I remember when I was a 5 year-old kid growing up in Casper, Wyoming.  We lived in a new but modest home right on the foothills of the Rocky Mountains.  It was a new housing development, complete with that sterile feeling common to all neighborhoods without trees.  But there were benefits to being there.  Kids could wander into the foothills for hours at a time without their parents worrying about them.  “Be back in time for supper” was the parent’s parting words as we headed out with a lunch under our arm.   Getting or lost or hurt were real possibilities for us, but that would be our own fault.   Being abducted or molested was not even a consideration.  Our biggest worry of the day was to get home late for supper and being paddled.

Now that I look back, our life at Casper’s 2625 Odell Avenue was pretty cool, although we really didn’t realize it at the time.  There was a freedom and liberation in my childhood neighborhood, and then there was the freest and most liberated kid of all, Farley.

Farley wasn’t a neighborhood “regular.”  There were the Tollefson boys who lived across the street.   They were really cool.  Their dad, Dale, took us on a camping trip once.  We kids all piled into his green International pickup and he drove us down the road.  When we got near the camping site, Dale let down the tailgate and we got to sit with our feet dangling off the back…WOW what a big deal that was.   There were other “regular” families in the neighborhood, “regular” meaning a stay-at-home mom, a dad with a job, and a bunch of kids.   But no one knew Farley’s parents.  In fact, I don’t think Farley lived in the neighborhood more than a year or so.  Perhaps Farley had an older brother, but no matter how many siblings he had, Farley was the neighborhood standout.

You see, Farley was really liberated.  He would do something so outrageous that all of the neighborhood parents thought it was uncouth.  We kids were less critical of Farley.  You see, when you’re a young kid and you’re hard at play out in the street with your buddies, and your bladder needs emptying….well….you don’t want to interrupt the fun any longer than necessary.  Any interruption in the play should be minimized.  Farley certainly felt that way.  He would just pull down his pants and shamelessly pee in the gutter, right out in the street!   Farley would run around in his underwear most of the time.  No pants, just underpants.  It made the whole “Farley Thing” much easier.

You might want to know why I would be thinking about Farley so many years later.  Well, my grandson Marek is in his final stages of potty training.  We’ve found that when he’s in the house it is just simpler to have him run around “Farley-Style” so that he doesn’t have those burdensome pants and underwear to shed.   So, when he’s running around the house half naked, we just call him “Farley”.  And, while us older guys with small bladders don’t usually admit it, when we take a long walk we make darned sure that there are adequate bushes, vegetation, or parked railroad cars present.  While none of us are as bold as Farley, we “go Farley” more often that we would like to admit.

Our company purchased four season tickets for the inaugural season of Target Field, the Twins new ball park.  They are good tickets, on the main level, about 30 rows up from the batting circle on the first base side.  We use the tickets for customers, for our employees, and once in a while, we sell them to the public on Craig’s List.  We sell them at their face value of $59 a ticket.

The internet makes these transactions easy.  You never need to meet the buyer face to face, or to transfer tickets or cash.  The buyer calls your phone from the Craig’s list ad, they email you the money via Pay Pal, and the seller goes to a special Twins website where the buyer receives an email and prints out the tickets on his home computer.  The whole transaction takes about 10 minutes and both parties are protected from fraud.

While selling these tickets I’ve engaged with several buyers over the phone.  I’ve met a handful of them in person.  The stories vary widely, but have a common, upbeat theme; they’re building family memories!  One of my first buyers was Doug from Minneapolis who was celebrating his wife’s victory over breast cancer by treating her to a ball game.  There is Clyde from North Dakota who was “off the wall excited” to get the tickets for his wife and sons on their annual summer trip to the big city of Minneapolis.

Last night Molly and her husband drove the 50 miles from Rochester to Winona to pick up their tickets for this Tuesday’s game against the Tigers.  This morning I’ll meet Tim, who is taking a 2-hour motorcycle ride from Wayzata to Winona to pick up his tickets.  Tim could have printed them out on his home computer, but decided instead that this was a great excuse to take a ride down the beautiful Mississippi river.  Tim’s got some nephews from Fulda, Minnesota who are going to be his guests during the Tigers series at Target field.

Taking your family and friends to a ball game might not seem like a big deal on the surface, but I’m going to make the case that it is indeed, a really big deal.  In fact, outings like ball games, taking a kid fishing, or treating your wife to a concert are life’s biggest deals.  All of us will leave this earth sooner or later.  When we do, it will be the nephew from Fulda who will remember his day at the park with Uncle Tim.  It will be the kids from Rochester who remember when mom and dad took them to that really cool game at Target Field.  Those memories are not only important, they are eternal.

When you get a chance to build memories with your family, don’t hesitate.  Spend the money, take the time, do the gig.  Little else is really worthwhile.

I hope you’re sick of the political grandstanding about the possibility that Muslims want to build a mosque and recreation center two blocks from ground zero.  Demagogues from both political parties are having a heyday on this issue.  Of course, Obama had to step in and take a Presidential stand on a local issue, further fanning political flames.  He made the same mistake early in his presidency concerning a situation in Cambridge, MA.  Does the “Beer Summit” ring a bell?

Obama aside, in this country do a bunch of Muslims have the right to use private money to purchase private property and establish a place of worship and/or recreation?  Yes, providing they obey local laws and ordinances.  I really hate to tell you this Sean Hannity, but the same private property and ownership rights that protect Halliburton or Joe the Plumber also apply to Muslims.  I just wish Obama would be as adamant about enforcing property rights for overtaxed business owners and consumers as he is for the Imam.

I seldom agree with anyone on MSNBC, but if we don’t protect the property ownership rights of Muslims, we’ve lost the battle of 911.  I know there are no Christian churches in Saudi Arabia and there there are hundreds of Mosques in the United States.  So what?  They are Saudi Arabia and we are the United States of America!  That’s the story of freedom United States style; the property rights of ALL must be protected.

Is it a good idea for the Imam to push for this particular location, given the sensitivity of the families who lost their relatives on 9/11?  Probably not.  Common sense would dictate another site for now, but if the Imam wants to be insensitive, that is his right.  It might bring down a lot of protest, vandalism, and other problems at that location, but if he wants to stick to his guns he will pay that price.  Sometimes wounds take a long time to heal and the Imam might be jumping the gun on this one.

Regarding the source of funding for the Mosque, it is nobody’s business.  Likewise, New York Governor David Patterson’s proposal to offer public property to relocate the so-called “Ground Zero mosque” is rubbish.  Taxpayers shouldn’t subsidize any religious organization.

We’ll see how this plays out.  But please, MSNBC and FOX, I’d rather watch another live Los Angeles car chase than hear any more about this Mosque story for a while.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics August 6, 2010 report for July, 2010 is glum.  Despite spending $800 billion in Federal stimulus money:

·    The unemployment rate remains high, at 9.5 percent.

·    While the unemployment rate of whites has remained high (around 8.6%) over the past few months, the black unemployment rate has not improved and stands at 15.6%.  Asian unemployment rates are the lowest, at 8.2%.

In January of 2009, Christina Romer, chairwoman of the president’s Council of Economic Advisors, released a report called “The Job Impact of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan.  The report projected that the $800 billion stimulus plan would create 3-4 million jobs by the end of 2010.  Without the $800 billion stimulus the unemployment rate was supposed to hit 8.5 percent, rising to 9% in 2010.  With the stimulus, they projected that the unemployment rate would peak at less than 8% in 2009.

Romer announced her resignation last week.  Clearly the stimulus spending hasn’t created jobs, but has destroyed jobs.  Why haven’t the jobs returned?

Beware when ANY politician says that he is going to create jobs.  Politicians don’t create jobs; entrepreneurs create jobs.  Government jobs bleed revenue from the private sector.  While government employees re-circulate tax money back into the economy in the form of consumption expenditures, all of these funds were initially drained out of private hands in the form of taxation, making it even more difficult for entrepreneurs to invest in people and equipment to expand their businesses.  So why aren’t the small and medium businesses expanding their output and employment?

The answer to job creation is simple: the current regime in Washington (Obama, Pelosi, Ried, etc.) have demonstrated to entrepreneurs that they are philosophically job-killers.  The additional costs to businesses of cap and trade legislation is job-killing.  Obamacare is not only job-killing, but creates a lot of uncertainty for prospective employers.  The increase in burdensome financial regulations just passed in Washington is job-killing legislation.  Proposals to do away with confidential ballots “card check” in union elections is a job killer.  The financial burdens of the $800 billion stimulus package is a job killer.

The only way to create jobs in the United States is for the government to post an “open for business” sign in front of our doors.  The current congress can’t and won’t do it.  It is time to blow up the political careers of congressional incumbents.  Only then will the entrepreneurs stir.

The Tea party is a loosely organized group that has many local chapters.  Contrary to what liberals say, the Tea party has not been planned, organized, nor is it controlled by the Republican Party.  Many traditional Republican voters attend Tea Party meetings, but these are mostly “fiscally conservative” Republicans who have been betrayed by their own party throughout the years.  Whether controlled by Democrats or Republicans, government at all levels continues to grow, stripping citizens of their economic freedom and civil liberties.  The Tea Party recognizes this clearly.

Tea party activists are extremely wary of the Republican Party, largely because Republicans have given only lip service to smaller government.  In this 2010 election cycle, where all house members and 1/3 of the US Senate is up for election, the Tea Party has largely refused to run its own candidates; instead giving their support to Republican candidates who challenge incumbent Democrats.  But, the message that the Tea Party members are giving to Republicans this year is clear:

“We will vote for you this time, Mr. Republican, but don’t get the idea that we trust you any more than we trust the free-spending incumbent.  If you get elected to Congress you’ve got two years to act like Republicans haven’t acted in the past; namely by cutting government spending, ending bailouts, and reducing strangling regulations now imposed on businesses and consumers.  If you don’t give us smaller government, you’re done.  You will be a “two year wonder.”

The final question is this:  “If the Republicans elected by Tea Party independents don’t reduce the absolute size of Government after 2010, what will be the fate of the Republican Party in the 2012 political year?”  The answer is obvious; the Tea Party will run and elect its own candidates; never again trusting either Republicans or Democrats.  The 2010 election will be the last time that independent voters will give Republicans the benefit of the doubt.  This is the year that the Republicans had better “wise up” and get the message; it is probably their last chance.

I was in a restaurant the other day and overheard a conversation between a young waitress and a customer.  It went something like this:

Customer: Are you still going to college?
Waitress: Actually, I graduated in May, but haven’t been able to find a job other than this one.
Customer: Well, good luck!
Waitress: Yeah, hopefully the economy will turn around soon.

Now let me re-create the same conversation, except that I’ll be the customer:

Don the Customer: Are you still going to college?
Waitress: Actually, I graduated in May, but haven’t been able to find a job other than this one.
Don the Customer: You voted for Obama, didn’t you?
Waitress:  Yes, and most of my friends did also.  Why do you ask?
Don the Customer: He and his buddies in congress are job killers.  You are the fall guy.  With cap & trade, Obamacare, Wall Street bailouts, and the uncertainty created among potential employers as he systematically drags this country into European-style socialism, no one is going to hire you for a long time.
Waitress: I think you’re wrong.  I think Obama is great!
Don the Customer: Fine, keep the Democrats in control of congress on November 2, 2010 and look forward to two more additional years of pain!   You’ll figure it out sooner or later.  The producers starting to leave and inhabit Galts Gulch!
Waitress: What’s Galt’s Gulch?
Don the Customer: I was pretty sure you wouldn’t know.  There is a book you should read, but you’ll probably just “google” it instead.  Too bad you and your contemporaries didn’t all read it before the last election.  You can find it in any bookstore in paperback.   It’s called Atlas Shrugged.  It was written by Ayn Rand.  She too was a college graduate in Russia, before she fled there and came to the United States when she was your age.
Waitress:  Maybe I’ll read it.

If you haven’t read Atlas Shrugged, give it a try.  I read it about 30 years ago and it changed my life.

On July 13, 2010 the Wall Street Journal broke a story indicating that after analyzing many Toyota data recorders, the U.S. Department of Transportation has found that the throttles were wide open, but the brakes were not pushed at the time of the crash.  This would indicate that driver error, not auto defect, is responsible for the vast majority of the Toyota crashes.  It should be noted that the National Highway Traffic Safety  Administration (NHTSA) has not confirmed this report and says that final conclusions are months away.

The WSJ report implies that Toyota drivers panicked, pushing the accelerator, thinking it was the brake.  This, of course, would be the making of a horrific crash.  It may be that the pedal got caught up in the floor mat (which Toyota has since corrected) causing the initial panic situation.

In my February 14, 2010 blog titled “General Motors is now Toyota’s Regulator”, I expressed the potential conflict of interest in having the Federal Government investigate Toyota.  I said at the time:

“Toyota has recently experienced quality issues due to rapid acceleration with many of its cars and brake problems with the Prius hybrid.  This has resulted in massive product recalls and a freeze of new car sales until accelerator pedals can be fixed, costing Toyota hundreds of millions of dollars.  I’m convinced that Toyota’s quality problems are legitimate; my problem is the fact that the US Government, which owns General Motors, is now investigating Toyota.  This represents a gigantic conflict of interest.”

Now that “leaks” from people familiar with the NHTSA investigation have surfaced in the Wall Street Journal, it will be interesting to see how the NHTSA officially responds.  If the NHTSA rules that driver error was responsible, I’ll have to give Government investigators an “A” for integrity.  If the NHTAS rules that there was an equipment defect and drivers were not to blame, I’ll remain suspicious that politics over-ruled science.

In any case, isn’t it interesting that the predominately liberal “mainstream” media has been so quiet about the WSJ story?  After all, they whipped up the Toyota recalls into a giant storm when they had a chance to prey on Toyota’s Asian, non-union owners.  What better way to boost sales for Government Motors!  Stories are now surfacing that the entire WSJ article was “planted” at the Journal by Toyota’s public relations department!

We’ll see how this drama plays out in the months to come.  One thing is for sure; someone is going to be eating crow when this thing is over.

This week our great leader will sign the new financial regulation law just passed by Congress.  This law will create another gigantic federal bureaucracy called the Consumer Financial Protection Agency.  More government jobs will be available for more highly-paid union workers who will perform inadequately, creating more problems than they were supposed to solve.  Anyone want to take a bet on this?

On June 30, 2010 the Chairman of the house banking committee, Barney Frank, issued the following statement.   “ The federal regulatory system has clearly failed to provide adequate protection for consumers, and that failure contributed to the broader economic crisis. That is why I have made the creation of the agency one of our highest priorities.”   This is the same Barney Frank who supported the Community Redevelopment Act which mandated that banks make risky real estate loans to low income borrowers, thereby creating the real estate crash of 2008.

It is notable that Frank realizes that the “federal regulatory system has clearly failed”.  This new federal “Consumer Financial Protection Agency” will be no different.  It will be staffed by educated, union card-holding laggards who will do half of a days work for a day and a half’s pay.  It will harass banks and other financial institutions with costly compliance rules, driving up their costs, which will be passed on to all consumers.  It will dry up what little credit exists for the lowest income consumers by over-regulating their lenders and putting them out of business.

When all is said and done this new government agency will deliver little public benefit, but it will be yet another building block in the socialization of the American economy.  How terribly unfortunate this is.

Before Stimulus

After Stimulus

Government waste can be illusive at times, but sometimes it comes right to your front door, sits down, and looks you in the eye until you can’t ignore it.  This was the case over the past two weeks as the State of Minnesota spent some of its Federal stimulus money tearing out and replacing every handicapped sidewalk curb cut on MN State Highway 43 (which is also Main Street) in Winona, MN.  You will notice before and after photographs of the curb cut on the Northeast corner of King and Main Street.

The original cut (photo on left) was put in several years ago.  It has a steeper slope than the new curb cut and is about a 18 inches narrower, but it will accommodate a wheel chair.   The new curb cut also has a “bumpy grid”, which I found out is to alert blind walkers that there is a street approaching.  The old curb cut was harder for wheel chairs to climb, but the steeper slope also allowed rain water to drain into the street and down into the sewer.  The new curb cut slope and grade leaves a puddle at the bottom of the ramp about a foot wide (the dark rectangle covering some of the “bumpy grid” on the photo at right).  This isn’t a problem in the summer, fall, or spring, but in the winter this will be solid ice.  The ice will present a potential problem for those who are in scooters or chairs, but it will be a massive problem for the rest of us who will slip, fall and crack our heads at the bottom of the curb cut.

I don’t know how many millions of dollars were be spent on this project, but several of the people working on the project told me that virtually no jobs have been created.  Instead of hiring additional employees, the contractors are simply paying more overtime to existing workers.  After all, who wants to absorb the additional regulations and costs associated with hiring full time employees in Obamaland?

Don’t get me wrong.  The construction workers, people from the Minnesota Department of Transportation, and the workers from the local concrete company were all great guys.  You’d want any of them as your next door neighbor.  But this begs larger questions.  Is the new curb cut better than the old one? Yes, slightly, if we ignore the puddle.  Does the new cut meet the updated federal handicapped guidelines? Yes.  Will these new cuts improve the lives of wheelchair-bound Winonans? Probably not, unless they live, work, and shop only on Main Street.  After all, 90% of the curb cuts in Winona are like the ones in the old photo, have the steeper slope, and don’t comply with the updated guidelines.

What’s my point?  This was a largely unnecessary project that wasted Federal stimulus money and didn’t create any jobs.  It was the modern day equivalent of spending Federal money to dig a hole and fill it up again.  While we do have slightly improved curb cuts to show for it, one must ask the question; “Did society really need this?”  “Could we have gotten along without this?”  Was it worth it to borrow our children’s money to pay for it?

As we approach the November 2 election I’m going to remember those in congress that voted for these ill-conceived shams.  The guy I’m going to kick out of Congress is Rep. Tim Walz.  What’s the name of the guy that you’re going to kick out of Congress?

It is common to see guests on Fox News and other conservative spokespersons hammer away at the idea that the US needs to immediately “Secure our Borders” from illegal Mexican entrants.  Polls show that most Americans want to “secure our borders” before we tackle immigration reform legislation; the idea being that we need first to stop the flow of illegal immigrants.

Stopping the flow of illegal immigrants can be summed up in that three word catchphrase, but “securing the border” is much easier to say than to do.  Over two-thirds of all illegal immigration in the world happens outside the Mexican-US sphere.  Spain struggles mightily with immigrants from Morocco.  The country of Georgia is continually trying to deal with hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants from Asia, who ultimately desire to end up in EU countries.  Many people leave poor African countries to immigrate illegally to richer countries on the same continent.

In fact, there is no pragmatic way to completely stop the flow of people into the United States or any other country, no matter how many times Sean Hannity proclaims that we need to “Secure our Borders” on the Fox network.  Erecting physical barriers, using electronic technology and increasing the number of border patrol agents can reduce the numbers of entrants at best.  If we really want to keep undocumented foreigners from living and working in the United States we will have to concentrate on the employers who hire them.  This is done occasionally with raids on poultry processing plants, etc. but such actions are “hit and miss”, doing little to stem the tide of illegal workers.

In fact, actions in the interior of the US will do far more to reduce the number of illegal entrants than actions at the border.   The real key is better documentation and identification of those who are hired in the United States, along with stiff penalties for businesses who employ illegal workers.  This would make it difficult for illegal aliens to find work.  With no work there is little incentive to come to the United States.  Among other immigration reforms we could:

1.     Abandon the policy stating that any child born in the United States is automatically a US citizen.  Children of illegals need not have this status, which breaks up families when parents are deported.
2.    Supply no welfare or public services (including schooling) for those not holding legal visas; or to any of their families.
3.    Abolish “same day registration” in all US public elections, where one person can simply “vouch” for another without proper documentation.  All US voters should have to register at least 30 days before an election, proving their citizenship.
4.    Legitimate English proficiency exams should be required of the children of first generation immigrants, with deportation a certainty if English is not learned.

While the above actions could reduce the numbers of illegal immigrants, we better think seriously about what we wish for.  Without the legions of illegal workers currently in the US, wages (and costs) will rise.  There will be no more cheap landscapers or reasonable “day labor” for contractors.  Who is going to pick the grapes and avocados?  Who is going to clean hotel rooms or wash dishes?  Without legions of extra workers, US productivity will slump, which will impact all producers and consumers in the United States.
Immigration reform is a many-faceted monster with lots of sharp barbs.  No one in their right mind could claim this is easy.

In the context of the American dream, those who want to live and work in this immigrant-built country should continue to have that opportunity.  Ways need to be devised in which adequate numbers of immigrants can live the American dream, without making a mockery of American citizenship.