation as well. Make the 20% of their wages include 20% of the cost of their benefits. Put the accounts in a national bank (which would replace the Fed), where they can be loaned out to banks, but backed by FDIC without limit. Implement the Fair Tax, only increase they prebates to be equal to twice what a one at the poverty level would pay in taxes every month. Fix the health care system by fixing the FDA and AMA and mandating equal access to care and coverage by combining all coverage groups and prohibiting exclusions, but allowing limitations on specific payouts and by making a publicly accessible symptom, tests, and treatments match database. Make welfare an education grant program, and mandate life skills training in addition to emphasizing practical work skills training. I could go on, but I think I have made my point. Each program needs to be self contained, to a degree, but needs to fit into the overall holistic system. In doing so, all of our social programs can work together to provide what they were intended to provide.

Utilities and service

You may have heard about the latest bruhaha with Comcast and L3 communications. There are a lot of other issues related to Comcast's behavior lately, and they are not doing anyone any favors. Comcast is easily identifiable as a Utility. The problems it seems intent on creating have always been issues with utilities.

The solution is simple. Utilities have 2 parts. There is a simple delivery mechanism that is location based, and there is what those delivery mechanisms deliver. In the case of Comcast, they deliver telecommunications services. The easy way to think of it is connectivity and content. I had the privilege of living in Texas recently, and they have a classic example of this solution implemented with their electricity providers. There is one connectivity provider in Texas. It is actually owned and operated by the state. It is prohibited from providing actual content, in this case electricity. It works well. The service is way faster than in other states, and the rates are generally lower. I actually had a slightly higher rate, because I went with an all renewable electricity provider. That was my choice because I was supporting something I believe in.

The same thing needs to be applied to phone service and internet service and cable service, and maybe even natural gas and water and other utilities. The provider of the connectivity needs to be separate from the provider of the content. That way, there is no conflict of interest, and market competition keeps the price of content down and the quality of content up. Only the connectivity provider needs be regulated. For companies like Comcast, the choices would be simple. Provide the connectivity, and be regulated, or provide the content and compete. You can't do both. If necessary, split the company into two, one for the connectivity and the other for the content.

That is the best solution. It could be done at the state level. Then, our rights as consumers would never be infringed by a monopoly connectivity provider that forces us to use their low quality and high cost content.

Political ideologies vs reality

Well, the midterm elections were yesterday. Today, my wife was listening to Obama talk about the message of the elections. He was first trying to make the point that he "get's it" in regards to why people are upset. He continually mentioned the results of their efforts were weak, and that people are mad about the economy. When asked about his health care bill, he defended it left and right. It was a good thing, etc. etc. When asked specifically about other actions by his administration, not once did he ever seem to "get it" that there are things he has done that people didn't like.

I realized that somewhere in there, it never occurred to him that perhaps the ideology he espouses is potentially wrong in the eyes of the people. It probably also never occurred to him that ideology does not solve problems. We as a people are tired of ideologues who can't understand that first and foremost, we want the problems solved. Particularly the ones that naturally fall in the purview of government. As for our own problems, let us solve our own, but don't make it more difficult for us to do so.

This got me thinking about what people want, and what upsets them. First, they don't like their freedom being taken away. They don't like being told that they have to do something. They don't like being manipulated. They like having options. They like to feel independent. They like to feel valuable. The like comfort. They like adventure. They like to feel intelligent and capable. They don't like to be told they are wrong. Perhaps government would be better off if instead of mandating programs, they just made things available to the people.

The one exception is regulation of business. Business needs to be regulated, just not too heavily. A business that takes care of it's employees and is honest with it's customers and follows good business practices should not incur any cost in following regulation. On the other hand, those who do not do those things should feel the incentive to change.

So, there you have it. Limit government to just serving the people, limit business to good business practices, and let the people be. When they need something, well, that is why government should have voluntary programs, and those programs should be easy to use, but hard to abuse. Is it really that hard? Well, I guess in reality, maybe it is.

A better home

In the last year, I have lived a couple very different climates in very different housing. Also, the last 5 years I have had the experience of helping completely rebuild more than one house from top to bottom. These experiences have given me some insights and ideas related to modern housing, and some idea for what would be better.

First, housing today is too expensive, too slow to build, poorly designed and built, and not very effective.The biggest failures of housing today are poor insulation, poor usability, and poor quality. Unless where you live never gets over 80 degrees or under 60 degrees Fahrenheit, you probably could use much better total insulation in your house. This isn't saying that those with R40 insulation in their attics are doing badly, it is just that there are far too many other parts of modern houses that even when highly insulated in the normally insulated spaces, still are sources for massive energy loss.

Second, if you have ever had a house for more than a couple of years, you probably noticed that they fall apart and wear out very quickly. The materials used for them is about as cheap as can be had, and the overall quality of workmanship often leaves something to be desired. This is not saying that you can't get quality products or workmanship. I have seen those homes and other buildings which are built to last with very little maintenance, and they are awesome, but with a very high premium attached to their price tag. Most people and developers are not willing to go this route for a couple of reasons. They couldn't resell the home for anything close to what it cost them, and the don't plan on keeping the home for a very long time. This only exacerbates the first problem.

What if we could have a housing system that would create high quality houses with extremely high efficiency and very low upkeep requirements that could be built very quickly by very small teams of people for costs equal to or less than our current housing offerings? If you had developed such a system, how would you go about marketing it? What would such a system include?

I can picture a day, not very far down the road, where you can order such a house, or office, or whatever, and it can be put together and finished in only a few days, but would last centuries. It would be well laid out, and custom configurations would be available and would not add huge overruns on the initial cost. There are those working on such systems, and they are, for the most part, not compatible with current building methods. Who will be first, and how will they succeed?

Local sustainability

Some time ago, shortly after I started this blog, I created a whole list of topics that I wanted to do posts on. Today, I realized that I still had a few that were not done, so I am finishing all the posts I had sitting in my backlog. Then I can move on with some other ideas that I have.

One of the ideas I wanted to write about is what I call local sustainability. The idea of local sustainability is that a locality, whether a city or a town or a county or what ever distinction it might have, should be able to provide for its own needs, and not depend on outside resources for the necessities of life. It has been a long time since this sort of thing actually was common, but I don't know that it is necessarily a bad idea. Lets evaluate why.

First, lets look at what our current situation is. We mostly live in large cities. Our cities mostly provide services, with a few very large concentrations of finished goods manufacturing. Our cities certainly, with very few exceptions, do not provide raw materials. In some degree, they do process raw materials into finished goods (or some form of intermediate goods). People in cities mostly consume, and produce little. Our raw materials and even most of our finished goods come from elsewhere. Lately, most of it seems to be coming from China, but there have been other sources at other times. Our food doesn't come from where people live either. We have an estimated 3 days of food on shelves in most American and Industrialized cities. Our energy is generally not locally produced either. Some power plants are thousands of miles from the cities where the energy produced is used. Much of our oil and finished products now comes from overseas. Even most of the oil and finished products that are produced domestically still has to be shipped thousands of miles.

There are benefits to our current situation which unless maintained, would not make a switch to local sustainability an acceptable choice to most people. In our current system, we have very low cost, high end or high tech goods that are available from a large variety of sources. We can get almost anything we want nearly instantaneously if we have the means to pay for them, and even for those with smaller means, the amount of goods in their economic reach far exceed anything available in past eras.

In order to make a switch to local sustainability one of two things has to happen. The most likely and least desirable of these is some form of economic collapse affecting infrastructure, and lowering the availability of goods to crisis levels. The variety of goods would shrink 100 fold, and the costs would out pace all but the wealthiest of people for anything but the most basic goods. Famine and death would be rampant and most of us would die or wish we were dead.

The other option would be a new set of technology, business, and regulatory developments which when functioning jointly, would enable localities, or at least city sized regions to become able to produce 95% of what is consumed in those cities, using either directly produced or recycled raw materials or at the very least, with raw materials being primarily the goods being shipped into the cities from multi-regional or semi local supply sources. These developments would have to be able to produce almost anything on demand. The one thing that would be truly global would be the designs and manufacturing blueprints use by flexible micro manufacturing facilities which would need to be able to produce anything within a very large range of materials. For instance, there would need to be a electronics manufacturing facility that could use designs and blueprints from any developer to produce whatever the local consumer wanted, and produce it on demand.

In order for this to work, there would also have to be certain green space requirements primarily concerned with organic food production. The food production would have to have a much greater level of automation in its production, but instead of the mammoth machines currently being used by agricorps, these would require smart, possibly robotic, cultivators which would be able to produce higher quality and healthier crops in relatively small spaces. They would also need to be able to cultivate a wide variety of crops simultaneously, and with a minimum of pesticides and other chemicals. Larger green zones would also be needed for the raising of animal crops, with other more novel approaches facilitating the raising of the animals. Energy would have to be a local product, but with photovoltaic, wind power, and other systems becoming more efficient and less expensive all the time, this is become a real possibility today.

Of course, this kind of development would take a huge effort, but it would also have huge payoffs for just about everyone, from rich to poor, government, business, and just the lay consumer. The question is, who is willing to devote time, effort, and resources to the development of such a system.

The problem of property taxes

I have a problem with property taxes. Yeah, I know, everybody pays taxes. I don't have a problem with the fact that we pay taxes, but I have one, well, more than one with property taxes.

First, I don't like how arbitrarily income taxes can so often be raised. In the last year of living in various jurisdictions, I have seen how all of them have multiple entities that can raise property tax rates without consulting the public. Not only can they raise the rates, but they do raise the rates. And often. Many of these are not directly elected bodies, and there really isn't much of a process where the voters have input on those tax increases.

The bigger problem I have, however, is that with property taxes, it means that you really don't own what you think you own. If you own something, and you still have to pay someone else, or that they have some kind of right to your property that supersedes your own, then you really don't own it. I mean, if I purchase something, do I own it or not. I know, it is like software licenses, except that, when I purchase software, I know I am buying a license, not the ownership of the software. When I buy a house, what I am paying for is the full rights to the actual house and the land it is on, right. Well, obviously not. I have to pay property taxes.

I don't mind that we pay taxes, but I think property taxes are about the worst way to pay for government services.

Someone in the past came up with the brilliant idea that property taxes should somehow be reserved for schools. I recognize the importance that education can have in the lives of our children, and even if our current method of schooling might be failing, publicly funded education provides at least a small degree of opportunity and a slight leveling of the playing field for the disadvantaged. I just don't think property taxes are the best way to fund anything. What does property have to do with education. Is it supposed to make it so that those being educated are paying for it. Why not a sales tax then. If states were to institute a local version of a Fair Tax, wouldn't that be far better? Property taxes just don't balance out, and have too many other negative side effects. We would be better off getting rid of them.

Economic Justice and Mercy

"It's Not Fair!"

How many times do we hear that phrase in the course of our lives? Surely the average for each of us has to be somewhere between once a month, and perhaps, once an hour. Those with young children, such as between the ages of 5 and 25, probably hear it more than others.

Do we ever stop to think about what Fair really means? If life were truly fair, we would all start out the same, with the same parents, culture, language, talents, and access to wealth and opportunity. If that really were the case, think how boring life would be. Same interests, same abilities, same - same - same. Not that it wouldn't be fair, just not desirable.

At the same time, it isn't desirable either to have huge disparities between individuals that prevent happiness in some, and condescension in others. This leads to all sorts of negative emotions, and for every individual that somehow overcomes a really bad starting place, there are many who become bitter, hateful, or full of despair.

The ideal is that despite our many differences, if we have equal access or near equal access to opportunity and life is what you make of it, then we can all thrive to the best of our abilities and interests. Unfortunately, the ideal is generally not reachable. Ever. There are some things that can at least move toward the ideal though. We can make sure everyone gets a chance at a good education. Well, no, we can't. There are no public schools that provide what I would call a truly "good" education. In fact, there really aren't private schools that do either.

We can try to balance the playing field economically. Usually this is done through taxation. It gives money to those who don't have it, and takes from those who make it. Those who have amassed huge fortunes, however, somehow seem pretty immune to it, since it only taxes earnings, but not if those stay invested. So much for balance. But, aren't we in a country were we are proud of our imbalance? We love our capitalist system. You know how this works. "Those who have the gold make the rules." "It takes money to make money."

Ok, so perhaps not all of us like our system, but it is what it is, and it isn't likely to change any time soon. So, what we have, at the moment, is economic Justice. Certainly not the same as economic balance. Those who start in a good place have all the advantages. Those who start with very little, have a very hard time making progress. But, what each of them do results directly in the natural consequences of their actions. Cause and effect. That is justice, and when you start imbalance, it takes extraordinary effort for the guy on bottom to get on top, and extraordinary bungling for the guy on top to end up on bottom.

What the people who complain about the system usually want (what they call 'fair') is mercy. It has nothing to do with fairness, and everything to do with compassion and kindness and love for ones fellow man. More fortunate people give, help out, or provide opportunities to those who are less fortunate because they care or because the think it is the right thing to do. This usually comes from the Christian ethic of mercy taught by Jesus Christ. None of the other major religions teach about mercy in the same way. It says we are all indebted to Christ for his atonement for our sins. If we want mercy, we have to give mercy. If we give justice, or demand justice, we will get justice, and pay for our own sins.

So what does money have to do with this? Scripture talks about the city of Enoch and about the followers of Christ after the day of Pentecost sharing everything and having no poor among them. The didn't do it by force, but by choice. It wasn't based on law, but upon mercy. If we have mercy economically, we do what we are able to help all those around us who are less economically fortunate than ourselves. If we have economic mercy, the poverty problem around us will be solved.

Unfortunately, the real disparity between rich and poor is a sad and indicator of the lack of mercy in the American economic system. We don't give unless we have to. We are focused on ourselves and how we measure up to either our neighbors, various celebrities, or some ethereal standard of success, and we never look outside ourselves and think of those in need who are constantly around us. We each need to re-examine our economic values. Perhaps the success and happiness of our fellow man should factor in just a bit more.

Fair Tax, or not Fair Tax

I have made no secret that I support the Fair Tax. It has some really wonderful components that I think would be an overall boon to the whole country. Unfortunately, it really doesn't have support from across the whole political spectrum like I would have expected it to. And, here is the thing. I was originally attracted to the fair tax for five main reasons.

The first reason is the prebate it gives everyone. It isn't a huge amount of money, but enough to make a difference for the poor. Now, for the richest of Americans, what they would get for the prebate wouldn't even be pocket change, but there are some of the poorest Americans who live on not much more than they would be getting in their prebate, therefor it would almost double their available finances. Anyway, that was the first thing I liked about it. It helped those in need, but it helped everyone the same amount without taking away their freedom.

The second reason is that it eliminates the regressive, ineffective, and punitive payroll taxes. Lets face it, payroll taxes suck. And the only people who get out of them are those who make too much. Replacing it with the consumption tax would make it much more fair for everyone and less punitive, especially for those who are self employed.

The third reason was the nature of a consumption tax means that I get to decide how much I get taxed. If you don't like getting taxed, reduce your spending. But, with it being an inclusive tax, you don't have this big add-on at the checkout stand, it is just there, but since it is a standard rate, you know exactly how much you are paying in taxes, but you don't have to file a tax return, and you don't have to worry about some IRS auditors making your life hell just because you added something wrong.

Fourth, simplicity. No tax cheating. You pay by buying stuff. It is the only tax you pay. It gets rid of all those layers of tax garbage that we currently deal with. The tax code is possibly as short as a single page.

Fifth, economic stimulus. Our products are too expensive overseas, so we don't sell as much, and other countries products are too inexpensive here for us to want to buy our own products. If the we sell our stuff overseas, the cost is high in part because of all the layers of taxes that are rolled into the costs. Theirs are cheaper, cause their taxes aren't as much. But with the fair tax, suddenly, they lose the benefit and we gain it. Sure, we still have a higher standard of living, but it eliminates a disadvantage that can be as high as 50% of the cost of goods. We sell ours for about 23% cheaper, and theirs cost about 30% more, and all of a sudden, our goods are much more competitive, if not cheaper for better quality goods.

So, in all of this, I have looked into the fair tax, and understand the economic advantages, and the only thing I couldn't understand is why there was such lopsided support. I decided to write a blog post about how liberals and progressives should be coming out in droves to support this thing. I first decided to do some research.

Fairtax.org has a calculator that you can use to determine what you would be facing under the fair tax. I have used this to figure how it would have affected me before I shut down my business and sold my house, and again after everything kind of imploded and I lost everything, and based on how much I expect to be making now that I am closer to getting back on my feet. Each time, things are quite a bit better for me under the fair tax.

For my research however, I decided I was not typical in terms of economic conditions, so I created Joe Doe. Single college age kid but not in college, working for $9/hour in a dead end job and not sure what he wants to do with his life, but he is having fun right now. Well, guess what? The fair tax was not as fair to Joe Doe. "Wait a minute," I thought, "That can't be right!" Well, I double checked the calculations, and guess what, if you are really close to the average, it isn't such a great idea for you. Not terribly worse, and in the long run, you would still probably benefit due to the other features, but I thought this thing was supposed to be progressive. Well, what if we give Joe a couple more years, a wife and 2 kids. Well, it got even worse for poor old Joe. That doesn't sound very fair to me. I mean, sure, I benefit greatly, even when things are really bad for me, but us independently minded entrepreneurs don't represent mainstream America very well. Joe is the definition of main stream America, well, the poorer side of it, anyway.

So, am I saying that I don't support the Fair Tax anymore? No. I just don't support it as enthusiastically as I did before. There are 2 or 3 main things wrong with the current configuration of the Fair Tax.

First, the prebates need to be bigger, a lot bigger. Like, try double. If you need to raise the overall rate to cover it, then do it, but first try the other two suggestions.

Second, education (and I work in the education industry) needs to be taxed the same as everything else. Education does not really help people become more productive. That idea is just industry marketing doing its job.

Third, all investments need to be taxed, but at a much lower rate, something like 3% to 5%. Not so much that it becomes a bad thing to invest, but enough so that it takes most of the vampires out of the system and causes the stock market and other investment systems to become much less volatile. Then you wouldn't have non-productives leaching on the rest of the economy. Those making long term investments would hardly even notice it. Day traders, on the other hand, would have to go find real jobs.

These changes would make for a much more "fair" tax, and be supportable by more of those who are not on the extreme right of the political spectrum.

The resurgence of the local community?

Today, I was reading an article that referenced "the widespread 'work at home' phenomenon". When I read that, I pictured in my mind a neighborhood, well, actually, the neighborhood where I currently live. I pictured all, or almost all, of the people who live here working from home.

In such a scenario, who would their personal interactions be with. Well, first of all, they would still be with their co-workers, but at a more formal, less personal level. Sure, there might be those who "hit it off" virtually, but I have found myself, after working in a digital nature at least in a small degree for more than 10 years, that the virtual friend phenomenon is wearing thin. So, I actually spend quite a bit of time, when I am not working, out in my neighborhood. Unfortunately, most of my neighbors do not work from home or are still mesmerized by the whole virtual friend concept.

But, imagine with me, a few years down the road, a majority of people are working from home, at least part of the time. When they are done with work, what are they going to go do. Go to the most local stores, restaurants, theaters, and parks. In doing so, they will begin to see more of the same people all of the time. I can also see that, as the virtual and extended world becomes increasingly complex, people are starting to desire to simplify their lives more and more. They don't want to chase all over the place. At the same time, they have spent all day in the house, so what might they do? They go outside. They work in their yards or go to the park.

I almost never go anywhere anymore. I go to the store or the bank a few times a month, but most of my personal transactions are handled online. What do I do to get out of the house? Well, we have a really nice park down the road a bit. I go there almost every day. If not there, I love to sit on our deck and enjoy nature. We have a really shaded back yard and it can be very relaxing and therapeutic. My wife and kids are getting to where they like to do many of the same things. We had water fights in the back yard many of the hottest days of the summer. Not sure what we will be doing here during winter (we didn't live here last winter), but I hope the trend continues. Unfortunately, I don't know a lot of the other people around me, but I have met a couple. Most people haven't uncluttered their lives to the point that they spend much time in their neighborhoods, but I am seeing what could be an early trend.

It is probably being too optimistic, but I can picture most people staying closer to home and spending their free time with more of their neighbors. We could get a resurgence of traditional local communities even though most people don't work "locally". They still would work from home, and so who they interact with will be their local community. Sure, just as local communities in the past had complications and all the fun features whenever you have a lot of interaction between people, such new local communities will sometimes be frustrating, but they will offer a richness of relationships and interaction that has been too rarely experienced in the modern world.

Industry Acceptable Innovation

A while back, I was talking with a friend of mine that is almost always got his fingers in some form of disruptive innovation or other. Since then, I have thought a lot about some of the things he told me, and I think I have come up with a new (or at least, new to me) concept, relating to innovation and what could be successful or not. In any industry, there are major forces at work fighting innovation. I am not talking about incremental evolutionary changes, I am talking about the big, in your face, revolutionary innovations. There are many of these forces, some of them from somewhat surprising sources.

Lets say you were to invent a megawatt wind power generator that cost less than say, $5,000. That would be a very disruptive development. Why? Because it would require changes on the part of almost every other aspect of the energy industry. The current cost of approximately $1Million per 1 megawatt wind power generator unit tells you that things would change immensely. In this case, no longer would the investment for such generation unit be limited to major power players, investors, and idealistic billionaires. At that cost, they would be springing up all over the place, putting thousands and tens of thousands of people in the current energy industry out of work. Not that the industry would stand idly by. They would refuse to connect them to the power grid, and even then, they would require new wind generator users to pay for costly upgrades to the power grid. If that didn't work (and they probably wouldn't wait to see if it did), they would seek all sorts of legislation to make it both much more costly to own and run such a unit, and much more difficult to produce. It would be in their interest to make your supplies and manufacturing process much more costly and inefficient. They also would want a piece of the action as a way to hedge their bets, but with this much disruption, they would be more encouraged to buy up the technology rights and hide them (maybe use them, but only to the degree that it doesn't negatively affect their bottom line). What most innovators seem to forget, is that energy companies are not in the business of making energy, but in the business of making money.

One more example. Lets say I created a new ERP system that increased productivity by 10 times for those implemented it. Lets say I created it in such a way that it was 10 times easier to install. Now, lets say I price it very closely to the existing systems. Sounds like a no-brainer, right? Well, maybe. Most companies love increases in productivity. They especially like it in little bites. 10 to 40 percent productivity gains make a company just thrilled. But what would it mean to have 1000% productivity gains. Well, they are either producing 10 times the product or need 1/10th the workforce to produce it. The might decide to produce only twice as much with only 1/5th of the workforce, but the changes are extreme. People, and companies, do not like that much change. It hurts. It is uncomfortable. Not to mention, existing ERP providers wouldn't like my creation of such a new disruptive presence in their market. They would scramble to develop enhancements of their products to make them more competitive, but again, as we are talking about dollars being the main purpose and not product effectiveness, it would probably come to an attempted buy-out situation or extensive use of legislation, courts, and negative marketing.

Beyond the items listed in each example, I have heard that some companies or executives (but not most) get even dirtier, and do things like economic or social or even literal assassination to get the people involved to stop ruining their party. I have never been shown any incontrovertible evidence that this has happened, but I have heard at least one businessman say that he had taken out a contract on the life of someone they found particularly troublesome. Now, whether or not this is a common consequence of radically disruptive innovation isn't really the point. The point is that there is a limit to how radical an innovation can be in any given industry and any given point before it is too radical for acceptance by the industry and consumers. It therefore follows that there might be an optimal level of innovation for any industry at any specific point in time, and that the more that optimal level is exceeded, the more difficulty there will be in turning the innovation into successful products. Most industry sponsored innovation will usually be well within that acceptable innovation limit, and generally moves much slower than that.

Big Water Projects

I am not a nature freak, and do not consider myself environmentally active. I see a lot of the environmental propaganda, and it usually ticks me off that they are so slanted and usually are either flat out dishonest, or leave out the full story. However, I do believe that we are stewards of the world we live in and will be held accountable for how we treat it. Furthermore, I think we as a species often do things that are less then optimal, simply cause we don't want to take the time to figure out the optimal or because we just can and we don't like anyone to tell us that we can't.

One such activity that can be handled this way are the building of huge dams and reservoirs. I can understand that we often have a need to collect and store water, and that a reservoir is often the best way to go about it, but too often, we are building these things for electricity and not for water storage. There is a better way. What brings this to mind are some articles I have read about the Belo Monte Dam Project in the Amazon. It is a hydroelectric dam, and not intended for water conservation. Unfortunately, it will destroy millions of acres of amazon rain forest. More so than that, the indigenous locals are completely against it. If they were all for it, well, even though the amazon is the lungs of the earth, it is their home, and really their vote should matter more than anybody else's vote.

Here is a better way, that won't cost as much, will be more resilient, won't take as long to start providing benefits, would destroy hardly as much amazon rain forest, and might even be well liked by the locals. In-stream generators. A large series of small dams or dikes which then sends the water through small hydroelectric turbines each involving a vertical drop of only a few feet, not more than 5 or 10. Yes, there would still be some forest loss, but a tiny percentage of what the current plans entail. Each dam or dike would be a small separate project, but would be able to be put in much faster. You still get the hydroelectric benefit, but now you have much smaller localized generation units, but in a mass quantity. If one has a problem, the others are still fine. They could also ensure a more regular flow without the flow stoppage involved in the larger dam. River wildlife would be virtually unaffected in the long run. Sure this is different, but wouldn't it be better than destroying so much precious rain forest? It would be a lot easier to replicate lots of other places, and could be scaled out to meet demand on a much more continual basis. How about it folks. Who is in favor of a better way?

Health mess continued

The health care debate has nothing to do with health care, but everything to do with money. Mostly, it deals with insurance coverage. It does nothing about the quality of health care and very little about the accessibility of health care. It doesn't address the problems with our pharmaceutical industry or with the FDA or with the shortage of medical professionals, or with any of a myriad of other health issues, except abortion and euthanasia, which aren't about health care, but religious and moral issues instead (we are not going there on this post).

I have seen many instances where the medical treatment offered was not the best available for the situation, but was instead based on how much money the practitioners would make. The bigger the size of the organization, the worse this seems to be, in general. I have however seen a fair number of cases where they practitioner is a small operation and they still push everything based on what is best for their finances rather then what is best for the patient.

I have had people tell me that the answer to this situation is insurance, but I believe it is just the opposite. I think that the insurance industry is the primary cause of this greed. Sure, there would be the small time medical scam operators that push their patients into something that either they don't need, or that is the most costly of the viable alternatives, but for the most part, before our insurance industry did their takeover of the health care system, practitioners did seem more concerned with the actual health and well-being of their patients.

Part of the problem is that the insurance industry has been making health care choices for all of us. The doctors don't really get the choice of the best treatments, just the choice of the best treatments the insurance covers. The patents don't get informed of their options, cause usually there is only one covered option. It no longer is about the best care for the situation, but about what the coverage is for the situation.

There are lots of examples where offshore clinics have far better care at a much lower cost, using much more advanced techniques. We don't have those options here, because even if the techniques are approved by our almost non-function governmental agencies, the insurance plans don't allow those treatments. They say they are trying to save us money. I have a hard time believing it. I have seen a system wide case where the US health care industry continues to do thallium treadmill tests to gauge arterial blockage, when other tests exist that are more than twice as effective, cost less than a fifth and often less than a tenth of the cost of the thallium test, and are usually up to five times faster. I say system wide because I have seen it happen to multiple people, in multiple states, in multiple hospital systems.

I have also seen and heard of many instances where the doctors (the good ones) pull people aside to a corner and whisper that what they recommend is some kind of do it yourself homeopathic or over the counter treatment, but that they have to issue this prescription or that. I even had one doctor explain that they have a quota that they have to meet in prescription writing in order to keep their license. I don't know the validity of this claim, nor the mechanism it would work by, but just the very mentality of the industry pressuring doctors to always prescribe the latest drugs in the maximum of situations leaves me thinking that the whole thing is just another corrupt system of greed.

We need some kind of impartial informing diagnosis web based system, perhaps not to be required use for doctors, but freely available so individuals can at least see what their options are and to get a non-biased second opinion. Sure, such a system would not be able to write prescriptions, nor would it recommend courses of treatment, but it could show possible diagnoses with all the known courses of treatment and what forms those treatments take. It could even show experimental treatments and list locations where different treatments are available. It could also show how reliable various treatments are shown to be. To put this together would require the input of many people, but if it were built correctly, it would be a learning system. Therefore, it's diagnoses would increase in accuracy over time. I can even picture it being a valuable resource to doctors, regardless of their expertise, experience, and training.

Fundamental Flaws in American Education

Public education is one of the things that made America great. It surely wasn't the only thing, but it was a huge factor in America becoming the "Land of Opportunity". Unfortunately, any time something becomes institutionalized, it also becomes a target of political, social, and economic forces who view it as a short cut to achieving their goals. Education is even more so a target due to the effective of having nearly all of the very malleable minds in the country captive and required to participate in the activities. Education in America has become a battle ground between opposing sides in far too many wars. Conservatives and Liberals, religious and anti-religious, business versus... well, business fights well enough by itself, call that the civil war of business philosophies, and many other sides fighting to influence the collective minds of American youth. The casualties in this war too often end up being the students who are supposed to be served by education, and instead they become cynical, bitter, and/or hateful. Doesn't matter which of the various sides they end up on, they are given disservice by this situation. At the same time, there are a few who make it through this maelstrom who are highly enabled to thrive in life.

There are a few things that could be changed about our educational institutions which would greatly expand the number of students who are able to greatly thrive as a result of their education. The first thing has to do with those sides. The ability to lobby and influence education is strongly related to it's centralized nature. The solution then would appear to be the decentralization of it. However, there still need to be standards, and those standards are where the various sides will try to attack or influence our youth. Our youth are not stupid, and we should stop treating them like they are. They are inexperienced, and we should try to help them understand the challenges they will face because of that inexperience, but we should do so in a respectful and supportive manner. If there is a side of something presented, then any other side of that issue should also be presented, regardless of how unpopular it might seem. If you don't want certain sides of things presented, then just define that there is an issue, and inform the kids they will have to ask their parents or research it on their own. Also, when an issue with it's various sides is presented, the alignments and history of those sides should be presented, but no side should be favored over another.

Sounds pretty lofty, doesn't it. I know it is possible, cause I had a professor in a philosophy class that did it with such exactness that none of us could guess or even come close to what his personal philosophy was. He ended up being pretty normal.

The next thing that needs to change about education is that we need to stop limiting the growth and progress of some students in order to keep them at the same place as their slower peers. In fact, we need to change our whole approach to education from a group based progress, to individual progress in a structured, yet self paced, environment. There are several forms of this. Some of the older forms often are used in independent study programs, but there are much better scaffolding programs that can incorporate both the independence of the individual as well as social learning and support structures. In this way, each student could progress at a rate where they felt comfortable and could best succeed at.

Thirdly, and there will be many who will think I have political motives here (I really don't. Read carefully and you will see what I am getting at.), we need to change how education is funded. I recognize that if we removed government involvement that we would just be favoring the upper classes over the lower classes. This is not intended, nor desirable. The government has a very important role in the funding of education, as well as in the standards that are set for it and in making sure that it is not abused. However, creating a big bureaucracy and turning over a major portion of each state's budget over to that bureaucracy is worse than most other ways you could go about it. I recognize that any effort to standardize or support or govern education will require government funding, but those funds should be completely separate from the funding of the actual education. The parents should determine which qualified school or teacher should receive the funds paying for their child's education. I am not saying just open up the funding spigots and dump it on private schools. On the contrary, if a private school wants to be eligible to receive public education funds, they should have to meet the standards attached to receiving those funds. In this way, there becomes more of an economy around education, which will help maintain the quality of education.

One last thing, and perhaps this would never fly, but a parent should be required in every class that is conducted. Just to sit in and listen, and they could help if they and the teacher agreed on it. Just one parent. Assuming that each class has 20 students, and half the students have both parents at home, each parent would only have to go to every 30th class. The point here is that the parent is the consumer. They are the customer. They need to know what is going on, and far too many parents are complacent to just ship the kids off and not look into the quality of the education again until report card time, and sometimes, not even then. Would this create an additional burden on parents? Sure it would. And for those who have a lot of kids, even more so. If you have that many kids, you need to be involved. I suppose you could designate someone else such as a grandparent, or some other responsible adult relative, and meeting the requirements should be somewhat flexible, but a parent needs to be there. The result this would have would be better performance by the teachers, the students, and most especially, the parents.

Scary, isn't it. But, it would work. I am sure of it.